A Television ‘Ring’

I find it revelatory to observe that the very week the rap lyrics censorship and NEA funding controversies rage across the country, TV viewers had the opportunity to watch a heavily promoted series of four programs created by an acknowledged anti-Semite that included the following plot elements:

1. A physically deformed man physically and mentally abuses his likewise deformed brother over a piece of jewelry.

2. Another man murders his brother in a passionate argument over the same piece of jewelry.

3. A brother, the result of a father’s marital infidelity, impregnates his twin sister.

4. The father abandons another daughter after drugging her to sleep and setting her bed on fire.

5. The son of the twins kills a man, drinks his blood and loses his virginity to his aunt.

Not prime-time family fare. Where were our self-appointed protectors of public morals and taste when we needed them? Could it be that they missed the smut because it was disguised as four operas titled “The Ring,” written over 100 years ago by Richard Wagner and broadcast on the Public Broadcasting System?

Is there not some seriously selective censorship going on here?

BOB HUNKA

Los Angeles