So, I’m at the gym yesterday morning, and as I’m on one of the elliptical trainers, the television in front of me is tuned to MTV. Ah, yes, MTV…remember when the “M” stood for music, and MTV was all about music videos? I’m no longer an MTV aficionado, but from what I saw yesterday morning, the “M” stands for “maturity”…as in “lack thereof”. I was “fortunate” enough to see a couple episodes of Parental Control, which honestly was indicative of anything but.
The idea is that neither parent can stomach their child’s significant other. Each parent is given the opportunity to interview several candidates and selects one that they think would be better suited for their child than their current paramour. Then the parents and the significant other watch as the lucky child goes out on a date with each candidate, complete with all the double entedres and not-so-subtle sexual bantering that no doubt keeps views glued to the TV screens.
As the parents and the despised paramour watch the date on video, the viewer is treated to a veritable avalanche of collective immaturity. Teenager insults adults, adults insult teenagers, and it’s all done in a very disturbingly familiar and exceedingly disrespectful manner. Basically, the parents lack the cojones to assert their authority and demand respect, and the teenager takes the ball and runs with it. To call this behavior dysfunctional and immature wouldn’t begin to do it justice, and yet it’s the thread that ties the episodes together from beginning to end.
At the end, the child chooses between their current squeeze and the candidates two selected by their parents. It’s almost anticlimactic, because by this point the viewer’s been treated to a half-hour of immaturity, childishness, and inappropriate behavior…and that’s just from the adults.
Call me old school, or just call me old, but I was always taught that children should respect their elders, and that parents had the absolute right to demand respect and determine whether and when their children should be allowed to date. Being a parent is all about setting ground rules and then enforcing them. In neither of the episodes I saw did EITHER parent demand or even expect respect from the teenager dating their child. Clearly, the inmates were running the asylum, and the parents didn’t even seem to realize it…and if they did, they certainly didn’t seem to care.
What disturbed me most is that this crap even makes it onto cable TV. MTV over the years has morphed from a channel dependent on music videos to one dependent on programming that celebrates vapid immaturity and inappropriate overtly sexual behavior. Yes, I understand that in a 500-channel universe it’s difficult to stand out, but pandering to the lowest common denominator seems a damn poor marketing strategy.
