"Family Guy" under attack

“Families who watch television together on Sunday night shouldn't be bombarded by content like this that would be more appropriate for the Playboy Channel.” Tim Winter, Parent's Television Council

The PTC (Parent's Television Council) has filled a very public complaint about the most recent aired "Family Guy" episode. In the episode, Mr. Pewderschmidt, Peter's father-in-law, admits that he never had a bachelor party, so Peter and his friend take him out to a strip club. While at the strip club, the guys buy Mr. Pewderschmidt a lap dance and then they have to explain to him what it is. I saw the episode and I admit it was a little racy, probably as racy as clothed cartoon characters could be, but now the PTC is up in arms about it. According to Tim Winter of the PTC, “Apparently Fox must believe that because the program is animated it can air anything it wants on Family Guy no matter how inappropriate or indecent."

I think it's fantastic that we, the television viewing public, have watchdog groups and lobbyist organizations to protect us from non-Christian influences on TV, but I'm wondering who is responsible for protecting our children from parents that don't care enough about their children to monitor what they watch on television! For that matter, who is in charge of protecting adults from indecency on television or even from our SPAM message and junk email boxes. Also, I think Mr. Winter of the PTC should pick up the phone and call his fun-hating friends at the tobacco, fast food, and alcohol lobbies because once you insist on a warning label on the product, there isn't much else the manufacturer can be compelled to do.

WARNING: No lifeguards present. SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK!

It seems to me that by publicly opposing Seth MacFarlane's "Family Guy," the PTC, and similar organizations, are actually offering the show free publicity and now there is a greater risk of young children learning the specifics of topless bars, lap dances, and the rest of the indecent material that the responsible parents are trying to keep from their kids.

Say for example that the good parent turns off the television when "Family Guy" comes on or makes their children watch something else. A few days later, the child hears on the news that "Family Guy" is in trouble for their most recent episode. So the child gets on the Internet in class and finds the article and reads words like strip club and lap dance. Then, with a little help from Wikipedia, the youngster is now fully educated on the material that his or her parents where trying to protect them from. This same child might now be aware that Playboy has a television network and will now accept invitations for sleepovers with kids they might not like but know their parents don't care what they watch. Personally, that sums up my sexual education.

I was watching the infamous Super Bowl Halftime Show with the "wardrobe malfunction" and I absolutely missed the controversy. It was just too quick for me, as well as most other viewers, to make out exactly what happened before the camera switched to something else. It was until the watchdog groups started publicly complaining that I learned what had happened. At that point, I got to a computer as fast as I could to see Janet Jackson's notorious breast before websites started taking it down. Parents, I guarantee you that your children did the same!

What the American public has to understand is that most lobbyist organizations and watchdog groups could care less about their mission statements and the people they claim to protect. Their jobs are to keep the controversial issue in the news as much as possible so that more people will donate money and their organization can grow. Instead of spending all this time and money trying to get Seth MacFarlane and RJ Reynolds to advertise against themselves, why not spend it on developing better alternatives?

That money could be better spent paying the bigger actors and actresses to do more family friendly programming. If they really cared about children and families, they would be spending less time worrying about indecent programming on television and more time trying to get increasingly obese families up from in front of the television and outside where they could be active for a change. It just seems that creating a safe television environment for families is like mandating environmentally safe areas for parents and children to smokes cigarettes together!