Why is it okay to show murder, blood, guts, etc on TV, but not tits?

[sunvalleylaw]

Sometimes, just a simple walk in the woods or along a beach can heal so many woes. Even spending a few minutes looking up at the stars can melt away the stresses of the day.

I feel very much that way. Always have. This woman grew up near where I grew up walking in the woods, and she puts it into words pretty well.

 

[Tig]

I feel very much that way. Always have. This woman grew up near where I grew up walking in the woods, and she puts it into words pretty well.

Cool song! She states it much better than I, which is why I write in forums while she writes songs!

I grew up playing along a creek behind the house, and we had some property up in the piney woods of East Texas. There's is something to be said about swimming in a lake or at a beach, walking down a long trail, exploring new places in a forest, or paddling a canoe or kayak. Camping and sitting around a fire... Laying on a dock with countless stars above.

Ahhh, but back to breasts... :thwap
It is time to legalize taa-taa's!

 

[Spudman]

Plenty of Europe has many of the same religions as the USA and is also an ethnic melting pot, yet they don't have the same taboos as America does regarding ****s. Hmmm.

I think it's for economic reasons that we have the dichotomy. We refrain from the free exposure of breasts in the USA, and then when they are revealed, pow, someone starts making money. It's either TV, newspapers, magazines, the exposed persons etc. that start raking in the bucks. It's our stupid capitalistic culture in the USA. Well, I'm all in favor of change, and serious drastic change. There simply aren't enough quality breasts being shown in public in the USA. If we can get everyone to start a massive exposure program we can effectively do two things: one is to take money out of the hands of the greedy corporate enterprises that exploit us, and two; it would create more desire to get closer to our fellow exposed human being thereby generating more love. This would effectively reduce violence in our culture and make violence on TV seem more unacceptable so that it would end up like breast exposure currently is, shunned and unaccepted.

So, I say that the answer to turning America completely around is for a massive exposure campaign. Talk to every female you know and lets get moving on this issue, especially if we are to save the USA. Tits for all!

 

[R_of_G]

Plenty of Europe has many of the same religions as the USA and is also an ethnic melting pot, yet they don't have the same taboos as America does regarding ****s. Hmmm.

I think it's for economic reasons that we have the dichotomy. We refrain from the free exposure of breasts in the USA, and then when they are revealed, pow, someone starts making money. It's either TV, newspapers, magazines, the exposed persons etc. that start raking in the bucks. It's our stupid capitalistic culture in the USA. Well, I'm all in favor of change, and serious drastic change. There simply aren't enough quality breasts being shown in public in the USA. If we can get everyone to start a massive exposure program we can effectively do two things: one is to take money out of the hands of the greedy corporate enterprises that exploit us, and two; it would create more desire to get closer to our fellow exposed human being thereby generating more love. This would effectively reduce violence in our culture and make violence on TV seem more unacceptable so that it would end up like breast exposure currently is, shunned and unaccepted.

So, I say that the answer to turning America completely around is for a massive exposure campaign. Talk to every female you know and lets get moving on this issue, especially if we are to save the USA. Tits for all!

I think you're absolutely correct, and not solely because you want to see more breasts.

Both you and Eric hit on something that is the key, because breast exposure on network television is such a rare thing, when it happens it's more often than not a salacious moment designed for someone to capitalize. They capitalize on stirring up the controversy and exploiting people's beliefs in order to keep the cycle going. More ****s, less network execs. That's the answer.

 

[Eric]

With all of the focus on the female chest, I have to ask proponents of this one question: do you want to see all of the human anatomy? Full frontal for both genders in every show? All ages? If not, why not?

 

[R_of_G]

With all of the focus on the female chest, I have to ask proponents of this one question: do you want to see all of the human anatomy? Full frontal for both genders in every show? All ages? If not, why not?

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I expect human characters to have parts of human anatomy.
That said, it all goes back to whether or not it's shown to be sensational or shown realistically, so no, obviously not in every show.
I think topelss would happen more often because it seems more realistic.

