NY Post: The Family Hour Is Dead

Naomi Schaefer Riley has an excellent piece over at the NY Post, highlighting some of the vulgarities masquerading as “family shows.”

“Mom” has its humorous moments, but this is one “family” sitcom you’d never watch with your family. And it’s hardly alone. The premiere of “The Millers” last year included an extended conversation about masturbating in the shower. Last week on “Black-ish,” which has been billed as the next “Cosby Show,” the mom suggested that the dad “ride the underground railroad” while she pointed emphatically at her private parts. I have a hard time imagining Clair Huxtable saying that to Cliff.

Sadly, Riley’s take is accurate and this is just a small taste of some of what we’re seeing in the new fall season of television. However, as my colleague Christopher Gildemeister pointed out last week, the issue isn’t merely that this type of content exists, it’s that it has a long-term negative impact on those who consume it. New social science demonstrates this fact – a fact that parents and families, moms and dads, know instinctively. Riley continued:

So you have had a at least two generations of kids who have grown up with declining standards of what’s appropriate. And they are now raising kids with almost no standards at all when it comes to media consumption. The Family Hour, already endangered, is now well and truly dead. There are no limits to the “flexibility” of the actors, not to mention the producers and even the network executives today. And we’re all the worse for it.

And this is exactly why the PTC exists. To stand in the gap for you and your family, and help protect them from an entertainment culture that seems bent on always breaking the next taboo instead of merely entertaining and educating.