Tag Archives: television shows

Parents Television Council Wants Advertisers to Boycott Sh**T my Dad Says

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The world as we know it is crumbling:  a primetime TV show, Sh*t My Dad Says, is using an expletive in its title, and the Parents Television Council is none too pleased.  They are calling for an all-out boycott from advertisers, viewers, and would-be advertisers of the show:

“The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use; yet CBS decided to use the ‘s-word’ in the title of this show, putting its blatant contempt for children and families front and center,” said PTC president Tim Winter. “Unless or until CBS chooses a different title for this program, we are urging advertisers to avoid sponsoring such an abomination purported to be lighthearted fun. The advertisers have two options. Either they can be complicit in the effort to serve up excrement in front of children and families, or they can choose not to associate their products and services with excrement.”

Uh, maybe the PTC should …

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CBS Receives a Flunking Grade From GLAAD

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After receiving a flunking grade from GLAAD for the lack of LGBT representation on their network, CBS has finally decided to throw some gays into the mix.  When I say throw, I literally mean throw.  The outcome: random gay characters written into clichéd roles.

This is the second year in a row that CBS has flunked GLAAD’s responsibility index.  The group’s index studies networks for diversity and inclusion of LGBT characters, and CBS received the lowest grade out of all major networks, scoring a lowly 7%, which was largely thanks to its reality programming.

“For several years,” GLAAD said in the study, CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler “has publicly promised greater LGBT-inclusion in scripted programming and has consistently failed to deliver.”

In response, Tassler was quoted as saying, “We’re disappointed in our track record so far, [and] we’re not happy with ourselves.”

As a result, CBS has responded by hastily penciling in three gay characters to their upcoming fall line-up.   The highly-rated …

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Violence Against Women = The New Black?

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photo of woman injured and murdered in america's next top model photoshoot

I’m not ashamed to admit it; I like watching trashy TV. My housemate finds this hilarious – I’m an English Literature graduate and it amuses her how I intersperse reading classical literature with watching The Hills.

I recently watched an episode of America’s Next Top Model (which, here in the UK gets shown sporadically and well after the show airs in the USA) – and found it interesting viewing. The episode featured a fashion shoot where contestants posed as crime scene victims who had been strangled, stabbed, shot or decapitated. The girls were dressed in fabulous couture, their bodies bent to simulate the awkward angles of women who had suffered violent deaths. You can see the photos from the show here.

Art is a great thing. So is art that shocks. But photo shoots like these can be seen to glamorise violence against women – and they’re becoming more common. The America’s Next Top Model shoot certainly isn’t the only one of this kind – remember these recent photos of Lindsay Lohan with a gun pointed at her face?

I suppose we have to ask how this type of imagery comes across to the viewing public – are these ‘artsy’ violent images seen as something sexy, something beautiful? Even if not, are we becoming desensitised to this sort of image? It’s concerning to think that this type of imagery may already be considered ‘mainstream’ and have ceased to shock. One thing’s for sure – the commenters on the Lindsay Lohan photos certainly seemed to like them …

Violence against any gender is a serious issue that needs to be taken as such – and I don’t think there’s anything beautiful about these depictions of violence – even if they are dressed up in a peephole bra, or this season’s Chanel. What do you guys think? Are these photos dressing up the abuse of women, something that happens every day to women from all walks of life, as something beautiful, or are they just art?



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