The Parents Television Council Honors Buffy again!

[Salix]

As far as kids watching Buffy and Angel... mine are 11 and 13 and I have no problem letting them watch. They know it's a TV show. If the violence is too graphic they look away. I do that sometimes in movies. Generally there's a chorus of "icky, oooo..." when any sexy parts arise. And anytime Buffy and Riley even just kissed. They think Willow and Tara are a sweet couple and don't care it's a same sex relationship. (Thank the God and Goddess they have learned tolerance. They get really frustrated with the kids at school though.)

But what do I know, I let my kids watch Dogma. They begged to watch Scary Movie until I said, "fine, you asked for it". They haven't asked to see anything R since. But I'd rather let them see something inappropriate and then talk about it than have them ignorant of the world at large. A lot of the really mature stuff goes over their head. (Probably not as much as I'd like, though.)

S

[Forrister]

I read this and laughed so much I nearly fell off my chair! And the funniest thing of all is that these people are really serious! They have no idea of the comedy potential they're generating.

I don't have kids but I've helped run a number of kids camps. I agree with the idea that Buffy is not a kids show, but I really don't think you can say that a kid has to be any set age before they can watch it. Kids vary so much in what they like and the ideas they can handle. I think it is the responsibility and duty of the parent to consider their child and make an informed decision on their TV viewing habits (and their reading habits, and their internet habits as well for that matter!) I also think that when children are of a maturity to begin to explore new ideas that parents should respect their choices and guide them rather than censor the idea because it doesn't happen to fit in with their own view of the world.

Quod licet Iovi non licet Bovi.
(What's good for the goose is not good for the gander.)

[WiccanBex]

i kinda... relaxed... when it comes to what i'd let my kids watch on tv. of course, i don't have any, and not planning on it until i feel mature enough to stop refering to myself as a kid...

but my mother never really stopped me watching anything... didn't do me any harm...although, i fondly remember the lectures mother dearest used to give me:

"this is a TV show. it is not reality... things like that could never happen in real life..."

and the slightly less fluffy:

"i catch you doing anything like that and i'll rip your teeth out one by one!"

it worked - i'm a well-adjusted human being... with a crippling fear of the dentist...

[Thespia]

"Sabrina the Teenage Witch" is mentioned by this group as one of the ten most family-friendly TV shows. They say it values the importance of loyalty in friendship and family. Well, to me, BtVS is completely based on that.

I think that BtVS is one of those shows that can be watched by children if parents have the time, the will and the good sense of discussing about it with them to make sure the fantasy-reality thing is clear enough. Regarding 'sexathons', there hasn't been much of that in season 5. And besides, I really believe that BtVS reveals more caring about loyalty in friendship and family than most TV shows on air.

Furthermore, this group is completely homophobic, and I do not think that homophobia is "family-friendly".

Slightly OT, now: Shadowcat, I watched Land of the Lost too and those Sleestaks (is that the correct speling???) simply terrified me... I believe I even had nightmares about them. And I just loved to watch it.

[This message has been edited by Thespia (edited September 01, 2001).]

[Cipher]

quote:

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Originally posted by xita:
"In addition, homosexual undercurrents manifested between Willow and a fellow Wicca practitioner."

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Ok, "undercurrents"? They must not have screened New Moon Rising. Up to that point I could see calling it "undercurrents", but it came out to the surface at the end of NMR! (That was such a beautiful scene, too! I always have to watch it a few times in a row when I rewatch that episode.)

BTW, DISASTERAREA, I agree with the having-difficulty-breathing from laughing at their absurdity, but could you please try not to type such long lines without any spaces? It forces the table wider than my browser window is sized to (deliberately less than full-screen) and makes me have to horizontally scroll when reading most of the first-page posts. Maybe you could edit it to put spaces around the ( ) so the lines will break up reasonably? Thanks.

They obviously screened Where the Wild Things Are, Who Are You, and (I think) the earlier episode when Anya first sleeps with Xander (can't think of any other "implied nudity" from season 4--Implied nudity is a problem? Because people never take their clothes off in real life... ). They also apparently have a reference to the ice cream truck scene in Restless (W/T in Xander's dream). And I wonder if the "kinky sex" reference is about the "spanking" lines (in Doomed?) From this season they apparently screened Crush and Intervention (though strangely they had nothing to say about the somewhat graphic torture scenes).

I guess they missed The Body (not enough violence for them to bother with?), because I can't believe these people would fail to mention the kiss in a derogatory way had they known about it. I think you folks may be giving them too much credit for their appearing to back off on the homophobia this year. They obviously don't watch the entire series and only comment on the stuff they are aware of. Though, to be fair, they show a still of "the kiss" from Friends and yet say nothing about it. Too bad they didn't have a still of the W/T kiss with their listing for Buffy!

It's rather annoying that they fail to mention the rating (are BtVS and Ats TVPG or TV14, or one of each?) and target-audience (eg. the warning at the start of each airing). They seem to have no sense of proportion or context. They miss the fact that vampires are obviously evil and so do evil things (which sensible people who are aware of this context would then hopefully tend not to emulate) and are targeted for destruction by the heroes (Angel setting Darla and Dru on fire).

They also miss that most of the "mistakes" made by the characters (such as most of Buffy's sex life) are shown to have negative consequences (Angel turns evil, Poop-head was a jerk, B/R excessive sex unleashes poltergeists). And for other shows also they mention teen-adult issues dealt with on the shows as if dealing with such issues (and thus teaching life-lessons) is harmful!

quote:

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Originally posted by Salix:
But I'd rather let them see something inappropriate and then talk about
it than have them ignorant of the world at large.

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That is exactly the right approach (it seems to me). I would think if kids are old enough to be interested in the content that it would generally be appropriate to let them watch it ... provided parents watch and discuss it with them so that kids get the right message from it. Hasn't it been shown that trying to hide such issues from adolescents just makes them more messed up? There may be an age or maturity level at which such discussions aren't necessary (especially if earlier discussions find the kids are absorbing the issues maturely on their own), and there can certainly be material that might not be appropriate for teens/adolescents even with discussion (not generally allowed on broadcast TV), but I don't think there's any of that on Buffy.

BTW, check out what they have to say about Popular.... Oh horrors, a pamphlet! I've only seen one episode (which was actually rather impressive), but I'm going to have to see if I can add it to my viewing schedule as it sounds like a pretty decent show (and if it can get them that worked up about it...).quote:quote:

[Dr.G]

That undercurrent comment was made last year, I don't know if it was pre or post NMR. It sounds to me like they were trying to avoid sounding homophobic, without much success.

I will never understand where they are coming from or their logic, there doesn't seem to be any, and I really wonder how they manage to reproduce.

Btw Cipher, how small is your browser window? I don't have mine full size, but I did not have to scroll horizontally.

[Cipher]

It's about half the width of the screen, but it's also on Unix so it's hard to compare (fonts are smaller on Unix so the text first better at the smaller size). Also if you're using IE, it might break lines at certain punctuation even without a space (or just force a break when a word is simply too long for the configured width) where Netscape chooses not to do that.