 

[Eric]

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I expect human characters to have parts of human anatomy.
That said, it all goes back to whether or not it's shown to be sensational or shown realistically, so no, obviously not in every show.
I think topelss would happen more often because it seems more realistic.

Fair enough. It's just a point I thought I'd throw out there; I feel like the "****ies!" excitement often gets mixed in with the "realism" argument, and not everyone is comfortable with everything, but sometimes we lose that idea in our zeal to prove a point.

 

[Spudman]

You know, if everyone got their anatomical appendages from some source that was secret then I could understand the stealth approach. However, EVERYONE is born with all the juicy bits in place stock from the factory. I don't see what the big deal is. Everyone already knows what stuff looks like. Who are we kidding after all?

 

[Tig]

You know, if everyone got their anatomical appendages from some source that was secret then I could understand the stealth approach. However, EVERYONE is born with all the juicy bits in place stock from the factory. I don't see what the big deal is. Everyone already knows what stuff looks like. Who are we kidding after all?

The more something is forbidden, the greater the appeal it has?

 

[Spudman]

The more something is forbidden, the greater the appeal it has?

But if it was forbidden would it be stock factory equipment? Humans really are strange. Maybe strawberry growers should hide their fruit so that it's more appealing and more people will want to buy it. They'll make a fortune. Hey, I think I'm on to something. Thanks Tig. From now on I'll wear a burqa so that I can charge more for gigs since I'll have more appeal.

Anyway, I've never understood the whole thing either. Killing is pretty much something I don't want to see. Tits, however, anytime bro. Uh, not yours specifically, but a really nice set. Um, I'm not saying that yours aren't nice, it's just that...oh forget it. I think you know what I meant.

 

[deeaa]

I never got that either...but I never thought it had to do with religion, just habits and such. 'Moral majority' movements or whatever.

BUT here's my view:

I think I'd rather show my 6-year-old Saving Private Ryan than Tom & Jerry or Wiley Coyote cartoons.

What I really think is bad for the kids is those Hanna/Barbera etc. cartoons which are basically only hitting each other or devising horrid traps and such.
Why would anyone want kids to watch that kind of sick stuff? That's more gruesome than Texas Chainsaw Massacre, from a moral point of view at least.

Another thing is 'teen' rated series that are full of all kinds of 'suitable' action which usually entails all kinds of karate style fighting and shooting - with no blood.
Why would people want to teach teens day after day stuff like 'see, they just kick them in the head and shoot them and it's OK no blood even'.

That's INSANE to me. I think it would be much healthier for a teen to see that if some full-grown man really punches another in the face with full force, there will be blood and broken teeth and LOADS of pain, likely irrepairaible damage, not just a little blood-drip on the side of the mouth, and shooking of head maybe, followed by some more ***-kicking.

No wonder, having seen cartoons since infancy, that are basically sadistic beating, followed by TV series hammering into their heads that it's OK to punch people and there are no real ill effects to it, that teens go out and want to bust some heads.

THAT is what is wrong with TV and the society. I don't let my children watch that kind of stuff at all, but we do watch movies that are rated way higher, like Star Wars obviously, but also some more grown-up content.
My boys are fascinated by and not scared etc. at all about watching a documentary on surgeries and such bloody things, or skeletons etc. and they don't blink an eye at nudity because they're used to seeing each other naked every day when we go for a wash together as a family, and similarly, round here it's quite customary that kids under, I dunno, 8 or so, can run around naked in the summer and nobody cares. Same as nobody cares if, say at a company get-together at least men just swim in the nude, I mean, every woman there has seen a dong or two in their lives so what's the big deal really. Women tend to be more coy though and usually hide in some blanket or so till they get to the water.

 

[poodlesrule]

I think I'd rather show my 6-year-old Saving Private Ryan than Tom & Jerry or Wiley Coyote cartoons.

