Some of you may have heard
that a porn movie suddenly interrupted part of the Super Bowl for some Comcast
cable customers. The incident caused an incredible amount of outrage and has
been called “grossly inappropriate”, “unethical” & “illegal”. Stories about
the incident spread quickly throughout the web and were picked up by British
newspapers. It also caused irate customers to flood phone lines with complaints
and threats to cancel their service with Comcast. Fortunately my family wasn’t
exposed to this porn as we cheered for the Cardinals (darn those Steelers). Or
were we?
As we sat there watching the
Super Bowl we also watched some of the commercials. I had to have my kids cover
their eyes on several occasions as one “pornmercial” after another came on the
screen. I was so ticked off that NBC would air such inappropriate commercials;
especially since they knew kids would be watching. But where was the public
outrage? Where were all the stories about these “grossly inappropriate” commercials?
Where were the FCC investigations? There were none. Why?
Why did people complain
about the porn movie that interrupted the Super Bowl but not about the
“pornmercials” that interrupted the Super Bowl? As I thought about this
question it reminded me of the story on how to cook a Lobster. You don’t drop a
Lobster into boiling water because it’ll try to jump out. You put the Lobster
in regular water and slowly increase the temperature. This way the Lobster
doesn’t realize it’s getting cooked and does not fight to get out. Then you
break out the warm butter! We’re
much like the Lobster. There was a time when you didn’t hear swear words on
TV but over time they have slowly turned up the heat. So people tolerate more
and more inappropriate material on TV. Hard core porn isn’t yet accepted on the
public airways but soft-core porn is. How many more years of them slowly
“turning up the heat” will it be before you and your kids are cooked?
I often write about
how to protect your kids from Internet dangers but there are dangers on your TV
also. Accidental exposure to something inappropriate, via commercials in our
case, can happen. If it does make sure you talk about it with your kids. It can be
a great teaching moment. So parents lets make sure we’re on top of what our kids are being exposed to in every arena. Know what your kids are watching.
Know what they’re listening to. Know what kind of games they’re playing. You
don’t want to find them in a pot of boiling water next to a Lobster.