WHEN, a few weeks ago, I had the honour to act as locum tenens for Mr. H. R. F. Keating in the TV critic's column of the CATHOLIC HERALD, I had no suspicion of the vehemence of reaction which my comparatively mild comments were about to provoke.
On the following week Mr. Keating himself took me fairly sharply to task for using his pulpit to deplore the use of foul language and smutty jokes on so-called comedy TV shows. On this page a correspondent accused me of having attended a "secluded school," whatever that might be.
Last week Mr. Keating returned to his defence of vulgarity in general and Steptoe and Up Pompeii! in particular.
In view of all this there are one or two points which it might be worth making. First of all, I should like to try to make clear, once again, that my objection to the content of certain programmes was based solely on the fact that they are shown at times when children may reasonably be assumed to be watching the box.
So far as adults are concerned, a taste for vulgarity is obviously a matter of personal foible. No one could possibly have any objection to an adult enjoying whatever sort of joke appeals to him.
But I do insist that parents have a right—and, more importantly, a duty—to exercise some sort of supervision over the type of programme which young children watch.
If I understand Mr. Keating's arguments correctly, he seems to be making the claim that, so long as vulgarity is clever, it is not only acceptable but even, in some way, beneficial. One is irresistibly reminded of the schoolmaster in,
think, The Rest Years of Our Lives, who ordered an errant pupil to write out five hundred times the line, "I must not be vulgar without being funny."
It has been pointed out, of course, that children need go no farther than the primary school playground to hear bad language and suggestive jokes. If this is indeed invariably true today one cannot help wondering just how far TV may be responsible.
Even if it is true it still does not seem to constitute an argument for parents to sit passively by the TV set with their young, tacitly accepting as normal the casual blasphemies and obscenities which go to make up a large part of the dialogue in certain programmes.
Individual parents can, obviously. choose which programmes their families may watch. But should censorship by parents be necessary? Would it really be out of the question to screen Steptoe et al. after 9 p.m. when younger viewers would—or should be—in bed?
Mr. Keating, I enjoy your column and I have the greatest respect for your judgment as a critic. As a parent, however. I have a responsibility to use my own judgment, and it is as a parent that I must continue to disagree with you on the question of what makes suitable viewing for children.
Maureen Vincent Bromley, Kent.