a
Editorials
November 9,1995
Viewpoint
Violence on television. There seems to be a lot of talk about what
can we can do to stop it. A lot of people believe it’s the reason why
people, especially children, are growing so increasingly violent. Tele
vision has become a monster and we need to stop it, right?
WRONG. The problem is not television. The problem is that
we’ve allowed television to raise our kids. The classic example of this
is the five-year-old boy who started a fire after watching “Beavis &
Butthead,” People were shocked when this happened. People ques
tioned: How can television be so irresponsible?
My question is, how can parents be so irresponsible? Isn’t it a
parent’s job, not television’s job, to raise kids. What was a five year-
old boy doing with access to matches? What was this five year-old
doing watching MTV? This is in no way to defend television, it’s to
accuse parents of not doing their job, I believe parents should monitor
what their children watch and not allow them to spend five hours a day
watching television.
My fear is that we as a society have gotten to the point where we
are no longer accountable for our actions. There is a BIG problem with
violence and sex on television, but we’ve allowed ourselves to watch
it. It’s no longer our fault for watching violence, it’s the network’s fault
for showing it. Let’s get back to where WE are responsible for our
beliefs and actions, not television.
Let us stop blaming things like violence on television, shock jocks
on the radio, and sex on the Internet for societies problems, I would love
to see these things disappear, but they are not the causes of problems;
they are the effects of a bigger problem. The bigger problem is the
decline in the morals of America. Let’s start blaming ourselves for
becoming conditioned to these things. Count on yourself to decide on
what’s right or wrong, not ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX.
■ Robert Mancuso
Editor in Chief
mancr2d0@numen,elon.edu
Off The Record
"Now we are forced to recognize our inhuman
ity, our reason coexists with our insanity. But
we choose between reality and madness, it's
either sadness or euphoria."
- Billy Joel
"Summer in Highland Falls"
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//
My girlfriend slept with my father..
...today on Ricki Lake.”
This isn’t something that has
gone on in my life, and I hope not in
yours either, but more and more it
is happening on daytime T.V. talk
shows. Reality is a thing of the past.
Shocking the begeezus out of
middle America is the fashion of
today’s television programming.
When did your best friend
sleep with your mom? Is your girl
friend really a guy? When did your
cross-dressing brother change his
name to “Starlight Express”? If
you don’t know the answer to these
questions and more, you aren’t
watching the right channels.
In a world of declining moral
and family values, people like Jenny
Jones, Ricki Lake and Jerry
Springer are no help. In their eyes,
the abnormal is the new norm. Was
it like this 10 years ago with
Donahue? I don’t think so. He has
sold out like the rest of them. Now
the father of the daytime talk show
has become an incestuous member
of the white-trash T.V. family.
If this world had never been
introduced to this many dysfunc
tional people we wouldn’t have
missed out on anything spectacu
lar. The world would have contin
ued spinning on its axis. The tides
would continue to roll in and social
progress would probably be just
that: progress. Instead, millions of
Tracey Stark
viewers tune in daily to see the
freak shows. I can only hope that
the shows will run out of shock
value and people will crave some
thing different like “lovers in love”
or “the happy, successful, well-ad
justed people’s show.”
We need this group of trash-
mongers to act responsibly in their
role in American television as
people who can influence what we
think. They need to bring class back
to daytime talk shows. Of course
there is Regis and Kathy Lee, but
they are in a different category since
they don’t involve audience dis
cussion;
I’m not going to sit here and
critique all the morons, I’m going
to offer solutions: Change the chan
nel. When the ratings go down, the
sponsors will leave and the show
will either change for the better or
cease to exist. A more complex
form of protest against this con
stant diet of garbage being fed to
the American brain is to avoid prod
ucts that sponsor this cultural poi
soning. Many people don’t wantW;
give up their favorite detergent of ^
cereal on moral grounds, but
minor sacrifices can make a -
tive difference. j
My final solution would be fo'
me to host a show that only
other talk show hosts on the sho"'|
I would ask them personal queS'j
tions and let my audience
would be selected much like theJj
do a jury) eat them alive. ,
If I have to continually
about some moron who can’t keePi'
it in his pants, some bimbo
wants to appear on national T.Vt
tell her first love that she wants
become a porn star in all-fenia'j
movies, or the mom who is dali>^i
her teenage son’s classmate,
going to explode. These shows ha''*
the same attraction to me as theol"^
show “Ripley’s Believe it or
The topics are so low on the
scale that I do sometimes say
don’t believe it.”
The television, being the ce*'
ter of our society (whether we
it or not), the household shrine
our American culture, is the
culprit in this downward spiral
taste. You must protect yours^'
Change the channel. Watch
it to Beaver” reruns. (Now I kno'
why my father called it the “Boo^’
tube.”)
E-mail:start4sO@numen.elon.C'
This Week:
Daytime Talk Shows ...
What do you think of daytime talk shows?
Red Dixon, freshman: “They’re
full of ignorance. They got igno
rant people on ‘em... They’re just
putting sornething on T.V. It’s all
made up. It’s a modern day ‘Mr.
Roger’s Neighborhood.’”
Tatiana Malatesta, sophomore:
“Funny. Pathetic. I j ust think they ’ re
sad. I think people thrive on the
tragedies of other people’s lives.”
Erica Eustice, freshman:
watch them for entertainmei^’
purposes only. I don’t think the)'
have any quality whatsoevef
Oprah being the exception, but^
don’t really watch her. I think
pretty lowly.”
Sam O’Shields, sophomore: “I
think they’re just trying to do some
thing controversial...It’s all about
bad values. I don’t like ‘em.”
• ••
Liz Babb, senior: “I think there
are way too many of them... I feel
like anyone could have one.
They’re ridiculous. They totally
undermine the good one’s like
Oprah.”
• ••
Kate VanCantfort, freshman:
“Trash. Except for Oprah, of course.
My whole suite is addicted to it...
it’s just awful. There’s no point.”
• ••
Andy Moller, freshman: “I think
they’re junk. I never watch them,
all they do is fight. What you see,
you see on there everyday... I ju^'
want to get away from that wh^''
I watch T.V.”
• ••
Jay Yates, junior: “I think T.^
talk shows today are concentra^'
ing more on ratings than issu^'
that can help society.”
Compiled by Tracey StarK