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Another Perspective

TV Turnoff

By on 6.8.11 @ 6:06AM

Just say no to liberal vulgarity.

Now that summer is nearly here, there are some Americans who will be heading off for weeks away in exotic locations or to endless rounds of golf, unburdened by the cares of life. But for those of us unlucky enough not to the President of the United States, we’ll just have to make do with a few stolen hours at the beach with a good book or two.

One that looks promising is Ben Shapiro’s Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV. While I haven’t read it, I applaud Mr. Shapiro’s attempt to chronicle instances of liberal bias on TV. Yet, a far more difficult assignment would be to point out the shows in the last four decades where that was not the case.

The mindset that produced the left-leaning tsunami from the late 1960s onward, actually had its beginnings in the Depression era with Hollywood’s promotion of class envy; the idea that “society” was to blame for most crime. You know, all those flicks like I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, Angels With Dirty Faces, Manhattan Melodrama, and the classic Dead End, which suggested, sometimes plausibly, that poverty alone was the major determinant for a life of crime.

However, unlike their modern counterparts, old-time studio bigwigs usually balanced the plight of the underprivileged youth-turned-murderer with that of his chum who went on to the priesthood or became a district attorney. In other words, the idea was still maintained that one could rise above the circumstance of one’s birth and make good; in short, the American dream lived in Hollywood.

But after WWII and the era of prosperity that immediately followed, America wasn’t in the mood for victimhood as entertainment. She wanted fare that justified the great sacrifices she had made in defense of our way of life. She wanted mom and apple pie; in other words, she wanted Americana. Television was made for post-war America; and so too, unfortunately, for those who wanted to reshape her.

Before the advent of television, new social and political philosophies were hard to communicate deeply and broadly through entertainment media; people were insulated from radical ideas by immersion in their local cultures. Even the movies, powerful though they were, sent their viewers home each night to their families, churches, and neighborhoods where their values and morals were reinforced. But TV, coupled with the growing number of working mothers and a general improvement in lifestyle, changed the whole ballgame. TV, in addition to providing entertainment, became teacher, companion, confessor and babysitter to the children in the Baby Boomer generation, and all those that followed.

And so the Golden Age of TV arrived; an eclectic mix derived from radio, movies, theater, and vaudeville. The fare was mostly wholesome, with a sprinkling of soap operas; daytime weepers to keep the ladies engaged and coming back for more. The real trouble started, of course, in the 1960s; that decade of depravity where we began to lose our cultural marbles. Emboldened by their success on the big screen, Hollywood executives, who were ever more liberal, brought the revolution to the boob tube, albeit in lower doses.

With few notable exceptions, mostly variety shows and sports, liberal control of the airwaves was well underway. Whether it was the Cartwright boys learning the lessons of tolerance ad nauseam, or Marcus Welby tackling the abortion issue, or a plethora of cop shows portraying criminals as sympathetic victims of police brutality — the 1930s all over again! — one thing was, or should have been, evident to all: a large heaping of liberal ideology was to be served up with your TV dinner.

Those characters who espoused views contrary to the liberal playbook were written to be the foils of their more enlightened betters and the subject of multitudinous lectures from same. Lou Grant and especially Archie Bunker were intended by their creators to be objects of scorn and were thinly veiled and shallow caricatures of the enemies in the “silent majority.” But, to the chagrin of writers like Norman Lear, Americans found more in common with Archie than they did with the leftists on the programs. Yet, by the time their spin-off shows came to an end, these characters, like too many Americans, were won over to the “winning” side of the debate.

And while the downward spiral of sex and violence has soured many folks on the tube, the biggest mystery to me is that white American men continue to embrace a medium that holds them in such disdainful regard; often portraying them as bigoted brutes in drama shows and blundering fools everywhere else. It might shock young viewers to watch some shows from the 1950s where the head of the household was always the father, who was usually an intelligent, well-respected man and source of sagely advice and stable love for his wife and kids.

It is for the extinction of parents like Ward and June Cleaver that the liberalization of television was commenced; and the campaign of their brethren against traditional values in all walks of American life continues apace as well. But how? The problem is that some conservatives, like most other Americans, have been raised on the boob tube and cannot separate themselves from its hypnotic and all-encompassing influence. To just say no to TV and the trash that spews forth from it like a busted sewer pipe seems too much to ask of the average person, and the network executives know it.

But it’s the only way out of our cultural cesspool. As long as capitalism remains a driving force in America, ratings will rule the roost. So, the next time you’re watching TV and the obligatory sex, violence, scatological humor or blatantly liberal messaging — aimed precisely at you, of course — turns up, obey your conscience and turn the darned thing off. You’ll be a happier and healthier person.

About the Author

Lisa Fabrizio is a columnist who hails from Connecticut (mailbox@lisafab.com).

Letter to the Editor View all comments (116) |

Ken (Old Texican)| 6.8.11 @ 6:55AM

Lisa,
"I love to hit myself in the head. It feels so good when I stop."

(There is a tune that goes with that)

Mike Hawk| 6.8.11 @ 7:04AM

I have a TV, but it is off most of the time. SOme months it is never on. I quit watching the boobtube years ago.

WRTolkas| 6.8.11 @ 8:13AM

Dear Mr. Hawk,

Same with my household. We rarely watch the democratic controlled media (DCM). What the DCM doesn't understand is best summarized from this quote Old Texican should easily recognize:

“What you term the ‘right’ is the people mostly right down the center; the overwhelming majority of Americans.”

To my simple mind, I understand why the DCM is now fighting for a meaningful existence.

Be safe,
WRTolkas

TArbiter| 6.8.11 @ 10:54AM

TCM is the best channel on the tube nowadays, IMHO. "Years ago they were twice the man, and half the actor. Today they are half the man, and twice the actor", somebody said once. How true.

DaveD| 6.8.11 @ 7:54PM

Me three. I have (finally) taken the plunge and cancelled cable TV. On the rare occasion that a program comes along worth watching I can always get it from Netflix - just have to be patient.

TrueBlue| 6.9.11 @ 4:52PM

I do the same thing. Nothing on TV worth paying for cable when I can pay 8 bucks to watch the stuff that's actually good instead of 90% liberal spew.

Appleby| 6.8.11 @ 7:09AM

I watch Discovery, History and sometimes National Geographic Channels for entertainment, but even there I pick and choose; I think the operative word is *choose* -- and if there is a warning at the beginning of the show, I turn to another channel. I have stopped watching everything on The Networks save Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Its all trash.

