I swear I had nothing to do with this! :-) Honest!
I'm curious if some of these people actually view the shows they're complaining about or do they just radomly grab an 'offending show of the week' to gripe about?
Simon 'The future is a distant memory'
Well, we should all be proud. The Rev. Donald Wildmon, and his band of merry censors, the American Family Association, has singled out SEINFELD as one of the shows they find offensive. They're calling on advertisers to boycott the show.
I'm not sure exactly which episode caused this, but I'm willing to bet that it was "The Contest." Maybe Wildmon isn't master of his domain, eh? :)
[email] ("David Strauss") writes:
Oddly enough, you are correct. Seems DW doesn't think much of a program that "opens every scene with references to masturbation" or some such I'll-save-you- if-I-have-to-kill-you claptrap.
Let's give it up for the American Family Movement, shall we?
i'm out.
ok dpm
[email] ("David Strauss") writes:
That's unusual. One would assume Wildmon might actually have seen this show, and he usually criticizes programs he hasn't seen yet -- he's already calling for a protest against Steven Bochco's NYPD Blue, the pilot of which hasn't even been completed!
Tom
:
: Hey, maybe the problem is that he IS the master of his domain. He needs to relax and let go more often...:) Isn't Seinfeld great?!
They don't have to watch the shows; Wildmon's group sends out mailings to people telling them what to think and say about the different shows. I got one by mistake when I subscribed to an excellent magazine called "Biblical Archaeology Review" (which is not as religious as it might sound, by the way -- every issue has letters to the editor from fundamentalists cancelling their subscription because they can't stand the fact that B.A.R. actually gets into FACTS!) .... Anyway, I got one of their mailings, and it was really disgusting. Sort of like stuff from the KKK, if you've ever seen that. UGH!
Not Seinfeld, but something he might have liked. About a decade ago BAR advertised, for sale, little replicas of Canaanite figurines and clay altars. These were meant as educational items, and were inexpensive but accurate copies of antiquities, of the sort a college might want for a teaching collection.
BAR received a flood of mail from a number of outraged readers, declaring these items to be "heathen abominations" and the like and demanded that their subscriptions be cancelled immediately, before Jehovah's thunderbolts smote the editorial office.
One reader, clearly seeing the comic potential of this outrage, had a letter of complaint in the subsequent issue. He explained that he had purchased the idols in good faith, had poured libations before them and burned incense, but his life had not changed much. He asked about BAR's policy regarding defective pagan idols.
ObSeinfeld:(Spoiler for "Jurassic Park)
I quite enjoyed Newman's encounter with the dino.
It's very simple:
Seinfeld is funny. Seinfeld is innovative.
That seems to be the usual standard for right wing groups to boycott something. Can't have people thinking, now can we?
In article , [email] (Chad Skelton) writes...
I agree completely! Why is it that so many people want to blame harmless forms of entertainment like "Seinfeld" for all of society's ills? Probably because it's easier than addressing the REAL problems. Just imagine what could be done if all the idiots who scream about TV and music put their energy into doing something constructive.
And they always say how much it's tainting their children. If you don't want your kids watching TV, don't let them, but dont tell me what I should be doing with MY time! ----------------------------------------------------- Brian Amer \ "I'm on the Centerline NASA Lewis \ Right Between Two Research Center \ States of Mind"
I know for a fact that Dan Quayle had never seen Murphy Brown when he criticized it last year. Of course, that's probably a good thing, because his wife would have had to explain all the jokes to him anyway.
Boy, I sure do miss being able to take potshots at Dan Quayle!
Oh, but we have Tipper now! (Although I think she can spell...)
At the risk of deviating from the group topic, I must stand up for DQ.
The media were quick to point out that he thought MB was real, never watched the show, was out of touch, etc.
The advertisers for MB blitzed us all with news about Murph's baby and all the accompanying pomp. It was not necessary to watch the show to pick up the glorification of single motherhood.
DQ was correct when he attacked the producers of the program for presenting "single motherhood as just another lifestyle choice." It is not. Single mothers (or fathers) are going to work a LOT harder to raise their children in a suitable home, and statistics show that many will fail. Without going too deeply into the numbers, kids in a single-parent household are 1.5X as likely to grow up in poverty.
Single parenting is not just another lifestyle choice, and kids are not pets. There is a difference in having a single parent resulting from divorce, and in having an unmarried individual bearing children. The latter is a societal problem, not ammunition to belittle a Vice-President.
Murphy Brown herself (I know, she's fictional) addressed the issue by saying "I agonized for weeks over this decision." As a viewer of the show, I can say she agonized for about ten minutes.
In summation, many cheap laughs at Dan Quayle's expense were had, but the underlying truth of his speech remains.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled Seinfeld discussion.
In article , [email] (Jim Hill) writes...
You want to know why so many women, single mothers and otherwise, were so pissed at Danny boy? He had plenty to say about what a horrible person the mother was but did he have anything to say about the father? The one who 'couldn't deal with a baby' and left the country? Which parent was being more irresponsible and which one had to pay the consequences? I'm very tired of the blame being placed solely on women's shoulders as if men have no resposibility for their children.
I know this is off the topic but I couldn't let this pass. It will be my last post on non-Seinfeld issues. Thanks for your patience
In article [email] (Helen C. Brown (SVER)) writes:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^
This is a bunch of hooey. Obviously you didn't hear or read his speech. I do agree that much responsibility is put on the woman by society and that's not fair, but Dan the Man did not cast the single woman parent as horrible and despicable. Hopefully this won't turn into a war and this will be my last post on non-Seinfeld issues.
discussion.
While I disagree totally with Dan "Let's make an issue" Quayle, he is right about one thing. Murphy Brown shouldn't be an unwed mother. The show been mediocore since the little bugger was born.
Oh yes, I love Seinfield too. Favorite episode is "The contest".
Bob Cohen
In article , [email] () says:
well, i don't know- there was at least one good show in which the whole FYI gang was wandering around in a grocery store. very seinfeldian. --- later, sunil
In article , [email]
Just as another male who sometimes finds "feminist" issues right on the money and at other times, feels that it is overdone, I would like to say that the attack on single motherhood by the Republicans was the worst political trash I have ever heard come out of a campaign.
In the first place, the percentage of single mothers who have chosen this road as a lifestyle is exceeding low. Most single mothers are products of divorce and widowhood who find it difficult to hook up with a male partner again. These women already have a tough time making ends meet without some moronic jerk heaping scorn upon them.
And secondly, if the concern of those who do this heaping were truly family values, i.e. concern for children, they would have taken steps to give these women more support, support that would better serve us all if their children didn't have to have such a hard time growing up.
In light of this, I state that this diatribe is nothing less than pure BS. It has as much worth and informational backing as the other moronic diatribe about our nation having the most lawyers in the world. More obfuscation.
Even though most of their TV-bashing makes little sense, it seems targetting Seinfeld makes even less sense. There is very little explicitness in it. And for, "The Contest", unless you new what it was - you wouldn't figure it out. Perhaps it has to do with the Jewish angle of the show, these Christian fundamentalist groups are notoriously anti-Semitic. Turn on any Short-Wave religious show, and in about 15 minutes you'll hear some reference to the Jewish Conspiracy, or the Jew-controlled media etcetera ...
True!! I listen to shortwave, and this stuff is almost as funny as some of the worst Communist propaganda I'd hear on pre-1991 Radio Moscow! religious grounds,
On thing I always thought was funny was when people will attack a particular show but not attack another show that might be the same as or worse than the show they're going after!
Simon 'The future is a distant memory'