TV isn’t what it used to be

I’ve fallen out of love with watching television. Television and I now have a strained relationship these days. I’ve grown so disgusted with what’s provided for our viewing pleasure that I am finding myself watching less and less of television. Don’t get me wrong, I still have my “must-see” television shows like “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation“; “ER“; “Criminal Minds”; and “Medium” (we tape them and watch as time allows). And of course, being a Spurs fan, at the very least I will watch most Spurs basketball games, and a few other NBA games (but I get sick of seeing the hated Lakers and Cavaliers so much,…don‘t get me started on that). If time permits, I’ll watch some of the other usual suspects (college basketball and football; and pro football). But overall I’ve fallen out of love of watching television.

There are many reasons for my current distaste of watching tv. For one, there’s far too much emphasis on bad behavior, and bad taste, especially in commercials. I have never liked commercials to begin with and I probably never will. Like many people, as soon as a commercial break comes on (no matter what I’m watching) I either get up and go do something until the show comes back, or worse, I will surf the channels looking for something better until my show returns. If I see one more erectile dysfunction commercial I think my head will explode. Do we really need to know that information? Wouldn’t one’s doctor be the one to suggest that? And then there’s beer commercials. For me, it used to be, ok I may not partake in alcohol but at least many of the beer commercials were “cute” or funny. Now, after all these years of being fed the big lies I can’t stand it. I especially get disgusted whenever I hear the, “be sure to drink responsibly” at the end of any alcohol commercial. Like that’s even remotely possible for a human being to do once that first sip has crossed the lips. Give me a break! It harkens back to the big lies of cigarette commercials…thank God they are gone from television.

Secondly, my distaste for much of television stems from the “sexing” of the shows and commercials. There is far too much skin (especially cleavage) being advertised. I’m no prude but come on! Far too much of the female body is being brought into my living room. I was flipping channels one night and I landed on “Saving Grace” and there was the lead actress literally naked! She was laid out on a bed, face down, in hand cuffs and the camera gave us the full length view. It was probably 9:30 or 10:00 p.m. and I don’t think all kids under, let’s say, 12 were in bed. Unfortunately we all know that our kids television watching for the most part isn’t supervised. And even if it was how many in our society would have had our kids turn it off after seeing that? On that particular show (which I don’t watch regularly but have spent some moments checking it out) the language is very, very vulgar in addition to the nudity, drug use, and sleazy content in general. I ask, what are we doing to our children? Could we be telling them in subtle terms that if it’s on television it must be true and this is how one is expected to act?

And lastly, I think that we’ve truly seen one of the signs that we’re in the last days of our existence – the so called “reality shows”. These shows are especially awful, and dangerous. From junk like “the real world”, “Cheaters”,and “the flavor of love” (this one is especially gross) it’s all trash and not worthy of our viewing in my opinion. Again I ask, what are we doing to our kids by allowing this trash on the television? To me it seems that we are telling our kids it’s ok to be sleazy, sex-addicted, loose-living, self-centered, bratty, spoiled, trash-talking morons on national television. I would imagine that much of this trash is staged and not even close to real (at least I pray that that is true) but we are promoting those behaviors by having it on television.

As I was saying, I’ve fallen out of love of television.