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| SEX ON TV | |
 February 17, 1999 
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TERENCE SMITH: This was television in the 1950's.
TERENCE SMITH: This is television in the 1990's. "Beverly Hills 90210"
and in "Dawson's Creek", and among the "Bold and the Beautiful." Over
the years, entertainment programming has moved from the dining room
to the bedroom. ACTOR: Great, but, um, what about, you know, because I don't actually carry one in my wallet. ACTRESS: I do, since our third date. Well, shoot me. I'm an optimist. TERENCE SMITH: In another newly released study, the Parents Television Council identified what it says are the six most frequent corporate sponsors of prime-time programs it deems objectionable. The council has launched a campaign to pressure advertisers and producers to upgrade the program content. Here to discuss these issues are Steve Allen, the comedian, author, and composer, who is also spokesman for the Parents Television Council; Vicky Rideout, the director of the Kaiser Family Foundation study; J.J. Abrams, the executive producer of "Felicity," a popular new program on the WB network, whose central character is a college freshman; and Robert Thompson, a cultural historian who is director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. |
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| Television's educative responsibility. | |||||||||||||||||||
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ROBERT THOMPSON, Cultural Historian: Well, I mean, of course it does but it's so complicated. I mean, I think about -- I was watching the clips of "Ozzie and Harriet." The baby boom generation that grew up on television which had no sex in it, forget premarital, it didn't even have marital sex, husbands and wives slept in separate beds, if we became what we watched, if, in fact, we are taking these kinds of things as the cues to what we become, the baby boom generation should have become the most traditional family-oriented, family-values oriented generation of all time. It, in fact, started a sexual revolution. It, in fact, did the opposites of these things. So there certainly is an educative function going on in television, we wouldn't have an advertising industry if there wasn't, but I don't think it's nearly as close to this cause and effect that so many of these studies and Dan Quayle and Janet Reno and Paul Simon and all of the rest of them seem to suggest. TERENCE SMITH: J.J. Abrams, let me ask you, as a producer of "Felicity", one of these broadcasts, does the idea of a substantive message get in the way of telling a story for you? TERENCE SMITH: Vicky Rideout, I'm curious why you did this study and what you hope to accomplish. VICKY RIDEOUT, Kaiser Family Foundation: Well, we did the study because we realized that what kids learn about sex is incredibly important. I mean, we live in an age when one out of every two new HIV infections in this country is among young people. And there are nearly four million instances of other sexually transmitted diseases a year among young people. We are not saying that young people are having sex because they're seeing sex on TV. What we're saying is that sex on TV is a great opportunity for helping to inform young people of what they need to do to protect themselves if they do choose to have sex. It comes at them through the characters that they love, like Felicity, through their favorite shows. It's a way they're very receptive to. And they've told us that television actually is one of the top sources of information for them about sex. TERENCE SMITH: Steve Allen, from your point of view, from the Parents' Television Council, do you want to see less sex on television, or do you want to see more responsible sex on television? TERENCE SMITH: Professor, what about that? Is it realistic to expect direct correlation between what young people see on television and what they do? |
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| Monkey see, monkey do? | |||||||||||||||||||
 ROBERT
THOMPSON: Well, I think it's so complicated and we're talking about such
a huge audience. I'm not unsympathetic to the spirit of this survey, which
I think is really, I mean, a noble cause. There was the famous case when
Fonzie on "Happy Days" got a library card and the next day, like, millions
of kids got library cards. I think television is very good at getting
kids to do things like get a library card. I don't think it's so good
at getting them to continue to use that library card, read books with
it and all of the rest. I think perhaps television might be very good
at getting a kid to pick up a condom. Whether they can turn responsible
sexuality into a life-style, I'm not sure that's the case. And one other
thing bothers me a little bit. Suddenly we're talking about the content
of a major communications medium, television, as a public health issue.
And suddenly we're moving away from talking about the content of something
like television in terms of this kind of first amendment what kind of
speech is protected into more a cultural, environmental protection situation
where we're talking about protecting the people from certain kinds of
messages, in this case sexuality without worrying about the consequences.
And that makes me more than a little nervous.
