Category: TV

I guess one bisexual just wasn’t enough.

Let me back way up. During MTV’s 2007 Video Music Awards, a commercial ran for a brand new show called A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. In this reality show, ex Playboy and Penthouse model Tila, a self proclaimed bisexual, invites 16 gorgeous lesbians and 16 studly straight guys over to help her decide whether she is gay or straight. The commercial for this show alone could have put Viagra out of business. The following day, in my annual recap of that “VMA Awards Show”, I mentioned the commercial and predicted that Tila’s show would be a big hit. After all, the commercial showed lesbians making out, girls in bikini’s brawling with each other… all the stuff our great nation loves.

Tila’s show not only became a hit, but her MySpace page became one of the most popular MySpace pages, with more than 1.7 million MySpace “friends.” Young girls began emailing the ex Playboy and Penthouse model for advice on love, sex, and relationships (receiving quality answers, I’m sure). Season 2 of Tila’s show returned with more of the same (read David’s in depth January, 2008 Youth Culture Window article about that season here).

MTV keeps sinking to new lows each season, knowing that sex sells. Forget the fact that “teens who were exposed to high levels of television sexual content were twice as likely to experience a pregnancy in the subsequent 3 years compared with those with lower levels of exposure.” (Journal of Pediatrics, November, 2008)

The question is… what does Season 3 of this “A Shot at Love…” show have in store for our kids?

It guess Tila didn’t make the cut.

Enter the “Ikki Twins” stage left. That’s right… lesbian twins.

The show launches on MTV tomorrow night (Tuesday, December 9th). The sad fact is, the show is probably gonna be a huge hit with this younger generation.

You’ve got much better things to do than watch this show, so David has provided us with another great Youth Culture Window article about what are kids will be seeing on this MTV reality series. David also includes some questions we can use, talking to teenagers who watch the show (because, yes, many of our kids will be watching it). David says it like this:

We hope you won’t be put in that position, but just in case you hear teenagers you love talking about the show, here are a few questions to help you engage them in conversation on the very important topic of love.

I’ll be a little more blunt. We’re fooling ourselves if we think that kids in our ministry area won’t watch this show.

For a little more about what to expect… here’s the preview from MTV.com. Be warned… the preview alone is more than I would want my kids to see.

(click here to see the video if you receive this blog via email)

And a quick note to the guy who is gonna email me and say, “Why are you providing the link to this preview? That will cause some of us to stumble.” Let me just answer that guy right now. First, sadly, this preview is approved for television. I’m not linking you to something R-rated. Secondly, this is straight off MTV.com  Our kids know where to find it, and the guy struggling with porn knows where it is anyway and, sadly again, knows where the more graphic stuff is (and if you struggle with porn, hopefully you have set up some safeguards and accountability that keep you from going to those sites). I show this preview to you as parents and youth workers for one simple reason: Some of us really don’t realize how bad TV has become. This preview gives you just a glimpse.

Last week I was watching a fairly clean prime time show with my entire family (not a lot of prime time that my 11, 13 and 15 year old can all watch anymore). The star of the show made a quick comment to his nerd friend that was spending time on the web on comic book sites. He said, “Why can’t you just watch porn like everyone else.” A subtle comment, but packed with meaning. Anyone normal looks at porn. It’s no big deal.

The week prior we were watching a show and one of the lead girls confessed, “I haven’t been laid in six months!” Everyone else gasped! The underlying message was clear. If you haven’t slept with someone in six months, something’s wrong!

The sad fact is… these were pretty clean shows. This wasn’t Gossip Girl, Desperate Housewives, or the O.C.

T.V.’s effect on our youth is nothing new to this blog (just click on the “sexuality” category on the left hand side bar , or do a search for “TV” and see how many blogs are dedicated to the topic). It’s a fact that TV shows and movies are getting blatantly more raunchy. I just was chatting with my friend Todd, our THE SOURCE Movie Review guy, about this. He recently reviewed the popular Adam Sandler movie, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. Todd described this PG-13 movie as a “raunch-fest.” He’s right. This movie was a PG-13 Borat. I thnk my biggest concern here is the PG-13 rating. Again… the subtle message that this content is okay for 13-year-olds. The entire film was not only loaded with over the top sexual humor… it presented abundant female roles who had no problem with these male “pigs” and their consistent crude sexual gestures. Our young girls are learning that sex is simply “no big deal.”

Yesterday I received numerous emails from people about the research just released by the Journal of Pediatrics. Numerous articles are reporting the “Teens who watch television shows that have a lot of sexual content are more likely to become pregnant- or to get someone pregnant- by the time they turn 20.”

This research is what I call “Duh.” Think about it. If our kids are coached by shows like Gossip Girl or Tila Tequila every week, they’re going to respond in the way they’ve been taught. it’s that simple.

Perhaps parents need to say, “You can’t watch this.”

Hmmmmmmm.

Time Magazine just came out with an amazing article called “The Truth About Teen Girls.” My favorite part of the article- a quote from an MTV producer who tells it like it is. Wow!

I’ll give you the whole paragraph, emphasis mine:

Middle school counselor Julia Taylor of North Carolina had a conversation with her sixth-graders last year that worried her. “A lot of them were watching The O.C.,” she says. “I just remember the show’s multiple sexual partners, the cocaine use, and then at the end, they drink, they drive, they set fires, but all is well! There are never any consequences.” Taylor understands the media better than many. Her sister Mary is a producer who has worked on MTV shows including My Super Sweet 16 and Spring Break. “I’m messing them up, and she’s fixing them,” says Mary jokingly. But Mary also suggests that if nobody were watching the shows or buying the products that are advertised on them, they wouldn’t succeed. “We’re not Little House on the Prairie anymore,” she says. “The world is different. If parents said, ‘You can’t watch this,’ and the ratings dropped, maybe we would change things.”

The entire article is good. Here’s another snippet:

…teenage sexuality is growing only more heated. Girlhood sexiness seems to be everywhere: on TV shows and in movies, in advertising, in teen magazines and all over the Internet. Most disturbingly, it seems to be coming from the girls themselves: the way they dress, the way they text, the way they present themselves on Facebook and, oh, mercy, what they get up to at parties. There are whispers, stories for which the anecdotal evidence–from school counselors and child psychologists and mothers–keeps accumulating like a national pile of unwashed laundry. These suggest teen girls are getting very liberal with sexual favors, especially of the type detailed in the Starr report. In one generation, girls seem to have moved from Easy-Bake to easy virtue.

Click here for the whole article. (thanks to David and Ypulse for bringing the article to my attention)