What I really think is bad for the kids is those Hanna/Barbera etc. cartoons which are basically only hitting each other or devising horrid traps and such.
Why would anyone want kids to watch that kind of sick stuff? That's more gruesome than Texas Chainsaw Massacre, from a moral point of view at least.

Aren't cartoons fantasy-world stuff, though? Do the kids get the "fantastic" aspect of it?

 

[R_of_G]

Aren't cartoons fantasy-world stuff, though? Do the kids get the "fantastic" aspect of it?

My parents explained to me as I explain to my child that cartoons are not real.

I think cartoon violence is fairly innocuous compared with other depictions of violence that withhold real consequences.

 

[sunvalleylaw]

My sons came back from a visit at their cousin's wanting permission to get "Halo" or "Warcraft" type games, because my brother apparently lets his kids play them. I just do not want to go there with 11 and 13 year old boys. My boys tell me our rules are way more restrictive than their friends. I guess that might be true.

 

[deeaa]

That is the question...and I'd say, yeah, my son does get the distinction of it not being real. I'm not really as anal about it as I make it out to be. But still, I see nothing good in watching that kind of stuff day in day out. We watch a LOT of Moomin, which I think is a really good and healthy role model for kids.

Computer games too...yeah, I am wary of that stuff too. It's catchy. We mostly play those Lego series games, we probably have all of 'em...just today we played Lego Star Wars III for a while. I think it's good safe fun. But still, I do notice if we play it long, he gets quite physical and starts acting out all those light sabre moves and hitting things etc...so there must be limits there.

Yeah...I think by far the worst are the 'teen ok' crime shows etc. where there's a lot of kicking and punching with no ill effects...I do believe a lot of such only teaches bad stuff.

At schools, I've seen kids get into fights and feuds, sometimes to bad effects. By far the most powerful thing to stop all that has been to have someone lecture them by showing pictures of kids having been victims of violence that was just meant to be hazing or drunken bashing. I don't think any kid who's seen what actually happens when you stomp someone on the head proper with the heel does will ever want to do that themselves,,,,it's pretty damned graphic...also there's one guy who was a victim of random violence doing school tours; a medical student would be doctor he was kicked *once* in the head and he suffered damage so that any idiot can see he's not capable of ever being a doctor, hardly a functioning member of society...but it's really sobering for the kids when his kind of a guy comes to present himself and explain one kick was all it took.

I think, with kids, it's not so much what you watch, it's more about making sure they understand it and talk about it.

My son actually can watch pretty much anything without flinching...except something like soap operas. He watches a scene where someone is real mad, like, 'I'll leave you' or such, and he gets totally emotionally involved, almost in tears reporting to me that that person is really sad and this other person is gonna leave him/her all alone...it's amazing, that kind of stuff really makes him cry out, but he's not scared of any mummies or skeletons or blood or such at all.

 

[R_of_G]

My sons came back from a visit at their cousin's wanting permission to get "Halo" or "Warcraft" type games, because my brother apparently lets his kids play them. I just do not want to go there with 11 and 13 year old boys. My boys tell me our rules are way more restrictive than their friends. I guess that might be true.

I'm with you there.
I wonder how kids are supposed to learn that violence has real consequences when they're inundated with video games that are more violent than anything they'll see on broadcast tv.
Though I think many of the ideas legislators and other authority figures propose to address this are overreaching, I do think it's an area that has to be addressed.

I think by far the worst are the 'teen ok' crime shows etc. where there's a lot of kicking and punching with no ill effects...I do believe a lot of such only teaches bad stuff.

Agreed. If you're going to show kids violence, show them ALL about violence, the effects, the consequences, all of it. If you portray negative things in a negative light people might learn that they're negative instead of just thinking violence is cool.

 

[Robert]

In case you haven't seen the Moomins (Mumin), here you go. I grew up watching Mumin too.

