Adult Content

There was a time when that annoying little black box with TV MA, or TV Y, or any other variety of TV rating, did not appear in the upper corner of the screen during our favorite television shows.

The reasoning behind this move towards content rating can be traced back to Tipper Gore's crusade to protect our children from questionable music retailed without warnings. Tipper worked to ensure a little black box would appear on our music, ensuring parents wouldn't go out and buy their kids Judas Priest or Motley Crue albums without thinking twice. While the uproar Tipper's war caused within the music industry caused more than a few ripples, it also paved the way for the transformation of television rating.

The incorporation of television content ratings can be attributed to shows like the Simpsons and Power Rangers becoming increasingly popular with children. The battle cry was a need to better monitor our children's intake of sex, violence, and otherwise detrimental material.

Mind you, this was all before the advent of the Internet we know today. A parent could not Google a synopsis of a show to determine its compatibility with their views on what children should or should not watch. In my house there was a definite shift in viewing habits before and after the inclusion of content ratings.

It seemed that my parents were trying to shield me from what other parents were shielding their children. In a 'keeping up with the Joneses' sort of move we were suddenly unplugged from the popular culture around us. It was now only the 'cool' kids who watched The Simpsons.

This separation of popular culture and home life falls back to one of the many facets of parental responsibilit: the totalitarian control of our children's development. The sole weight of education, emotional development, social integration and life skill development lies with the parent. There are many institutions around to help grow a well-rounded child, but in the end the parents are to blame or to be applauded.

This new content rating system opened the eyes of many parents, and forced them to take note of the types of material their children were watching. To this day it continues to assist parents with selecting appropriate shows for their children. To my dismay this doesn't stop networks from producing more reality shows and less educational shows.

I don't think the Discovery Channel, The History Channel, and TLC can wholly live up to the standard their names seem to imply, but that is a discussion for another time.