My buddy, Erin, has started a cool new blog aimed at educating parents about the impact of marketing and media on children. She's done a series of blog posts on FOX TV, which shows ads for The Family Guy during episodes of The Simpsons.
I was sitting down to watch the new episode [of the Simpsons] with my boys last night,
and before it started, there was a promo for Family Guy in which the
mother is dressed in a dominatrix costume, holding a whip, and the
weird little old man baby is strung up by wrists and ankles in his
diaper. So now there's an image of some deviant sexual behavior in the
brain of my sweet little 11-year-old boy. How does this effect his
mind, and his development? It made me very angry. Why can't we watch a
fun show together without an assault on my values and on my kids
health? I don't even mention the 14-year-old: He's probably seen it and
worse.
She finds it ironic that a network that runs news shows with grumpy men grumbling about family values also runs entertainment shows that treat kids to images of dominatrices.
She filed a complaint with the FCC and is blogging up a storm.
Apt. 11d 
I wouldn’t let my kids watch the Simpsons, but my kids are quite a bit younger than Erin’s (5 and 7).
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I don’t let my kids watch The Simpsons or Family Guy. They’re 11 and 8 (almost–a few weeks).
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Speaking of animated shows for children, Phineas and Ferb is brilliant enough that I’m less angry at Disney for the rest of the crap they put on the air.
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I wasn’t allowed to watch the Simpsons until college.
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Have you guys seen Adventure Time on Cartoon Network? It’s bizarre. My kids love it though.
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Nope. Is Adventure Time suitable for the under 5 set?
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Phineas and Ferb rock. On FB, some of the other moms and I will occasionally trade P&F lines or variations thereof. “That’s incredible, and by incredible I mean COMPLETELY credible!” I also have some of the P&F songs on my iPod. Did you know that’s Sheena Easton singing “Evil Love Song” with Doofenschmirtz?
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My husband and the kids are working through dozens of episodes of the American anime show Avatar (it’s connected to The Last Airbender movie, not the blue cat people Avatar). He’s been less pleased with some of the later episodes, but at its best he says that the characters are interesting, they change as time goes by, and there’s stuff to talk about. There is a lot of stylized fighting and faux Asian metaphysics, but my husband and the kids like the series a lot. I hope J. Night Shyamalan doesn’t botch the movie version–the trailer did not impress.
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I find myself agreeing with those who are thinking that The Simpsons is at least almost as “adult” in its humor as Family Guy.
Why be concerned about leather and a whip, but not the blood and gore of “Itchy and Scratchy”?
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But advertising to kids is something I’m just starting to deal with as Nick Jr. does have commercials and we’re just getting into shows that do. My son repeats, as if he were making a reasoned argument of his own design, the commercial for something called “Pillow Pets.” And he asked to go to McDonald’s back when his media exposure was so low that we don’t know how he even heard of it.
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“Why be concerned about leather and a whip, but not the blood and gore of “Itchy and Scratchy”?”
Or for that matter, that old classic Tom and Jerry. Per minute, Tom and Jerry has the most violence and sadism of any children’s show I’ve ever seen.
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I’m still not allowed to watch the Simpsons. Except for the Raven episode. That’s an amazing one.
I think I agree with the conclusion being lead by these comments (though no one is saying it straight out).
My take is that a lot of this outrage stems from people being upset because they want to be able to let their kids consume content without pre-filtering it themselves (television, the internet, etc.). The problem is that no one else’s filter matches yours, and that’s even more likely as our society becomes more complicated and diverse. And my reaction, when people want others (especially official others) to filter content for their children is that my children will loose access to things I don’t want filtered. I really want parents to filter for their own children.
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I’m still not allowed to watch the Simpsons.
I was, of course, joking about not being able to watch the Simpsons until college. We didn’t get Fox until 1990 or so.
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Great discussion! Thanks, Laura, for writing about my series. I would like to clarify one point, if that’s ok –
It’s not about The Simpsons, per se, it’s about how the broadcasters sabotage your decision about what your kids can watch.
Amy P, Wendy, et al, would you be mad if the network showed objectionable images from The Simpsons – maybe Itchy and Scratchy footage! – in a promo aired during a show you had decided was appropriate for your young kids?
