Rafters blasted over “rampant sexlife”
Fans of Packed to the Rafters have hit out at an episode this week which included fantasy scenes and a moment of privacy for a male character.
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Did Packed to the Rafters misjudge its audience this week?
Yesterday the show copped a bit of a reaction to its episode which include several fantasy scenes involving sex, and a scene in which Nathan (Angus McLaren) was caught masturbating on the toilet by wife Sammy (Jessica MacNamee).
The scene followed a moment in which Nathan had told Sammy he was too tired to have sex, and was part of a larger episode which looked atmen being turned on by ‘simple biology.’
The fantasy scenes, which were shot in music video styles, were also breakout moments for Ben (Hugh Sheridan) and Carbo (George Houvardas).
But comments left on the show’s official website, reflected by talkback radio callers yesterday, criticised the show’s apparent flip from being a ‘family drama’:
– “Why is it so hard to write episodes without gratuitous sex as its main theme? The potential is there to explore some really great issues about family dynamics with all the trials and tribulations that make up life. But all we’ve seen of late is the rampant sexlife of the Rafters!”
– “We are totally disgusted with this last episode. An insult to the actors. This is not what we expected. This is cause us to stop watching this as a family.”
– “Why is it that the writers of so many TV shows think that if they aren’t full of sex romps no one will want to watch them? The producers of Rafters would do well to remember that they won a stack of Logies with a show that wasn’t full of sex. When you’ve found a good recipe, then you should stick to it.”
– “I don’t think it’s a case of being old-fashioned or religious. It’s simply good taste. I was very disappointed by last night’s episode. Were the writers have a bit of a slow week and couldn’t think of a good plot line, so they decided to write pure sexual fluff instead? Come on! I was embarrassed for the actors, and embarrassed that the writers think this is what Australians want to watch.”
– “Packed to the rafters WAS my favourites show. Last night was disgraceful, weird, tasteless and absolute rubbish. Im officially switching off.”
– “I do not have a problem with the infidelity portrayed in this show. You’re right, it is a fact of life, and it does happen. My problem is with the strong sex themes shown. It wasn’t necessary to have those long wild sexual fantasy montages. And I really could have done without the sight of Nathan having ‘fun’ in the bathroom.”
– “I used to love Packed To The Rafter when it was a nice, wholesome family show. Now the writers have gone off on stupid tangents with all those ‘fantasies’ the characters are supposed to be having. Why do writers spoil good shows by pushing the envelope by showing young men supposedly ‘satisfying’ themselves? Gimme a break!”
Others disagreed saying:
-“This show is meant to reflect reality. It’s a fact of life that young people, especially young men, spend a lot of time thinking about sex. Dave and Julie are the moral centre of the show and that has not changed. Nathan has always been the weaker member of the family and I think his actions with Layla are reflecting that.”
– “I’ve never seen this show as being something young children should watch either, even from the first episode. It’s an adult show with all adult characters. If anyone believes their children should not / no longer be watching it, they should use their powers of ‘parental guidance’, as the rating suggests.”
Some TV Tonight readers also criticised the episode as being weakened by ‘filler’ montages.
Rafters has always had PG-rated content, including back to its beginnings when it visited issues of domestic violence. But in that time it has also developed a family-following, and would appear to now face a delicate balancing act of wanting artistic freedom without alienating its broad audience.
Similar masturbating scenes have also appeared recently on The Librarians and United States of Tara -both of which saw female characters walking in on male characters. They aired at 9pm and 9:30pm respectively.
Source: Yahoo!7
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55 Responses
So surprised some people are disappointed by the inclusion of fantasy in this episode – whilst all our fantasies don’t include Jessica Simpson washing our car, or our girlfriends pole-dancing or stair striding, they are just that, fantasy, and a part of everyday life for all of us. Why shouldn’t the characters have off-the-wall fantasies? Only because it taints our clean-cut family image of the Rafters? If anything, PTTR has shown us that we are all human and despite best intentions, can make some incredible (and sometimes life-changing) mistakes. I actually didn’t mind the direction of this episode and the sojourns into fantasy. As for the Greek girl, she does seem cartoonish however her Greek seems pretty fluent to me. I’ve noticed on many shows that when non-English speaking actors are cast, they are usually very good acting-wise at delivering their non-English lines (maybe because we may not understand them?), but the moment a few English words come out, it’s all a bit of a train-wreck. It’s probably a casting problem in terms of finding someone who can act well in both Greek and English. Carbo’s ‘cousin’ seems to be one of these!
