Saturday Morning Censors: Television Regulation before the V-Chip

Console-ing Passions: Television and Cultural Power

by Heather Hendershot

Many parents, politicians, and activists agree that there’s too much violence and not enough education on children’s television. Current solutions range from the legislative (the Children’s Television Act of 1990) to the technological (the V-chip). Saturday Morning Censors examines the history of adults’ attempts to safeguard children from the violence, sexism, racism, and commercialism on television since the 1950s. By focusing on what censorship and regulation are and how they work—rather than on whether they should exist—Heather Hendershot shows how adults use these processes to reinforce their own ideas about childhood innocence.
Drawing on archival studio material, interviews with censors and animators, and social science research, Hendershot analyzes media activist strategies, sexism and racism at the level of cartoon manufacture, and the product-linked cartoons of the 1980s, such as Strawberry Shortcake and Transformers. But in order to more fully examine adult reception of children’s TV, she also discusses “good” programs like Sesame Street and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids . Providing valuable historical context for debates surrounding such current issues as the V-chip and the banning of Power Rangers toys in elementary schools, Saturday Morning Censors demonstrates how censorship can reveal more fears than it hides.
Saturday Morning Censors will appeal to educators, parents, and media activists, as well as to those in cultural studies, television studies, gender studies, and American social history.

Genres: Nonfiction

296 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1998

Reviews

[Chris G]

If you want to read a scholarly treatise on cartoons, Sesame Street, and the brainwashing of children this is it.

[Don LaFountaine]

This was an okay book that came across a little preachy and "full of itself". If possible, I would have given it 2 1/2 stars, but I gave it 3 because there was some ideas in its pages to make a person think about censorship of children's television programs.

This book discusses how adults control and restrict/censor children's programming. "In other words" how it's adult ideas of what is good and bad for children and to that end what is acceptable programming for kids. The author gives a historical background of how television advertises, and how the FTC and the FCC will or won't listen to consumers about the content of the TV shows and the ads that surround them. According to the author, the FCC and FTC would not listen to any group accept for the ACT group because they were middle-class white mothers who did not come across as dangerous like the the Black Efforts for Soul on Television (BEST) group and the NOW feminist group. While it was good that they would listen to one of the groups to make positive changes in children's programming, the problem was that not each group focused on the same problems. For instance, in a cartoon like "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe", one group's complaint may be that there is too much violence, one group may complain that there are not enough minorities positively represented, and one group may complain because a specific gender is not shown in a positive light. With the FCC and FTC willing to work with one consumer group, not all of the complaints will be reviewed.

Another issue the author takes up is advertising; specifically how shows are created to sell more toys and how broadcasters are beholden to advertiser whims when creating shows. Discussing how shows like "Transformers" and "Strawberry Shortcake" are created to sell more toys, the readers is shown that while ads for these items could not be placed during the shows, the content was controlled by advertisers to make sure that the shows were a realistic representation of the toys. (You could not have a Transformer change in a way that was different from the toy, or Strawberry Shortcake have any other smells than strawberries.)

In the pages the author also discusses the contentious relationship between the censors and the broadcasters/animators. The animators come up with an idea and make a drawing that is submitted to the censors and Standards & Practices. However, since they are men and are highly paid, they hold the mostly female and lesser paid censors in contempt. This is turn makes it difficult for the groups to come to an agreement on what content can be displayed and how it should be displayed. It often ended up being a fight between them, and many times the animators would put things into the story that they know will be thrown out in order to keep items that they truly want in the program.

Finally, the author discusses how wholesome children's television shows like "Sesame Street" might be good for viewers, but because they are so popular they need to be analyzed in more detail. Her analysis is that "Sesame Street" might have some strong points in educating American children, but their "imperialistic" ways of spreading "Sesame Street", (as they tried in Jamaica) was unethical and wrong. She does say that she does not believe that the Children's Television Workshop was malicious in what they were doing, and was not as bad as what others, including the U.S. Government did. However, her viewpoint was that this is an American product and that it's being spread throughout the world was not unlike selling Coca Cola in other countries.

I found this to be an okay book. Written from a politically left leaning viewpoint, the author makes some valid points in discussing regulations and censorship as applied to children's television, but I feel that her bias sometimes overshadows these points. For instance, the FCC was not too bad until the Reagan/Bush 80's, where being run by conservatives rolled back all of the safeguards that were fought for. The ACT group restricted content for the safety of the children, but for the most part did not engage in censorship like other groups. She also seems to hold in contempt another book called "The Plug-In Drug" because it was written by with a conservative point of view. I feel the author also broadly brushes those who disagree with her point of view. For example, a couple of times she states the opponents to the liberal viewpoint were following "the holier-than-thou sexist, racist, and homophobic fundamentalist Christian agenda". To broadly state this shows to me that she blindly dismissing their points of view and is not listening to what others who may disagree with her have to say. This I feel takes away from the points she's trying to make. The one thing I think she misses in this is the point that parents need to act like parents! She readily dismisses the idea that channels can be changed and that parents can chooses what the kids watch or even if they have TV at all. Sometimes parents have to make decisions for their kids. Ultimately, the book is worth reading for people that are interested in sociological books about television, children, censorship and American society, especially from a liberal/left leaning viewpoint. The book may be dated as the internet is so pervasive in the home and there is so much more for children to watch and adults to complain about. With that said, it does provide some historical background that is worth being aware, regardless of one's political leanings.

[Courtney]

Not a bad book by any means, but I felt like it just went on and on. There's only so much you can read before children's television censorship becomes sheer monotony.