Ned| 6.8.11 @ 10:06AM

Same here. Stopped watching The Networks because I got tired of being preached to ("at"?)... plus, so many of the programs can't make it through an episode without humiliating someone... usually the "dad"...

Nancy in NC| 6.8.11 @ 7:36AM

I often wonder why I even have a TV. I, like Appleby, watch Jeopardy but do terrible on the questions concerning pop culture. I don't know anything about the shows on tv or the latest flash in the pan "star".

How disturbing it is to hear others discuss reality shows as if it were real life. Many of them are clueless about the Federal reserve and the government, but know the ins and outs of the sick life of Charlie Sheen. And now we have congress (in the form of Weiner) adding to the mix of grossness.

I often watch some sports programs, but I WILL NOT be watching the Olympics as I refuse to engage with NBC.

The left is, quite effectively, destroying our culture from within. We continue to accept the vilest until it seems to be the norm. Who would have dreamed in the age of Ozzie and Harriet that gays kissing and lewd sex would be acceptable fare?

RabidAmerican| 6.8.11 @ 9:21PM

Nancy,
Marry me.

Chalkdust| 6.8.11 @ 8:08AM

I recently discovered reruns of "NCIS", a program that still displays American values. Strong male lead projects John Wayne like values of: honesty, trust and hard work projected on a tapestry that values: training, education and knowledge. Characters display little knowledge of current PC crap that tend to de-nut male players.

Stuart Koehl| 6.8.11 @ 9:52AM

When it does show up, as in government-mandated "sexual harassment awareness seminars", all the characters approach it with the dry, tongue-in-cheak, "Why Are We Here?" attitude I have seen at such events.

TrueBlue| 6.9.11 @ 4:59PM

I love that show. My dad did the same thing when I was growing up that Gibbs does whenever someone does something stupid, smack right upside the back of the head.

Petronius| 6.8.11 @ 8:40AM

Get me started, again. TV or no TV, undermining the conservative mind set and life style was and still is, a hanging curve ball for cultural vandals. The innate desire to rebel, to indulge that forbidden fruit syndrome, play in the muck, commit mortal sin and Get Away With It matters more to people than drawing their next breath. Anybody who survived the arbitrary horseshit discipline methods of parochial schools know this. The ultimate victory over authority has always been the objective of the bottom feeding masses, and now it is manifest. And what have we to show for it? This weeks take alone speaks for itself from garden variety mayhem, to kidnapping with possible murder, and discovery of that mass grave outside Houston telegraphing past acts of multiple butchery. Events like that do not bother the majority of the population like they would have in 1951. We are atomized, isolated, and immune to any of it unless it visits our front door. We don't even discuss it anymore. We've been too busy watching TV and seeing it reflected on CSI, Law and Order SVU, and the "unsubs" chased by the FBI each Wednesday doing things that would make Sam Peckinpaw cringe. Enough already! You want comedy then? Coming this fall, Charlie Sheen stars as an oversexed congressman in A Wanker in the House.
Hugh Beaumont and Robert Young are dead. Most peoples consciences consist of flakey feelings. And moral cowardice is rampant. The only reason the lid doesn't blow and what remains of civilized society goes on, is that the portion of the populace that maintains the old morality is also ARMED.

Stuart Koehl| 6.8.11 @ 9:53AM

I do believe that Cromwell's bunch said the same thing when the closed the theaters in London.

Petronius| 6.8.11 @ 1:20PM

Were the next administration of a mere slight Cromwellian bent, every show biz mogul would pull up stakes and decamp without the fundies lifting a finger.

Mary Jo| 6.8.11 @ 9:02AM

Turned off TV local and cable 4 years ago. do not miss it. Also got rid of SiriusXM. I do watch Fox news for the 30 min I am on the eliptical.

I got tired of commercials and being lectured to.
Also am careful choosing authors I read. I am sick of anti conservative/Republican views in some books even though I consider myself a Libertarian.

cuban pete| 6.8.11 @ 9:20AM

Mary Jo:
Interesting that you cancelled SiriusXM.
While I never listen to any of the "talk" channels I find the 40's , 50's , Sinatra, Willie's Roadhouse and jazz and classical programs generally well done.
I'm with you on the local TV and cable.

Skippy| 6.8.11 @ 1:13PM

Those are my stations too!
"I get no thrill from champagne..."

cuban pete| 6.8.11 @ 4:44PM

"We don't make a party out of lovin'
but we like holdin' hands and pitchin' woo..."

LarryK| 6.8.11 @ 9:25AM

My favorite liberal program was M*A*S*H.
In the series finale, when Hawkeye Peirce suffocated the crying baby to silence it so his pink liberal @ss would be saved form the Commie patrol, that was the greatest moment in TV history. Hawkeye's blathering from the previous seasons was reduced to just that, mindless, "I'm always right", blathering. Take another's life to save your own. How Liberal and Heroic.

Stuart Koehl| 6.8.11 @ 9:49AM

Of course, if the commie patrol had found them, it would have killed both him and the baby, but, what the hell, Larry--you need to score a cheap point.

LarryK| 6.8.11 @ 12:30PM

Not a cheap point, just pointing out that for 11 years Hawkeye Peirce was a "Holier than Thou", "Smarter than anyone in the room", "anyone who does not agree with me is a moron", LIBERAL, who when the crisis point in his life came, Hawkeye Peirce, the epitome of Liberalism, decided to sacrifice a baby (ie., abortion after the fact) to save his "important" life.

DDAIDDAIS

Don't do as I do, do as I say. Typical Liberal. No moral compass.

Skippy| 6.8.11 @ 1:17PM

I too, enjoyed Pierce being hoist upon his own moral petard.
Wouldn't everyone kill a baby to reduce the risk to their well-being?
I mean it's not like it was a real person yet.
Isn't that what Roe v Wade is all about?
Killing children for my convenience?

Stuart Koehl| 6.8.11 @ 4:10PM

It's also not as if he intended to smother it--the baby just suffocated by accident. I know of real situations in which this happened. I abhorred MASH and thought it trivialized the seriousness of war. But this was not one of those moments, and to say the baby was deliberately killed is indeed a cheap shot.

LarryK| 6.9.11 @ 8:52AM

Yes the baby was deliberately killed to stop it from crying.

Frekki| 6.8.11 @ 9:56AM

Hey Larry, I think the baby's mother in the back of the bus suffocated it, but hey- that was 20 years ago. That was about when I totally stopped watching TV. Now it's kinda cool to be the old man amongst the young. They can't believe I don't know and can't recognize the latest flash in the pan. I still can't believe that BJ left that sidecar behind.

