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CNN Live At Daybreak

What America is Watching

Aired August 01, 2001 - 08:11   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: There's lots of debate over what you hear and see on television, not just in television news but in the programs that you watch.

The Parents Television Council says this television season has a lot more course language and violence in it. It's a study that's going to come out later today. And in that study, it also finds there's less sexual material, at least between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m.

For more on our television habits, good and bad, we are joined now by Robert Thompson. He is with Syracuse University and the Center for the Study of Popular Television.

Mr. Thompson, thanks for being here.

ROBERT THOMPSON, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY: Thank you.

MCEDWARDS: Well, the group that is doing this study today is a group that does prefer, as you know, programs that are free of gratuitous sex and violence and really takes issue with that coarse language thing. It has cited "South Park" for example a number of times, particularly that episode with the "s" word in it.

You study this stuff, but I understand you don't think that one was necessarily gratuitous.

THOMPSON: Well, actually that "South Park," that particular episode with the "s" word was probably the most articulate, intelligent essay on obscenity and language on television than I have heard anywhere -- from academics, from journalists anywhere else. If you actually sat down and watched that show, it really asks a lot of good questions and made one think good things about -- interesting things about it. So that particular show, I didn't have a problem with at all.

On the other hand, the "s" word was uttered 164 times, and one can understand that the Parents Television Council wouldn't like that regardless of how probing it might have been.

MCEDWARDS: Yes, does the culture need that kind of expression, do you think?

THOMPSON: Well, I don't know. In this particular case, I think what happened -- remember when you were a little kid, you would say your own name 100 times in a row, and it would cease to have all meaning or any other word. What that "South Park" episode did was it said the "s" word so many times that by the end of it, anything it meant, any power it had, had kind of flown off into deep space.

And maybe that's exactly what we need to start thinking. These aren't bullets. These aren't knives. These are words. They are syllables. And it's a little different than some of the racial epitaphs, which carry much other political and cultural hurt and the violence and the rest of it. In the end, these are just words.

MCEDWARDS: But isn't the point, though, isn't part of the point that there is so much of it out there. And whether you're talking about the words, or whether you're talking about the violent images, there is so much that when you hear it over and over again, people get sort of anesthetized by it. They get kind of immune to it.

THOMPSON: Yes, anesthetized to violence is one thing. I think anesthetized to words is not a real big deal.

MCEDWARDS: Right.

THOMPSON: We have to also think about some other things, and I don't mean to defend I don't think we should have more swearing on television or more violence by any means. But for many, many years, really up into 1970 with the appearance of "All in the Family" and even into the mid-60s, we had such a utopian world. There was not only not premarital sex, there wasn't marital sex -- husbands and wives in separate beds.

I'm not sure that the portrayal of a sexless America showing kids parents who have absolutely no physical relationship or romantic or erotic connection is that in some ways wasn't almost as perverse as the other extreme that we're going through now.

MCEDWARDS: Well, then you get to the 70s, though, you get shows like "Fantasy Island," you get...

THOMPSON: Right.

MCEDWARDS: ... you know, "Charlie's Angels," that kind of stuff. What happened there?

THOMPSON: Well, once "All in the Family" comes out and kind of opens the floodgates, then everybody realized that this stuff could do very, very well, that they wouldn't get that many complaints. And by the mid-70s, of course, that was called the T&A era for that kind of presentation.

MCEDWARDS: Right.

THOMPSON: It's interesting how all of the groundbreaking stuff for language, sex and violence tends to start on really classy, critically-acclaimed shows -- "Hill Street Blues," "The Sopranos," "NYPD Blue." And then the toxic waste begins to filter in when the real estate that those good shows opened is then settled by such not -- not such good shows. MCEDWARDS: Right. So if there is a sort of incremental upping of the ante going on here, where does television go in the future?

THOMPSON: Well, I think you watch an episode of "The Sopranos" or "Oz" on HBO. I'm not sure there's much more to go. I don't know any other bad words that the haven't already uttered on there, and the violence is pretty intense as well.

As for the call for family viewing hour from 8:00 to 9:00, you know, kids watch a lot of television besides 8:00 to 9:00. And they tried to do that by policy back in the 70s, and the courts struck it down. But to suggest that the networks think a little bit about their public and serving that public, I don't think it's such a bad idea to put in the ear of networks and even cable broadcasters that maybe for an hour you might have what they are calling a safe harbor and be a little careful about what you put on the air.

MCEDWARDS: All right. Robert Thompson, thanks for your thoughts today -- appreciate it.

THOMPSON: Thank you.

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