11.22
There is an article out today talking about Steven Spielberg’s comments during the Emmy’s board meeting. He mentions something that has been a constant annoyance of mine. It’s the showing of greusome or explicit commercials for television shows during normal TV hours and programs. I don’t want my kids seeing a trailer for CSI where some child get’s kidnapped and murdered right in the middle of a Monday Night football commercial break. It’s too hard to police things like that. By the time you have crossed the room to cover your child’s eyes the commercial is nearly over and they have seen some corpse laying on the ground all flayed open. It’s terrible. To me, it’s every bit as bad as seeing Janet Jackson exposing herself during a halftime show. You tune in for one thing and you get something else. It’s a bait and switch.
And before you liberal whiney-babies start e-mailing me with the typical “just change the channel if you don’t like it” garbage, it’s impossible to realize, react, put down the dishes, dry off your hands, cross the room, grab the remote and change the channel in time to keep them from seeing it. And don’t tell me “it’s your responsibility to police your kid’s TV watching” either. We DO police our children’s television time. More than most I assure you. But I shouldn’t have to velcro a remote control to my arm just in case CBS decides to show some nasty show’s trailer during the 2:30 college football game broadcast. To me that is just irresponsible programming, and it’s tiresome. I shouldn’t have to be concerned that my kid will get nightmares from me watching a football game.
I’m a big time TV nut. I love a good TV series as much or more than a good movie, and I love watching football just as much. But there is no V-chip for commercials. At least movie previews get ratings. Why not television previews. Sometimes I just turn the TV off altogether because it gets to be too much of a hassle to police it during shows and times where no policing should be necessary. And I’m sure that’s not what networks want to happen.
