Some people are sick and tired of sleazy television shows. Hollywood producers are getting sick and tired of people complaining about sleazy television shows. It's sometimes hard to know which side to take in an argument like this.
Pressure groups like Rev. Donald Wildmon's American Family Association in Tupelo, Miss., are petitioning sponsors to withhold ads from allegedly trashy fare. Wildmon has been rattling his sword for years, but suddenly Madison Avenue is heeding the rattle.Grant Tinker, one of the most respected producers in Hollywood, feels he's heard it all before. He was chairman of NBC during that network's spectacular comeback and now runs GTG Entertainment. Tinker says he began hearing Wildmon's name back in the early '80s, when his first campaign began.
"I think he's a jerk - let's start with that," Tinker says. "The fact that he arrogates unto himself the suggestion he should make judgments about what is and isn't appropriate television is just beyond comment, it's so bizarre.
"Not that he can't scare advertisers. He can. But TV sets still come equipped with on-off buttons, and we live in a democracy, so when Wildmon, or Mrs. Rakolta for that matter, tries to pressure things off the air, I think it's offensive."
Mrs. Rakolta is Terry Rakolta of suburban Detroit who writes angry letters to sponsors and who has now formed her own pressure group. Unlike Wildmon, she doesn't claim to be doing the work of the Lord - only that of a concerned and outraged parent.
Sponsors have indeed withdrawn ads from smutty shows like "Married . . . with Children" and from racy shows like "Saturday Night Live." ABC dumped two "reality-based" specials about sex scandals and murders because, the network said, no one would buy ads on them.
But sponsors have also pulled ads from serious, thoughtful programs like NBC's recent movie "Roe Vs. Wade," which was one of Wildmon's targets. There were even advertisers who withdrew commercials from the brilliant, much-watched CBS miniseries "Lonesome Dove" because the word "poke" was used by cowboys in a sexual context.
The trouble with pressure groups and advertisers is that they often fail to differentiate between trash and class.
Aaron Spelling's series "Nightingales" was not picked up for fall by NBC largely because of the protests of the National League of Nursing. Members of that group and others who joined the protest did not like the show's portrayal of their profession as being hot to trot.
"Nightingales" was essentially Nurses in their Undies.
"I don't think there's any doubt in the world that if `Nightingales' hadn't had that nurses' thing, we would have been picked up," Spelling says. "There are so many groups, I can't tell you. And each group protesting wanted to supply their own technical adviser."
Spelling, who gave TV "Charlie's Angels" and "Dynasty" (and, on a nobler plane, last season's outstanding movie "Day One"), admits the program was occasionally too suggestive.
"There are things we should not have done on `Nightingales,' and I'm sorry about those things," Spelling says. Some scenes were "vulgar" and "in very bad taste," he says, especially a sexual encounter in a closet between a nurse and a doctor.
"I know we could have made it a good show without all that crap," Spelling says.
Tinker says networks are taking flak for a phenomenon that they did not create. "First-run syndication is the culprit, if there is one," Tinker says. Syndication gave birth to shows like "A Current Affair," "Geraldo," "Friday the 13th," and "Inside Edition."
But NBC did air Geraldo Rivera's sick satanism special, the lurid potboiler "Favorite Son" and the kinky-winky "Sex Tapes Scandal." In a crass economy move, General Electric, owner of NBC, fired most of its censors. Now NBC Entertainment president Brandon Tartikoff has announced that NBC is beefing up the censor staff again.
"All the networks, I think, have come to regret paying too little attention to the content and standards of their shows," Tinker says. "Brandon has felt the heat of the criticism and responded as he should."
Spelling says, "I think we should have broadcast standards departments at the networks. It's not that we aren't responsible. It's just that we need someone who says `No, you've gone too far."'
But neither Spelling nor Tinker want that someone to be the leader of a pressure group. "I don't like Wildmon or Rakolta legislating what we see on television," Tinker says.
"It's so contagious; that's my fear," says Spelling. "When advertisers pull out of `Roe Vs. Wade' before they've even seen it, that's frightening."