Commentary

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

In one of the great cop outs of our time, media organizations of every size and stripe have banded together to foist responsibility for what kids see and hear on - can you believe this? - parents!

The coalition includes politicos who routinely trash media content like Rick Santorum and failed vice presidential-candidate Joe Lieberman; content providers like NBC Universal, News Corp, Viacom, Microsoft, and Time Warner; trade groups like MPAA, RIAA, ESRB, ESA; and other hangers-on like the YMCA, Wal-Mart, the Girl Scouts, and for reasons less clear, Interstate Batteries.

The Pause Parent Play (PPP) initiative (www.PauseParentPlay.org) launched last week with a display of parental control tools and technologies for TV, movies, music, and video games.

If successful, the "entertainment" industry can keep grinding out crap like "Grand Theft Auto," "Kingdom of Heaven," "The Apprentice," and nearly anything recorded by 50 Cent and/or G UNIT and be self-absolved of any responsibility for the impact on the media-saturated next generation.

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Kind of reminds you of the tired rational that keeps the tobacco companies in business: "It's legal so we're going to keep making them! WARNING: EVEN IF THEY WILL EVENTUALLY KILL YOU."

As a parent and as someone who consumes a wide range of trashy media programming, I have mixed feelings about all this. And what I think probably doesn't matter. For example, just because I don't think a crucifix resting in a glass of urine isn't art, doesn't mean it isn't (after all, the NEA gave the guy a grant to keep working).

But you have to think that of the 5,000 or so folks in that PPP coalition, there has to be a parent or two who doesn't live in L.A. or N.Y. where reality is something altogether different from the fruited plain between the Hudson River and the 605.

In the world not populated by nannies, personal coaches, tutors, and every kind of paid recreational diversion, real parents are simply losing the battle to keep kids off PlayStation and cable TV and away from explicit lyrics. Make every rule you want for your kids, but three sleepovers later or simply on the bus to and from school, they are pretty much caught up on everything you prevented them from seeing or hearing. I have never once in 14 years seen my largest son listen to a radio, yet he has more than 2,000 songs on his iPod the majority of them recorded in the past three years with lyrics that would make a sailor blush.

"Burn me a copy" has replaced the time-honored tradition of sneaking a peek at the old man's not-so-well hidden copy of Playboy.

There was a time when nudity and profanity were restricted to R-rated movies, but in recent years they're in PG-13 movies as well, which every kid older than 7 thinks she/he has a birthright to see. Suggest to, say, an 11-year-old that he go see a G-rated movie and see what happens. Even Jim Carey can't make that face.

Sit with your kids and watch "the family hour" on TV and see what passes for humor from Hollywood these days.

I think the most realistic approach to modern media is not to try and remove it from your kids (because you will fail utterly) but help them understand where the anger and misogyny and violence and sexuality and disrespect for authority (have I missed anything?) are coming from.

Then sit back and remember the dire predictions for your future when you lived as a closet hippie in the 60s and 70s. The Beatle's White album and little orange sunshine didn't keep you from becoming a vice president.

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