Talking With TV: A Guide to Starting Dialogue With Youth

In the early days of television all TV families had two parents—one who worked outside the home and the other who worked in the home—and the two or three kids who ate the cookies that the at-home parent baked. The parents' bedrooms of these early TV families had twin beds that were never occupied. When you were young, did you ever wonder how Lucy became pregnant? Maybe that's why Ricky was so surprised!

In the 1950s and '60s watching television was an occasion, not an all-day activity. Many families resisted the new technology and even those who had TVs had one set, not one set for each member of the family. Mom monitored what was watched and for how long. Channels were few, air times were short and programming was strictly monitored by network standards executives.

Throughout the '70s and '80s, television programming increased and changed. Television began to reflect the social changes of the times and as the sexual revolution gained momentum sex was increasingly the focus of TV programs. Both references and depictions of sexual behavior increased and became more explicit. Violence as programming grew exponentially too, while graphic portrayals became the norm, not the exception.

But TV's pictures of society can be incomplete. On television, it is mainly young physically attractive men and women who have sex. And TV sex is always spontaneous, always romantic, always wonderful and virtually free of consequences. Just as the hero has near misses with death while the villain suffers unduly from his wounds or favorite characters emerge unscathed from horrific explosions while others are completely destroyed.

Close-Up: Tuning Out Contraception

Although sex on TV was no longer taboo by the 'mid '70s, censors prohibited sexually active characters from doing anything to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases, or even talk about doing anything. In the early '80s, competition from cable and video cassettes became intense, so networks intensified their programming, using sex and violence to titillate audiences and capture viewers.

Although there was growing social conservatism in the '80s, TV did not reduce its levels of sexual explicitness. But there was a greater hesitance to deal with the consequences of sexual activity; birth control, sexually transmitted diseases and sexual violence and abuse all remained off limits.

But just as viewers are affected by some programming, TV, too bends to social change. Although programmers preferred ignoring reproductive health issues, polls and ratings showed that viewers were indeed tuned into breaking health stories. The breakthrough 1986-1987 season marked the beginning of episodes and story lines about responsible sexual behavior, condom use and preventing unwanted pregnancies. Television industry professionals and media analysts credit one event for radically changing programming about sexuality—the AIDS epidemic. Audience interest in and concern about AIDS has pressured the networks to portray sex more responsibly. Some in Hollywood now believe that audiences will react negatively to sexually irresponsible heroes.

Wide Angle: Negative and Positives

Yet while critics prefer to comment on the growing violent and sexual content of television and other entertainment media, there continue to be writers and producers who want to tap into TV's educational power, to start public discussions of important issues, and use television as a tool for positive social change. Clearly issues of AIDS, family violence, homosexuality, racial and environmental issues, and employment and economic futures are in the public debate, more so because of television. It is this national, if not global, conversation on these important issues that is essential to change.

So, television has been changed by society, but television, too, has changed society. Statistics and research confirm these correlations. As long as writers and producers are willing to take risks, to lead and educate and to communicate, TV can remain a critical public forum, entertainment vehicle and an educational resource. If politicians, advertisers and commentators rely on the power of TV to communicate and to promote their interests—then parents can too!