by Zach Bigalke

Created on: November 06, 2007

Americans have created a nation of apathy. And those few who have the initiative and the wherewithal to get creative - and carry out to fruition the objects of their creativity - are often questioned and harrassed for their creativity. It seems that the pack wants homogenized, padded and shrink-wrapped cookie-cutter entertainment... and that parents, too, have become too lazy and unsure of their duties to take charge of their children's lives.

Wait a minute... you mean that that rating in the upper corner of the television screen means that kids shouldn't watch this? But there's no real people in it... just a bunch of silly moving drawings saying silly things. Surely this can't hurt young minds, right? Cartoons are wholesome and all-American and tailor-made for enterprising young minds...

Parents seem to want the quick fix, the easy answer, the homogenized product to cram down their kids' throats to placate their curiosity. Life isn't getting any easier, sure, and parents didn't have to worry about monitoring two-hundred channels and a world-wide web simultaneously inane and indecent. But those people who find enjoyment from television programs such as "The Simpsons", "South Park" and "The Boondocks" and do not have children should not be punished. I have no kids, but I have been watching each of these shows since their first seasons. If I did have young children, I probably wouldn't watch these shows around them. PARENTS: it is as simple as changing the channel and altering your own viewing schedule. There are amazing new technologies like DVRs and even - GASP! - VCRs which can save the program for later viewing (perhaps once the little tykes are nestled in their beds?)

But this is all just too much work. Americans want someone else to do something for them... as Homer Simpson deadpanned when trying to come up with a campaign slogan for his sanitation commissioner bid, "Can't Someone Else Do It?" And it became his slogan en route to a landslide victory... because Americans want someone else to take care of life's messes for them, to take all the difficulty out of everything - whether raising children or parallel parking or cooking dinner. The FCC and television networks can adhere to base standards of decency as it pertains to the airwaves; only a vigilant parent can come to a conclusion about what is right or wrong for his or her child.

Besides, what kind of precedent does it set to prevent visionaries such as Matt Groening and Aaron McGruder from realizing their artistic potential simply because they choose to publish without the hassles and idiosyncracies of live actors. In a society that is concurrently skeptical of the paydays and shamefully lustful for celebrity, it is refreshing when true wit and satire can occur for less than the $1 million an episode per actor which ultimately results in something tacky and asinine like "Friends"... no, we must maintain the right of writers and producers to use animated acting in prime-time adult programming. Messing with the airwaves is censorship, and no amount of apathetic parenting should merit the reduction of Constitutional freedoms...

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