 

[tunghaichuan]

I'm with you there.
I wonder how kids are supposed to learn that violence has real consequences when they're inundated with video games that are more violent than anything they'll see on broadcast tv.
Though I think many of the ideas legislators and other authority figures propose to address this are overreaching, I do think it's an area that has to be addressed.



Agreed. If you're going to show kids violence, show them ALL about violence, the effects, the consequences, all of it. If you portray negative things in a negative light people might learn that they're negative instead of just thinking violence is cool.

That is the problem with the vast majority of TV shows/movies. Violence shown is sanitized, made to look cool, and like a viable solution to problems. They never show the consequences to violence, and in the real world there are consequences, often far reaching and very serious.

There was a movie that came out a while back called A History of Violence with Viggo Mortensen. It was one of the few Hollywood movies that showed the consequences of violence, both immediate and long-lasting. The only criticism is that the violent scenes were very stylized which kind of under cut the message, IMHO.

In the real world there are serious and often long lasting effects in the aftermath of violence. I've studied martial arts for a number of years and the one thing that has stuck with me is that no one "wins" in a violent confrontation. The goal should be survival. And being right is no guarantee of immunity. The family may press charges, his buddies may decide to get revenge, and in certain circumstances the law may decide to prosecute.

OTOH, I love martial arts movies, but I recognize them for what they truly are: pure fantasy. Those who think that the hero could get jumped by 20 guys in a Tokyo alley and walk away without a scratch is deluding themselves.

 

[deeaa]

In case you haven't seen the Moomins (Mumin), here you go. I grew up watching Mumin too.

Yeah, you know...when my first son was a baby still, we had all 100+ episodes on VHS and we watched them all thru maybe 3 times.
A few years later we now have all of them on the digibox, plus a moomin movie, and there's a counter for how many times they're viewed. The boys have watched every episode at least four times, some favorite ones over ten times. The movie Moonin and the Meteorite has been watched about 30 times.

Now, my kids don't watch that much TV I think, but when I start calculating how much time they've spent watching the moomin, it's unbelievable. At 20 minutes per episode and 100 minutes the movie...they must have spent a few hundred hours watching it! No wonder even I'm starting to know the episodes by heart...and oh yeah, we also have them on an USB stick to watch on TV at the cottage as well....it's amazing how it still manages to capture their interest day after day.

Although, by now at six Leo would want to watch all those Hero Factory, Bakugan etc. battle robot sci-fi cartoon shows a lot too...and the original Star Wars movies as well as the Clone Wars cartoon series. He's seen Empire Strikes back already like 5 times, although he can't really keep up with the dialogue at all, his English isn't so good yet. Star Wars has actually quite good opportunities for explaining people's morals etc. and he's been interested for instance why are the stormtroopers bad, and it opens up good conversations into whether they really are, or are they just conscripts doing what they are told to do by the evil high command...after all, he well understands they're basically started from the remnants of the Clone Army which was basically good...(even I get pretty proficient in SW history watching the stuff with him, LOL...I think it's best to not let him watch them alone, so I can explain the reasons behind the actions etc.)

 

[R_of_G]

OTOH, I love martial arts movies, but I recognize them for what they truly are: pure fantasy. Those who think that the hero could get jumped by 20 guys in a Tokyo alley and walk away without a scratch is deluding themselves.

Are you telling me Jet Li can't really fly or walk on water? That changes everything.

 

[Ahsankmc]

Yes you are absolutely correct about our behaviors. We have made our world artificial and now as a reaction the world is changing us completely.

 

[Katastrophe]

We don't let our kids watch nudity at all... The reason is primarily context. I think it's impossible for film and TV in this country to not show nakedness in a nonsexual context. The kids aren't mature enough to understand what's going on, and that can have negative consequences.

That said, there ARE plenty of programs on Netflix and Hulu plus that depict ****age. We do a little self editing and just don't watch those programs when the kids are around. If there was a program on "regular" TV that showed nudity, we just wouldn't watch it.