PCC| 6.8.11 @ 10:34AM

I don't understand the reference to BJ and the sidecar. Would you care to explain?

LarryK| 6.8.11 @ 12:26PM

The side car to the motorcycle was left behind and B. J. Hunnicutt rode the motorcycle out of the camp.

LarryK| 6.8.11 @ 12:25PM

Actually, Hawkeye was relaying to the psychiatrist, that he (Hawkeye) was chocking a chicken and killed it. The chicken was actually the baby and for Hawkeye to regain his sanity, he put the blame on the mother when in reality it was he that smothered the baby.

canuckistani| 6.8.11 @ 9:48AM

"The real trouble started, of course, in the 1960s; that decade of depravity where we began to lose our cultural marbles."

This is where the author goes off the rails. Every sociologist would recognize the decay started after WW1 and the failed social-engineering projects of the 20's with Prohibition, universal suffrage and the formation of the MPAA.
The cold war and the Red-baiting of the 50's were only thinly veiled by the TV shows and big screen epics as a kind of sleeping agent.
Watching blacks being fire-hosed and then Kennedy's head explode, followed by the debacles of the Johnson and Nixon admins finally ripped the veil off and what was revealed was an exhausted public looking for an outlet for their frustration.

Pop culture is truly a reflection of the people viewing it. I have never believed the media has the the kind of influence people think it does - unless you support active manipulation. With the money at stake and the 100's of options the viewer has, their choices are free and unfettered, and no one media outlet could be that influential for extended periods of time.

Renaissance Nerd | 6.8.11 @ 6:14PM

I'm glad to know that women's suffrage was such an enormous failure. I had thought it successful until now. Perhaps I should pay attention to sociology after all. Though the last college sociology textbook I perused was mostly just a paean to Marx--this was at least six months ago, but I doubt much has changed since then. I'll deal you one better: the real source of the rot began in the Renaissance. The two main tracks were what we now call Judeo-Christian ethics, and the other was Hellenistic-Romantic. In America the two have always been in a tug-of-war, with the Democratic-Repblicans and Democrats pulling for romanticist ideals in general, and the Federalists/Whigs/Republicans pulling for Judeo-Christian ideals, even though in neither case were those terms used. The cultural rot was alive and well in the 1790s as the Dem-Reps bought votes from immigrants right off the ships, paying cold hard cash. Lisa Fabrizio is quite right that the current run of Romanticist domination of the arts began in the 60s, though certainly in the 20s there was another Romanticist movement brought to an end by the Great Depression. That could be what we're looking at now--people tolerate romantic nonsense in good times, but hard times call for the practicality of the Scottish Enlightenment instead of the airy fancies of the French.

Stuart Koehl| 6.8.11 @ 9:48AM

I'm pretty sure Liza is too young to have seen television's "Golden Age", or she would remember just how banal and mediocre most of its fare really was. Nostalgia is a poor judge of history.

JohnD| 6.8.11 @ 10:34AM

So, things like "Requiem for a Heavyweight" and "Marty" were "banal and mediocre" while "Two and a Half Men" "Glee" and "Jersey Shore" are the bees knees?

I watch sports and documentaries (History Channel, Military Channel, etc). I read books and never go to the movies (I like movies about straight cowboys, not gay ones).

Seek| 6.8.11 @ 12:20PM

There was a lot of dreck back then, too. People just don't remember it. Even the best stuff from the Fifties doesn't hold a candle to the best TV of today.

Petronius| 6.8.11 @ 1:09PM

Rod Serling was the best dramatist of the small screen ever; and producer to boot. The only genuine playwright in television today is David Mamet. Dare to compare. I'll take the Twilight Zone and Playhouse 90.
btw: the story I mentioned about the mass grave near Houston has been exposed as a hoax.

Seek| 6.8.11 @ 1:56PM

"Mad Men," "Deadwood," "The Sopranos," "Sons of Anarchy," "Lost," -- better than anything in years past, save for maybe the best of "Seinfeld" and few other comedies. David Mamet, by the way, has been active for some 25 years as a film director. (see "The Spanish Prisoner," "The Winslow Boy," "State and Main," "Redbelt").

Petronius| 6.8.11 @ 4:38PM

Oh puleeez! Seinfeld is much ado about less than nothing. And there is a lot of realism in the series you mentioned which couldn't be done with older film technology. What about substance? Rod Serling could put more into 24 minutes than most writers today would manage inside of twice that for a general audience. Those series exhibited on cable could not have been made then, content not withstanding. I've met Davey Bourne who was the piano player in Deadwood. The poor man can't go anywhere in public without some s.o.b. calling him a c**ks****r. So the film craftsmanship is top drawer and Ian McShane has proven he can really act after 40 years. And real as the lawlessness and baseness of Deadwood was, the amplification of it is uncalled for. BTDT.
If you ever watched a Playhouse 90 production, you saw a live performance in the studio. That show was before video tape existed, so the shows are not extant. My best pick: Big Day For a Scrambler starring the late James Whitmore as a journeyman pro golfer who plays beyond his ability just once. He has more than one contest with himself. Before the last round of the tournament he realizes that he falsified his previous score card. He leads to the end and picks up his ball before holing out on the 18th green and DQ's himself. Drama is a medium to express and exhibit an idiom. I'm on the objective side over who has done it better justice.

Stuart Koehl| 6.8.11 @ 4:11PM

See my comments in other threads about "Sturgeon's Epiphany": ninety percent of everything is crap. In ever time, in every place, under every circumstance.

The past looks good because the dreck gets forgotten and only the best of each generation is passed down to the next.

albert constantine jr.| 6.9.11 @ 8:22AM

As a military historian, you are likely at least familiar with the "10% rule" (i.e. Ten percent of your personnel will screw up anything). Between that axiom and your "90% Rule", I think just about everything is covered.

Stuart Koehl| 6.9.11 @ 10:48AM

More than familiar--I've seen it in operation.

Douglas| 6.8.11 @ 3:05PM

Some people simply know nothing of history and do not care to study it for what they can learn of human nature. Just look at how liberals continue to persue the same philosphies that have doomed enormous amounts of their populace to life of misery.

Mutch Moore | 6.8.11 @ 9:49PM

Stuart Koehl it would seem an oblique view of TV's beginnings (being banal and mediocre). But thinking about it, wow! What an interesting and accurate observation.