Last year I would record PTTR and occasionally watch it the next day, not with my children, but they might have wandered into the room or been in the room doing other things. As most episodes were very mild and inane, this was fine. Any warnings about violence, language etc and I would save it for when they were asleep. This episode sounds like it was incorrectly classified if it was PG. Were there any warnings about strong sexual references, adult themes etc?
That photo is the stuff of nightmares. Who needs to see that guy in a compromising position.
Can’t do anything these days can they?
I don’t see any problem with the scene involving Nathan’s ‘self love. They had a similar scene a few weeks ago when Ben walked into Carbo’s room unannounced and we didn’t hear a peep about that. I just don’t think we needed to have Nathan cheating on his partner, another Rafter son so soon after we saw Ben go through exactly the same thing.
I totally agree with the quote in the article that says:
‘Why is it that the writers of so many TV shows think that if they aren’t full of sex romps no one will want to watch them’
It’s as if its mandatory to have our screens filled with sex to get viewers! Take MasterChef as an example, what an awesome, Clean, real family show whose ratings went throught the Roof!
PTTR has built up a reputation of being a family show, but this has been majorly damaged by Tuesdays episode. I am glad that regular views are refusing to watch it again, I will join them. Shame on you Channel 7.
@Gerry – probably tonight?
@ryaneco – lock the door next time!
I’m a youngish male, not religious, and I have nothing against there being a bit of sexual content in the show, but this episode was just over the top and rather silly.
Yes sex is a part of life, but really, if a girl wants the attention of a guy, she wouldnt wash his car with a work mate she just met, both sticking their wet bums out and acting like cheap porn stars.
Not sure about you but I don’t think of my girlfriend on the stairs dancing like a cheap stripper either.
Even while I was watching this episode I Knew it was going to receive complaints. I didn’t have a problem with the content in principle – I think PTTR is a good example of a show trying to portray today’s society in a realistic way, even if we find it difficult to understand the decisions of the characters. What I did have a problem with is that it made the actors look ridiculous – the scene with the carwashing was just so so bad, it was embarrassing to watch. I don’t think either of the females in those roles were very good throughout the episode, but I don’t know if this is because of (a) bad casting; (b) bad writing; (c) bad directing or (d) all of the above. The girl who has supposedly come from Greece in particular is bad onscreen – like a cartoon character stuffed into the group of realistic actors – I’m really hoping that storyline will be over with very soon!
But also, like so many above, I don’t think this is a tv show for kids. In the first few episodes they dealt with drug addiction, abortion, internet sex videos – parents have a responsibility to censor for their own children instead of being lazy and indignant because their child saw something mature in an 8:30pm timeslot. The ad for this week’s episode was quite clear that it was going to be about sex – they showed part of one of the fantasies in the ad – if you don’t want your kids to see it, don’t let them watch!
I wasn’t offended by the content, but it was a woeful episode.
I was wondering as I watched if this may be the shark.
Who would have thought that would happen before the baby was even born?!
When will we see a story about this on A Current Affair?
People need to get a life. There are worse things airing on tv. If they stick to the PG stuff all the time the show will get boring. Then people will start complaining about that too…….
haha. I think this says more about some Rafters viewers than anything else. Nothing we havent seen before, it should have been a non-issue. Two weeks ago on Rush they had two women making out, and i didnt hear a thing. But of course with Rafters, anything that breaks away from typical paint by numbers family fluff is considered weird, scary and offensive.
I think they could have alluded to what happened rather than showing you, I found it a bit difficult to watch with my family at the time. That being said, we’re not going to be overly dramatic about it and we’ll watch again next week. My only criticism of the show was that it was difficult to like the character of Nathan before, now it’s going to be even harder… err… more difficult to.
I thought it was fantastic – gave this very safe show a real edge and tackled the topic with some guts. Well done, Rafters – more of that please.
Then again, this is the same network that fled screaming away from pursuing the lesbian storyline on Home and Away when the Murdoch press tried to stir up some hysteria. It’s a pity, as I am now sure we wont be seeing more, modern, contemporary and fresh episodes like this again on Rafters. You can almost hear the scissors snipping away at upcoming episodes this very moment. Seven likes to play it safe, middle and bland. That’s why David Koch is their poster boy.
