Prime Time TV 'Objectifies and Fetishizes' Underage Girls

Prime Time TV 'Objectifies and Fetishizes' Underage Girls, Study Says
By Hollie McKay
Published December 16, 2010
FoxNews.com

LOS ANGELES –  Long gone are the days when Marcia Brady’s sweet smile and Winnie Cooper’s brains and beauty were how television represented teen-age girls.

According to a new study conducted by the Parents Television Council (PTC), Hollywood is shockingly obsessed with sexualizing teen girls, to the point where underage female characters are shown participating in an even higher percentage of sexual situations than their adult counterparts: 47 percent to 29 percent respectively.

PTC’s report, entitled “New Target: A Study of Teen Female Sexualization on Primetime TV” is based on a content analysis drawn from the 25 most popular shows in the 12-17 demographic throughout the 2009-2010 television season.

“The results from this report show Tinseltown’s eagerness to not only objectify and fetishize young girls, but to sexualize them in such a way that real teens are led to believe their sole value comes from their sexuality," said PTC President Tim Winter. "This report is less about the shocking numbers that detail the sickness of early sexualization in our entertainment culture and more about the generation of young girls who are being told how society expects them to behave."  FULL STORY
 
I am reminded of this quote from years ago-
Parents see tough moral rival in popular culture
By Cheryl Wetzstein, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

October 31, 2002-  American parents worry most about whether their children will have good character and values and they see America's popular culture as their adversary, according to a new survey.

     "Parents today are struggling very hard to raise respectful, responsible, well-behaved children," said Deborah Wadsworth, president of Public Agenda, which yesterday released its parenting survey, "A Lot Easier Said Than Done." (Conducted for the State Farm Insurance Companies with additional funding from the Family Friendly Programming Forum)

     But 76 percent of parents felt their job was "a lot harder" than what their parents faced, said the survey, based on telephone interviews of 1,607 parents of children ages 5 to 17.  The previous generation of parents went through hardships and world wars, "but we did not feel as if our kids were surrounded by hazards of every kind," Mrs. Wadsworth said.  

     "We felt there were allies — institutional allies — and the real world reinforced the values that we wanted to teach our kids," she said. My sense from this study, and it's really painful, is that parents just feel absolutely abandoned.  They feel as if they are being sabotaged at every turn."  FULL STORY