The ratio of sex&nudity vs violence allowed on tv doesnt make sense.

Being from Europe there are sometimes things that are a little hard to understand and that don't make sense. Without taking a stand or a position (or I try to) here are a couple of observations that don't make sense to me.

Incident 1) Wardrobe malfunction at the last super bowl. Janet jackson shows a partly covered nipple to the whole nation. Millions of dollars of fines, interviews, scandals, even the president gets involved. Everybody thinks that's the most terrible thing that has ever happened to america's youth. And so much energy, time and effort goes into handling this issue. Similar reactions can be observed with other areas involving nudity.

Incident 2) I love watching the tv series twenty-four. I am currently watching season 3. There is a scene (primetime tv-time) where the main actor pulls out a chopped off head out of his bag, holds it up while you see the blood dripping from the neck where the head was chopped off - this scene lasts for like 10 seconds. Or then they have multiple scenes where they torture people with knives, drugs, electro shocks, soldering irons etc.

Or I just read that the average 12 year old has wittnessed about 10,000 murders and killings by the time they hit 12.

So here is my question, why is a partly exposed nipple (isnt this where we all started :thinking - or general nudity perceived to be so much worse for our youth or society then for example a chopped off head and extreme violence on tv. There was not even one editorial after that series aired. However the nipple was the main topic of the nation for weeks. How likely is it for a kid to see a chopped off head in real life, or to see torture. And how likely is it for a kid to see a nipple (family)?

Why is that, anyone have an idea? What do you think what is worse?

---
Another thing on the side, I don't get is why can someone be PRO-LIFE but for the Death penalty?

Hope these type of questions are allowed to be discussed.... they kind of venture into religion and nudity areas....

You bring up a good point and I would agree with your statements. Never been a parent but if I think I was one, I certainly would rather have my kids see a little bit of nudity then a lot of the gore that's displayed on TV. If I was a kid and saw some nudity on TV, I might go to bed with fantasies. If I saw extreme violence, I might go to bed with nightmares.;

I have never understood this either. My children were 8 years old before they even knew the TV had more channels than PBS (Public Broadcasting).

I would much rather they see nudity than the extreme violence on most TV shows. Nudity seems perfectly normal to me, but violence is not. It seems that Europeans are more relaxed about nudity, but Americans get very uptight--as you have noted. Not sure if it will ever change...

I blame the Puritans.

I'm probably bothered more by the nudity and sex than I am by the violence. The reason is because often the violence is somewhat relevant to the plot while the sex/nudity is purely gratuitous. Also, the universe is inherently a very viloent place so in a sense I see violence on TV as quite natural. Sex, especially the sex purely for pleasure depicted on TV, is a fairly recent manmade construct. If I were a parent it would concern me more than the violence. A sex scene can give teenagers ideas they might not otherwise have. So can a violent scene I guess. The difference is that it is easier for the teens to play out a sex scene they saw on TV in real life than it would be for them to get an AK-47 and imitate a Terminator movie.

Other than being a concern for parents, I don't really consider sex/violence on TV an issue. The sex scenes more annoy me than offend me, but I'm free to change the channel until they're over. Violence is not a problem at all, but I'm starting to hate the huge, expensive, blow-it-up scenes being stuck in movies now unless they add something to the plot. I still hate gratuitous violence less than gratuitous sex though.

Teenagers get ideas about sex just fine without nudity on TV. Automobiles enabled teenage premarital sex long before TV was commonplace.

It's not convenient for society, but it seems that humans are at their sexual peak shortly after puberty, so it's rather natural to think about or simply jump into sexual relations at that age...

jtr1962 said:

I'm probably bothered more by the nudity and sex than I am by the violence. The reason is because often the violence is somewhat relevant to the plot while the sex/nudity is purely gratuitous. Also, the universe is inherently a very viloent place so in a sense I see violence on TV as quite natural. Sex, especially the sex purely for pleasure depicted on TV, is a fairly recent manmade construct.

Click to expand...

HUH?

Sex without making babies has been around for a few thousand years*. The fact is that sex is one of the primary urges of the human animal. Sex for pleasure has been around as long as mankind. Remeber, not everyone knows that sex creates babies. We have to teach them that. What we don't have to teach them is that sex can be pleasurable.

While the sex is gratutitous, so is the violence. Do we need to see the severed body parts to be told that a person was killed? Do we need to watch the autopsy? No, the story can be told without showing it.

While violence is also natural, It's better for society that we teach our children that violence is bad, and love is good.


Daniel

* Per http://imr.bsd.uchicago.edu/chiefs/History of Medicine/Birth Control_files/v3_document.htm
"Contraceptive History" in 200 AD the greek gynecologist advocated certain salves as birth control.

Which would you rather witness up close and personal, a murder or a nipple?

I think they're trying to slip sex and nudity in a little bit at a time on the major networks. I've seen gratuitous shots of male butts on several shows, but no female butts as yet. I guess they figure that a male butt is less offensive than a female butt. Boy, are they wrong! I'd be far less offended seeing a female butt on my screen. Come to think of it, I might not be offended at all...:wow:

gadget_lover said:

HUH?

Sex without making babies has been around for a few thousand years*. The fact is that sex is one of the primary urges of the human animal. Sex for pleasure has been around as long as mankind.

Click to expand...

Note that I said recent manmade construct while talking about violence always existing in the universe (indeed, the universe even began in a violent bang). Recent in this universal time context could easily mean the last 2,000 or 10,000 or even million years. Still, even a million years is but a blink in the eye compared to how old the earth is.

Sure, violence is starting to get gratuitous also. I attribute that plus the gratutitous sex to a lack of imagination on the part of those in the entertainment industry. That's really the larger problem here. Maybe if people just tuned out this garbage we might get better. Most of what comes out now is remakes of old movies, sequels, or formulaic copies of what was already successful at the box office.

