Evidently, movie audiences got the vapors in 1939 when Rhett Butler uttered that now-famous line, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
Damn? Oh, my stars and garters, Gone With the Wind was shocking! Audiences had not heard that oath uttered on the big screen for some time thanks to the Motion Picture Association's Production Code of 1930, also known as the Hays Code.
The code's No. 1 "general principle" was: "No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it."
The Hays Code even monitored cinematic smooching, stating, "Excessive and lustful kissing, lustful embraces, suggestive postures and gestures, are not to be shown."
The unofficial rule of thumb was that even a relatively chaste screen kiss should not last longer than three seconds.
The paternalistic Hays influence lingered for three decades and naturally translated to the small screen beginning around 1950.
Examples? Remember the halcyon days of Leave It to Beaver and The Andy Griffith Show? The most brazen expletives might be, "Gee willikers, Mrs. Cleaver," or "Gall durnit, Andy."
That was then. Today it seems almost anything goes. For TV's watchdog outfits, it's frustrating that Hollywood plasters loose and inconsistent parental guidelines on programs, then washes its hands of responsibility.
You know the guidelines. They run from TV-Y (suitable for all children) to TV-MA (mature audiences only).
In between are TV-Y7 (directed to children over 7); TV-Y7FV (contains fantasy violence); TV-G (general audience); TV-PG (may be unsuitable for younger children); and TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children under 14).
Check out the full explanations at tvguidelines.org.
The site informs us: "The TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board is responsible for ensuring there is as much uniformity and consistency in applying the Parental Guidelines as possible and is comprised of experts from the television industry and public interest advocates."
The Parents Television Council, which recently released a new study (Protecting Children or Protecting Hollywood? A Twenty-Year Examination of the Effectiveness of the TV Content Ratings System), objects to the fox guarding the hen house and uses the new ABC family sitcom The Real O'Neals to demonstrate how TV's ratings system has suffered "systemic failures" and should be comprehensively reformed.
PTC president Tim Winter says in a news release, "Parents who rely on the TV content ratings system to make informed decisions about what to watch on television have been deceived, as our new research shows that the ratings system has systematically failed to provide accurate and consistent information for its entire 20-year existence."
Read the council's full report at w2.parentstv.org.
Let's look at that episode of The Real O'Neals that got the latest flap going. It's a good example of misguided ratings, according to the council. The episode was rated TV-PG, generally considered inoffensive except for the youngest of children.
On March 15, The Real O'Neals aired its fourth episode, "The Real F Word." It's not the F-word you might assume, but an offensive pejorative for gay people that the family's 16-year-old son Kenny (Noah Galvin) called himself.
Kenny, who announced he was gay in the season's first episode, is hauled before the school's vice principal to be admonished for using one of the school's banned words. Vice principal Murray (Matt Oberg) then proceeds to read the list of words.
This being a TV-G kind of family newspaper, we can't print them. But to inform you using creative euphemism, they included a common term for a person's rear (also a donkey); a derogatory term for a malicious, spiteful or overbearing woman (also a female dog); a term for a sexually promiscuous woman and a couple of others I'm not allowed to even hint at.
Kenny's eyes grow wide and he asks, "Are you sure you should be reading these aloud to me?"
"Probably not," Murray smirks.
If you'd felt comfortable beforehand with the episode's TV-PG rating and your 9-year-old was in the room, would that scene have upset you?
Winter says, "Young viewers routinely are exposed to graphic violence, explicit sex, profanity and other adult content in shows that are labeled as suitable for children. It is time for the system to be accurate, consistent, transparent and accountable to the public."
Discuss among yourselves.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Weekend on 04/14/2016