Ok, I really want to know why American TV is obsessed w/ killing

[MichiganVote]

or murdered white women. Ladies? Your opinions please.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. I want to know why

virtually all TV shows deal with murder, death, autopsies and other violence.

[joemurphy]

4. Just my theory, TG, but I think people tend to watch and listen

to what vindicates their world-view. A lot of people think that the world is a tough, dirty, dangerous, and violent place. A lot of people see things as black and white and don't like to be troubled by nuances and distinctions. For these kinds of people, life is a continual Manichean battle between good and evil. To defeat evil you have to fight, be tough, be just as violent than the enemy if not more so. That's my guess. Just for the record I think our Prez and Vice-Prez see the world this way. Hence their love of white phosphorus bombs, new forms of napalm, torture, and secret prisons --all in the name of the good, of course. In their minds they wear white hats.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

18. I believe you are right

Especially the white hat part. When you can rationalize napalm, you have a problem. I think they believe that they are "right" and that all their evil means will be justified in the long run. Dangerous, dangerous way to think.

[SammyWinstonJack]

5. I watch old movies, HGTV, the Food Network, Travel channel, Bravo

(Inside the Actors' Studio, Animal Planet. That's pretty much it. Every time I get involved in a good show, ie "American Dreams" "Ed" "Jack and Bobby" shows like that, they take it off! :grr:

[MichiganVote]

10. Low rating disease. Why is it every show has to be a case of sadism or sex

[SammyWinstonJack]

15. Beats me? I personally don't like or watch those shows. "American Dreams

was a very good show, so was WB's "Jack and Bobby". Maybe too deep for the FReep types? :shrug:

[TallahasseeGrannie]

19. I loved American Dreams

because the heroine was almost exactly my age. She was actually a few years older. And they left it with the cliffhanger, where she rides away on a motorcycle!

I also liked Joan of Arc. Of course there was Freaks and Geeks... lots of great shows cancelled. And what's left? Law and Order and CIS twenty five times a week.

[SammyWinstonJack]

25. I can't believe they canceled that show! I grew up in those years.

It resonated with me. LOL yes Law and Order and CSI have had their 15 minutes of fame.

[MichiganVote]

8. This is true also. My husband and I went to see Tim Conway

recently with our two sons, early 20's and 18. We explained to them that this is what was on TV all the time. Comedy, creative and funny skits. They were amazed.

[ovidsen]

2. Ratings.

I hate it, but it's the truth. Missing white women get the ink and the watts, to the detriment of more important stories, and it sucks.

[MichiganVote]

11. have you noticed there is virtually no art or artful entertainment

[TallahasseeGrannie]

20. No

you can find some classical music on Christmas Day, sometimes!

Your choices are decorating shows, cooking shows, crime, or gasp, reality shows.

[MichiganVote]

23. One wonders how many ways they can package a butt on reg. TV

[mrcheerful]

3. Mainly to keep americans scared

and to show them how dangerous the world is without laws to protect them. Look at Fox and you can see 2 shows that are a prime example of fear tactics at work, Cops and Americas most wanted. Both shows takes a wild ride into the world of the out laws, what they fail to mention is, everything on their shows take time to come about. Even in LA cali, crime doesn't happen as much as Fox wants so much of the cops show takes weeks and months before they have enough for a 1/2hour show. Its also why they pick large cities instead of small ones. On americas most wanted they seldom give dates as to when these wanted people go on the run and even when they give dates they under play them so it sounds like the person wanted just did the crime that morning.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Right, network TV does a hatchet job on cities, as if nothing happens

there except crimes committed by dark-skinned people.

Perhaps that's why, when I told people in a small Oregon town that I was moving to Portland, several of them worried for my safety and said that they were afraid to go into the city.

A friend who taught high school English in one of the most affluent suburbs of Portland told me that nearly half of his students would come into high school never having visited downtown Portland. Since a branch of the Ashland Shakespeare Festival performed in downtown Portland during the winter, he required his students to attend the plays there, just to get them out of their suburban cocoon.

The rural and suburban paranoia about Portland was absurd. I lived there for ten years without a car, walked and waited for buses and trains at night, and was never attacked or even hassled. Sure, there were crimes, but the ones that happened were blown all out of proportion.

I even called up a local TV station and raised hell one day in 1994 when the dinner time newscast started out with "Is there a crime wave in Portland?" The actual story was three unrelated shootings, only one of them fatal, in four weeks. Some crime wave.

I believe that this scare-mongering about cities is intended precisely to keep rural and suburban residents away, so that they are not "contaminated" by the more liberal environment there.

[MichiganVote]

16. So you think that this type of viewing is about crime or the

supposition of crime? Well that's interesting.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. Yes, scare people into staying out of the cities and supporting a

harsh, punitive criminal justice system.

As I said, the city as portrayed on TV (even Minneapolis, which does have a higher crime rate than Portland) is far more dangerous than the city in real life.

[MichiganVote]

12. We need to seriously stop watching this shit in America

[mcctatas]

6. Well obviously for ratings and the scare the shit out of America factor...

but I personally think for a certain segment of the population they are either snuff film fantasies (freepers), and for others, punishment for women with loose morals (fundies)...Just kidding...kinda;)

[MichiganVote]

13. Actually these are programs that do appear to appeal to the nuts

[QC]

7. I want to know why there are so many threads on this same topic.

It seems that we, in our own way, are every bit as obsessed as those hausfraus glued to Faux News.

[MichiganVote]

14. I don't think I'm obsessed. I just want an explanation for this

It is so strange. But you're right, having asked viewers, I will now go write the useless networks.

[ErisFiveFingers]

21. Americans fear death.

Thus, they obsess over it.

Quite simple, really.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

22. Traditional American Values like killing and sex sells.

Of course, it is all overlaid with the usual pious hypocrisy.

[MichiganVote]

24. Like wife swap. Ridiculous show.