The VMAs Isn’t A Children’s Show So Parents Should Stop Trying To Make It One
The Parents Television Council is pissed that MTV keeps putting on a Video Music Awards show filled with lots of explicit sexual content. Who are these people? Have they been frozen in ice for the last three decades? MTV has always been sexually explicit. We’re just more inclined today to think it’s a television network’s responsibility to shield our kids from all the things we deem “inappropriate.” It’s not. If MTV’s VMAs are too sexy for your kids – here’s an idea; don’t let them watch it.
I’m not saying the VMAs are quality programming. Between Robin Thicke‘s dumb tight pants and Miley‘s weird tongue thing, I can totally see why parents would be annoyed by their performance and think it was inappropriate for children. But there is this amazing resource parents have that they seem to be ignoring in this instance. It’s called a remote. It has a power-off button, as well as buttons that control the channels. How hard is it to exercise control over your own television?
The Parents Television Council is asking that MTV take the following “proactive steps” before the show airs this Sunday:
- ”Commit publicly that the program will not contain the type of explicit sexual content present in last year’s show
- ”Commit publicly that the program will not violate MTV/Viacom’s own standards and practices as was alleged last year
- ”Commit publicly to rate the program accurately and in accordance with the TV Parental Guidelines which stipulate that crude indecent language, explicit sexual activity, or graphic violence is to be rated as appropriate only for adults – TV-MA.
The VMAs should be rated TV-MA? Get the fuck out of here. Your teenagers have seen way worse and any kids you have in the house who are not teenagers probably shouldn’t be watching this stuff anyway. But if they do – big woop. I watched Madonna writhe across the stage singing Like A Virgin when I was 11-years-old. I’m okay. I really am.
I grew up watching Soul Train and Solid Gold and dancing my ass off to songs that were totally inappropriate for my little ears. The first record I bought myself was Prince’s 1999. I was 9-years-old when my mom drove me to the record store to purchase it. I had no idea what any of those filthy lyrics meant – and reading them did not destroy my life.
If these parents would spend more time talking to their own kids about what’s on TV and less time clutching their pearls over it – the world would be a better place.
And for the record – everyone was horrified by Miley. Not just parents.
(photo: Getty Images)
