OBVIOUSLY … Depictions of gay sex on television freak out the Parents Television Council! The reactionary organization, which spent much of 2008 furious with Gossip Girl‘s marketing campaign, has lobbed a complaint over AMC’s Mad Men‘s season three premiere. The episode, which was rated TV-14, deserved a more explicit rating, says PTC, which was founded more than 50 years ago by L. Brent Bozell III to annoy the Federal Trade Commission.
Why the crackdown on Mad Men? Maybe because there was a scene featuring overtures involving persons of a certain sexuality.
rudy
Children are watching “Mad Men?”
Maybe our culture really isn’t in a downward spiral after all.
J467
Gee – they get mad when 2 guys go at it on TV, and then look the other way when Bush and Cheney are committing war crimes, business are moving overseas leaving entire towns in ruins, millions go without health care, the US slowly becomes a second rate nation, and rednecks scream “Nazi” at Obama without knowing what the hell they are talking about. Conservatives are pathetic and frightened individuals who are directly responsible for most social and business ills, and they blame it all on godless liberals. Idiots.
To hell with them. Let them form their own state where everyone has a gun, where men are men and women are barefoot and pregnant, where gays are only church organists or hairdressers and where blacks are caddies. And they can forget about using our fire, police or garbage departments. Fuck off, conservatives.
Alexander
J7467 – Amen, brother!
Erasure25
Conservatives are generally an uneducated bunch. Many want to return to the more “moral” June Cleaver days (of the 1950’s I guess?) Yes, lets go back to that period where income taxes ranged from about 20% to 92% (as opposed to 10% to 35% today).
I have no idea why conservatives have a problem with seeing 2 men make out. It’s not as if they are suggesting that we make being gay illegal, right? No, of course not. That would be like the Taliban. Or Mahmoud Ahmedinajad. Can we now go to town hall meetings and label conservatives as terrorists and dictators?
I support the notion of letting conservatives fester in a state all their own. Give them Texas or Alabama, or both. Let them drive their “All-American” gas guzzlers that get 10 mpg, eat McDonald’s, build Wal-Marts instead of schools, teach only creationism and weight lifting in whatever schools they have left. I give them 5 years before they are all living in caves filled with shit.
RainaWeather
I watched this episode with my mom and younger sister. Then I thought about all the people who would be horrified that we watched this during family time.
jason
If it was two women, they’d be calling it “erotic” and worthy of watching. LOL. Hypocrisy, thy name is middle America.
Josh
To be fair, they’d be pissy if it was women too, at least publicly.
These people see nothing wrong with a three hour snuff film as long as it’s about Jesus and doesn’t have any sex.
They hate ANY presentation of sexuality, but don’t seem to care if people get beaten, tortured, bloodied, blown up, shot, stabbed, whatever.
Lesson here is, to the psychotically religious, violence is fine, even something to be desired, but sexuality is icky and sinful and sends you to hell if you so much as hear about it.
schlukitz
@Josh:
Josh, that is a dichotomy that has escaped my comprehension ever since I was old enough to begin reasoning things out for myself.
Love is sinful, but all of the other horrors you listed are completely acceptable…even for their kiddies. Witness the sheer number of violent games available to computer-savvy kids today. Doh!
What other proof does anyone need to convince us that these people are retarded, mentally disturbed and should be considered dangerous?
Anarchos
Soooo, is TV-14 suitable when it’s just Don Draper cheating on his wife with any vagina that stands still long enough? Aren’t they trying to protect the sanctity of marriage and the family or some bullshit? With all the adultery on the show, they haven’t spoken up until now? Really? PTC, kindly go fuck yourself, and leave Mad Men alone.
Chuck
Are these same people “horrified” that Barack Obaba’s parents were a black man and a white woman? No? Ok, it’s good to know they are 50 years behind the times and not 100.
seb
I have seen Don draper Grabbing Bobbie ‘s clitoris to threaten her not to leave her husband quitting a campaign for Utz in Season 2 and no one found anything to complaint about….Boy , why USA is so full of religious freak? I am so glad to live in UK where you can get gay characters on prime time getting on if the script says so ( Queer as folk, Torchwood,The street etc…)America land of Freedom? I don’t think so…The freedom is on the ather side of the Atlantic…
Anarchos
@seb: Sure, except when it comes to freedom of speech.
