Sex on television
Sex on televisionOnce upon a time in the “Golden Age” of television, networks deferred to their own in-house offices of standards, which kept profanity, questionable morals, and salacious behavior off the airwaves. Today’s standard- free TV shows are obsessed with sex and it is very obvious to even the most casual viewer. This paper will discuss in depth, where all of this sex “stuff” started and how “bad” it’s really gotten, on Network Television sitcoms.
The following research study, sponsored by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and conducted by the University of California- Santa Barbara, is described as the most comprehensive study of sex on TV. According to this news study of sex on TV, over half (fifty-six) percent of all programming contains sexual content. In prime time, over two- thirds (sixty-seven) percent of all shows deal with sex. Sitcoms, surprisingly, deal with sex, only (fifty-six) percent of the time. The study also found that most of the sexual content is talk. About one- fourth of the shows (twenty- three) percent actually depict sexual behavior- usually passionate kissing- and three percent show the characters having intercourse. Eight percent of the shows include sexual content involving teenagers.
Sex on television did not just happen over night. It has evolved from what we now consider extreme minimal sexual contact. For example, in the fifties, “I Love Lucy”- a show based on a middle class family (the Ricardos) living in New York City. The husband Ricky Ricardo wanted his wife to stay home and take care of the house while he earned a living entertaining at a local nightclub, the “Tropicana”. Lucy Ricardo was never satisfied with the dull day to day activities of a housewife. So every episode depicts her taking on another adventure, or getting herself into a messy situation and trying to get out of it before Ricky got home.
In the beginning of this show, whenever there was a scene at bedtime, in the Ricardo’s bedroom were two separated twin beds. The two were never shown together in the same bed until much later on in the series. Another issue on the show occurred when Lucille Ball in real life became pregnant. The producers decided to play off the pregnancy on the show as well with Lucille character, Lucy Ricardo. This seems like an easy task to TV viewers today, but the rules for television content were so strict at that time that they could not even use the word “pregnant” on the air. These kinds of standards continued, not just through the fifties but the sixties as well.
The seventies were a little different however. A television show that aired on CBS in 1971, was part of a new type of sitcom that advanced sexual content to what at that time seemed extreme to a lot of people. “All in the Family” was a well- written sitcom and it’s respected for the pure thought of a typical blue collared, white male, in the 1970’s. Due...
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