Saturday morning commercial was eye-opening experience
By Staff
Michelle Blaylock, Mom’s Corner
I have a confession. I am a TVaholic. I love watching TV. At times it does become a problem because I would much rather watch TV than do dishes, laundry, clean bathrooms, sort socks, vacuum, sweep and mop floors, etc.
However, even though I love to watch TV, I have to admit that there are things on television I do not want my young children to see. I don’t find it hard to censor shows I find unacceptable. I do have a problem censoring commercials.
For example, last weekend we were watching Totally Outrageous Behavior. Although, I had to carefully watch the show and screen parts of it. It was a great way for my children to see things not to do. My 5-year-old asked what we were watching and I said, “Stupid people doing really stupid stuff!” Honestly, what would you call someone who tries to ride up a telephone pole and then when he starts to fall twist around to try and land on the wheels of the bike? How about the kid who set up a video camera to video this “awesome” stunt to impress his girlfriend? His plan was to jump his four-wheeler over a dirt ramp he built. Unfortunately, he landed on his front wheels instead of his back wheels. He flipped over the handle bars and the four-wheeler landed on him. He laid there crying for about ten minutes – great way to impress a girlfriend. Anyway, now you understand why I said, “Stupid people doing stupid stuff.”
Although, I did have to screen the show for content occasionally, the show on the whole was mostly acceptable. However, there was one commercial that killed the entire show, actually it killed the entire channel. Yes, just one commercial. “How bad could it possibly be.” you ask? It was a commercial for The Adult Entertainment Expo that G4 TV is going to cover. Not only did it have lewd language, it had the scantily clad “professional girls” traipsing about all over the place. Now if you’re a 20-year-old person watching the channel, no big deal. But as for my children, especially the younger ones, I did not want them to see that. (Actually, I don’t think anyone needs to see it!) The G4 TV channel is now banned in our home. And before you ask. This was aired on a Saturday morning, not late night TV, but Saturday morning.
What made it worse was when I saw the commercial break coming I grabbed some laundry to run and put it away. My 18-year-old was just about to panic over it trying to get her younger siblings out of the room. She was yelling for them to cover their eyes and yelling for me to get downstairs. She knows how I feel about things like that. I felt bad about it, but I never dreamed there would be such a commercial on a Saturday morning!
I have complained about other commercials like the ones for “male enhancement” or the ones for E.D. I know this is a serious problem, but I just don’t think my young children need to know about the issue. I know my brothers used to complain about women’s “personal” needs, ie. pads and tampons, commercials, too. Nevertheless, the Adult Entertainment Expo commercial takes the cake!
I realize that my banning the G4 TV channel will make no difference to them. They don’t care wither or not my family watches their channel and I’m not trying to organize a “ban” of the channel. What other parents allow in their home is their own business. Nevertheless, I felt this is something other parents need to be aware of. G4 TV is the channel that has many programs that cover the latest video games, as well as programs that explain the best ways to win the popular games. I doubt very many parents sit down and watch these shows with their pre-teen and teen kids. Let’s face it parents aren’t typically interested in that type of entertainment which is fine; but now parents don’t only have to be concerned with the content of the shows, parents have to worry about the content of the commercials.
