"It has become the definer and transmitter of society's values."
Last night I had the strangest dream, which is the line that starts a song about the Powerpuff Girls, and because of that it's doubly relevant to this particular entry.
I was in a house that was clearly an amalgam of all the houses I've ever lived in and I was babysitting a kid who was supposed to be Adeline, but based on age, multiple levels of cuteness, and syntax was a mix of both her and Gabriel. When I came in she was watching a cartoon on our local Fox affiliate Fox 17 out of Grand Rapids, which will be important later. She needed to change out of her PJ's, so I set about to finding an outfit for her, so I wasn't paying too much attention to what was on the screen, for if mom had turned it on at 8 am, I figured it was okay. What was on when I turned around was horrific, and I say that without hyperbole: commercials with extreme sexual content and violence, including a trailer for a movie based on a Japanese video game about a government program to split up the awesome power of a quartet of absurdly large-breasted women in underwater fortress. Things were happening that I find repulsive even as an adult, but which enraged me to see a child being exposed to.
Of course I turned it off and Adeline got annoyed that I'd done so, but I explained to her how bad those things were for her, a smart, funny, loving, wacky, amazing girl who was going to grow up and be a a smart, funny, loving, wacky, amazing woman, and how those kinds of things had the power to damage how she saw herself. Luckily she understood, but I got to thinking about what could actually be done to fix this monumental problem in a lasting way, something that couldn't be spun as a busybody who had a problem with free speech. Complaining to the FCC would, at best, only result in fines and many groups I actually support having to take stances against me. We we walking out the door and it hit me that everything I was thinking of doing was too small, wouldn't make the statement I wanted on a national level, but I knew what would; I was going to sure the station and it's parent company for the time slot they had so thoroughly abused.
It seemed, in the dream at least, the perfect idea. So I called Matt and he pointed me toward the right lawyers and the right PR firm, and pretty soon the story of a babysitter from Michigan suing a Fox affiliate for obscenity and demanding not money, but the air time, resources, and funding for her own children's show was a hot story on every station and in every newspaper. I had not only parents groups, but also media watchdog groups, civil liberties groups, and a hundred other organizations backing me up. Major corporations were even coming out and promising advertising dollars once I was on the air.
In the end, I got my show and it was awesome. Everything was so vivid, to the point that I could run a PR campaign for this sort of thing in real life. I can't remember the last time I had such an intense dream experience about something that seemed so plausible, minus the graphic sex and nudity on a broadcast station, but still. It was something else.
I have many other things to record, including my biggest moment of idiocy to date, but this seemed important somehow, so here it is.
I was in a house that was clearly an amalgam of all the houses I've ever lived in and I was babysitting a kid who was supposed to be Adeline, but based on age, multiple levels of cuteness, and syntax was a mix of both her and Gabriel. When I came in she was watching a cartoon on our local Fox affiliate Fox 17 out of Grand Rapids, which will be important later. She needed to change out of her PJ's, so I set about to finding an outfit for her, so I wasn't paying too much attention to what was on the screen, for if mom had turned it on at 8 am, I figured it was okay. What was on when I turned around was horrific, and I say that without hyperbole: commercials with extreme sexual content and violence, including a trailer for a movie based on a Japanese video game about a government program to split up the awesome power of a quartet of absurdly large-breasted women in underwater fortress. Things were happening that I find repulsive even as an adult, but which enraged me to see a child being exposed to.
Of course I turned it off and Adeline got annoyed that I'd done so, but I explained to her how bad those things were for her, a smart, funny, loving, wacky, amazing girl who was going to grow up and be a a smart, funny, loving, wacky, amazing woman, and how those kinds of things had the power to damage how she saw herself. Luckily she understood, but I got to thinking about what could actually be done to fix this monumental problem in a lasting way, something that couldn't be spun as a busybody who had a problem with free speech. Complaining to the FCC would, at best, only result in fines and many groups I actually support having to take stances against me. We we walking out the door and it hit me that everything I was thinking of doing was too small, wouldn't make the statement I wanted on a national level, but I knew what would; I was going to sure the station and it's parent company for the time slot they had so thoroughly abused.
It seemed, in the dream at least, the perfect idea. So I called Matt and he pointed me toward the right lawyers and the right PR firm, and pretty soon the story of a babysitter from Michigan suing a Fox affiliate for obscenity and demanding not money, but the air time, resources, and funding for her own children's show was a hot story on every station and in every newspaper. I had not only parents groups, but also media watchdog groups, civil liberties groups, and a hundred other organizations backing me up. Major corporations were even coming out and promising advertising dollars once I was on the air.
In the end, I got my show and it was awesome. Everything was so vivid, to the point that I could run a PR campaign for this sort of thing in real life. I can't remember the last time I had such an intense dream experience about something that seemed so plausible, minus the graphic sex and nudity on a broadcast station, but still. It was something else.
I have many other things to record, including my biggest moment of idiocy to date, but this seemed important somehow, so here it is.