C Smith| 6.8.11 @ 9:53AM

What should we expect of a world listening to hours of "gospel" every day from the Prince and Power of the Air:

"Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others" (Ephesians 2:2-3).

Frekki| 6.8.11 @ 9:55AM

Hey Larry, I think the baby's mother in the back of the bus suffocated it, but hey- that was 20 years ago. That was about when I totally stopped watching TV. Now it's kinda cool to be the old man amongst the young. They can't believe I don't know and can't recognize the latest flash in the pan. I still can't believe that BJ left that sidecar behind.

JohnD| 6.8.11 @ 10:29AM

"The mindset that produced the left-leaning tsunami from the late 1960s onward, actually had its beginnings in the Depression era with Hollywood's promotion of class envy; the idea that "society" was to blame for most crime."

So the House Un-American Activities Committee was right after all back in the 1940s-1950s.

Just like McCarthy was right that everyone on his "list" was on the payroll of both Uncle Sam and the KGB, which the recent release of the Venona Intercepts verified.

Stuart Koehl| 6.11.11 @ 7:06PM

"So the House Un-American Activities Committee was right after all back in the 1940s-1950s."

The Soviet archives show pretty much that it was.

"Just like McCarthy was right that everyone on his "list" was on the payroll of both Uncle Sam and the KGB, which the recent release of the Venona Intercepts verified."

Actually, only some were on the payroll of the U.S., but all of them were on the payroll of either the KGB or the GRU.

Bob Grant| 6.8.11 @ 10:32AM

Yep. I've weened myself off of television to the point that there is no such a thing as "must see TV". There is nothing on television that is required viewing, not even sports. I must admit I continue to have a weak spot for college football but that is waning as well.

Thanks to Obama, I never watch cable news (not even FOX) for fear of catching him live giving some speech. I avoid him like Dracula. If I must know what he's saying, I'll fetch a transcript in the internet. Thanks Obama for helping me complete my goal of removing television from my life.

Scott| 6.8.11 @ 10:36AM

The article claims “lefties” have control of the medium and are exploiting it to meet their ends; the destruction of America. With all respect, I don't know that I agree that "the Left" is as powerful as that. Maybe so, but maybe not. My belief is more basic than that. I believe that Hollywood is providing what sells, and what makes them money. In the case of TV; people are lazy, they don’t want to think. The TV provides a nice bromide - an easy tranquilizer wherein they can stop thinking, and enter a quiet, comfortable vegetative state. That is why we deserve what we get on TV. Finally, I have to admit, as other readers have, I gave up on TV some years ago, too.

Douglas| 6.8.11 @ 3:02PM

You are right in that people do watch and therefore reinforce what Hollywood is producing

That said, the liberal bias is no secret.

Joe D.| 6.8.11 @ 10:58AM

Excellent article. You are right on track. We watch very little TV today. Other then sports, cooking shows or old movies that is it.

And with all due respect to Scott and others, they will and due make losers of money in order to get there message out to everyone they can get to listen. Slowly it will change a culture as it has over the last 50 years. This did not happen over night. It was slow and piece meal until we accepted more and more.

ejp| 6.8.11 @ 11:13AM

With television, I have found that even as liberalism started to intrude more overtly at the end of the 60s, there were still enough good programs that carried over through the end of the 70s. Starting with the 80s, and the election of Reagan, it's as if Hollywood doubled down their hatred of conservatism now that they realized how formidable an electoral force it was. I find it telling how my vast collection of movies and TV on DVD, which numbers well over a thousand plus, has next to nothing from the last 30 years.

It's because I live thankfully in an age where the good stuff of the past can be revisited often that the only regular TV I watch is Fox News, sports channels for baseball and hockey, local weather channel and that's it. Everything else is junk as far as I'm concerned and I won't indulbe any of it.

And when I go through my classics, I get a reminder of how the shows from the bygone era that have endured as classics are the ones where soapbox agendas were kept to a minimum. I think the best example is how the most overtly left-wing show of the early 1960s, which was created by an out and out Hollywood communist, "The Defenders" *never* had any kind of syndication afterlife and is unavailable on DVD. "Perry Mason", a lawyer show that was just about entertainment, endures as a classic decades later.

Look also at how with the singular exception of "All In The Family", none of the other pretentious Norman Lear sitcoms have had a strong afterlife and many of them couldn't even get more than one year released on DVD ("Maude" and "One Day At A Time").

Kevin Compton| 6.8.11 @ 11:49AM

Even "The History Channel" has been taken over by Liberals trying to re-write history, especially Christian history, to suit their preferred beliefs. Sports is still a good option if you turn down the sound.

cuban pete| 6.8.11 @ 4:52PM

".... turn down the sound ."
Kevin, my man.

J.C.Eaton| 6.8.11 @ 12:06PM

I'd trow that the real barometer of societal disintegration on the cathode-ray god[used to be a cathode-ray, anyway] is the commercials. What people expect us to buy and how they cajole us to do it is the truly perspicuous clue as to how far we've come/gone. Even mature adults quale at the sights presented to convice us that the latest sex aid, steamy lotions, chemically-induced....oh never mind. Surely you get the point.

KYKernel| 6.8.11 @ 3:49PM

Now, just a minute on commercials. Some of them are downright "cute."

Like the babies on E*Trade (they're wearing kinda thin, now) and the kids on Verizon (recently taken off the air.

Stuart Koehl| 6.9.11 @ 5:42PM

The babies on E*Trade never grow old.

"Can you e-mail me that link?"

Seek| 6.8.11 @ 12:23PM

Another unctuous broadside by Lisa Fabrizio against the Forces of Cultural Pollution That Have All But Engulfed Us. Her irritable smugness is really getting tedious.

Skippy| 6.8.11 @ 1:35PM

Don't let her disturb your slumber; change the channel.

Douglas| 6.8.11 @ 3:00PM

Agreed. Here is another example of someone who can't even logically get through an opinion article. If he would have used his intellect, he would have relized he could have ignored the article just as the author was pointing out you can leave the TV channel.

simon templar| 6.8.11 @ 5:15PM

Say anything, Seek, to shut Lisa up and anyone else that challenges the left wing controled sewer called television...that right? Particularly shut em down given the expose book that hit the shelfs this week proving without a doubt from the mouths of the producers themselves the left wing slant and purposeful corruption of the medium. We are on to your brainwashing and agenda.

RJ| 6.8.11 @ 12:38PM

Good article, Lisa.

Over the years, I find myself watching less and less network TV. Today, there are no shows that I watch and I long ago gave up on watching network or local "news" programs.

