People Who Are Just Like You

There’s an old saying: some days you’re the pigeon and some days you’re the statue. I would add to that quip that some days you’re the person tasked with cleaning the statue!

I seem to be having a lot of those days lately, trying to keep the statue clean. It can be easy to become discouraged. But with such an important mission as the PTC’s, the stakes are simply too high to become fatigued with what often feels like an endless fight.

The truth is that forces in Hollywood want us to become fatigued. They are counting on us to give up, so that they can have unfettered, unchallenged and unrestrained influence over the hearts and minds of our most innocent children and grandchildren.

I write you today as I usually do from the PTC’s headquarters in Burbank, California – just down the street from the biggest studios in Hollywood and from the television networks that beam their signals across the nation. But rather than seeking your signature on a petition, and rather than seeking your charitable financial support to underwrite the PTC’s core operations, I am asking you for something entirely different.

I’m asking you to help me to double the size of the PTC’s ranks. We need more boots on the ground, more points of light across the nation, more voices in our choir. If you can help us with your philanthropic giving, of course I would be personally and profoundly grateful, and you can do so by clicking here.

But what I need most from you today is for you to share our mission and vision with someone who shares YOUR values on the impact Hollywood is having on innocent children.

If each person who receives this message today were to bring one new person – a friend or a family member who is just as concerned as YOU are about the harmful influence of a toxic media environment – I would literally be able to double the size of our militia. And that would give me twice the influence, twice the power, twice the impact, when I speak with those in a position to make things better.

Please share this message with people in your circle whom you trust will agree with the PTC’s mission and vision. Ask them to sign up for our weekly email messages so that they can become armed with the information and the advocacy tools to push back against the darkest forces in Hollywood.

Some very dear friends of mine in northern California – both longtime PTC benefactors who are also parents and grandparents – recently sent me an article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. The article, which you can read here, is a clear example of the mentality (or lack thereof) that we are battling every day.

The article rightfully promotes as teen-friendly the streaming episodes of NBC’s old program Fame. Back in 1982-1983 when original episodes of Fame were airing on NBC, I was a young twenty-something who was proudly working at the peacock television network. My next-door-neighbor at the time – TV industry legend Marc Daniels – even received an Emmy nomination for directing Fame, which featured talented young performers dealing with serious life-issues. But the program always – ALWAYS – presented those issues in positive, powerful and respectful ways.

Sadly, the Chronicle article equates that inspiring 1980s television program with current – and very poisonous – programs like Euphoria, Riverdale
and 13 Reasons Why.

If you’ve been a PTC member for more than a year or two, you already know that Euphoria sexualizes children, depicts children trading sex with adults for drugs, and presents child characters with full-frontal nudity; you already know that Riverdale – based on the old Archie’s cartoon – shows Archie in the back seat of his car having sex with his school teacher; and you already know that 13 Reasons Why was directly linked to a spike in teen suicides across America.

The Chronicle article is, sadly, a perfect example of the twisted mentality in Hollywood that we’re working tirelessly to heal. Its author, who seems incapable of distinguishing uplifting and inspiring programming from cultural poison, is today’s pigeon on the statue.

That’s where you come in. Please help me.

The PTC has programs in place to educate and inform parents about harmful programming. We produce groundbreaking research that helps parents to be better parents, and that same research helps us to fuel our fierce grassroots advocacy for which the PTC is famous. Those who produce and distribute harmful programming must be held publicly to account. Those with regulatory and governmental oversight must enforce the laws that already exist. And where those laws need to be brought current with the times, our voice must be heard on Capitol Hill.

Please help me to grow our ranks with people who, like you, are like-minded with our mission. Please share this message with your friends, your family, with anyone who shares your values.