TERENCE SMITH: J.J. Abrams, does it make you nervous? J.J. ABRAMS: I'm a little nervous about the upcoming episode where Felicity goes to get a library card because -- I think it doesn't make me nervous but what it does, it makes me want to be responsible. I mean, I'd rather err on the side of responsibility than not. When you receive the letters that we get, and we get many, e-mails, from, you know, young women and young men alike who watch the show and respond in a way that is almost as if they're talking about their friends, it's sort of hard to disregard that. And I think to do so, is very irresponsible. ROBERT THOMPSON: And if this survey raised consciousness for people who make the stuff to think more about it, and that's what they ultimately end up wanting to do, I think that's a perfectly wonderful result of such a survey. TERENCE SMITH: Vicky Rideout, let me ask you what do you say to the groups such as the Family Research Council that object to depicting let's say the use of contraception on television, their argument is that's going to lead to more sexual activity among young people?
TERENCE SMITH: Steve Allen, is there an underlying concern or should there be about censorship here? Does it go that far? |
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| An issue of censorship? | |||||||||||||||||||
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TERENCE SMITH: Is there a concern on your part or should there be that other special interest groups might come along and say, well, let's see less drinking on television, let's see less drug use. In other words, where do you stop? STEVE ALLEN: Nobody has ever known. You're talking about freedom on the one hand, which everybody loves, and law and order, which everybody loves. The two are mutually exclusive in a certain very specific sense. Every law is an infringement on freedom. Nevertheless, we need certain laws. So this is not something whereby one wise aphorism we can resolve the situation and go home, this is a debate that will never end. TERENCE SMITH: Professor Thompson, I wonder if there is anything on television in your opinion as a student of culture that is really any more graphic than the national headlines we've had the last year or so. ROBERT THOMPSON: No. I mean, you'd never get away with that kind of subject matter in even some of the diciest sitcoms. So now to really be performing well in your school civics class requires a much more graphic knowledge of sexuality than one ever needed to watch television. That's what's thrown a strange sort of paradox on this whole conversation. TERENCE SMITH: J.J. Abrams, what about that? Are you hurrying to catch up with the national news?
TERENCE SMITH: And were they calling this 800-number for advice? J.J. ABRAMS: They were calling because they didn't like the show. No. They were calling because they felt that there were situations that they'd been in -- the numbers went up dramatically from what they would be on a typical night and what was nice was they were calling to either report date rape, to ask advice, that kind of thing. And it was just sort of great to see that it was a direct response that actually affected people's lives. TERENCE SMITH: Vicky Rideout, the study's been out a few days now. What sort of response, if any, from the entertainment industry? TERENCE SMITH: Professor Thompson, do you get the sense that people who watch these shows, young people as well, separate their lives from what they see on the screen?
TERENCE SMITH: And a battleground it surely is. Thank you all very much for joining us. |
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ANNOUNCER:
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, starring the entire nelson family.
Here is Ozzie, who plays the part of Ozzie nelson and of course his
lovely wife Harriet as Harriet Nelson.
Today's
steamier shows deal explicitly with the topic Ozzie and Harriet never
even acknowledged: Sex. A new study by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
analyzes the explosion of depicted or suggested sex on television. It
found what it calls sexual messages in 56% of all entertainment television
programs. In prime time, that number jumps to 65%. However, among these
shows, the study found that only 9% make any mention of safe sex or
the possible consequences of sexual activity. One example that does
is this segment of the Fox network's "Party of Five". 
TERENCE
SMITH: The Kaiser study concludes that: In the future debate about sex
on television it may well be more important to consider how sex is shown
rather than how much it is shown.
TERENCE
SMITH: Professor Thompson, let me begin with you and ask you about the
underlying notion of this report that television has a certain educative
responsibility. Does it? 
J.J.
ABRAMS, Executive Producer, "Felicity:" I guess it can but the truth
is, I mean, we actually have a lot of fun with it. I mean, we're really
proud to be mentioned as one of the few shows that actually deal with
the issue of sexuality responsibly and on "Felicity" we actually turn
the challenge, you know, or the responsibility of dealing with the consequences
of sexuality into a challenge and sort of try, at least, to rise to
the occasion and deal with the issue of consequence and sexuality in
an entertaining way. For example, this one episode where Felicity decides,
"Okay, I'm going to have sex with someone." Though she didn't, in the
episode; she goes to the health service department and she sort of obsesses
over condoms, and we did a whole condom demonstration and it was a very
funny scene. And I think in some ways you can take what is perceived
as maybe a downer or burden and turn it into a challenge and make it
entertaining and fun. 
STEVE
ALLEN, Author/Comedian: All of the above. If all of the treatment of
sex on TV were responsible, and I don't mean simply that it would agree
with my own biases, that would be one thing, but that's not the situation.