Last summer, I watched one of my favorite childhood shows, "Sky King." I still like it and it marks a very different view of role models and proper behavior. In contrast, today's TV reflects an unhealthy society. I wish we had Sky King and Father Knows Best today. We would be a better society for it.

Dave | 6.8.11 @ 1:07PM

Being a lot longer in the tooth than the average network pinhead prefers to target, I'm reminded of an unwritten rule that movies, television and other media occasionally ask an audience to bend with: "suspend belief in order to make the premise work." OK, makes sense. I guess. At least to a point.

See, I can look at two different actors and go along with a premise that one's the mom and the other is her daughter, though neither may look a lot like one another. I get it.

That'd be called .. suspension of belief at work. Again, I get it.

Having said that ...

The show "How I Met Your Mother" co-stars the former lead in the series "Doogie Howser", Neil Patrick Harris. The guy's a good, experienced actor who knows the drill and has the skills. Thing is, a while back, Neil came "out of the closet" and is often seen with his partner in public.

Fine. No hassles here. Nah-dah! The only issue for me is ... trying to suspend belief juuust enough to buy the script's premises' that Harris' character is actually a womanizing dude, bent on scoring with the ladies when opportunity meets planning.

Sorry, Hollywood. NPH may be a good actor, with solid ability to run the lines during taping. But I find it a little too tough to buy the notion that Neil's character is a ladies man. Just can't do that suspension thing. For me, it must be like a lot of African Americans used to feel when Al Jolson got down on bended knee and started singing Mammy while in blackface. Or when a few of the Charlie Chan movie characters were actually played by a white guy.

I get that, too.

Meanwhile, I keep waiting to see if some producer has the stones to cast a Roseanne Barr type with a Brad Pitt knockoff in a spin-off of King of Queens. I don't know, Queen of Peteluma has kind of a funny ring to it. Or not.

Me? I ain't holdin' my breath.

Stuart Koehl| 6.9.11 @ 6:13AM

Worked for Rock Hudson, didn't it? On the filming of "Darling Lilly", his co-star Julie Andrews (much more tart in reality than her saccharine image) reputedly told him, "Just remember, I'm the leading lady on this film".

Colin | 6.9.11 @ 11:53AM

Sure, it worked for Rock Hudson. It also played out well for James Dean, Montgomery Clift, the original "dad" on the Brady Bunch and others who applied their crafts back in the day.

However ...

None of those men had (as yet) come out of the closet and gone public with Oprah on national television. During the bulk of their successful careers, that closet door was generally only open for viewing to selected cast, crew and their close friends.

It's pretty much and apples and oranges comparison you make. But I understand you may not be quite old enough to "remember the times."

It was, indeed, a very different day.

Stuart Koehl| 6.9.11 @ 2:18PM

When I was in Junior High (ca. 1967-70), Rock Hudson's sexuality was the subject of hot gossip at the lunch table. Perhaps only those who didn't know were those who chose not to know--like those sweet little old ladies who just adored Liberace.

Oldefarte| 6.8.11 @ 1:16PM

Lisa's brilliant article is now complemented by the upcoming publication/release of a book [can't think of the author's name or book title, but I think Newsmax has a video interview with him on its web site]. Anyway, television as Lisa describes has digressed from the days of FATHER KNOWS BEST, LEAVE IT TO BEAVER,etc to todays shows that are completely filled with liberal philosophical brainwashing propaganda. Hollywood's current producers/directors have discovered the boob power of TV to nightly indoctrinate its viewers to their favored political philosophies concerning homosexuality, gay marriage, unlimited sexual activity, and the occasional political smearing of conservative/Republican personalities, theories etc. The previously mentioned current book/author also highlights the sad fact of Hollywood's historical brainwashing of innocent children via SESOME STREET shows through its characters [Oscar the Grouch etc]. To anyone of you possibly reading this that have small/young children, I'd only council you to lease monitor their TV viewing. Ponogrophy is partially censored on TV but liberal philosophy that is purposefully under the radar is not. Not only is the more well known MSM liberally biased/slanted, but also so too is almost everything that you and your children are viewing nightly 24-7. It's the subliminal messaging theory that was prevented when Coca Cola was prohibited from showing a three minute periodic flashing of its name-sign upon the TV screen years ago, that is now used to propagandize liberalism constantly from your TV viewing!!!!!!

Slingshot| 6.8.11 @ 1:33PM

A lot of people in previous comments mention that they watch the History Channel and National Geographic; well, if you've done much reading of history you can immediately see that these shows are rewriting history with a leftist slant, not to mention often just plain getting their facts wrong.

Face it, TV is a lousy source of anything, and a bad influence all around. We threw ours out 18 years ago when our daughter was born, not wanting her to be influenced by all the trash, and we have never regretted it. In fact, when hearing friends lament the garbage offered on TV, we always ask, why do you have one, then?

We have a great collection of wholesome movies and even funny old TV shows from the 50s up through the 80s (our daughter loves Gilligan's Island and The Munsters) to watch on our DVD projector, on a big wall screen. Who needs TV today?

Pelligrino| 6.8.11 @ 5:01PM

Slingshot, good for you. Your children will be thanking you for years to come. And more by their actions, thoughts, demeanor than by direct words.

We would have a far more intelligent nation if we avoided TV. And a probably significantly less fat nation.

TV is cancerous and poisonous. It needn't be so. But it probably is indicative of an industry where people gravitate for work -- people who cannot do and produce meaningfully in society.

After all: What real parent gets excited when their 22 year old announces, "I am going to be an entertainer!"

Incidentally: Are there any clean, decent, actually funny and family wholesome comedians?

Stuart Koehl| 6.9.11 @ 10:53AM

It might interest you to know that in my day, when Gilligan's Island and the Munsters were running in prime time, both were denounced as mindless junk that was corrupting our youth (that would be me and my cohort, I believe).

Prior to that, it was Howdy Doody and his ilk who were destroying the fabric of America.

It was about that time that some Olde Farte decried television as "a vast cultural wasteland", which led to the creation of National Public Television--which leads us to "Suskind's Law":

"Every problem began as a solution".

Elias| 6.8.11 @ 1:39PM

Miss Fabrizio asks, "..the biggest mystery to me is that white American men continue to embrace a medium that holds them in such disdainful regard.."

One answer: God-given hormones. We often hear that the most coveted audience is 25 - 54 year old males, so..

What is the visual appeal of the female leads in those tv programs? SOME amounts of disdain for traditional-values male role models can be tolerated when the female lead characters in the programs look wonderful.

