Insignificance of Profanity on Television in His

¶ … Insignificance of Profanity on Television In his New York Times article entitled "More than Ever, You Can Say that on Television" (November 13, 2009), author Edward Wyatt considers the issue of vulgar language in modern media entertainment, in television in particular. According to Wyatt, the frequency of offensive language and imagery on television has continually increased ever since the notorious Supreme Court decision in 1978 involving George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine.

That is mainly because television media producers have been largely self-regulated in that respect ever since a United States District Court in California struck down the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) "family hour" policy in 1976. The author interviewed a wide variety of sources for the article representing diametrically opposite positions on the issue. According to the view espoused by the conservative groups such as the Parents' Television Council, dirty language on television influences children in ways that are extremely detrimental to them.

They argue that television broadcast during the traditional "family hours" of the early evening should avoid indelicate language. Meanwhile, the heads of major media companies and various other media industry figures suggest that television is no longer consumed the way that is used to be within families and no longer plays the same role it may once have in connection with influences on children.

One executive producer of a major network crime drama points out that it no longer makes sense to regulate language on network television to avoid profanity simply because nowadays, children have 'round-the-clock access to other forms of entertainment (such as cable television) where they are exposed to profanity at all times of the day and night and without regulation once parents have made the decision to pay for cable television in the home.

Moreover, children now have continuous and largely unrestricted access to entertainment media that is unregulated for language through the online medium, making any highly restrictive approach to television content virtually pointless. My personal experiences have been more consistent with the views of the crime drama producer than with the conservative groups opposed to vulgar language on television. First, with respect to the notion of disrupting quality family time, it is obviously no longer the case that families have only one television or that they watch the same programs together.

Today, most middle class adolescents have their own televisions in their bedrooms. Second, in my experience, children of all ages are more likely to learn profanity from their peers than they are to learn it from television content. Third, it seems hypocritical to enforce such strict standards on television entertainment when, frankly, profanity is obviously no longer as socially unacceptable as it may once have been, given how often adults use it in many contexts. Considering what U.S.

Vice President Joe Biden was heard to whisper to the President after the historic signing of the Affordable Care Act into law and in light of the well-known propensity of former Obama administration Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to curse constantly, it does.