Garbage in, garbage out

Anyone remember the famous line from the ‘70s Flip Wilson Show, "What you sees is what you gets?" Well, today's children appear to be getting what they see - and hear. And we see undeniable evidence of their "getting it" played out in schools and playgrounds across our nation.

An entire genre of music, popularized and pushed into the mainstream by greedy corporations, has taught a generation of children that the road to success is paved with drugs, violence and misogyny.

The Parents Television Council, in cooperation with the Rev. Delman Coates' Enough is Enough Campaign for Corporate Responsibility in Entertainment recently released an analysis of adult content appearing on Rap City and 106 & Park on BET and MTV's Sucker Free - music video programs popular with young audiences - and found that offensive/adult content appeared at an alarming rate: one instance every 38 seconds.

That means every 38 seconds children watching these programs are exposed to sexually-charged images, explicit language, violence, drug use or sales, or other illegal activity.

As I'm sure you did, I taught my children to respect all races. Now, sadly, children watching these programs were exposed to the "n" word 136 times in just one week.

I also taught my children to respect life, that weapons were to protect us when police were called, not used against each other, that they were to obey the law, and avoid illicit drugs. But now children are exposed to depictions of weapons, deaths, explosions, rioting, drug use and other illegal activity daily through these programs. Sadly, what I taught my children not to do, today's children are told it's OK to do it, and then shown how to do it - in graphic detail.

But wait a minute; the V-Chip will protect kids, right? It could, except that almost every episode in PTC's study carried only a TV-PG rating with no content descriptors. MTV's Sucker Free carried only a TV-14 rating. Would you consider this PG content?

It doesn't take a PhD to see the impact of this type of explicit content on the minds of our children. Numerous research studies show that listening to music with degrading sexual lyrics is related to advances in a range of sexual activities among adolescents. It communicates cultural messages about expected and normative sexual behavior. Researchers believe that the onset of sexual behavior in our youngsters could be delayed by reducing their exposure to this type of degrading sexual content in popular music.

In a recent analysis, Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital of Boston, found that attractive role models were used as aggressors in more than 80 percent of music video violence. He believes music videos may be reinforcing false stereotypes of aggressive black males and victimized white females.

Research experiments verify that exposure to sexual violence in music videos and other media desensitizes male viewers to violence against women and heightens a sense of disempowerment among female viewers.

We need to be concerned about the messages our children are exposed to in all forms of media, throughout the day, as this data proves. Parents need to be more involved in monitoring their children's media consumption, establishing and sticking to household rules about media use, and discussing media content with their children.

Advertisers need to be held accountable for the content their advertising dollars pay for. Those companies that advertise on programs like 106 & Park, Rap City and Sucker Free can and should use their unique influence with BET and MTV to push for greater responsibility where program content is concerned.

I, for one, am tired of paying for channels I refuse to watch because I don't want my mind or the minds of my grandchildren to be assaulted and abused. As consumers, we must demand and receive the right to pick and choose - and pay for - the channels we want coming into our homes. Why should we parents, who wish to protect our children from this content, be forced to subsidize garbage with our cable subscription dollars?

We must demand from the networks an accurate, transparent and consistent ratings system that will give parents adequate tools to protect their children from inappropriate content.

Is it worth our involvement? You bet! Because our children are watching.

Kitty Chappell (www.kittychappell.com) is an award-winning author and speaker who lives in Chandler. She is also a member of the Parents Television Council (www.parentstv.org).