Tweek
UPDATE: This video has been removed due to terms of use violation.
Huh… what terms have been violated… I’m interested…
StraightGrrrl
The fact that many people are conditioned to see male homosexuality as a threat on TV, but are desentized to violence, abortion, drug use, alchol use, war, poverty, says a lot about the American psyche and it’s priorites.
I’d rather any future offspring I may or may not have be exposed to a man on man kiss instead of someone getting their head sawed off, but that’s just me.
Two men kiss on TV and it’s controversial? If it were two women it would be “intimate” “erotic” “sensual” and “steamy,” but two men must be perceived as “revolting” “vomit enducing” “yuck”.
Joe Scarborough described the scene as: “crossed a cultural threshold.”
Scarborough noted during the Aug. 17 edition of “Morning Joe,” that the episode “had the most graphic gay scene I think I’ve ever seen on TV, really. You always talk about it, the door is closed, but it’s never there.”
Notice how he only demonizes male homosexuality in this quote:
“You know dude, it’s whatever gets you through the night. It’s all right. All I’m saying, it is, in our culture today in 2009, it is still really shocking, even to a lot of people that are very progressive. They don’t want to see men kissing.”
StraightGrrrl
Of course self proclaimed “Liberals” who pretend to be all for gay rights, (but are really okay with homosexuality as long as it’s two hot chicks) dont want to see men kissing, they’d rather see men beat the shit out of one another. That’s more socially acceptable I guess.
StraightGrrrl
I would also like to add that in many Middle Eastern and North African countries it is pretty common custom and an embraced part of the culture for men to kiss and hold hands. Boys and men in Sub-Saharan African countries frequently hold hands together as well, not so much kissing though. During wars in Sub-Saharan Africa, Soldiers would hold hands with their fingers intertwined to comfort each other and provide a feeling of safety and certainty. It is perceived as a deep friendship and bond between friends who happen to be male, yet America claims to be so progressive and forward-thinking and frown upon boys being affectionate.
It is amusing that people will walk out on a scene with two men being intimate with one another, but will cheer when two men are beating the pulp out of one another.
People who complain about two men kissing on TV watch need to get out more and do something productive with their lives. I guess they forgot all about the filth and debauchery that taints daytime television such as: Jerry Springer, Steve Wilkos, and Tyra Banks, yet they say this is too explicit. Ugh gag me with a mothertruckin spoon.
The stuff they talk about on those above shows are more explicit than the scene in Mad Men.
schlukitz
@StraightGrrrl:
I have to tell you that I really related to all three of your posts. We are on the very same page with respect to affection between same sex persons.
I spend a lot of time in the Philippines and like you, I have witnessed many of the young school boys, as well as young school girls, walking around holding hands as you described. It’s really a beautiful thing to behold.
My partner and I were driving about on one of my very first visits to the Isle Luzon where we live and the first time that I saw this innocent display of affection, I found myself tearing-up at the sheer beauty of it.
I commented to my partner of seven years that the possibility of witnessing such a public display of affection between two boys or girls in America was as likely as hell freezing over. It amazed him that this sight should have had such a profound impact on me, since he was been accustomed to that all of his life, having been born there.
When I am in the Philippines, all I see is smiling faces everywhere I go. Absolute strangers, male or female, will stop and have a conversation with you, no matter what they might happen to be doing at the moment. Even cashiers in supermarkets and retail stores will smile at you and spend a few moments exchanging pleasantries.
People have time for each other in the Philippines. It’s a slower pace of life.
If we are sitting in Jolly Bee (the Philippine equivalent of McDonalds), and I happen to catch someone looking at the only white-haired man in the room (that would be me), a glance in their direction brings an immediate smile which I cannot resist returning. And even though I am a gay man, sitting there with my partner across from me or next to me, the girls love to flirt with older men. It pisses my partner off no end. LOL
That does not happen here in America. In fact, one limits ones self to a quick glance lest the guy you are looking at says “What the fuck are you looking at, Jack. Are you some kind of fag?” And if I glance at a woman, she will quickly turn her head in the other direction to avoid any kind of eye contact. So sad, really. Like robots we walk around in our America.
I have been away from my partner, my island home and a beautiful race of people who know only how to smile and show love…for far too long.
I am homesick.