No TV for Little Timmy Tonight, it Could Damage Him
I am not ashamed to admit that I'm among the millions of people around the world who call themselves South Park enthusiasts. In truth, it's the only show I watch religiously and each Wednesday night finds me planted in front of my TV, tuned to Comedy Central, no matter what other pressing issues are calling for my attention. Those four foul-mouthed little boys and their shenanigans are all that is important to me during that half hour. The walls of my room are plastered with South Park memorabilia, and when my computer is turned on, the user is greeted with an image of the boys as Stan and Kyle engage in their infamous "Oh my God, they killed Kenny" speel. I am also a member of the South Park Booster Club, the show's official mailing list. Each day I wait anxiously as my computer logs me onto the Internet and brings forth a list of newly received mail-- mainly my South Park Digests for the day. I was, at best, mortified, horrified, angered, and generally just pissed off when I opened a Digest a few months ago and saw a posting telling of a 12-year old boy who had committed suicide, supposedly imitating our beloved Kenny McCormick-- the kid in the orange parka for those of you who have been living under a rock for the past two years. According to this posting, the boy's mother was blaming the creators of the show for her son's death. Yes, it was a tragic thing to have happened, but that still gives no one the right to place all of the blame on a single show-- a show, might I add, that has fast become one of the most watched shows in America and around the world. It instead gives her the right, and the responsibility, to step back and take a look at herself and how she raised the boy.
None of the articles I read talked about the boy's home life, other than a statement from the mother saying that he was usually a happy kid, so I'm not sure what kind of mother this woman was. But it stands to reason that her son was not the happy kid she thought he was, else he would not have taken his own life. There was obviously something going on that he felt he could not talk to his mother about and though I'm no expert, I feel that, had this woman taken time out to notice that something was wrong and speak with her son, this death could have been avoided.
Suicide is not the only thing TV is being blamed for these days though. Laziness, illiteracy, and violence have also been blamed on those brightly flashing screens sitting in just about every living room in America. Why is this trend growing so rapidly? Why do we, a society full of moral, intelligent, and active people name TV as the reason for everything that is wrong with our immoral, unintelligent, and lazy children? Because we are too vain to take the blame ourselves. It's not television with its shows like South Park, Bevis and Butthead, Family Guy, Daria, and Action that leads the youth of America to crime. It's society and we must not immediatly assume that it is anything else. We must realize that we are a very violent nation and that no matter what we do, our children are going to reflect that. We are also a very fast nation. We want everything done quickly and on time and this obsession often leaves little time for family issues. So money hungry are we that we tend to loose sight of what is important and shove our families to the bottom on our TO DO list until we can find time for them.
There was once a time, when our greedy bastard of a country was young, that parents always had time for their children. Dad worked while Mom stayed home and gave Little Timmy all the love and attention he could ever possibly want, and then some. When Dad came home, they would all sit down to a nice dinner and discuss their day before retiring to the living room for a family game of sorts. But now, Mom and Dad both work. Little Timmy is left home alone a lot more, having to fend for himself during those hours between the time he arrives home from school and the time his parents return from work. To pass this time, Timmy plants himself in front of the TV and finds himself confronted by images of senseless violence. At first, Timmy is disgusted by this. After all, he's been taught that violence is wrong and well send you straight to Hell. But then he hears the laugh track. Now Timmy thinks violence is cool. Killing things and hurting people kick ass. And everyone blames TV when our dear Little Timmy goes out and kills someone.
Such assumptions must be stopped now. It was not TV that lead Timmy to kill that person. It was the fact that he had no one there to explain to him that the violence on TV was wrong, that there was no way he could do something like that in real life and get away with it. Had his parents been home, instead of spending all of their time working, slaving for that good old American dollar, perhaps Timmy would have retained the idea that real violence isn't funny but is in fact very wrong. Oh, poor Little Timmy. Just another victim of TV? I think not. Timmy was instead a victim of society, one in which we constantly look for the easy way out, something else to blame, rather than accepting the fact that it's our fault. A society that desperatly needs to yank its swelled, egotistical head out of the tightly clamped buttocks it's been in for so long before it becomes too late to stop the madness we've created.
--Bitch Cappy