Has Television Gone Too Far?

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Has Television Gone Too Far? In the past four decades American television has rapidly progressed from a luxury means of communication and entertainment to a far and wide spread, everyone-has-access-to-it, media/movie/sports/shocks/anything-you-can-imagine(literally) mess of stuff. There is now a channel for everything on God's green earth. That is, if it can be stretched to fill a twelve-hour viewing schedule, and if it can't, there is probably a show on about it somewhere. Pretty much every aspect of life can be filmed and produced, from birth to death to everything in between. Anything that can possibly bring more eyes to the screen (within limits, theoretically) will and can be done. Take for instance, Tom Green, who in any other era would have been long locked away or beaten to death by now for the stunts that he pulls, but because of television this man is a well-known and, dare I say, respected celebrity.

Because of television (and maybe some other undiagnosed chemical imbalance), there is a man who will do physical harm to himself, in some cases severe, week after week to get ratings on a show entitled Jackass. Marriage has thrice been turned into a game show thus far, twice by the FOX network, first with Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? and secondly with Who Wants to Be a Princess?, and thirdly by ABC with the reality TV show The Bachelor. Has TV finally gotten out of hand? It is hard to say one way or the other, given that the American public seems to flock to each newer and even more bizarre invention that TV writers, artists, and producers throw their way. The majority in the American public will be the ultimate judge of what should be on television and of how far the spectacle will go. As of...