Surprise! New Fall TV Lineup Heavy on Sex
Fall means back to school, end of summer vacations, and exciting new television for those bored with "The Bachelor" and "Survivor."
But among this year's crop of brand new television series, a rather "sex"y pattern has emerged. Shows about immature bachelors hooking up before they grow up, the 1960s' playboy bunnies, and navigating the pitfalls of a one-night-stand with your coworker, are themes slated to appear on screens across America in a matter of days.
One of the adult themed shows to air this fall is "Free Agents," a sitcom set to debut on September 14, on NBC that follows the lives of two PR professionals, after they have a drunken one-night stand. The coworkers (played by Hank Azaria and Kathryn Hahn) attempt to steer through the messy complications of a professional relationship in the aftermath. While this could make for some funny awkward moments, an alcohol-fueled evening full of regret is just a sad premise for a series.
NBC's "The Playboy Club" is a little more obvious from the title about the show's content. Set to air on September 19, 2011, "The Playboy Club" "centers on the Bunnies and patrons of the original Playboy Club in 1960's Chicago," according to the Internet Movie Database page for the show.
But the show has already stirred up controversy as critics like the Parents Television Council called it a "blatant attempt to obliterate any remaining standards of broadcast decency." Morality in Media created an online petition to discourage viewers to from watching the show. Even famous liberal feminist Gloria Steinem has echoed the calls for a boycott. The real Playboy Club, she said, was "the tackiest place on earth."
Based on the stand-up comedy of comedienne Whitney Cummings, "Whitney" is coming to NBC this fall, and it is bringing all the sexual humor along with it. In one trailer for the new series about a couple trying to keep the relationship alive without getting married, viewers see her boyfriend (played by Chris D'Elia) in bed with a laptop. In an attempt to spice things up, Whitney crawls on top of him and sits on his lap, soon learning that her boyfriend is video-chatting with his parents, who witness her attempt to get him "in the mood."
In another trailer the two are lying in bed and Whitney declares, "I don't think we're having sex enough. Why aren't we tapping this every night? ...Stay in that bed, because a storm of sexy is coming your way."
"New Girl" debuts on Fox on September 20 and stars Zooey Deschanel as a sweet, but dramatic, recently dumped woman who ends up getting a new apartment with three guys who vow to help her rebound.
In one trailer that sets up the series, Jessica (played by Deschanel) is seen seducing her boyfriend by arriving at their apartment early, only to discover he is sleeping with another woman. Later in the trailer, Jessica is with her roommates at a bar attempting to rebound and she exclaims to them, "You guys were totally right! I smiled, I said I needed rebound sex and it totally worked. He asked me out!"
One of the most popular shows on television right now is "Glee," a sex-filled primetime show about Ohio high school students in glee club, is beginning its 3rd season on September 20 on Fox. The raunchy show about teens has, in its first two seasons, celebrated lesbian sex experiments, drunken hook ups, masturbation and unwanted gay-smooching.
CW's "Gossip Girl" will begin its new season on September 26 and the sex in this teen drama has moved beyond boy on girl action. In 2009, the Culture and Media Institute highlighted the objectionable "teen" content, including an episode featuring a threesome.
Ben Shapiro examined the liberal assault on traditional values in Hollywood in his book "Primetime Propaganda" and in his chapter "Making The Right Cry: How Television Drama Glorifies Liberalism," he observed that, "comedies are anti-morality crusades; dramas are morality tales." Both are intentionally designed to invert traditional ideas of morality. The veteran producers and writers Shapiro interviewed admitted as much.