Renaissance Nerd | 6.8.11 @ 6:05PM

There's too much truth to this. I have several times looked up a particularly pretty actress on IMDB and put some or all of her movies into my NetFlix queue. Some of them are so awful it makes my hair hurt (most recently Julia Voth and the first movie I found was 'B!tch Slap.' Oy what a disgusting stinker, no need to find anything else she's done.) Apparently I'm in a minority, though, as I DON'T want to see said actresses getting naked or demonstrating their loyalty to the craft by dishonoring themselves as thoroughly as possible. Even after all these years I still occasionally am fooled--it seems like someone who plays a good part so feelingly ought to learn something from it. But actors of either sex learn nothing from their roles, I reckon it's a requirement of the trade. What a pity.

shipley130| 6.8.11 @ 2:00PM

It's hard to argue that white guys aren't what they are portrayed to be on TV these days when you got Blago and WeinerMan out there. Then there is the IMF maid raper. And Charlie Sheen. And Mel Gibson. And.........

NomadC| 6.8.11 @ 2:43PM

Oh, please! Lucy and Rick Ricardo never shared a bed yet conceived a child? Matt Dillon was just friends with Miss Kitty, the upstanding virginal tavern owner? The Cartwright boys never hooked up with working girls when they ventured to town?

The only difference between the so-called "Golden Age" of TV and today is that television programming has evolved to portray a far more open and honest picture of the frailties of the human condition. And it's exactly that openness and honesty that causes folks to squirm or turn away. Television, like all art and entertainment medium, does not create societal values; it mirrors them.

What the author fails to take into account is that TV programs depend on viewers. All in the Family became a hit not because Norman Lear was able to force people to watch enough episodes to indoctrinate them with his views. It became a hit because viewers were already embracing his views.

Finally, it is long past time for conservatives to cease and desist from framing every argument or observation on any topic as "them against us". Professional victimhood is neither flattering nor productive but it appears to have become the guiding premise on which conservatives view themselves and the world. Perhaps the problem is not that conservatives are being victimized by those big bad liberals at every turn but that conservatives prefer to avoid the critical thinking required when life is presented openly and honestly with all its shades of gray.

Douglas| 6.8.11 @ 2:57PM

I agree the TV can be turned off. As a matter of fact, I block BET, MTV, Comedy Central, and a few others. I completely disagree that is it time for conservatives to quit playing victimhood. They should shout victimhood and every single thing the libs try to claim even more loudly. They should use every single stupid knee jerk lack of intellect thing the libs try and use it against the libs. We should point out their duplicity, their ignorance, their arrogance, their lack of critical thinking, their inability to learn from history and their incredibly naive and immature lack of knowledge of human nature.

Stuart Koehl| 6.9.11 @ 5:45PM

Why do you have to block them? Are your fingers incapable of skipping past them? Or are you afraid the subliminal mind control signals emanating from the screen will over come you volition and force you to watch them against your will?

mzk1| 6.24.11 @ 8:07AM

Because he is human. Human beings need to build fences, both internal and external, to help them to overcome their baser urges.

What planet are you from?

ejp| 6.8.11 @ 2:58PM

Television does not "mirror" the values, because if it did, Republicans would only get 5% of the vote in every election, since that is Television's comment on how much of the population is Republican, or holds to conservative ideals or positions. This kind of argument from the Left is the typical Leftist BS which posits that those who put forth leftist indoctrination or who engage in left wing soapbox spiels on television are somehow thinking more "deep" on a subject. But having watched as much TV as I have over the decades, I can say that that is a crock.

And BTW, in regards your comment on "Gunsmoke" don't insult the intelligence of those of us who are fans of that classic. That was a case of how understatement and implication was a lot better. Of course Matt and Kitty probably shared something more, but the point is that we didn't have to have that hit over our heads at the expense of seeing good quality stories and drama told.

And as for "All In The Family", gee if everyone was embracing all those views how come the country still voted overwhelmingly for Nixon in 72 and that it was Archie proved right when he shouted at Meathead (The ultimate definition of a mooch, who if he had any sense of decorum would have tolerated Archie's vices considering that Archie was under no obligation to let him live rent-free under his roof), "you're gonna get Reagan in 1980, wise guy!"

mzk1| 6.24.11 @ 7:56AM

The interesting thing about All in the Family is that he real message was, "All conservatives a racists". I realized it when they did an edisode on the JDL, which I knew something about. Of course, it probably wasn't intentional; to the people putting it out it was like saying "the sun rises in the east".

DaveD| 6.8.11 @ 8:06PM

So, unless we explicitly see Matt and Miss Kitty doing the nasty we're too stupid to figure out that they are sharing the same bed between episodes? Evidently not, by your own admission. I have yet to see a movie or TV program whose story could not be told, and told effectively, without the explicit sex - I defy you to name one.

Stuart Koehl| 6.9.11 @ 6:14AM

In the radio series, Miss Kitty ran a house of ill repute above the saloon, just like in the real Old West.

mzk1| 6.24.11 @ 8:05AM

So they got into the same bed once in a while, when we didn't see. And maybe the Cartwright boys were moral. So instead we get the reverse.

Does TV show hookers, for just one example, as they are, or some idiotic glamorized version? Can you imagine TV showing a real nerd, instead of some basically normal guy with a few quirks? Bathroom issues are a major part of many peoples' lives; perhaps TV should spend more time on them?

TV will never show reality as it is. So it might was well show something uplifting, instead of something degrading.

Like the guy below says, Nixon carried 49 states in 1972.

Douglas| 6.8.11 @ 2:51PM

Even "Leave it to Beaver" didn't escape liberal propaganda as the author seems to imply. I noticed often the problem with the children ends up being the parents' fault. The usual scenario has the father or mother apologizing because they simply didn't understand the kid. A couple of year ago watching one of the espisodes where Beaver was yelling at Ward, I remarked to my wife, "my dad would have beat the heck out of me if I would have spoken to him like that. How did they get away with having kids yelling at their parents back then."

mzk1| 6.24.11 @ 7:53AM

Interesting. Watching in the 60's, I could only think, "boy are his parents strict". But the other shows were much worse in the portrayal of t he fater. Ward and Andy Griffith were portrayed as rater wise, unlike many other sitcoms of the day.

skip| 6.8.11 @ 3:02PM

You idiot.

Television does not mirror societal values. It mirrors the values of those doing the writing, directing, and producing of the television shows.

Perhaps the problem is that conservatives for far too long have preferred to avoid upsetting liberals by proving with intelligence and honesty that liberals never, ever, engage in critical thinking.

