Welp, the Super Bowl has come and gone, which means one thing: baseball is next! However, there is still some griping to do from Sunday. No, it isn’t about how horrid the game was or that TB12 got another ring or that BB cheats, blah blah blah. Nope, this is a parenting blog and the Pats winning means nothing to parents. What I want to discuss is my newfound disdain for network television and the garbage being put on it in front of my daughter.
Two things stuck out to me last night whilst watching said suckfest of a game. One is that network TV no longer has any type of filter, even when it comes to commercials, more specifically, movie trailers. I am not sure if ya’ll caught it, but there was a trailer for a new horror movie called Us.
You can watch it and judge for yourself, but bottom line, this gorefest was on in front of my kid in the middle of the afternoon (we are West coast time, so it aired pretty much right after kickoff, so like 330pm). This trailer is sick and disgusting and scared the shit out of her. Yes, I know, I can “monitor” what she watches. But when people are over and 30 things are going on at once, I shouldn’t have to worry about my kid seeing Exorcist-level shit on my TV during the biggest sporting event of the year, when they do realize kids of all ages will be watching. I mean, it’s a damn commercial, and I quickly realized it was a gnarly one and covered my kid’s eyes (I have no idea where the remote was but my guess is the last thing the NFL wants is for people to be changing the channel). But the damage had been done and from then on out, whenever a commercial came on my daughter covered her eyes and asked “Is it scary?” Yes kiddo, Joey from Friends starring in another sitcom is scary, but you don’t have to close your eyes. Thanks a lot assholes. Also, don’t forget to check out Us, in theaters March 22. It’s the terrifying follow-up to Jordan Peele’s genre-changing film, Get Out, which I heard was a movie.
Stuck in my craw 2. So after the Super Bowl every year, the network that hosts the game immediately follows it up with a premier episode of something super awesome and exciting and we just can’t miss, blah blah blah, some other craptastic show. This year apparently CBS aired another show about amazing people doing amazingly dumb shit that no one actually cares that they can do. Like, for instance, this idiot that puts himself in a water tank, sticks his hands out of the tank and has them handcuffed. He also has chains wrapped all over that he has to unlock one at a time. It was the last act of the show, and the only act I saw to be honest. My daughter was standing there watching, too, very concerned I might add. So concerned she got visibly upset when they closed the tank and filled it up with water. I didn’t know how long the show had been on and assumed that they would show him escaping unharmed. Nope. Turned out this was the cliffhanger act. So my daughter is freaking out about this dude being locked and submerged, holding his breath and attempting to unlock himself. I assure her he will be fine. I mean, Ethan Hunt held his breath for like 5 minutes in Mission Impossible and he was good to go. This dude was only underwater thus far for like 2 minutes. The munchkin doesn’t realize that he will inevitably be fine, that network TV would not air this if he didn’t make it out. Try explaining that to a 3 year old. Talk about futile efforts. They ended the show with him choking on his own breath and the crowd screaming. She freaked out and spent the rest of the night worrying what was going to happen to this guy. She went to bed extremely concerned that he wasn’t going to get out of the box. I told her he was fine (although now I wish he wasn’t fine and he ended up like all those Hugh Jackman clones in The Prestige, because f*&k you for putting my kid through that). And on top of it, it wasn’t like I could tell her we could sit and watch him escape the next night. Nope, they don’t air the next episode until Wednesday. So by then, she won’t even care what happens to him, and neither will the rest of America.
So, a shitty Super Bowl led to some really stressful and terrifying moments for my kid. CBS in particular can suck it. It’s their fault for allowing the gross movie trailer. It’s their fault for editing the show with that dumb ass cliffhanger. And it’s their fault the football game sucked hard (and I didn’t even mention Maroon 5, just puke). Once again, more crap to have to worry about my kid dealing with. Network TV use to be the last safe bastion. Not anymore. Thanks a lot, f*&kers.
