Popular entertainment remains rife with sexual content but seldom explores potential consequences of such behavior, according to a study conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs.
The Washington, D.C.-based media organization--which issued recent examinations of the 1998-99 season in regard to violence and language--also determined that movies and TV shows featuring sexuality often carried a less restrictive "parental guidance" rating as opposed to being designated for mature audiences.
"It surprised me that so much of this material was PG-rated," said center President S. Robert Lichter.
Although it has cooled somewhat as a political issue, the amount of violence, sexuality and coarse language in the media remains the subject of considerable scrutiny. In fact, a separate study of prime-time content will be released later this week, comparing programs broadcast during a four-week period in 1999 to a similar span a decade earlier.
This study was commissioned by the Parents Television Council, a group lobbying for the major networks to recognize a "family viewing hour," delaying all illicit material until after 9 p.m. In broad strokes, it concludes that levels of sexuality and foul language have risen sharply versus 1989, while the quantity of violence stayed roughly the same.
The survey by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, which bills itself as nonpartisan, involved viewing at least two episodes of all original fictional TV series on both broadcast and cable networks, the 50 top-rated made-for-TV movies, 50 top-grossing feature films and nearly 200 music videos shown on MTV. The analysis excluded children's and daytime programs but ventured into late-night TV.
Some may quibble with the terminology, which split scenes into "soft core" and "hard core" categories. The latter included mere discussions of sexual intercourse in programs such as "Friends" and "Ally McBeal," which were ranked second and third, respectively, among all series on broadcast television in terms of sexual content. Ironically, the lone program outranking them in sexual content, UPN's "The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer," created far more of a stir during its short-lived run for daring to parody the Civil War era than its reliance on low-brow sex jokes.
More than 90% of the "hard core" incidents mentioned on broadcast TV fell under the heading of talk about sex rather than visual images. By contrast, the percentage of actual depictions of sexual acts was far higher on cable TV channels even though the total number of sex-related references and scenes was roughly the same.
