Despite complaints from numerous advocacy groups after it the revelation that an upcoming episode of ABC's award-winning comedy serious Modern Family would feature a toddler saying the F-word, the network aired the program anyway Wednesday.
Us magazine reported Thursday (video available here):
"Maybe she's saying 'truck' or 'duck' or 'luck.' She could have said 'luck,'" Cam (Eric Stonestreet) reasoned to partner Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) after their little girl spouted the expletive multiple times, including at a wedding.
Coached to say 'fudge' during taping, the final bleeped-out curses from actress Aubrey Anderson-Emmons drew ire from advocacy groups including the Parents Television Council.
Time magazine TV critic James Poniewozik didn't see anything wrong with this:
The subplot was not the most brilliant Modern Family has ever done, but it felt well-observed and honest—particularly Mitchell’s frustration with Cam (who can’t stop giggling) and the couple’s disagreement about how best as parents to discourage the f-bombs. There was nothing close to a message that all the cool kids are swearing, or that having your little flower girl bust out the f-word in public is a parent’s dream. The storyline ended with Lily, seeing Cam crying at the wedding, saying “f___” in front of the church to cheer him up; his having giggled at Lily’s swearing blows up in his face, and he ends up fleeing the church with her.
So this glamorizes indecency among children how? Because the situation resolved humorously? Modern Family is a comedy. If the show had Lily’s swearing result in, say, a highway accident that killed three people, it would have been something of a departure in tone.
People have the right to protest what they want. I will at least credit the No Cussing Club and the PTC with not trying to get the FCC to punish ABC for the story. But incidents like this make me think suspect that the real reason decency advocates are always so concerned about “the effect on the children” is that they themselves watch and interpret TV like children. That is, they can’t or won’t interpret a narrative on any level more complex than: if a TV series depicts a behavior, it must therefore approve of that behavior. Thus Modern Family is pro-child-cussing; thus The Sopranos was pro-violence because its protagonist was a violent mobster.
No matter what he says, a plot line around a two-year-old saying the F-word doesn't seem appropriate for primetime broadcast television.
What do you think?
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