The chronological history of over-the-air commercial TV, the last 40 years, shows an “evolution” of sights and sounds that are seen and heard in threes.
In other words, what used to “stink” began to “suck” and now “blows” — the language growing bolder, coarser, lower.
One’s “girlfriend” became “his chick” or “babe,” but now can be classified as “his bitch.” “Nonsense” became “bull” and now it’s freely and openly called “crap.”
Bathroom scenes moved from washing hands at a sink to sitting in a closed toilet stall to standing at a urinal. Hugs became deep kisses; now TV skips both to show a woman’s blouse being ripped open.
And there’s no running from it unless you ban your kid from watching ball games, now stuffed with ambush promos purposefully edited to include inappropriate content.
What TV once would never do to you and your kids — not as a matter of law, but as a matter of do-unto-others decency — is now among TV’s primary missions: Let’s go even lower than we did, last season. That’s the term of engagement and sustained employment.
And where two generations ago TV was blamed for too much, it’s now not blamed enough.
The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Assoociation recently made big news when it did something that 40 years ago would not even have been on its agenda. It ruled that participants have to behave in a minimally civil manner or get out, stay out. In other words, kids have to show some small regard for an antiquated ideal, sportsmanship.
Amateur events throughout the country now regularly serve as the staging areas for trash talk and trash-tweeted brawls, brutal attacks on referees and umpires, fist fights between parents and across-the-board uncivil comportment that 40 years ago existed only as a rarity.
To that inevitable end — the need for such rules — TV’s shot-callers should be recognized for their contributions, for no entity has done more to encourage kids to act like creeps — like desensitized, remorseless and even cruel wise guys — than television.
TV is from where the “attitude” flows, from where the messages are sent and re-sent.
TV jumps to hire the worst acts among ex-players and coaches. The NFL’s partner networks are loaded with former players known for being trash-talking, chest-pounding, penalty-drawing, fines-to-follow bad boys. Bad is good; worse is even better.
Any and all demonstrations of great self-regard within team games — strutting, preening, me-dancing, muscle-flexing, bad-mouthing — are now chosen by our networks as the “keepers,” with slow-motion treatment applied and inclusion in promos for next week’s games.
TV continues to present the grotesquely immodest as the only players worthy of our kids’ attention and admiration.
It’s all so hideously twisted that even Disney/ABC’s Sunday “America’s Funniest Videos” is loaded with clips of people being thrown from horses, snowboards and skateboards, violently landing head- or crotch-first — all attached to a laugh track!
The first wave of kids to have been raised on TV’s bad-is-good sell are now parents — kids’ coaches and those who holler from the sidelines.
Thus, it makes for small wonder that sportsmanship is so close to death that its attempted revival has to be a matter of legislation. You can’t expect people, on their own, to return to a place they’ve never been.
Still, there are many who ridicule this legislation as a violation of their constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression; more intrusive political correctness. Yes, one should have the right to wreck ballgames played by kids. True patriots!
And there are those who tell us that kids are really no different from what they were when they were kids. Of course, back then they didn’t have metal detectors and uniformed guards at the entrances to their schools. Back then, they weren’t needed.
And there were no rules to ensure minimally decent conduct while playing ball. Back then, such rules weren’t needed, either.