The gun debate goes on and on and on , with little resolution between those who think guns are dangerous, no matter who is handling them and those who blather about their rights but are really only referring to their own entertainment and false macho stances.
A while back, a solid TV show called Sons of Anarchy threw some kerosene on the fire with an episode in which a sub-teen boy walks into a school with an automatic weapon and opens fire on children and teachers. The action was handled with sensitivity and shot in a way as to not sensationalize the already sensational material.
But in this country where enough is never enough, that was just the beginning. The Parents Television Council denounced the episode and then took Senator John McCain’s statement about unbundling TV shows, that had nothing to do with school shootings, and ran with it. McCain was speaking about having to pay for shows that you don’t want to see, using his aged mother as an example of those who don’t want to watch ESPN because she doesn’t like sports. Okay, does that also mean she should get a discount for all the football games she doesn’t watch on NBC or CBS? So what do you do, break each program down and sell it as a separate entity? And does Sons of Anarchy, mean that PTC members don’t want to watch anything else on that network? It’s a dumb idea put forth by dumb people and it is all but impossible to market.
Anyone who knows anything about how entertainment is bought and sold, knows that such a system would be the end of any creative programming, just as it has all but completely ended creativity in studio produced films. What is the cheapest, lowest common denominator programming that we can get away with and still make a buck? That’s the big question that studio heads and TV brass, for the most part, ask themselves. That’s the reason there is so much reality programming. Yes, there is an occasional reality show that has artistic value but they are few and very far between.
From this writer’s POV, Sons of Anarchy, is one of the most creative shows on TV and its writer, Kurt Sutter one of our best screenwriters.
Sutter has gone on camera to explain his use of the scene. He shouldn’t have bothered. He pointed out a number of thematic reasons why the material is there. As he said many times in his inarticulate rant, he is a storyteller. He is definitely not a debater
The reason for the inclusion of the school shooting is absolutely on point but not really obvious in this episode, unless, of course, you are looking for something that has not, to this point, waved its hand in previous storytelling. Sutter is a fine writer, but a terrible spokesman for and defender of, his position. The people who have gone after him from PTC are a group of small minded, possibly well intentioned defenders of the faith who have only glommed onto McCain’s unbundled position because they just don’t have the power or intellectual backing to censor what they don’t want to see.
The incident on the show is a reflection of a very important aspect of current life in this country and to ignore it simply because it makes a tiny segment of the population uncomfortable is ridiculous. Anyone who thinks that any of today’s TV and Internet addicted children, missed any part of the coverage of any of the latest massacres, is a fool and completely out of touch with the children they are raising. Maniacs with guns, is a fact of modern life. Your children should know about it. It may help them to survive such an incident themselves. It will, surely stand them in better stead that some well-meaning, amateur shooter patrolling the school grounds.
The fact is, there is an awful lot of high-end creative programming that would never be made except for the bundling process. We currently have available to us, an incredibly diverse spectrum of programming, something of which appeals to almost everyone with a TV. Sure a lot of it is dreadful. Bowling for Dollars, Honey Booboo and Duck Dynasty, have absolutely no appeal to anyone with even a modicum of intelligence, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t thousands of families out there who don’t enjoy them enormously. And yes, that’s a comment on American education.
McCain’s idea to end bundling because his aged mother doesn’t like sports, ranks about the same on the intellectual scale as the PTC’s attack on Sutter and McCain’s own choice of a running mate in the 2008 election. Don’t forget, most educational TV is only produced, because it can be bundled with more saleable programming.