PTC responds to last night's Gossip Girl

Tim Winter, president of the Parents Television Council, responded to last night's controversial episode of The CW's Gossip Girl:

LOS ANGELES (November 10, 2009) – The Parents Television Council® issued a statement in reaction to the teen-targeted “Gossip Girl” episode that aired on Nov. 9. The CW Network’s own promotions indicated that major characters would be featured in a sexual threesome. “Gossip Girl” airs at 9 pm ET/PT and 8 pm CT/MT.

“Though there was no explicit sex scene on last night’s episode, the CW Network’s behavior was grossly irresponsible by adding a story line where a sexual threesome was to be celebrated as some sort of ‘rite of passage’ for teenagers. The network inserted this story line into a program that they themselves deem to be appropriate for 14-year-old children based on its content rating,” said PTC President Tim Winter.

“CW has stated that last night’s episode is not the end of the story, teasing next week’s ‘Gossip Girl’ episode as continuing the ‘threesome’ storyline. And the network’s claim that it isn’t trying to reach impressionable teenagers falls flat given that their own press release from September 2009 touts the fact that ‘Gossip Girl’ won in the ratings among women ages 12-34, and that when ‘Gossip Girl’ is paired with ‘One Tree Hill,’ these shows during the 8-10 pm block have finished first with females 12-34 and female teens.

“Advertisements for ‘Gossip Girl’ have heavily featured themes and wording that only move minors to view the program, such as ‘Every Parent’s Nightmare.’ Such marketing tactics clearly appeal to teens, not adult women. Also, ‘Gossip Girl’ creator Josh Schwartz has boasted, ‘I can honestly say that I don’t check the ratings after the show airs,’ because he knows that a vast majority of his viewers – tech-savvy teens – are watching the program online.

“Advertisers and CW affiliates still need to be on guard. CW affiliates have told the PTC that the network did not afford them an opportunity to pre-screen the program. We urge each affiliate to evaluate the content within the scope of their broadcast license that was loaned to them in return for serving the public interest.”

I searched on Google and cannot find any other source than this press release that quotes Schwartz as saying that he does not look up his show's ratings. And apparently, the PTC thinks that 14-year-olds are still not mature enough to hear about threesomes on TV. Winter also misrepresented the plot of this episode: The characters are in college (which he does not acknowledge at all in this release nor on the earlier one demanding that CW stations pre-empt last night's ep), so that supposed "rite of passage" might not technically take place (at least in the fictional world of Gossip Girl) during the characters' teenage years.

But as far as 14-year-olds and such edgy shows as Gossip Girl indicate, it just shows another one of PTC's silly strawman arguments that kids still need their innocence until they get out of high school...perhaps the reason why they recommend that children under 18 not be allowed to watch it at all? (Most episodes have been rated TV-14, which means basically my previous statement only replace 18 with 14, and a few I believe were rated TV-PG-DLS or whatever if the content was light. TV-PG is for parental guidance suggested.)

As I noted earlier, Time magazine television critic James Poniewoznik has a rebuttal to PTC's archaic ideology that is so much more compassionate and rhetorically respectful than the PTC's political agenda-driven language. This is from his blog where he responded to PTC criticizing the TV-14 rating of AMC's Mad Men as too light:

Now, the thing is, I actually think the PTC has several points. Yeah, I probably would not screen the show for an average 14-year-old...But would I show Mad Men to a mature 14-year-old? One who was, say, already reading the kind of adult literary fiction that Mad Men mirrors? Yes.

And as I said earlier:

In America, there are teenagers whose parents want to keep pure and innocent until age 18, I won't deny that. Just as there are Gossip Girl type teens who are well-cultured and know the dangers of the world around them and whose parents are willing to discuss the birds n' the bees. This criticism isn't surprising given that PTC feels that there have been cases in broadcast TV also where TV-14 has been too weak.

Parents Television Council's mission to block tonight's Gossip Girl sort of worked

According to this Twitter post by Ego Salon & Studio in Chattanooga, TN, the local CW affiliate there pre-empted tonight's controversial episode of Gossip Girl. The episode, titled "They Shoot Humphreys, Don't They?" and rated TV-14-LS, reportedly will contain a scene of a threesome between three of the college-aged characters. The show premiered in September 2007, and during its first two seasons focused on the lives of upper-class New York City prep school students. This season the students have begun their college lives in the Ivy League and other big-name universities like New York University.

Well I'm not sure what to say about The CW Chattanooga bowing down to the PTC. And apparently the CW was NOT joking about the "3some" that it printed in the promotional posters for tonight's episode. Twitter was EXPLODING around 9:50PM Eastern Time (the show currently airs Mondays at 9PM Eastern/Pacific, 8PM Central/Mountain, opposite CBS's nearly-as-risque sitcom Two and a Half Men and Fox's crime drama Lie to Me). They varied from: "disappointment", "not the 3some that I saw coming", "why can't I stop laughing", "SO WEIRD!", "hot", "don't do it", "didn't see that coming", "The CW is risque", "got me steamy", "WTF", "NOFAIR!", "not as cool as I hoped", "WHAT IS GOING ON?", "EPIC", "my dream 3some", and "whole lotta yuck". In real standard English, viewers were disappointed, shocked, amazed, and disgusted all at once. One Tweeter I noticed remarked: "I could've sworn it was Jenny havin the 3some". Well that's a lie. As far as I know Jenny Humphrey (younger sister of Dan Humphrey in the TV show) is still in high school as of this season, and if CW really had Jenny on, the network would've straight-up pre-empted this episode nationwide.

Still, the best words of wisdom came from the Ego Salon & Studio: "If you don't want your child watch[ing] a 3some episode turn it. But don't sensor (sic) it." I agree. Why is PTC singling out Gossip Girl when tonight's Two and a Half Men episode has a plot CENTERED around the two main characters in bed with a woman? Doesn't PTC think that sort of plot is much MORE harmful to teenagers than a mere scene of three-way sex within a more general and tasteful plot?

Gossip Girl has now made its mark as having one of TV's most controversial moments. Back in 1971, CBS's sitcom All in the Family made headlines for including the sound of a toilet flushing. (That episode was "Success Story", from its first season). Despite that, All in the Family went one to become America's favorite show during much of the early- and mid-70s. In 1991, L.A. Law (at the time a 10PM Thursday legal drama on NBC) broadcast the first-ever lesbian kiss on primetime TV (that episode apparently aired 20 days before I was born!) (Wikipedia expands on this.) And later we've had NYPD Blue (ABC cop drama, another 10PM show) showing male and female buttocks, but in 2008 the FCC managed to fine ABC over a 2003 episode of Blue ("Nude Awakening") that depicted a woman character's buttocks for a few seconds. The indecent moment on TV that most likely explains why you can't ever heard words like "f--k" and "s--t" on broadcast networks or you need to shell out a bunch of money to watch Entourage on HBO is the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show, broadcast on CBS in 2004. Performer Justin Timberlake ripped off part of co-performer Janet Jackson's costume, exposing her breast (covered by a nipple shield) for just over half a second. Nonetheless, the PTC raised hell over that, and by September the FCC fined CBS nearly half a million dollars. A federal appeals court overturned the fine, but the US Supreme Court ordered the appeals court to reconsider. There's always been something on TV for the nation to raise a fuss over. From hearing a toilet flush on a sitcom in the early 70s to women kissing each other in the 90s and then the numerous sex scenes mirroring people's daily lives to the accidental exposure of undesirable body parts . And now a show aimed towards teens and young adults daring to show three-way sex. Tomorrow, we'll see what the reaction of the PTC and the future cultural impact.