That is my main concern – that the networks undermine your decisions. They put a rating on the program, which is supposed to help you decide what is right for your kids, and then show objectionable images from shows that you don’t allow your kids to see.
For example, they show scary, violent trailers for Iron Man 2, a pg-13 movie, on tv-7 rated shows. They show violent promos for tv-14 shows during sports events.
To me, it doesn’t seem fair to parents.
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If you do Netflix, you can escape from most kids’ advertising. We don’t have cable, and it’s always interesting when traveling to see how the kids react to Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, etc, how they soak up all the ads like little sponges when we stay in the hotels (Mommy, can we get one of those special TVs that has cartoons on all the time?). The ads are probably more engaging than a lot of the kids’ programming. For a long time, the kids just had our own DVD collection, and then we ceded half our Netflix queue to them. That changed a couple months ago when my husband set up our Wii to do Netflix downloads. It’s set up with a password, so the kids can’t just turn it on themselves, but it requires a lot more ongoing management than the old DVD library/Netflix-by-mail system, which was largely self-limiting, as the kids no longer do a lot of rewatching. The Wii/Netflix setup is a lot more like cable or TV, in that there’s always something new available. If I flick through the children and family Netflix/Wii offerings in front of the kids, they are going to be attracted by a lot of stuff that’s pure garbage. Although I do generally allow one freebie, I try to remember to enforce quid pro quo for movie watching, especially during these summer months (we’ve been done with school since late May). Clean up the living room–watch an episode. Do a page of a Kumon workbook–watch 10 minutes. Put on pajamas and brush teeth–watch 5 or 10 minutes before bed. Raising prices lowers demand, while also increasing the chance that the kids will wander away from the TV and just play.
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“Amy P, Wendy, et al, would you be mad if the network showed objectionable images from The Simpsons – maybe Itchy and Scratchy footage! – in a promo aired during a show you had decided was appropriate for your young kids?”
“To me, it doesn’t seem fair to parents.”
No, it’s not, which is why we don’t do cable. I’m quite irritated enough by the previews that get put on DVDs. I remember getting an Electric Company collection for the kids that had way inappropriate previews at the beginning of the DVD. It’s their loss, really, because if it weren’t for those inappropriate previews for high school and college-themed shows, I would definitely buy the set, rather than just renting it occasionally.
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Having bailed on both network and cable television, our children are, for now, mostly and thankfully free from kids-show advertising, which I think is for the most part every bit as creepy and commodifying as Erin suggests. Netflix, Youtube, and Hulu are they way we go. And here’s another shout-out for Phineas and Ferb: brilliant, funny, and pleasantly cartoony, in all the best ways.
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Our solution right now is the same as Amy P’s – we’re a DVD-only viewing family. Even so we do end up seeing commercials other places and I have felt some movie trailers and other things were a bit intrusive – not mind-alteringly awful, but there’s hardly any time to respond.
And… I don’t intend to necessarily stay that way forever with our AV setup, and I appreciate the link. I’m not really sure how to navigate everything and I admit sometimes I have just kind of tossed my hands in the air and said “well, my sister and I watched an awful lot of Three’s Company and turned out ok…”
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Torrents don’t have ads or previews, I am told.
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I agree that the networks shouldn’t violate their own rating systems in their ads (i.e. the tv-7 shows shouldn’t have tv-14 ads on them, or even ads for tv-14 shows). I don’t use or like the rating schemes (because I make my own decisions about what’s appropriate, and make liberal use of fast forward/recording/etc.), but I think that once the networks have made them available people who want to use them should be able to rely on what the networks have promised.
We also make liberal use of recording, netflix, and the remote in watching with our children, and have also noted their naivete about advertisements, since they rarely see advertisements.
One of my personal annoyances is video screens in travel locations (i.e. airports). We travel a fair amount with the kids, and some news reports really aren’t appropriate for our little ones, and short of making them wear blindfolds, can be difficult to avoid.
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I’m with the (local) minority. Our daughter wouldn’t have been permitted to watch The Simpsons, or anything that wasn’t on the Disney Channel, at age 11. “Suite Life” was her fave back then.
Also, she wasn’t permitted to watch TV on school nights. That rule is still (at age 16) sort of in effect, though undermined by loose enforcement and by the fact that she can watch TV programs on her computer. She’s gotten so obsessive about her grades that she mostly doesn’t, though.
