I certainly don't want to get into Adam Lambert's American Music Awards performance again, but Peggy Noonan's recent column, "The Adam Lambert Problem," goes in an entirely different, non-Lambert-based direction that needs a little more exploration.
Let's put aside the "culture wars" aspect, and the argument that "America" feels that the country is going in the wrong direction because of Adam Lambert. Let's look instead at Noonan's argument about broadcast television versus cable.
For years now, without anyone declaring it or even noticing it, we've had a compromise on television. Do you want, or will you allow into your home, dramas and comedies that, however good or bad, are graphically violent, highly sexualized, or reflective of cultural messages that you believe may be destructive? Fine, get cable. Pay for it. Buy your premium package, it's your money, spend it as you like.
But the big broadcast networks are for everyone. They are free, they are available on every television set in the nation, and we watch them with our children. The whole family's watching. Higher, stricter standards must maintain.
In short, what she's suggesting is that all of broadcast television, even what is broadcast shortly before 11:00 at night — even, presumably, what airs on late-night — has to be children's television or family television. This isn't even the old "family hour" argument. This is the "every hour is the family hour" argument. Never mind that by 2010, more than two-thirds of households will be
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