Campaign shows who's really the boss
That program, a magnificent exercise in sleight-of-hand engineered by former MPAA chief Jack Valenti, underscores just how much nonsense surrounds the question of children's relationship with media -- an issue that recurs, not coincidentally, with the same biennial frequency as election years.
Howlers the size of Valenti's home state of Texas regularly fly from all sides in this discussion. Strictly in terms of fun with math, though, the recent introduction of thetvboss.org -- devoted to educating parents about how to block inappropriate material -- has managed to break new ground.
For starters, the $300 million figure ascribed to the campaign might seem awfully impressive, but it's based on donated airtime by broadcast and cable networks to run a couple of clever commercials essentially directing parents to the Web site. In addition, that time is being siphoned out of their usual allotment of public-service ads, or PSAs, so "the more you know" about parental controls, to borrow NBC's pithy PSA slogan, the less you're going to know about other campaigns, like the one reminding parents not to beat their kids.
Now, if people stop letting their kids watch "CSI" or "Rescue Me" but start beating them more often, that would not be good.
Getting back to the math, there are children under 18 living in about a third of U.S. homes, according to Census data, which means two-thirds are child-free. The former figure is estimated to be 36.5 million, meaning that for $300 million, we could send each of those households $8.20 as a "federal subsidy" (OK, bribe) and ask them to stop being lousy parents.
Because, let's face it, parents who don't know anything about the V-chip, content ratings or, barring that, how to turn off the damn set, aren't really trying, and no amount of well-intentioned aid is going to help them -- or save the rest of us from their poorly supervised little monsters.
Deriding the educational drive, meanwhile, are groups like the Parents Television Council, which can't decide whether their goal is the stated one (to help parents shield kids from smut) or a more insidious agenda (to eradicate smut because they just don't like it).
"It is not parents who are responsible for the raunch that's on television," the PTC opines in a recent missive. "It is the television industry." That's half right: The TV industry serves up the raunch, but that's because parents -- and a lot of adults who aren't -- enjoy watching it, thus making all that filth economically viable.
As always, then, the indecency brouhaha becomes an elaborate shell game, with networks attempting to appear responsible in order to mollify Congress, which is attempting to appear responsive to the needs of children and harried parents, who are so concerned about the problem that 10 years into the V-chip's existence, they still can't be bothered to figure out how it works.
Not that the V-chip will satisfy social conservatives genuinely upset about the culture's direction, although the PTC's preferred solution -- a switch to a la carte cable, allowing consumers to choose which channels they receive -- doesn't address what kids see outside their homes and on portable devices that are destined to become more high-tech and widely distributed.
Yep, a couple of public-service spots are sure as hell going to fix all that.
Granted, there is some poetic justice in this dilemma, since the media has helped agitate skittish parents by repeatedly exploiting fears about sundry dangers to their kids. Still, Hollywood can't dismiss those who legitimately feel overwhelmed by the modern technological avalanche, which explains Valenti's strategy -- namely, feel their pain while seeking to preserve the status quo.
The same Solomon-like wisdom gave us the movie ratings four decades ago; they endure, although nobody seems entirely satisfied with them, either. Then again, there's no way to please everyone when any solution is imperfect and much of the debate is shrouded in code.
So enter thetvboss, the silliest stopgap measure until the next one comes along -- boldly empowering parents by reminding them they can tell an inanimate object, "Listen up, bitch. I'm the boss."
