Both Sides Miss the Point Over Trash TV

With regard to the proposed war on “trash” TV talk shows and the response from Howard Rosenberg (“These Policemen Are Pounding the Wrong Beat,” Calendar, Oct. 30), I find that both sides are missing the point.

Daytime TV talk shows are way out of control, but it’s not an issue of free speech. The truly offensive aspect of these programs is not the often exploitative and voyeuristic topics, or what is said about them, but the level of personal conduct. Discussion has been replaced by shouting, invective, insults, profanity and physical brawling. The most degrading and dehumanizing behavior is encouraged and promoted in the name of ratings.

The shows are set up so that long-simmering emotions are heated to the boiling point while a studio audience responds like patrons at a dogfight. The hosts are so ill-equipped that they regularly lose control.

A recent Sally Jessy Raphael show featured husband-stealing baby-sitters, but the real subject was bitterness and name-calling. The highlight was an all-out brawl, teased at every commercial break, involving a dozen people, including a father holding his 2-year-old son. Sally had objected to the child’s presence, but declined to insist on his removal even though the tension level onstage rivaled the Earps and the Clantons prior to the gunfight at the OK Corral.

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Sally’s hypocrisy is typical. The hosts (Ricki, Jenny, et al.) are quick to denounce physical violence--after they’ve set it up and encouraged it, and subsequently used it to promote the show. To my great surprise, one of the worst current offenders is Marilyn Kagan, a licensed therapist, who prior to this season presided over a more dignified and ethical show.

Is any of this necessary? I’m not aware of any punch-outs on the Donahue or Oprah shows. And until recently, except for Geraldo’s annual bloody nose, it was possible for a talk show to get through an hour without a brawl breaking out. Likewise, all of a sudden, no guest can utter a sentence without half of it being bleeped or it resulting in a screaming match with another guest.

Is this really who we are and how we want ourselves to be perceived as human beings? Evidently the producers of these shows think so, because the way in which they select and prepare guests results in the behavior we see on the air. The fact that they regularly send people out to humiliate themselves gives you a clue as to what they think we find entertaining. The only way to change that perception is to let them know.

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Donahue, Oprah and one relative newcomer, Montel Williams, seem to be the only ones capable of maintaining a civilized standard of conduct. Everyone else, Sally, Ricki, Jenny, Marilyn, the lowest of the low--Jerry Springer, and all their various clones, encourage the worst in people and take advantage of it. Then they try to clean it up at the end by bringing on a so-called expert to dispense the surprising advice that everyone on the panel needs counseling.

I don’t consider demanding the same standards of behavior for talk-show guests that we expect of ourselves to be censorship. I consider it a simple sign of respect for everyone. Rather than being thought control, it may actually encourage thought.

And if that requires pressure, then so be it. Better that than to sit back and watch our standards of civilized conduct being lowered.

Now I know what some of you are saying--I can simply change the channel or turn off the set. Well, what if I don’t want to? What are you going to do about it, you lousy (bleeping) weasels! I’ll break your (bleeping) faces for you!

Oops . . . sorry. Too many talk shows.