Needle Tart

If I'm not knitting or sewing something, I must be cooking something!

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Enough!

I am so frustrated that I'm having trouble typing this. A few weeks ago on Criminal Minds a child was machine gunned on camera, last week on Law & Order 4 children were killed just to make the point that a psyco was a bad guy, on Numb3rs children were put in harm's way for corporate profits, on Medium children were murdered in their beds (but at least we weren't shown that), tonight on Law & Order CI a child was used as a shield during a shoot-out. When the bad guys drove away, no one checked on that kid! The officers just stood in the street shaking their heads. Law & Order SVU is supposed to show us a "angel" (about 6-year-old child) who is really a devil.
I am so offended that I tried to send a message to NBC, but after 15 minutes I gave up. Apparently, NBC doesn't really want to know what I think. I got to take a nice survey about what I watch, but I was not able to tell them why I was about to quit watching!
Remember back at the beginning of the new season, I said that I had cut my TV viewing to 23.5 hours? After all the children that I have seen threatened and murdered, I can cut my hours to 13 with no problem, mostly NBC shows, but CBS comes in for a little cutting, too.
Have we, as a nation, gotten to the point where we are only amused if we can see children murdered? Are we so decadent that we need "bread and circuses" to keep us quiet? What the #$%^ is going on? Maybe I wouldn't even have noticed if all these shows hadn't run the "kid in trouble" shows at once. As it is, I need to go do some soul searching. What kind of person am I if I keep watching? What kind of person will I become under these influences? Is the fact that it bothers me enough? Can I drop out of American society? How long can I pretend that some people think this is good entertainment?

6 Comments:

Blogger Mother of Chaos said...

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'm having a terrible time with this subject right now; I'm honestly to a point where I just can't handle any more. Real or 'dramatic'. On the news, in shows, even Snopes hit me with one last week.

Enough, indeed.

8:35 PM  
Blogger Miriam said...

Hi Bonnie, you know, it's hard, but possible to just NOT watch television. My husband and I both don't watch it. We HAVE a television set, and we watch movies, but it's gratifying to have that kind of control over what comes into our house. The thing is... you have to go cold turkey. If you try to just watch your favorite shows it won't work. You have to give up completely and try it for 6 months at least. Totally worth it in the end. And like rehab for drug users, once it is out of your system, you find you don't need it. You also find a TON of time that you didn't know you were missing.

5:29 PM  
Blogger confiance said...

I can't say I've seen any of those shows and I'm rather glad to have missed them. (Of course, you'll find me going OUT of my way to watch Grey's or House or Gilmore Girls. But that's a tad different. Right?)

I'm not a fan of the fact that we have to have violence, drama, sex, any of that to get and maintain viewers. I think that, as a result, we go numb to the horror. And that's never a good thing. But enough people will keep watching (or rather, never noticed and/or care) to keep those shows on the air. Silly Coporate America.

10:46 PM  
Blogger Kari said...

I watch most of those shows, not every week though, but i normally catch most of them. I saw the Law and Order SVU episode about the "evil" child. But i didn't think she was evil, she just needed to see a pschiatrist badly. They showed before she had been abused...those people before were punishing kids by putting them in cages, which was rather disturbing. And then after the little girl had started the apartment on fire she had said that she did that because she didn't want that lady to leave her--sad.
Well anyways, yes there is too much violence on tv, you are right about that. You could send a letter or e-mail to NBC complaining about the violence.

11:17 AM  
Blogger Susan said...

Amen, sister! I despair at all the violence. Here's my pet TV peeve:

I use our cable provider's On Demand service frequently since it allows me to queue up 2 Year Old's Dora, Diego, Blues' Clues at her whim and not the programmers'. The problem is, the provider runs constant "programming" consisting of ads for other On Demand offerings and these previews/sales promos are often of a violent or scary nightmare-inducing nature. It makes me nuts!

9:35 AM  
Blogger Amy Lane said...

I used to love the Law & Order franchise--never missed a one... but then, like you, I got to the point where I could totally miss them--you're right. They're hard on the exploitation, soft on the hope, and Goddess! we need better things in our lives. (But my tv time is my knitting time--it's the only way I can justify my concentration to my children--watching Friday Night LIghts, they understand, just sitting there, staring into space, and I am obviously begging to be bothered.)

9:55 PM  

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