by Angela S. Young

Created on: October 06, 2007   Last Updated: October 10, 2007

I turned on my television the other day and the Simpson's were just beginning. I had my hands full and couldn't get to the remote right away, so I wound up "watching" it for a couple minutes. It started out with a not-so-subtle slur on "religious types" and went downhill from there.

In my home, the Simpson's and their ilk are forbidden. I do not care to watch the low-class antics of this family. My kid's mouths are smart enough without learning from Bart. It was bad enough when these cartoons were on at night, but as always happens, they are now on all day long. Do you think parents send their kids from the room? Some maybe, but I know way too many who think of Bart (and Homer) as a "hero". They don't take it seriously when the envelope is pushed once again to lower the standards of our American television shows.

Why do we allow this trash on our television sets and even allow our children to watch it? Do we do it because it's funny? It amazes me how often we allow things into our lives as long as they're funny. Funny doesn't make right; it just makes funny. I have this discussion' with my daughter often, but make little headway in light of our current culture's influences.

I like to laugh as much as anyone, but I try not to use humor as an excuse to watch or listen to things that are not good for me. Maybe I'm alone, but it seems our whole society is going downhill. They lack courtesy; they lack compassion; they lack manners. I believe Bart is not only a symptom of the growing crassness of society, I believe it perpetuates it.

The major problem with the current crop of Adult Cartoons is that nothing seems to be off-limits. They make fun of anything and everything. They draw no lines and have no respect for anything. When they cross over the lines of human decency, they are no longer funny. They can still make you laugh, but you know it's in spite of what they say and do instead of because of it. I love humor as much as anyone, but where do we draw that line between humor and scorn?

How can we expect our children to learn politeness when they see this stuff all the time? With the continued growth of this genre of television show, and the increasing crassness of even the commercials on TV, I don't look for things to change. In fact, I look for them to get worse unless people decide to let their voice be heard and demand a return to decent programming.

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