Village Squire, 1975-04, Page 25OPINIONS
Time for honesty
but responsibility
in television
BY T.. J. MAX
The current controversy on C.B.C.
television drama presentations and their
content of sometimes dirty language and
sometimes peek-a-boo naked scenes has seen
so much idiocy shown on both sides that it's
hard to take the whole affair seriously.
On one hand you have C.B.C. drama chief
John Hirsch stating: "...we have to give the.
viewers not only what they THINK they want,
we have to give them the kind of high quality
that the honest, creative artists we are trying
to employ know they will want once they try
it, and once they get to like it." Shades of
Big Brother who knows what's best for all of
us little peasants.
On the other hand you have Howard
Johnston M.N. for Okanaga-Kootenay who
said it was strange that C.B.C. would foster
profanity with the aim of getting television
viewers to like it. He accused the C.B.C. of
spreading "gift -wrapped garbage."
Somewhere between the artistic snob and
the yahoo there has got to be sanity ... if
there's any such thing left in Canada.
Mr. Hirsch's statement is the kind that has
made the word "artistic" a dirty word with a
good-sized section of the Canadian public.
This kind of snob approach of the arts has
driven more people away from the arts rather
than drown them into the arts.
He's right in one thing: many of those who
turn up their noses at anything artistic
probably would like it if they gave it a chance.
They're not likely to gye it a chance because
they're turned off by the snotty approach to
the arts shown by Mr. Hirsch and many other
people in the upper echelons of nearly all
branches of the arts.
People are hesitant about getting into
anything new, but they're frightened off
tremendously by so-called experts in the arts
who make fun of things they like while
holding up as good something they can't
understand and don't have any inclination to
understand. So with drama on the C.B.C. in
the past several years has featured mostly
Alice Munro's Baptizing, a beautiful story, told well.
confused, artsy-fartsy garbage that very few
people can even stand to watch let alone
enjoy. There have been three or ten of this
kind of show for every simple, easy to follow
but good drama. C.B.C. in the past decade
has probably done more to destroy interest in
drama than anything in the history of this
country.
To be fair, since Mr. Hirsch came along the
quality of draw on C.B.C. has improved
immensely. In fact it was some of the best
drama seen on C.B.C. for years that brought
the abrupt reaction from the public and M.P.s
The Farm Show and Ten Lost Years and
Baptizing all brought bitter reaction from
many viewers and set the M.P.s on their
course.
Yet the outburst of the general public (or at
least part of it) is surprising. They can watch
Maude spout her four letter words and don't
complain about the heavy sexual overtones of
nearly everything that goes on on Hot I
Baltimore, but they unload when it happens
in' Canada. Mr. Hirsch says it's because
Canadians can comfortably sit back and watch
foreign shows and say, "We're not like that"
but when it's Canadian television, he's not
longer able to deny it.
' Surprise, Canadians know swear words too.
Surprise, Canadians have love affairs too.
Critics of this sort of show seek to cut
television off from reality. You can hear swear
words by the dozen just by standing on a
street corner, but people on television just
aren't supposed to swear. Sex, as far as the
characters on the screen goes, just isn't
supposed to be part of life. All these things
are to be kept hidden.
In the case of Ten Lost Years, actual people
were being quoted in the play; yet somehow it
became a plot by those hippie actors to
subvert our modern youth. Some argued the
Depression was never like that, but look past
the rose-coloured memories and remember
what it was really like, and what the people of
those days were really like. They were real
people, not angelic creations of 'some
nostalgic writer. Which is worse, a writer that
tells it like it is or a writer who tells little lies
about history?
Baptizing was the story of a time of life all
of us goes through, those desperate years
when the sex urge is new, unknown and
forbidden. Alice Munro captured the kind of
language and actions that many people of her
generation, and indeed generations before
and since, went through. To some, the show
was crude. To some it was beautiful and
touching. Is not the fault of whether or not it
was objectional in the mind of the viewer as
much as the writer and director? If you find
this story disturbing could it be that you need
to sort out your own hangups?
That said, let's get back to the other side of
things. Writers should, indeed must, have
the freedom to write in the way they see most
effective in telling their story. But they must
also show some responsibility. Unfortunately
much of the rough language and sex seen
today is nothing more than sheer exploitation
to try to get attention for a story like Baptizing
in important, but sex in about 90 per cent of
the books, movies and television shows
around today is cheap sensationalism.
Violence should be treated in the same light.
And the television networks and stations
must also show some responsibility too. With
Baptizing, C.B.C. dropped the starting time
back an hour and gave warnings before hand
that some people might find the show
exceptionable. Anyone who sat through all
those warnings and watched the show, then
became shocked or outraged was just looking
for something to bitch about. Ten Lost Years,
however, was seen at the regular hour, when
some youngsters might still have been up.
There were no warnings about objectionable
language or description. If C.B.C. got
outraged reaction here, it was asking for it.
Global Television seems to be leading the
way in this area. It shows movies like Walking
Tall uncensored but warns before the movie
starts and during commercial breaks that the
VILLAGE SQUIRE/APRIL 1975, 23