Pelligrino| 6.8.11 @ 4:42PM

I was talked into a Super Bowl party/gathering for the 2010 game. First one I'd seen in years. The few I'd seen overseas didn't have the U.S. commercials.

This was a family gathering in a large home. All ages present. Men, women, kids of all sizes, grandmas and grandpas with several dogs around, too.

Everyone was embarrassed multiple times. Everyone was almost inflicted with whiplash when having to swiftly look away from the big screen.

Oh, you don't remember? (If you don't recall or didn't watch, consider yourself blessed.)

I learned about the slut of the nation named Danica Patrick and GoDaddy.com. I was convinced that GoDaddy must be some kind of new porn site. Motorola and Megan Fox. The typical gross beer ads. Lots of ads that were beyond questionable. Oh, the Doritos ad where the black "blind date" is checking out/drooling at the mom's ass knowng that junior (the 7 year old) is watching him. I am sorry I cannot recall verbatim the numerous 'ugly/offensive/perverted' commericals so as to underscore the point. But it was gross.

And we all know now that the Super Bowl televised is just as much about the ads, right?

Many just left the room. Some adults tried to get the kids interested in games elsewhere. I walked away in disgust.

America's showcase television event with the free enterprise Fortune 500 companies backing it up with $ millions. Nothing but narcicism, bawdiness, tawdriness, sleeze, knuckle-dragging commentary, and loud-mouthed egos. All faux pizzaz with no substance.

It is properly labeled the "boob tube" for thousands of good reasons.

No good person watches much TV. Nor do they attend but a few times (in a decade) at the cinema.

mzk1| 6.24.11 @ 7:50AM

Back in the '80's, I tried to watch a Super Bowl. Unfortunately, that was the one that made the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders famous. I had no idea those were cheerleader costumes, and couldn't figure out why the camera was spending so much time focusing on looking down blouses. I didn't watch another Super Bowl for a long time afterwards.

Seek| 6.8.11 @ 6:27PM

The notion that calling out Ms. Fabrizio on her her absurd, rambling middle-finger salute to TV producers constitutes suppression of her view, or that I share with TV execs a "brainwashing" agenda, is beyond belief. Perhaps self-anointed brass-knuckle enforcers of this site, filled with threats and insults but little wisdom, one day can figure out that bad arguments from conservatives undermine the case for conservatism. And yes, I'm a conservative. Sorry if I don't see a conflict between that and going to the movies or turning on the tube.

BTW, "Seinfeld" wasn't "a show about nothing," as popular cliche would have it. If anything, with its three or four interwoven parallel plots, it was a show about everything -- or at least as much as could be squeezed into 24 minutes. Very few comedies, past or present, can touch it.

Pelligrino| 6.9.11 @ 1:44AM

Seek, if you find something worth watching on TV or in a cinema, then you've found something more difficult to locate than a four-leaf clover.

You cannot be serious if you sat through a number of Seinfeld episodes. Really? Say it ain't so.

The issue is your mind and soul. But it is bigger than even that. It's the time. Time is a very precious and limited resource. And God gives you stewardship of it, expecting (from ALL of us) responsible, mature doing.

The issue for all of us: Can you justify as an able-bodied adult sitting and vegging in front of the tube? God has very high standards.

What else might you have been doing at that time? What might/should I have been doing?

"But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do. For it is written, 'Be ye holy, because I am holy.'" I Peter 1:15,16

--- in all you/we do ---

[The "For it is written" refers to Leviticus 11:44,45 and Leviticus 19:2]

mzk1| 6.24.11 @ 10:26AM

I'm not any sort of Christian, but as from a Jewish (Pharisaic) point of view, this is right on the money. I did watch it at the time; when people called me on it, I said it was so I could participate in the discussion at work. Eventually I gave up TV altogether.

Stuart Koehl| 6.9.11 @ 11:02AM

"BTW, "Seinfeld" wasn't "a show about nothing," as popular cliche would have it."

Actually, it was a show about too many of the type of people I knew growing up in New York. Since I didn't like them when I knew them personally, why would I watch their archetypes on television? And so I exercised the free will with which God endowed us all and simply did not watch it. Not an episode.

I never watched Friends, either--not because of the sexual innuendos or anything like that, but because of the whole suspension of disbelief thing: I simply could not believe that a group of people in their late twenties, none of whom held a regular, well-paying job, could somehow or other afford a higher standard of living in New York City than I could on my pay in suburban Virginia. So, again, not an episode.

Doesn't make me morally or intellectually superior to anyone, but it does show that one can exercise one's own judgment in pursuit of entertainment. Could then, can still now.

Television programs live and die by one thing--ratings. If you don't like the programs on the tube, be assured that a lot of other people do. Conservatives who want to change television need to do one of two things (both, if possible):

1. Begin producing our own television shows reflecting our values--maybe even form a network that offers nothing but.

2. Convince people to watch them, because, being good conservatives, we believe in the free market, and that businesses need to make a profit to stay in business.

Any conservative unwilling to do this really has no business criticizing what the networks put on television. They are responding to popular demand.

skip| 6.9.11 @ 8:04PM

As a 'conservative', in order to bolster, and not undermine, the argument for conservatism, you should provide additional commentary on what a great show "Lost" is.

What is 'absurd', after all your unctuous irritable smug tedious rambling posts on AmSpec, is your claim to be a 'conservative', and what is 'beyond belief' is that you are anything but a liberal troll.

mzk1| 6.24.11 @ 7:43AM

It referred to ITSELF as a show about nothing. One of the "jokes", of course, was that the people were completely amoral, and thus the finale when they got their just deserts, a nice throwback to old days when that was required.

