Televised vulgarity debases society

As I’ve tried out the fall season’s new TV shows, I discovered that the creativity among television producers seems to have fallen to new lows. Instead of seeing something entertaining, I’ve too often felt as if I were seeing and hearing a videotape of the backup of sludge and human waste sliding out from a sewer system.

Most programs seem to feature dialogue and visuals that have an uncommon focus upon sex, sexual situations, body parts, various bodily excretions, rude behavior, vulgar language, homosexual slurs, and immorality. Certainly, none of what I’ve described is new. It’s just that the crudeness factor has ramped up a lot. It seems as if all TV characters are moving closer to uttering “The Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television” made famous years ago by the late comedian George Carlin. Consider too the ridiculous and extensive use of the word “freaking” as the all-purpose substitute for the still-forbidden “F word.”

This raunchier direction in television writing and performance doesn’t offend me. Instead, I find the unceasing and unnecessary scatological intrusions into the dialogue frustrating and boring. Also, I don’t like to find myself “cringing” because of them when I am in mixed company or when children are present in the TV room.

Crudeness and vulgarity make up the reservoir into which the ignorant, the untalented, and/or the intellectually “spent” players in the entertainment industry reach for their language choices and plot devices. All of the vulgarity and crudeness debases our culture. So, how about it, you Hollywood types, can you: become cleverer; be more imaginative; communicate in Standard English; introduce more civility in your characters; and acknowledge the merits of conventional moral guideposts once in a while?

I sure hope so.

Charles Falk

Schaumburg