TV-H: Hazardous to Your Hypocrisy

The one surprise about ABC’s pinning of a false and misleading child warning label on the hit comedy “Ellen” is the possibility, against all evidence, that the network poobahs have imagination. It takes imagination to preface this season’s episodes of Ellen DeGeneres’ Emmy-winning show with a warning: “Due to adult content, parental discretion is advised.” In a world where words still meant what they mean, of course, this would be correct, because adult content--if adult means mature, human, funny, heartwarming, professional, innovative and real--is what distinguishes “Ellen.” But of course that isn’t what “adult” means on TV.

Last season, the character Ellen Morgan “came out” as a lesbian. And this season’s shows have made affecting and brilliant comedy of the consequences. The concerns that last season’s hoopla would result in a preachy, unfunny show have vanished. Millions are laughing along with Ellen and her friends, because her own truth has made her funnier and connected her to shared experience.

“Ellen” is a situation comedy, like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Taxi,” “Cheers” and “Roseanne.” These shows sharpen the interactions of real people in plausible situations into comedy. We are learning along with the unpredictable Ellen about what it means to be a lesbian and what a funny, bewildering experience that can be. What is so marvelous about Ellen is how she keeps having to confront her own internalized version of society’s narrow mindedness. You don’t have to be a lesbian to identify with her, although you may risk having to transcend being scared or intolerant of a different sexual orientation.

What is so offensive about the transparent attempts to censor DeGeneres is not only their hypocrisy and craven submission to imagined threats to the profits of the network’s owners. What really stinks is what the network is advising parents. ABC is censoring the rare show that is sexually reticent and tender. The shows that require no cautions are routinely lewd, vulgar, blatantly and exploitatively sexual as well as pointless. Do you want your children to learn about their desires and about love by watching babes and dudes? Shouldn’t we be worrying about what it does to people to be told one thing in church or at home about morality and responsibility, while their bodies and fantasies are being manipulated by for-profit sexual pandering and merchandizing?

The ABCensors apparently don’t watch their own shows. “All My Children” has been featuring a story line about Kevin, a young man who has to deal with being gay and encounters the hostility of his family and the kinds of quacks who still claim they can “cure” homosexuality. Last time I tuned in, Kevin had found some support from his would-be girlfriend and some sympathetic adults. As I was watching, however, I was terrified that he would end up being another one of those statistics, gay young people who still kill and hurt themselves because the desires that are natural to them are called unnatural by others. That is the kind of truth that kills. “Ellen” is the kind that heals.

Maybe ABC should warn parents this way: “Caution, don’t let your kids watch this show, it might prove hazardous to your hypocrisy.”