Having said that, I never heard of a girl ruined by a book, or a boy by a TV program.
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“One of my personal annoyances is video screens in travel locations (i.e. airports).”
Doctor’s offices can be just as bad. I was at a hospital with my 5-year-old a week or so ago, and the waiting room TV was apparently tuned into the Rape and Murder News Network, at least judging by the content.
I’ve let the kids watch stuff that is sporadically inappropriate, but try to avoid consistently inappropriate material. Examples of what I consider sporadically inappropriate are: 1) LOTR, with heads and limbs getting lopped off 2) Classic Star Trek, with Captain Kirk’s libido boldly roaming the galaxy.
Right now, the kids are rewatching Terry Pratchett’s Color of Magic on Netflix/Wii. It’s really good.
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“I’ve let the kids watch stuff that is sporadically inappropriate, but try to avoid consistently inappropriate material.”
So true. This is the real problem – this stuff is now pervasive in our culture. And it gets harder to block as the kids get older and more independent.
News and sports don’t even get rated by the broadcasters, and the news is really unsuitable for children. I let my kids watch the Simpsons, yes, but I never let them watch the evening news.
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My kids watch Ben 10 or Adventure Time once a week, but their main vice are video games. The TV isn’t on much around here. Most of it is really inappropriate for kids, as Erin says. I couldn’t watch most sitcoms with them. American Idol and SYTYCD seem okay though.
We’re all good parents on this blog and fast forward through commercials and all that, but the problem is that other parents aren’t doing that. Our neighbor lets her nine year old play Combat of War (proper name?), where he blows away enemy soldiers with an automated rifle. Brain bits on the screen. I can’t let Jonah go to their house for a playdate.
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Erin,
Your kids are 11 and 14 and they watch the Simpsons but not the news? I’m boggled. Among other things, how do they get the jokes?
Somewhere Tim Burke is having a conniption:
from Easily Distracted, The Concept of Moral Panic, April 13th 2006.
“Expert denunciations of the impact of television on children, particularly of the impact of televisual representations of violence on children, between 1950 and 1990, and their connection to popular advocacy by civic groups. Here I’d say some of what I said in the case of sexual accusations in colonial Zimbabwe, but that there are some additional elements. First, that the content of expert claims was commonly misrepresented by both advocates and the experts themselves in a classically “entrepreneurial” manner, to inflate the commodity value and political impact of these claims. I don’t say this was done consciously in all or even most cases: this is the structured logic of expertise in postwar American society, a basic part of the art of being an expert. Second, that the studies from which these claims were inflated were more methodologically dubious than was commonly appreciated, and yet largely were insulated from strong methodological challenge precisely because their findings accorded with middle-class “common sense”. Third, that the general sociological predictions of the expert findings consistently have not been borne out over time (e.g., that if violent representations in mass media were held to directly produce violent conduct, and violent representations were documented as steadily increasing in frequency and intensity, then violent behavior at the overall level should correspondingly increase in frequency and intensity).”
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Western Dave,
I sentence you to 6 hours of doctor’s office cable news, to be served during a major sexual assault case/abduction/mass shooting.
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Thanks Amy P! And a good opportunity to answer the question: Why worry about S&M but not violence a la Itchy and Scratchy.
Because, Western Dave and Ragtime, my kids DO get the jokes. They know that Itchy and Scratchy is satire. (And younger kids don’t, which is why they shouldn’t watch this show.) Since I’m their parent and know them best, I know what is ok for them. However, Family Guy is definitely, far and away, not appropriate for anyone probably under age 18. My kids do not get the joke when you are talking about a mother and baby engaging in sexual bondage. Frankly, neither do I. And it’s not even something we can have any kind of useful dialogue about.
And no one needs to be assaulted daily by the mayhem that has become the so-called “news.”
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My parents took us to see Annie Hall at a drive-in theater back in the day. Actually, they took us to all sorts of movies at the drive-in theater, and we would sleep in sleeping bags in the back of the car. But not scary movies, and nothing of no aesthetic value, like Charlie’s Angels.
