“Anything Goes” Mentality
Ed Vitagliano, director of research for AFA, says parents should be outraged. “For a TV network to basically ally itself with a producer of pornography is reprehensible,” he says. “Parents really need to make the effort to do whatever they can to try to encourage networks and advertisers to begin to draw back instead of rushing headlong into an 'anything goes' mentality.”
The pro-family researcher says he is not surprised about NBC's strategy during the Super Bowl halftime show. He says television has been sliding downhill since networks quit regulating themselves in the late 1960s. “[As we move] on into this new millennium, [we] have really seen an acceleration of the kinds of language, the kinds of explicit sexuality and sexual talk and even nudity — we've seen an acceleration of it that's almost beyond belief,” he says.
“It's not even a matter of going back 40 years,” Vitagliano says. “You go back 10 or 15 years, you'd never see the kind of discussions or this kind of thing shown on television that are commonplace now.”
A New Campaign
On Fear Factor, contestants compete for a cash prize by performing frightening stunts. Vitagliano says viewers should contact sponsors of Fear Factor and encourage them to stop advertising on the show.
Vitagliano's organization is providing an avenue through which concerned parents can do exactly that. AFA recently launched an e-mail campaign featuring two separate websites — one for moms and one for dads. The group says the goal of the two websites — OneMillionMoms.com and OneMillionDads.com — is to find millions of parents who are willing to send one e-mail a week to a sponsor and hold that sponsor responsible “for the trash they sponsor on television.”
According to AFA, those who register at either of the websites will receive an e-mail once a week concerning a program on television. The message will include a review of the program and an e-mail address that can be used to register a complaint about the program.
Holding Hollywood Accountable
In announcing the campaign, AFA founder and president Don Wildmon asks: “Can you imagine the impact one million e-mails (or even 100,000) will have when they appear in the mailbox of a sponsor the day after a program runs? Or even a day before!”
The OneMillionMoms.com and OneMillionDads.com venture is the latest effort in AFA's history of holding Hollywood accountable for programming that negatively influences traditional family values. Wildmon founded the National Federation for Decency in 1977 to address the negative content he saw on television. In 1988, he changed the name of the organization to American Family Association.
This article courtesy of Agape Press.
