television vs. Reality Essay -- essays research papers

It is 830 Monday shadow and the whole family is in the living room watching the Fox mesh topologys primetime hit Ally McBeal. Suddenly, just aft(prenominal) the program resumes after a painspickingsly long commercial break, you see a humanness and a woman lying in bed talking to separately other after having a night of hot, passionate hinge on. You look prevail over and see your ten twelvemonth old son or miss lying on the floor just staring at the TV, taking it all in. You begin strain surfing, and end up on channel 3, CBS. There is a brand new sitcom being expose called Some of My Best Friends. Almost immediately after you and your family begin showing this program, two men, both proclaiming to be gay, begin kissing and embracing severally other. Upset by all of this garbage, you turn off the TV and decide to try and find something a little more tuitional to do. rouse. It seems to be everywhere on tv set today. From sitcoms to certainity shows to dramas to soap oper as, fetch up is one of the leading factors in most television programs. A fresh study showed that 3 out of 4 primetime programs portray sex in races and 68% of all television programs contain familiar content (Cutler, Jacqueline, TVData Features category March 24,2001). There are exceptions to this, however, with networks occasionally condenseing on education and childrens programming, but the mainstream of primetime television programs tends to focus on sex. But how surgical is televisions portrayal of sex in the real demesne? Does everything turn out like it does on shows such as finish up in the City or Temptation Island? Or are these sexual messages just an obvious ploy to help boost ratings? Recently I have watched several shows I thought would help answer these questions. The programs I have researched are Friends, one of NBCs highest rated shows, Everybody Loves Raymond, a family sitcom on CBS, and Days of Our Lives, one of NBCs daytime soap operas. In see these sho ws I hope to compare the key message behind sex and relationships in these programs to real life. I will also compare relationships among love and sex, anger and love, friendship and romantic love, and alternatives to heterosexual relationships.The first television program I researched is the critically acclaimed NBC sitcom, Friends. Upon viewing this show, I fo... ...n an interracial relationship or marriage. This sends the message that people of a certain race or culture should marry someone that is like them. There have been rumors, however, of a new character on Friends that is going to be African-American. If this character does appear, and then maybe it will encourage more programs to end endogamy and pose characters of different race and cultures. The average teen views nearly 15,000 sexual references, innuendoes, and jokes on television every year, according to Electronic Babysitter Overexposes Youth to Sex, a CNN report by Holly Firfer. If these messages are inaccurate, what kind of messages are teens receiving? In the same article, Firfer gave reasons for sex on television. First, Americans seem to eat it up with a spoon. Second, Hollywood has a lack of real writing talent, so why bother with an intelligent story? This seems to be very true, since every year there are more television shows being produced that primarily focus on sex. When will this sexual addiction cease? There is oftentimes more in this world than sex, and television should try to portray real life situations as accurately as possible.