A History of Violence: The PTC, Personal Responsibility, and a Violent Culture

Recently, we here at TV Rage have reported on complaints lodged by the Parents Television Council, with the PTC's latest criticism leveled at ABC's Scandal over a graphic scene of "enhanced interrogation" that was featured in last Thursday's episode. I had heard of this group before, but I didn't know much about them, so that got me wondering...

WHAT'S UP WITH THE PTC?

Founded in 1995 by conservative activist L. Brent Bozell III, the Parents Television Council is a self-styled media watchdog group based in the United States that advocates morality and decency on television, ostensibly on behalf of parents and families across the country. Although the PTC claims to be a nonpartisan education organization, the group was modeled after the National Legion of Decency, an organization established in 1933 to identify and combat "immoral" content in cinema on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church. In addition to issuing its own list of ratings that provided "a moral estimate of current entertainment feature motion pictures," the Legion implored members and churchgoers to recite a pledge, composed by the group's founder Archbishop John McNicholas, condemning "vile and unwholesome" films and vowing to stamp them out because they represented a threat to one's "moral life." The Legion lost its teeth following a landmark 1952 ruling in which the Supreme Court declared that sacrilege was not a valid ground for censorship, and the group had become largely irrelevant by the late '60s. Apparently the Legion made enough of an impression on L. Brent Bozell III that he used the organization and its values as a model when he established the PTC, originally under the umbrella of his Media Research Center, a conservative group that had been monitoring the entertainment industry for liberal bias since 1989.

Operating under Bozell's belief that decency had eroded from primetime television, the PTC became well-known for criticizing popular programs in the mid '90s such as Friends, Ally McBeal, Dawson's Creek, Ellen, and Spin City for broadcasting material that they deemed offensive for various reasons, mostly involving the taboo topics of sex and homosexuality. In 1999, the PTC organized a campaign against the World Wrestling Federation (now known as World Wrestling Entertainment) for using violence and sex appeal to promote its SmackDown program. Not content with simply boycotting the highly-rated show, Bozell and other members of the PTC met with companies that advertised during SmackDown — broadcast at 8:00 PM on UPN at the time — and urged them to withdraw sponsorship. As part of their accusations, the PTC representatives claimed that 30 to 40 sponsors had abandoned the WWF due to the inappropriate content and blamed the sports entertainment company for the deaths of four young children killed by peers mimicking pro wrestling moves they had seen on TV. These allegations finally triggered a lawsuit from the WWF in November of 2000. After the judge rejected a motion to dismiss the case, the PTC paid the WWF $3.5 million in an out-of-court settlement that also included a public apology from Bozell, who was forced to recant his claims that the company was responsible for the deaths of the four children. As a further measure of revenge for slandering the company's reputation, the WWF satirized the situation by creating a faction called Right To Censor, or RTC, led by a self-righteous blowhard in a suit and tie who was disgusted by the sex and violence around him.

WHAT'S THEIR PROBLEM NOW?

The PTC continued to rail against programming that it determined to be indecent and unsuitable for families, targeting everything from Bono's F-bomb at the 2003 Golden Globes to Janet Jackson's nipple slip during the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show to Adam Lambert's simulation of oral sex at the 2009 American Music Awards. Displaying the group's versatility, the PTC branched out into criticizing advertising, in-flight entertainment, and YouTube videos, and also fought to remain relevant by attacking the most popular series of the new millenium, such as That '70s Show (masturbation), Survivor (briefly exposed penis), Two and a Half Men (lap dance), Big Brother (F-word), NYPD Blue (partial female nudity), Without A Trace (teenage orgy), Gossip Girl (threesome), American Dad (horse ejaculation), Glee ("narcotics abuse, public masturbation, and school-sanctioned burlesque"), and anything on MTV (everything). Thanks to the PTC, the number of indecency complaints received by the Federal Communications Commission rose substantially in the first half of the decade, a majority of them generated by the PTC.

In 2007, L. Brent Bozell III was succeeded as president by Tim Winter, an executive with a law degree and extensive management experience working for NBC and MGM. The change in leadership did not deter the PTC and the group has yet to give up what they perceive to be the good fight, despite posting financial losses in recent years. Over the last couple of months, TV Rage has documented the organization's complaints against Seth MacFarlane and The Walking Dead, and the PTC has sought to be included in the national dialogue on violence in the media in the wake of the tragic elementary school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, last month. In a pathetic bid for attention, the PTC this week slammed ABC for airing an episode of its political drama Scandal that showed a character being waterboarded and physically assaulted during an interrogation. Accused of conspiring to assassinate the US President, the suspect had been arrested under the Patriot Act and eventually succumbed to the "enhanced interrogation" techniques, falsely confessing to the crime. Invoking the spectre of the Newtown shooting, Tim Winter blasted the Alphabet network for the three-minute torture scene, even though Scandal airs at 10:00 PM and the episode in question was preceded by a content advisory warning.

WHAT'S THE ANSWER?

To be fair, the PTC raises some good points when it comes to wanton depictions of sex and violence on broadcast television in the earlier hours of the evening and the influence on children. Too often, violence is glamorized and made to look cool when the reality is quite different, and promotional materials for MTV's various Teen Mom series seem to encourage teenage pregnancy. However, it is the height of irony for a conservative organization to abdicate responsibility on behalf of parental units everywhere and assign blame to the producers and networks, instead of placing the onus on parents to monitor their own children. Common sense would be a useful tool in navigating their viewing habits — if the show airs after 9 PM (or any time of the day on MTV) it's probably not suitable for your average child under the age of 14. If the show is an HBO or Showtime original series, it's probably not suitable for your average child under the age of 14. If the show has "Dead" somewhere in the title or follows the adventures of a serial killer, it probably isn't suitable for your average child under the age of 14. I'm not a parent myself, but I know single mothers who work full-time and still make the extra effort to investigate the movies and TV shows that their children want to watch, so it can be done.

Television is no longer the domain of the traditional family and should not be used as a babysitter, to coin a trite and overused phrase. Those of us without children pay the same cable bill every month, and we likely pay even more for extra services because we have more disposable income. Although the PTC would have you believe differently, TV shows are not responsible for raising children or putting guns in the hands of mentally disturbed individuals. By attempting to link the simulated torture on Scandal to real-world violence, the PTC is indirectly noting the influence of the inherently violent American culture that is at the heart of the problem. The nation's proud history is awash with brutal, bloody violence from the top on down, as evidenced by the enhanced interrogation tactics employed by the US government that were depicted on Scandal. On their own, enacting gun laws or toning down violent TV shows won't singlehandedly prevent gun violence, but they could be part of a larger solution that must somehow undo 230-plus years of ideology and identity.