Desperate Housewives and Censorship

The presentation on Desperate Housewives really interested me. I was quite surprised to see that it is being advertised mainly as a show about sex. Compared to my girls of Sex and the City, this show is for kids! This just goes to show what advertisers think makes the public want to watch a show for. Sex, sex, and more sex. I have to admit, I become quite interested if I know I will be watching some raunchy semi pornographic sex scenes, so the advertisements for the show definitely intrigued me. I’ve never seen much of the show, but because the rhetoric used to promote it involves sex scenes and drama, I’m now going to try and tune inJ The logos used in the presentation, talking about the sponsors backing out due to the show’s immoral themes, made me want to watch the show even more! All the talk about the show being so controversial will definitely interest the public….there’s no such thing as bad publicity right? I think the show is also packed with pathos and ethos. For housewives, the show offers characters that these women can relate to. The struggles the characters go through give women reassurance that their problems are not unique to them. Seeing characters go through the same emotional drama that you do offers a sense of security that you are not alone in this. The characters establish ethos because they go through the same problems that many housewives have to go through. Because they are trying to realistically (ok, somewhat exaggerated I’m sure) portray unhappy housewives, the viewers believe what they are watching. Because the scenarios are realistic, ethos is established.

As for censorship, I really think television has become quite free with using swear words during early evening television. Though I use these words occasionally, I do a double take when I see them being used so early at night when kids could be watching. When a child sees their favorite actors cussing, they will want to emulate what they are seeing. If Jennifer Aniston is cussing, it must be cool, so I’ll do it too. I was absolutely floored to see the lack of censorship at the award show. It blows my mind that they allowed the F word to be said. They obviously knew it was coming because she was reading a teleprompter, so their lack of censorship was a poor judgment call. Sure, parents need to be the ones who are censoring what their children are watching, but do you really expect that the F bomb is going to be dropped on an award show? The logos used in the presentation about the rate of profanity increase amazed me as well. Networks having over 100% increases shows us that our morality and values are decreasing. Why are they cussing on primetime television in the first place? Does it really make the show any better? NO. I can see its appeal in movies, but for comedy shows, it doesn’t add anything good. Cussing is a minor problem, compared to other things are kids could be doing, but why encourage them to do it through television? There’s really no reason to include it, other than for its shock value.