We also choose not to watch violent, gore n' guts shows around the kids, either. Again, they are not mature enough to understand. Some of the cartoons we watch have mild violence, and the kids understand that it's not real, and that we don't act in a violent manner in real life. They also watch cartoons around us, and we explain what's happening. When confronted by violence, the kids are instructed to tell an adult.

Most of our daytime programming is age appropriate cartoons or educational shows.


BTW, Jet Li can walk on water and fly. And all those "myths" about Chuck Norris are true.

 

[Eric]

And all those "myths" about Chuck Norris are true.

Nice choice on putting myths in quotes -- we all know, after all, that they're really facts.

 

[Robert]

What I meant with this whole post is that the logic isn't here. Violence vs the female breast in a normal way, that is.

I don't support the exploitation of female bodies, you know the sexism part of it. I think that is very, very bad for young girls growing up. On TV, these babes usually have unrealistic bodies - huge ****s and no waist, etc. The "hero" gets the "hottest" of the girls. The normal looking women are depicted as boring and unattractive, etc. That's one part of the female body situation I feel is wrong and unnecessary. It's not realistic. There aren't enough babes of that caliber in the world for every man (most of us are ugly anyway)!

The other part, that I had in mind when I started this thread, is about the normal female breast. Showing naked bodies or partly naked, in a normal way is considered bad - that is what is so wrong with our society. What made me think of this whole thing was that post about a girl biking in a miniskirt gets told by the police to stop flashing. Goodness Gracious! A women breast feeding is encouraged to go hide somewhere to do that. All while, the porn industry is enormous! Just look at http://www.familysafemedia.com/pornography_statistics.html

Every second - $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography
Every second - 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography
Every second - 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines
Every 39 minutes: a new pornographic video is being created in the United States

So obviously people like nudity and porn! Who are we trying to kid?

There's just so much double standards, I just shake my head.

 

[Eric]

What I meant with this whole post is that the logic isn't here. Violence vs the female breast in a normal way, that is.

I don't support the exploitation of female bodies, you know the sexism part of it. I think that is very, very bad for young girls growing up. On TV, these babes usually have unrealistic bodies - huge ****s and no waist, etc. The "hero" gets the "hottest" of the girls. The normal looking women are depicted as boring and unattractive, etc. That's one part of the female body situation I feel is wrong and unnecessary. It's not realistic. There aren't enough babes of that caliber in the world for every man (most of us are ugly anyway)!

The other part, that I had in mind when I started this thread, is about the normal female breast. Showing naked bodies or partly naked, in a normal way is considered bad - that is what is so wrong with our society. What made me think of this whole thing was that post about a girl biking in a miniskirt gets told by the police to stop flashing. Goodness Gracious! A women breast feeding is encouraged to go hide somewhere to do that. All while, the porn industry is enormous!

I don't disagree with you on some of your points, but I think the point I was trying to make earlier is that because of some of the things you mention (huge porn industry, exploitation), it's not the sort of thing that can just be suddenly changed in a culture so saturated with the exploitation of sex. If it was, it would only lead to an exponential increase in exploitation.

As for the porn thing, that should prove that people like exploited nudity and explicit sexual content. I don't think that's what you're talking about in your point, so the porn stats are somewhat moot.

Lastly, everyone has some moral standard. Moving the societal one to match yours does not mean that it's "right".

Edit: I realize that may have come off as kind of strong, so without taking back what's already been written, I'll just say that I don't mean to start a firestorm, and I don't disrespect your ideas. It's just a different perspective on the same thing. We cool?

 

[Robert]

I just think the way it works is screwed up, as I've mentioned above. I'm not asking for the world to change to my needs. I'm just expressing something I think is wrong with it (there are other things wrong with it too! ).

Our moral standards are influenced by our society. Nudity is taboo in society - leads to more porn - isn't there always greater want for what you are not supposed to have?

 

[Eric]

isn't there always greater want for what you are not supposed to have?

Yeah, probably.

Now that I think about it, that's kind of how GAS works too, isn't it?