24 September 2011

PTC may not advocate censorship per se, but its tactics seem intimidating

swinging by its "Worst Cable Show of the Week" page I noticed in honor of the final season of FX's Rescue Me PTC decided rather than review the episode to write a review of moments from episodes of the show...all the examples were from 2006! (Rescue Me ran from 2004-2011.) PTC concludes: "Sadly, the industry seems resigned to forcing customers to pay for programming whether they watch it or not; but such customers can at least rejoice that, however many offensive programs they are supporting, at least Rescue Me is no longer among them." PTC uses that talking point over and over again in its reviews but seldom considered how people who view Rescue Me are subsidizing programming on Disney Channel or Nickelodeon that PTC would otherwise support? I've been monitoring the PTC since 2006 and now conclude that PTC is an intimidation organization that would rather stick to archaic, fundamentalist religious, authoritarian values and create a generation of unthinking zombie children who choose the bible over reason. I mean there's a reason why PTC would rather take the side of religion than a secular POV. This attitude regarding casual sex has been true of the PTC back in its founding in 1995 and now: it reviewed NBC's new show Friends with Benefits worst TV show of the week recently. Not only did PTC attack that show (which I haven't had time to watch, and I personally have little time to watch anything other than news and sports now that the new semester has begun) also PTC attacked other NBC shows Whitney and Free Agents:

As the new fall television season approaches, a preview of NBC’s upcoming sitcoms reveals its strategy for crawling out of fourth place: sex, sex, and more sex. Whitney – produced by and starring raunchy female comic Whitney Cummings, a staple of Comedy Central’s roasts – asserts the futility of marriage and the boredom of monogamy. The show Free Agents pairs a newly-divorced man with his newly-widowed female co-worker for obligation-free, clandestine sex. Over on the dramatic side of programming, the new show The Playboy Club instantly courts controversy with its name alone.

Again with PTC's one sided reviews, PTC didn't consider NBC's Parenthood or Up All Night that do cast two-parent families as main characters and in fact Up All Night is about two parents raising a newborn baby. And The Office characters Jim and Pam? If PTC really wants TV to be sanitized and friendly to "traditional values" as it wants why doesn't PTC try to attack society first? Maybe it's because nowadays more and more people know better than to be obsessively shame-fearing judgemental prudes. For example, since the 2000s more people choose not to be religious. In fact, the type of society that PTC would advocate would be Biblical or with Sharia Law if premarital/casual sex were to be a bad thing.

PS: In PTC's review of the Comedy Central roast of Charlie Sheen, PTC seems to assert that Comedy Central deliberately targeted teenagers by rating the pre-show TV-14-L but didn't point out that the actual show was rated TV-MA. A content rating doesn't indicate target audience!

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