Tag Archives: tv

The Mute Button

muteNinety-nine percent of homes in America contain at least one television and most fundamentalists own a TV just like everyone else. The television watching experience in a fundy household is unique, however. For father (or sometimes mother) holds the remote in an iron fist and the mute button is his weapon of choice against the combined forces of bad language and worldly music.

Rock music is not to be tolerated in the fundamentalist home and the opening theme to the A-Team is no exception. With a flick of the thumb this temptation of the flesh is banished. Songs that are too peppy meet the same fate. No fundamentalist child ever makes it all the way through any Disney movie since Robin Hood without at least one song being either muted or fast-forwarded.

Likewise, bad language must be dealth with in the harshest of terms, lest children be tempted to say words such as “golly” and “dagnabit.’ Some fundamentalist go so far as to construct a “bleep book” complete with timestamps of the exact moments to mute and unmute the dialog. Purity must be maintained not matter what the cost to the plot.

One may be tempted to ask why fundametalists bother to watch shows at all if they find so much in them worthy of censoring.  But you’ll have to ask it later, we’re almost back from commercial break and the TV is about to regain its voice.