Another Word Goes Mainstream?

Posted on November 18, 2009 at 8:00 am

In my concern for the continuing coarsening of language, I last wrote about whether the term “pimp” had become acceptable for children after it was used in the PG film “G-Force.”
The New York Times writes about another word that has crossed into the mainstream and has become a go-to insult on television and in movies.

On many nights this fall, it has been possible to tune in to broadcast network television during prime time and hear a character call someone else a “douche.”

In just the last several weeks, it has happened on CBS’s “The New Adventures of Old Christine” and the CW’s “The Vampire Diaries,” which are broadcast at 8 p.m., during what used to be known as the family hour. It has been heard this fall on Fox’s new series “The Cleveland Show,” which begins at 8:30, and on ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy.” On NBC, its use has spanned the old and the new, blurted out on the freshman comedy “Community” and the seasoned drama “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”

In total, the word has surfaced at least 76 times already this year on 26 prime-time network series, according to research by the Parents Television Council, which compiled the statistics at the request of The New York Times. That is up from 30 uses on 15 shows in all of 2007 and just six instances on four programs in 2005….And while the word “douche” is neither obscene nor profane — although this usage is certainly offensive to many people — it seems to represent the latest of broadcast television’s continuing efforts to expand the boundaries of taste, in part to stem the tide of defections by its audience to largely unregulated cable television….”As a writer, you’re always reaching for a more potent way to call somebody a jerk,” Dan Harmon, the creator of “Community,” said about the word “douche.” “This is a word that has evolved in the last couple of years — a thing that sounds like a thing you can’t say.”

Unquestionably, the language on television has become more vulgar. And the argument that this is acceptable because it can be limited to a particular time slot has become less supportable. When television programs like “Law and Order” and “CSI” (and their variations and spin-offs) seem to be on 24/7 and raunchy sit-coms like “Two and a Half Men” run in syndication in the early evening. I find this word particularly ugly and misogynistic and am sorry to see it become mainstream.

Disney Admits that Baby Einstein Does Not Help Babies

Posted on October 26, 2009 at 8:00 am

Disney, which had to drop the word “educational” from its marketing of Baby Einstein DVDs following complaints from the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), has now had to back down further and offer a refund.
The New York Times reports that the $200 million a year business, which is predicated on the idea that DVD-watching is beneficial to infants even though the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time of any kind, television, DVDs, or computers, before age 2, is so pervasive that as many as a third of all American babies have seen at least one of these DVDs. In what the company is calling an “enhanced consumer satisfaction guarantee” and the CCFC is characterizing as capitulation, the company will refund $15.99 for up to four “Baby Einstein” DVDs per household, bought between June 5, 2004, and Sept. 5, 2009, and returned to the company.
I have been a furious opponent of Baby Einstein and the other DVDs for infants since I published the one of the first exposes of them as a racket in the mainstream media, a 2005 article in the Chicago Tribune. When I was working on the article, a company representative’s absurd response to my question about academic studies showing no benefits in learning from their products that their DVDs were “not research-based.” The New York Times story reports that even though they had to remove the word “educational” from their literature following CCFC complaints and a Federal Trade Commission investigation, the website still promises “number recognition” and introduction of shapes. And, of course, the name itself implies that the products increase knowledge or intellectual capacity.
The academic studies show that what infants learn from watching a family member once takes them four times as long to absorb in a DVD. And the very act of watching a DVD with the pulsing refresh rate of the screen can be at the same time soporific and stimulating, making it more difficult for them to get restful sleep. The only thing they learn from these DVDs is how to watch television. Susan Linn of the CCFC was a terrific resource for me in my work on this issue and I am delighted to see her success in bringing to parents’ attention how useless these DVDs are.

No Heene Family Wife Swap

Posted on October 23, 2009 at 3:59 pm

The savagely funny Washington Post television columnist Lisa de Moraes takes on the Heene family’s lust for reality television fame. The Heenes and the family behind the balloon boy hoax and subsequent media blitz. Slate’s Culture Gabfest noted that it was not until the post-rescue effort interviews that law enforcement suspected that the whole thing was a publicity stunt.
de Moraes notes that Lifetime has decided not to air the Heene family’s previous attempt at reality television fame and fortune, an appearance on the “Wife Swap” series. I like the way she makes it clear that Lifetime should have pulled it from broadcast based on its exploitative and overall disgusting content, completely apart from the subsequent discrediting of the family’s authenticity.

Lifetime…had no problem with Dad, a.k.a. Richard Heene, observing that “once a woman hits 25, it’s all downhill from there,” creating a “meter” to gauge his temporary, pretend wife’s behavior and when she asked him to help around the house, shouting at her, “You’re a man’s nightmare! I’m so glad my wife was born in Japan. Nag, nag nag! Over 25 years old. You sag!”

Which we believe qualifies as not only sexist and ageist, but maybe also racist, which would make it a veritable Hat Trick of Prejudice.

It’s one thing if the so-called adults in the Heene family want to humiliate themselves for fame and fortune; it’s another to take young children into the media circus with them. We should think carefully about whether the Heene parents’s behavior constitutes child abuse. And we should think even more carefully about the extent to which the robust ratings for this kind of reality television make us all enablers.

The Worst Surprise Endings in Movie History

Posted on October 22, 2009 at 3:59 pm

Huffington Post has got a list of the nine worst surprise endings in movie history (well, in the past few years). I was pleased to see three of my Gothika Rule picks on the list, “Perfect Stranger,” “23,” and “The Forgotten.” (For newcomers — the “Gothika Rule,” named for a movie with one of the worst endings of all time, means that I will give away the surprise to anyone who sends me an email to save them what I had to suffer in watching it.) Be sure to check out the comments from readers with their own suggestions. I’d add “The Pink Jungle,” “Desperate Measures,” and, of course “Gothika.” Any others?

Climate Change

Posted on October 15, 2009 at 8:05 am

The theme of Blog Action Day this year is Climate Change. Observe this day by watching one of the many documentaries about the environment like An Inconvenient Truth , FLOW: For Love of Water, “No Impact Man,” or Wall?E.
And then do two things: First, make a change in your own home. Eliminate drafts. Turn off the water while you brush your teeth. Recycle. Compost. Take reusable bags to the grocery store. And second, write to your representatives to tell them that this issue matters to you and that you are watching to see what they do about it.

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