Renaissance Nerd | 6.8.11 @ 6:30PM

I think one reason a lot of conservatives down through the decades have watched TV and movies that were obviously aimed at them is just a sort of combat ennui. I scarcely notice liberal messages anymore, they're so trite and banal and idiotic but they're just a background chatter, like static on a radio. I watched 'Avatar' and snorted at the stupidity of the story even while my eyes bugged out at the stupendous spectacle of it. A leftist is always retarded, in the purest sense of the word--no matter the age, the mind remains that of a young teenager. It's one reason they are so influential with young people, they're on the same level. Yet we see that most of us grow out of it. The brain-atrophied make up only about 20% of the population at any given time, and of those, many are just young folks who will give up their fancies in a few short years. The hardened 75-year-old 'forever young' types are a very small minority with outsized influence. Ben Shapiro may have gotten some of them to admit to their perfidy, but was there ever any doubt? In the end, who really cares what they say? I watched 'Happy Days' and hated it, but I somehow had it in my head that I was 'supposed' to watch so I did. Then I realized one day that whether I was supposed to or not, I really didn't have to, so I stopped. I was 10. I never watched it again--that's when I took to reading instead. While no doubt media has influence, it isn't so strong as some claim. And as the left gets ever further from their always tenuous grasp of reality, what they say will be ever sillier. I say we should just laugh at them for what are they but the modern equivalent of King's fools?

chuck jim fox| 6.8.11 @ 9:04PM

My grandfolkes are devoted to reruns of The Waltons, a very prettied up version of rural mountain life in the 30s. When I mentioned to them that Will Geer was a blacklisted Red bisexual they decided to forgive him his past indiscretions, even thought my grandma boycotted I Love Lucy for a long time due to Lucy Ball being a Red, which she wasn't.

Stuart Koehl| 6.9.11 @ 2:21PM

I guess your mother confused "red" with "red head". As Emily Litella would say, "That's very different. Never mind".

mzk1| 6.24.11 @ 7:38AM

BTW, she wasn't really a "redhead" either. (Great line, though.)

Alex| 6.9.11 @ 1:23AM

If you can discuss this being a problem with so-called "liberals" but you can't name the real group that controls Hollywood and the MSM - then "liberals" are just a red herring and the real problem emanates from that group that can't be named....

mzk1| 6.24.11 @ 7:41AM

That is sick! Learn some history. We didn't start the fire.

chuck jim fox| 6.9.11 @ 1:58AM

I will guess that the group you refer to as controlling the msm and Hollywood would be the J...s.

Holkden Cowan| 6.9.11 @ 6:01AM

What is there to prevent TV and Hollywood making shows that promote good values?

Stuart Koehl| 6.9.11 @ 2:21PM

If you watch it, they will come. But, since you don't watch it, they don't come.

albert constantine jr.| 6.9.11 @ 8:41AM

In the mid-1990s I was at Camp Dawson as the USMC Command & Staff College Capstone Exercise was wrapping up. A TV in a common area was playing a black and white episode of the Andy Griffith show (or Mayberry R.F.D., whatever it was called at the time), wherein Sheriff Andy punishes Opie for telling tall tales about a man coming out of the sky, only to learn that he was telling the truth about a utility company lineman. Several of the field grade officers present marveled about the uncomplicated message, and commented to the effect that wouldn't it be great if things were really like this. I myself saw a more nuanced message (perhaps we should listen to the young people for they are truthful and wise). Fast forward to 2008, and Griffith and Howard shilling for Obama, and Griffith's subsequent employment as a flack for Obamacare, and I came to realize that the manipulation continued, if no longer subtle.

Stuart Koehl| 6.9.11 @ 2:22PM

I thought it was only a liberal error to mistake actors for the characters they play. My bad.

mzk1| 6.24.11 @ 7:37AM

Why? Read something about the show. Griffith was involved in the show, and was relatively liberal.

Mike Nystrom| 6.9.11 @ 3:33PM

I actually gave up TV about 5 years ago. And I became a happier person. All I need in moving images is on YT...

will| 6.9.11 @ 5:29PM

The fifties were a buttoned-down reaction to a terrible war in two hemispheres that finally ended with the defeat of tyrants. But the same fifties were repressive to those who were not part of WWII, like the boomers. In the sixties the boomers rebelled against the demands for conformity and became hippies. Then came the monstrosity of Vietnam, which permanently divided the two. The elders were bewildered by their kids' rebelliousness and casualness about handing a newly free world over to the communists. The boomers saw a war machine making waste and destruction and turning young men in to hamburger for no credible reason and very obviously covering itself with lies. In the end, they were right because military corruption (burn forever in h*ll, Robert S. McNamara) turned the whole thing into a cesspool, especially US Army careerism and endemic S. Vietnamese grift. The lack of both candor and truth was palpable and finally, undeniable.

Thus was the die cast - an entire generation of alienated American youth who reacted by moving to the left - and who hate the US to this day. They ignorantly focused their hatred on capitalism and adopted as 'idealistic' the same governmental/authoritarian methods that had created the nightmare. They further disgraced themselves by abandoning the Vietnam veterans, more of whom have committed suicide than were killed in combat.

To this day the sixties left dominates HOLLYWOOD, universities and government. Also to this day the outlook and methods are unrelentingly authoritarian. They see themselves as enlightened defenders of truth in a corrupt money-driven society - but they are arrogant zealots who resort to authority because they would rightly be ignored otherwise.

They will never change - the sixties ended forty years ago. Reagan, an unabashed patriot and libertarian conservative, showed what free markets and the American tradition is capable of, and it seems like not a one of them learned anything at all.

Stuart Koehl| 6.9.11 @ 5:46PM

As historical analysis goes, this is pretty, well, awful.

mzk1| 6.24.11 @ 7:31AM

The second two paragraphs are fine, the first two are nonsense. The way people have lived for 100 years is "repressive"? Viet Nam was a noble attempt that was destroyed by the MSM; the VietNamese themsleves admit this.

Todd Powers| 6.10.11 @ 1:35AM

After the Rush Limbaugh fiasco, an Obama lawyer running the players association, and with Rap "artist" that speak of killing cops owning parts of teams, do what I do:

BOYCOTT THE NFL!!!

I hope they cancel the whole season.

insanity | 6.13.11 @ 10:59AM

good to hear that

weddingdresses | 6.15.11 @ 4:28AM

Article is very interesting,thanks for your sharing.I will visit this site.

mzk1| 6.24.11 @ 7:35AM

One mistake - "It might shock young viewers to watch some shows from the 1950s where the head of the household was always the father, who was usually an intelligent, well-respected man and source of sagely advice and stable love for his wife and kids."

P.S. I've never owned a T.V.

This is false. Leave it to Beaver is a notable exception. In general, since "the Life of Riley", the father was closer to a bumbling idiot, dumber than his kids., somewhat like the The Berstain Bears books). This was a mojor issue in the '60's. The feminists, as usual, reversed everything, claiming that the women were oppressed by being portrayed as too perfect!

mzk1| 6.24.11 @ 7:35AM

Sorry. P.S. Ended up in the middle.

mzk1| 6.24.11 @ 10:23AM

The funniest case is Family Ties. No matter how much they dumped on the conservative brother (talk about bullies!), Alex was the teenage heartthrob.

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