The anti-LGBT Parents Television Council has issued a list of the most profane shows on television, and it should come as little surprise that its number one offender is a show about an openly gay Catholic high-school student.
Asked by The Wrap to name the top offenders, the watchdog group picked the ABC sitcom The Real O’Neals as the most profane show on television. The sitcom The Goldbergs the animated Bob’s Burgers followed in second and third place.
A PTC press release said that the group takes particular issue with shows in which teenage and child characters use “overtly sexualized and adult language.”
“During the study period of February-May 2016, language used by child and teen-aged characters included: (bleeped) ‘s**t’ and ‘s**tting,’ (bleeped) ‘f**k’ and ‘f**king,’ ‘erections,’ ‘boobs,’ ‘penis,’ ‘masturbating,’ ‘nymphomaniac,’ ‘ass,’ and more,” a press release noted.
“It’s bad enough that children are increasingly exposed to vulgar dialogue on television at all hours of the day. It’s even worse that they’re seeing the vulgarity coming directly from the lips of other children,” PTC President Tim Winter. said in a statement. “Adding fuel to the fire is the contemptuous content ratings system that allows TV networks to rate such explicit content TV-PG or TV-14, suggesting to parents that the programs are appropriate for their kids.Yet children are being exposed to age-inappropriate levels of profanity and sexual dialogue especially on family-targeted sitcoms, such as ABC’s The Real O’Neals, which contained more sexual dialogue involving teen and child characters than any other primetime program on broadcast TV,”
Interestingly, the slap on the wrist from the PTC comes just says after The Real O’Neals filmed a moving shoutout to people attending Orlando Pride. the video includes a moving tribute to the massacre at Pulse Nightclub that rocked that city’s LGBT community.
“The entire world turned and saw that Orlando stood together in the face of hate, and this year, more than any other in our nation’s history, it’s important to celebrate pride and spread the love,” The Real O’Neals star Martha Plimpton says in the video as her character, Eileen O’Neal.
The video includes a call to action to continue donating to OneOrlando.org, the fund that was established to support the victims and families of Pulse Nightclub.
Watch the video here.