In his Dec. 14 column, TV editor Scott Pierce described ABC's "My So-Called Life" as a moment of "experimental nobility" and claimed that the show has "dealt sensitively and intelligently with issues like sex, drinking, drugs, even life and death," and encouraged his readers to let ABC know you want to see more of the program.
According to Pierce, "ABC executives pointed to surveys in which viewers said they wanted programming of substance that they could watch with their kids at 7 o'clock."In the Aug. 25 debut of "My So-Called Life" the show's 15-year-old heroine, Angela, thought of her mom: "I can't even look at my mother without wanting to stab her - repeatedly!" Angela also lied to her parents - repeatedly - as when she told them she was going to a rehearsal for a school play but instead went to a party, during which she fell in some mud. Upon returning home with hair askew and clothes soiled, her mother hollered at her; "Where the (expletive was not deleted) have you been?"
Angela's best friends included Ray Ann, who got drunk at the party, and Rickie, a bisexual male.
With the TV editor of such a pro-family newspaper rallying support for such "pro-family" network programming, who says the traditional family institution isn't being undermined by the media?
Robert W. Lee
Salt Lake City