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Oops. “Violent” Simpsons episode OK on TEN.

TEN screens a Simpsons episode where Bart says, "Woah, maybe some punk kid will shoot me to get into a gang."

Maybe it’s a sign of TEN’s slimming workforce….

I don’t subscribe to theories that The Simpsons sets a bad example, but yesterday TEN aired an episode that could have benefitted from a switcheroo, given recent news headlines. But nobody in Programming seemed too bothered.

“The Great Wife Hope” had all the males of Springfield becoming obsessed with “a dangerous Mixed Martial Arts.”

At one point there was a whole schoolyard of kids brawling with each other, and also the rather unfortunate line from Bart, “Woah, maybe some punk kid will shoot me to get into a gang.”

Aye carumba.

The golden rule of comedy is always: timing.

At least Marge was putting out the anti-violence message. But you have to wonder if anybody at TEN was even aware of the content or if they still have enough staff to check these things.

In the US FOX pulled episodes of Family Guy and American Dad to avoid any potentially sensitive content.

19 Responses

  1. @Kenny – the difference is 5-0 is a cop show, so very hard to find an ep that would not involve guns but yes that cuts it a bit close.

    Also on The Simpsons last night more guns, shooting out security cameras!

  2. Plot of Last night’s Hawaii Five-0 was gunmen with assault guns threatening a group of very young girls, locking them in a shed and taking one as hostage. Very inappropriate episode to air this week. Then, this is TEN.

  3. God who cares! We are not the ones with guns in every household so Aussies should be able to view it.
    U know what’s stupid, parents of kids that died @ that school went and brought guns!! Now thats worth talking about.

  4. I’m with the incognito rodent (and others) on this one. TV has been dumbed down to a level where finding anything of interest, or real, is nearly impossible. Most of this started to occur during the latter stages of the Vietnam War when war footage on the nightly news showed just how different ‘reality’ was to the political spin doctors message. When was the last time you saw uncensored footage from any recent conflict.

    Here’s another instance. I saw a program wherein a young black girl in the USA (late teens IIRC) had an injury or medical condition resulting in her missing a breast. She was having a breast implant to balance her figure and the surgeon said “I am going to give you the most beautiful nipple” and the kid beamed. The surgery was performed and the cameras were there to unveil the results of the procedure… and her nipple was pixelated out.

    The girl was brave enough to allow cameras to track what must have been a traumatic experience for her, and some wally decides “we can’t show that on commercial TV”.

    Let’s just put the LifeLine 13 number on the bottom of every media piece and wrap each other in cotton wool. I need a hug.

  5. Gotta say, I’m sick of being told what is appropriate or not appropriate for me to watch. This ep is ancient and I don’t think it’s reasonable for any network to know the plot details of every old ep of every show that they repeat.

    As long as they get the classification correct and have an announcement regarding the specific nature of content which some people may wish to avoid (“highlights”, as I call them) I think that they have met their remit in this respect.

    As a society, we’re quite happy to send our young men and women off to fight unnecessary wars in foreign lands yet are offended if anyone pops a nipple while singing the national anthem or if a ten year-old cartoon contains a line that could be construed, after the fact, to relate to a recent tragic event.

    Enough, I say.

  6. I agree @ryaneco… that’s a very long bow David…
    GO played Ransom last night.. It’s a great film, but I watched it again, and there’s a very prominent scene where the parents (and the audience) believe they have just heard the young son get shot and killed by a kidnapper… followed by harrowing grief-stricken acting by Mel Gibson and Rene Russo as they portray the moments where their child has just been murdered by a gunman…
    Inappropriate or unfortunate timing?
    Maybe there’s no one working at NIine over Christmas?…

  7. 10+ years? This episode originally aired in 2009.

    It would have been hugely irresponsible of Ten to air this episode with a G rating as I recall that this episode (in its uncensored form) deserved a PG at the very least for animated violence and adult themes (due to the glorification of violence throughout the episode).

    A bit of stylised violence here and there is okay under the G classification, but this episode did not adequately depict violence (particularly between children) as an irresponsible act to the extent that it could be accommodated at the G level.

    I’m not saying that the episode should be censored or pulled off the schedule, but it should be aired with the correct classification as opposed to slapping it with a G classification just so Ten could get away with airing it at 6pm.

  8. Really? I think we’re just getting a bit over sensitive about this. Should a guy at TEN be pouring over the scripts of every episode to make sure that no one mentions guns?? If you ask me, mentioning it on the Simpsons is much less impactful than the endless reporting of it on the news! If a kid is going to get an idea of shooting up a bunch of people from the TV, do you think he gets more inspiration from a throw away line in a cartoon, or from seeing the aftermath of a real shooting that has just happened? For this reason, I think the news should be PG and have warnings at the start. My 2 cents…

  9. That’s nitpicking to be honest. The episode is some 10+ years old. And an easy oversight IMO. Society seems so intent on being wrapped in cotton wool these days.

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