Starting with, I think, the "Married with Children" series, which was
a true disgrace even to television, much less morality, it's been a
kind of anything-goes marketplace and I've seen no convincing evidence
that that has little or no effect on young people. As the professor
mentioned, the advertisers are spending billions because they know television
has an effect and we all know that it does -- a very complex issue,
though. 
VICKY
RIDEOUT: Well, you know, we don't view ourselves as some kind of sex
police and we're not going around blaming sex on television for teen
pregnancy or trying to say we should get all sex off of TV because I
don't think it's that realistic; and the other reason is because young
people do need information and this is such a good vehicle for getting
them information. I must say I think it's ironic that there are some
advertisers and some groups that will raise more of a fuss about a show
that has a condom on a bedside table or some other reference to safer
sex than they will about shows that show unprotected sex. So all we're
really trying to do -- and I'd say to Professor Thompson, we're not
trying to mandate anything to the television industry, we're not trying
to dictate anything to writers or producers, we're saying when you do
have sexual content in your show, you think about the way you're portraying
sex and if it can be worked into the context of the story line, show
some reference to safer sex and perhaps it can make a positive difference.
It's certainly worth trying. 
STEVE
ALLEN: Yes, it should. My own biases are anti-censorship but I perceive
a danger. The worst censorship is government censorship, even if you
had the loveliest government in the world. There's a great danger there,
we all agree on that. There is actual censorship every day in all of
our lives and we should be very grateful for it. Parents have every
right to censor what their children do or say, such a complex issue
can hardly be dealt with in a few moments here, but when Madonna really
talked disgracefully on the "David Letterman Show" several months ago,
some of her more objectionable words and phrases were bleeped out. That
is actual censorship, and I haven't heard anybody complain about it.
I haven't even heard Madonna complain about it. 
J.J.
ABRAMS: We couldn't. We wouldn't be allowed to. But, you know, we're
trying to be sensitive to our audience but we're also, our real concern,
our primary concern is to entertain and the wonderful thing about these
advocacy groups that have really helped us, I think, is that they're
really a resource. We did an episode on date rape and I called the Media
Project, a wonderful woman, Kate Fold, helped us out with the detailed
responses a young woman would have who had gone through something like
this. And what was amazing, and we're certainly not the first show to
do this, but we put a hot line number on at the end of the episode and
thousands of calls came in not only after the first airing but the second
one as well from young women who might not otherwise have called. I
just feel like for me it's an incredible sort of happy by-product of
doing something I think is respectful of the audience, that we're actually
affecting people's lives.
VICKY
RIDEOUT: You know, by and large it's a pretty positive response because
I think TV writers and producers are seeing, as J.J. Abrams has shown
us, that it is possible to entertain and do good at exactly the same
time; that these kinds of themes can be woven into the story lines of
shows in a seamless way, that you get great ratings when you do so and
the kind of positive feedback that J.J. is talking about. So I think
there's a lot of folks in the Hollywood community who care about the
impact of the shows they have and I must say there have been a fair
number of shows in recent months that have done a terrific job of incorporating
these issues into their programming, not just "Felicity", "Dawson's
Creek" has had some good episodes; the show "Moisha," "Seventh Heaven."
So there's a lot who doing good. What our study showed, though, is it's
kind of like a Dow Jones Industrial Average of the overall television
landscape and what the study showed is that while there are many producers
like Mr. Abrams who are taking advantage of the opportunity that they
do have to communicate important information while they're entertaining,
there are also a lot of other missed opportunities out there. This is
by far not the norm on TV right now. When less than one out of every
ten shows that has sexual content is even touching in a passing way
on any of these safe sex themes, you know we do still have a long way
to go. 
ROBERT
THOMPSON: Well, they don't like to be preached to and they don't believe
a lot of the commercials. However, a safe sex message from a show like
"Felicity" or "Dawson's Creek" or "Party of Five" is worth 100 lack
of safe sex things from the things that they don't respect as much.
To me a show like "Felicity" is a perfect example of how television
is this battleground for art, the vision of the producer and the writers
and so forth, commerce, the need to get ratings, morality, the need
to somehow respond to these kinds of things. And in many ways, I think
that balance is being battled out in a fairly healthy sort of way. It's
one of the things that makes television such an exciting medium in that
all of the stuff is kind of going into one set of programs. The novel
never did that, poetry never did that, the paintings never did that.