Normally, you’d find me hard-pressed to put in a good word for MTV and its intellectually-inhibiting programming, but I like to think that when a show or a network does something right, people are bound to be angry.
Especially the Parents Television Council. The PTC remains relevant insofar as it tends toward the exact opposite of what it stands for. Barring a few minor victories, their crusades manage to bolster their target’s popularity rather than tarnish it.
No stranger to the quagmires of questionable content, MTV’s scripted adaptation of David J. Rosen’s novel, “I Just Want My Pants Back,” focuses on 20-something post-grads living in Brooklyn. The PTC’s concerns – not unlike their zealous attempt to defame the American remake of Skins – revolve around the raunchy relationship-comedy’s “misleading” TV-14 content rating, which apparently targets pre-teens for exposure to what only the puritanical conservative minority would consider explicit adult content. The show’s star, Peter Vack, explains the premise of the show’s pilot episode in this interview from last weekend’s Grammy Awards.
In an effort to sabotage the show’s budget, the PTC has approached affiliated advertisers and passive-aggressively threatened to belittle their reputation. By using the show to advertise their own products, apparently Toyota and Dr. Pepper are in favour of orgies and the stimulation of prostates. If it was such a simple matter, then kudos to them for maintaining an open mind in the face of the PTC’s fearful ignorance – but it’s not that simple. According to PTC-logic – which for simplicity’s sake, we’ll call stupidity – I guess Sprint supports scientific experimentation on children and tearing holes in the universe to alter history (Fringe).
I Just Want My Pants Back airs on Thursdays at 11 pm on MTV, following Jersey Shore. If the PTC was actually worried about what young audiences are being exposed to, they’d be targeting the more popular pseudo-reality exposé that shows real “people” in more mentally and morally-degrading situations than a fictional follow-up that airs later in the evening.