Maybe that's what really bothers me-not the gratuitous sex scenes but just the plain old lack of creativity. It's mostly the same old boring repetition at this point. You've seen one pair of boobs or a butt you've pretty much seen them all. Booooring. And I hate the double standards. If you're going to show female anatomy you might as well have the actors show their penises to please the female half of the audience. Of course, for many actors I'd hazard a guess that it might be a bit of an embarrassment (and require a strong magnifying lens on the camera ).

mobile1,

You are right about there being a sort of moral schizophrenia in American media. I think some of the roots of this come from the current conservative Christian ideology in the States which may influence up to half of the population. One important value is sex only within marriage. This value (whether followed or not) gives resistance to things in American culture and media such as promiscuity and homosexuality. I think they realize that sexuality is integral to our human experience, but they prefer rather that it is hinted at in media and movies rather than portrayed in detail.

I think this ideology is also against unnecessary violence, but wouldn't consider it as much of a corrupting influence. For example, I think conservative American Christianity views violence as necessary for situations like war and law enforcement. I think they are more comfortable with violence being re-enacted in movies when it is in those contexts, though maybe without glorifying it or showing much gore. The violence portrayed in LOTR may be one acceptable example where violence portrayed is in a context of war and people defending their lives. Also Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ for most has acceptable portrayal of violence.

It may be true that parents may let their children watch the superbowl, but not episodes of twenty-four. I think the influence of many of the superbowl commercials probably is just as influencial for undesirable behavior as the Janet Jackson incident, which to me is another paradox. Maybe people just pick the battles they think they can win rather than present a coherant ideology to the American conscience. :shrug:

thanks for this thread mobile1!

i just wonder why it seems easier to find a legitimation to show violence than sex.

i can't figure out while the moral standard of not showing any nudity is held high while you can watch violence at any (day-)time.
i think a child gets more affected by violence than by naked people.

an important issue is imho that you can't protect your child from getting in contact with nudity/porn so it's important to talk about it even if this is embarrasing for the parents (whos parents possibly did not talk about sex also).
i also think the more you hide and mystify nudity the more the kids get interested in, search their own sources (internet porn) and then get a wrong picture of sexuality.

Indeed - Europe is much more relaxed about nudity than the USA. You see the differences not only on TV, but in public saunas, the beaches, unisex changing areas, etc. Sometimes that can exist nudity without it being perverted. I have lived both in the US and Europe - and it seems that the USA thinks nudity=SEX=THEDEVIL!.

I still remember one of the first movies I watched on German TV. I had seen it before - so I was a bit surprised that they edited out the violent scenes, but left the nudity in. Funny huh!

jtr1962 said:

Note that I said recent manmade construct while talking about violence always existing in the universe (indeed, the universe even began in a violent bang). Recent in this universal time context could easily mean the last 2,000 or 10,000 or even million years. Still, even a million years is but a blink in the eye compared to how old the earth is.

Click to expand...

Ooooookaaaay????

If sex for pleasures' sake has been occuraing for all of the span that mankind has existsed, how can you assert that it's recent? I think you are stretching a bit there.

As I type this, I'm reminded that sex for the sake of sex is pervasive among every animal. There is not a single animal (other than man) that understands that sex causes offspring.

Now sex as a spectator sport might or might not be more recent. I suspect that the cavemen did not hide thier activities and I doubt that there is any evidence to show that the cavemen were monogamous. It's just as likely that they were simply opportunistic.

Like the thread title says... The ratio of sex&nudity vs violence allowed on tv doesnt make sense.

Daniel

wow some really cool posts here...with quite a bit of insight - also historical. There are some smart people on cpf, I am impressed

mobile1 said: "Being from Europe...Wardrobe malfunction...Janet jackson...most terrible thing that has ever happened to america's youth...tv series twenty-four....scene (primetime tv-time) where the main actor pulls out a chopped off head out of his bag, holds it up while you see the blood dripping from the neck where the head was chopped off...

I'm from the US but I independently thought the same thing about the same two items you mentioned. So you're not alone

24 is a great show but it's very violent. Yet it's covered by US broadcast standards regulations (unlike cable) since it's broadcast over the airwaves, just like the Super Bowl.

National standards differ for various sociological and historical reasons.

I remember reading an article about the TV show "Highlander", which discussed how it was edited differently for each country. As originally shot it had a fair amount of sex, nudity and violence. In France the sex and nudity was left in but the violence somewhat edited out. In Japan the sex and nudity was edited out but the violence left in. In the US both sex/nudity AND violence was mostly edited out, but the violence was edited less.

Why the differences? Because of varying national standards based on sociological, cultural and historical factors. I agree it's illogical, but there you have it.

America always had strong Christian right wing beliefs about nudity, abortion in the past century. There was a nudity law passed in the congress a long time ago which forbid hollywood from showing nudity on film or TV.

The prudish law might seem silly for us in modern time but the issue was considered to be extremely serious in early time. Hollywood studios didn't dare to challenge the christian right wing groups back then.

For starters the show 24 runs disclaimers about violence.

The NFL doesnt run disclaimers about nipples.

Capiche?

DarkLight said:

For starters the show 24 runs disclaimers about violence.
The NFL doesnt run disclaimers about nipples.

Click to expand...

24 is a taped show where the content is known before broadcast. The content producers have total control over every tiny element. So the violence is intentional, premeditated and choreographed in every detail.

The Superbowl is a live show. A player could graphically break his femur at 90 degrees , a girl in the crowd could flash the camera or run naked into the field -- the producers cannot predict or control what happens on a live show or have disclaimers about every possible event.