The circle of life… and TV

I recently turned 40. Being a milestone birthday I felt I had to re-examine my life, and my achievements (or lack thereof) in the grand scheme of things. Well, that didn’t take long – I decided that my greatest achievement was still having actual human hair on my head, and that my biggest disappointment was increasing my waistline by three sizes since I was 30 (I still hang onto eight pairs of size 32/81 trousers, convinced that I will one day wear them again.)

Anyway, I digress (but I’m told that’s normal at this age). Now, what were we talking about? Oh yes, the circle of life… and TV.

When I was a child growing up (while the earth’s crust was still cooling in the Triassic Period according to my kids) in the then Rhodesia, we enjoyed the best of sanctions-busting TV. It was all about stories – really well-told stories. I’m talking series like The Courtship of Eddie’s Rather (with the late Bill Bixby), Mission Impossible (yes, it was a TV series first), The Flying Nun (yip, I’m serious) with Sally Field in the title role, The Munsters (distant cousins of the Addams Family), and countless other feel good family yarns.

These were not big on effects (except perhaps for those amazing nun flips); they weren’t about wannabe celebs clawing for their 15 minutes of fame by taking a dump in the nasturtiums; and they weren’t obsessed with kinky sex.

Naïve, tame and unrealistic

By today’s standards we might judge those shows as naïve, tame and unrealistic (granted the nun thing was a bit out there – today she’d have to have superpowers, a ray gun in her crucifix, and a habit that turned into a speedboat).

But you could safely sit down to watch TV with your kids and your parents, and no-one had to shift uncomfortably at open-mouthed lesbian kissing, teenagers chatting about their group sex experiences, or soap characters hell bent on spreading herpes to as many people as they can in one episode!

Enlightenment and liberation is one thing, but have we gone too far? I mean, it was only in the late ’60s that American sensors allowed the word ‘pregnant’ to be said on television! These days you can watch the entire process if you stay up late enough on a Friday evening (I’m told).

Now before you write me off as a prude, I’m not advocating that we return to the hypocrisy of Victorian morality. What I am saying is that I’d like to sit down between 6pm and 9pm in the evening with my kids and not have to keep flicking to another channel to avoid a biology lesson more suited to students of gynaecology than junior school kids. I talk about sex to my kids all the time, but in an age appropriate way, and in a context that will hopefully impart morals to them. If I let them learn their morals from American sitcoms they’d be foul-mouthed, sex-obsessed, precocious brats with kids of their own by now (and herpes).

Clever plots and unexpected twists

I don’t even remember the names of some of the shows I used to watch (my son believes that this is due to a blow to the head I sustained when a meteor shower killed the dinosaurs) but I do remember sitting entranced in front of the old black and white TV and being transported into another world populated by carefully crafted and beautifully written stories with clever plots and unexpected twists.

Sadly, ‘carefully crafted’ has largely given way to ‘unscripted’ TV (not that all reality TV is bad); ‘beautifully written’ has all too often stepped aside for ‘totally laughable’ – Avenues (what were they thinking?) and This Life (currently on SABC3); and ‘clever plots and unexpected twists’ have been eclipsed by sex, violence and shock TV.

There are some great shows on TV but let’s have more that tell really good stories. Is that too much to ask for? Apparently not. TV and movies seem to be coming full circle.

According to new studies in the US, sex no longer sells in Hollywood. Films with explicit sex and nudity are now earning around 40% less than wholesome movies. It’s family films like Finding Nemo, and genre-busting movies like The Passion of the Christ, that are unexpectedly ‘cleaning up’ at the box office. Effects movies are also not performing like they used to. And people are no longer willing to shell out just to see their favourite star’s boobs, bum or willy.

People want substance, and it seems they want the kind of substance they can take the whole family to see. I can understand that. The only breasts and thighs I want to ogle at dinnertime must belong to a chicken!

• Republished courtesy of Screen Africa.