Never watched this show but I’m going to give it a go if it’s on Channel 7’s website.
I don’t have a problem with the sex part fo the show (fact of life), the infidelity, or Nathan’s toilet scene (men masturbate, so what)…. what i didn’t like was all the fantasy scenes because they were just stupid, a waste of time, weird, unfunny, and a complete switch to watch the show has been. Have faith that the actors can act and deliver good scripts, instead of getting lazy and doign 5 minutes of nothing but them dancing around. What was the point of it? Sack whoever wrote that episode and brign back the old writers.
PTTR is a brilliant show, brilliant writing, scripts, actors, acting, it deals with a lot of life issues and is the most real family portrayal i’ve seen in a long time, thats why i love it cos i can relate. Hope they don’t shoot themself in the foot with that episode.
I do not regularly watch PTTR as I just don’t think it’s all that great. However, never in a million years would I think this as a show that the whole family could sit down and watch. It is definitely themed as adult, so I don’t think youngsters should be watching it. I didn’t see this particular episode, but it does sound as though it was very tacky and badly presented.
Saw this one coming a mile away – watching the episode I kept wondering to myself how they figured this either fit the show’s vibe or fit into a PG rating.
Does a scene of masturbation on the toilet fit PG?
Doesn’t bother me, I just don’t want those pesky religious nutters to have another excuse to impose their morals on me 😉
I don’t watch Rafter’s so it’s of no consequence to me, but it seems the shows popularity has stemmed from it’s PG values, so such themes are probably not necessary in such a show.
Oh get off your high horses people – do you forget one of the first episodes where Dave took Viagra and ended up in hospital because he “couldn’t get it down” – and it’s been a little secret between him and nurse Melissa that she has seen his wotzit. It’s never been a family show, at least not a family show for young kids. Rachel’s abortion, her alcoholism and boyfriend’s drug addiction. There’s been some really adult stuff in the show amongst all the warm and fuzzies. And I don’t think it’s over – looks like there’s going to be a Dave-Chrissie affair storyline if recent scenes are any indication.
if anything i thought those scenes were a bit b-grade and lame, not offensive. also i have never thought of this show as one for little children, not just because of content but also because they wouldn’t be interested, then again some people have stricter standards for what kids can watch than i think are reasonable/realistic.
Next the producers will sack everyone over 40. McLeod’s anyone?
I had no problem with the content of the show; and In no way whatsoever am I a prude; I’m with those that think it isn’t a big deal for such a theme to be included in the show; But I do think a PG classification was a bit lenient for the show; it is in an 8.30pm timeslot; they could’ve quite easily classified the program M then there would be no problems.
Lets face it; hands up guys who haven’t been caught having “fun” in the bathroom………no one? Just me? Ok I’ll shutup.
The only part of the ep I didn’t like was the last scene, why did they have to take it there?
It is an interesting dilemma for Rafters, how to explore sexuality within adult family members honestly without alienating a strong family following. The whole point of the hour was that men have sexual fantasies (hardly a revelation) and the end warning, as the young Rafter leaps headlong in to infidelity, was that turning fantasy in to reality can potentially have very damaging consequences (equally a hardly startling observation). We were left with this thought as a sort of cliffhanger. The fantasies, although somewhat over the top (but then aren’t a lot of them) and containing nothing more shocking than you’d see in the average Pussycat Dolls video clip, weren’t filler to me. They elaborated on the theme and seemed to me to be a tongue in cheek comment on how popular culture fuels our thoughts on sex. I think the social comment and the ironies sailed over the heads of most of the posters quoted. Interestingly, given the outrage, the episode was very moral in its stance, making it quite clear that infidelity is a bad thing. If the episode has any weakness to me, it was the rather finger wagging nature of the scene that espoused this stance. I think the main cause of the outcry was a very literal reading by the audience of an episode full of irony. If the Rafters producers misjudged their audience, it was I think in crediting them with the ability to see past the surface hi-jinx to the irony and social comment beneath. The strong response certainly proves one thing however, that prudery is alive and well and living in Australia. However far we might think audiences have come, they haven’t really when it comes to accepting some more challenging truths about family and sexuality. They seem to want Rafters to be real as long as it is a reality that comforts them and shores up their preconceptions.