Controversial Television Advertisement

Controversial Television Advertising

Introduction

Parents today have an obligation to keep their children safe from the harsh reality of life around them. Just by turning on the television a child is subjected to violence and provocative images, or is shown the "coolness" of lighting up a cigarette and drinking a beer. Television advertisements pose a threat to preserving a child's innocence; they go above and beyond being an advertisement and become a weapon that is slowly tearing away at the decency in American homes.

Parental Involvement

Televisions are now equipped with V- Chips and Parental Controls, but even on the channels that are meant for children you can find programming with inappropriate subliminal messages that are meant to entertain the adults. Shows like Spongebob Squarepants on Nickelodeon, a children's network, is filled with humor that targets adults and is, at times, inappropriate for children. Even children's movies are now filled with humor that targets adults and makes them want to take their children to see the movie. Dreamworks Pictures 'Shrek 2' is filled with controversial suggestions of drug use, sexual references to undergarments, religion references, and foul language; yet it is still considered to be a children's movie. There are hundreds of websites that point out all the in-jokes and cultural references. On one site, author Jay Hill states "and where would a "Cops" parody show be without someone getting busted for drugs. In "Knights," we see the peace officer frisking Puss in Boots and discovering a bag of catnip in Puss's pocket. Given that catnip appears to be an illegal controlled substance in Far Far Away, the cat immediately replies: "That's not mine" (Hill, J., 2004, May 27). This is obviously a reference to marijuana use and is inappropriate material for a children's movie, proving that the movie industry is targeting the adults.

To keep our children safer from harsh television programming, they invented the V-Chip. "On