I would say that I was following those rules, but I already broke them. My twelve year old was dying to see The Ring, which was supposed to be shown at a slumber/birthday party, but was not, due to a parent’s objection, and I let her watch it at home. She thought it was silly, not frightening.
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My parents took us to see Star Wars at the drive-in. I think my sisters were too young to even notice. I was probably five.
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I sentence you to 6 hours of doctor’s office cable news, to be served during a major sexual assault case/abduction/mass shooting.
I would find that bad just from the questions we’d get. The lady at the zoo who teaches the kiddie classes can recognize my son. He’s the four year old that, when she brings out the skin or fur or bone for the kids to touch, keeps asking “Where did that come from?” until she explicitly states that the cute little whatever used to be alive and is now dead because .
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We watch a fair amount of sports, and the commercials for the crime shows during football are especially annoying. We try not to leave the room with the TV on. Baseball (Red Sox) on NESN is a little safer, as long as they aren’t running ED ads (we’ve given up on censoring those, and the boys haven’t asked any questions about them).
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Other than making you uncomfortable, what harm is done to your kids by having them see images that are inappropriate for their age?
Your boys are going to be far more damaged by watching Zeke and Luther, or Suite Life both of which present intelligent boys as either oxymorons or losers.
Btw, love Phineas and Ferb for the same reasons as everybody else. Plus, good role modeling for boys.
Quite frankly, I’m more ticked off about no longer being able to listen to sports radio on my morning communte with my 2nd grade daughter because the advertisements are all for strip clubs and adult video stores. And she’s only going to buy the line that adult videos are things like Roshamon so much longer.
(My mother, on the other hand, had me convinced until I was about 15 that adult bookstores only sold things like Proust, Joyce, and Faulkner and that all those trucks parked outside them were because the drivers liked to read serious fiction during down times).
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“Your boys are going to be far more damaged by watching Zeke and Luther, or Suite Life both of which present intelligent boys as either oxymorons or losers.”
But there’s no law requiring the kids to watch that either, is there? I’m hoping my kids will go directly from children’s stuff to grownup stuff, with no detour for “young adult,” which was roughly my pattern as a kid (my mom made me take back Doctor Zhivago and For Whom the Bell Tolls when I checked them out at the same time as a 7th grader). My kids are little, but so far, so good. The 7-year-old girl was telling me during the school year (with obvious disgust) that other girls in her class like to talk about Hannah Montana at lunch “as if it was exciting!” So I’m probably not going to have any awkward moments explaining the whole Perez Hilton thing.
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On a related note to above, my wife just set-up Netflix streaming to the Wii. It was really much easier than I thought it would be.
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Hey, I blocked Disney along with most other kid’s networks precisely because of crap like the Suite Life. I want them to have a little taste. They watch some regular tv- lots of Food Network, Discovery and HGTV. They see the best of the kid’s stuff on video- Sponge Bob, Phineas and Ferb…
Right now the older ones (teens) are watching Caddy Shack with me.
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I actually like Hannah Montana, I watch it with my first grader and almost every episode is about finding the right balance between work and family. And Cyrus is turning into a very talented comedic actress. She’s not quite Raven (who is the true heir to Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett) but she’s getting there. And the supporting cast is quite strong too, although again, the boys are stoopid problem.
Sonny with a Chance is also pretty decent, although again boys are stoopid.
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Western Dave,
I see you are concerned about harmful messages to children, too.
There is plenty of research that shows that sexualization of childhood is harmful. The images – especially because there are so many of them – are harmful. The strip club radio ads are not healthy for your daughter. That would outrage me, too. The men do the sports, the men do the talking, the women take off their clothes? What kind of a message is that for a little girl??
You’re absolutely right about the shows depicting boys as morons and losers. Thanks for bringing up that subject. I am very concerned about the message in those shows. And I’ve talked to my kids about it. See the book “Packaging Boyhood.” And check out “Packing Girlhood,” since you have a daughter.
The harmful messages to kids are all around us. It’s not just one thing.
If you’re interested, you can find a lot more information on these issues on the website of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, under the Issues tab.
And please, talk to your daughter (I’m sure you do) Kids need our help to protect their psyches from this onslaught. They need to know that this is not real life, it’s a version presented to them by those who want to exploit them. When kids find this out, they get angry. And then they become our allies in protecting them.
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