‘Desperate’ boycotts

February 23, 2006

It’s been a while since we’ve last heard about a new boycott from the American Family Association’s the Rev. Donald E. Wildmon. His new target? ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” which Wildmon describes as “one of the most vulgar and tasteless programs on television.” (via Pam Spaulding)

Wildmon said his goal is to identify advertisers and launch a year-long boycott. He even explains his response to the reality-based argument about TV shows the religious right doesn’t like.

Wildmon says he doesn’t buy the argument that people who don’t like a particular show should simply turn off their TV.

“Will they also tell us that if we don’t like drunk drivers on the highway to stay off the highway? Sure we can turn the TV off. But why should we have to do that? Why do our children need to be exposed to such trash?”

Try as I might, I can’t quite wrap my head around that analogy. Maybe someone could explain it to me.

Nevertheless, “Desperate Housewives” joins some pretty illustrative company. Other recent Wildmon targets include Disney, Ford, American Girl dolls, Crest toothpaste, Volkswagen, Tide detergent, Clorox bleach, Pampers, MTV, Abercrombie & Fitch, K-Mart, Burger King, American Airlines and S.C. Johnson & Son, makers of Windex, Ziploc, Pledge, Glade, and Edge. In 2004, the AFA also went after the movie “Shark Tale,” because the group believed the movie was designed to brainwash children into accepting gay rights.

At least “Desperate Housewives” is in good company.

When is Wildmon going to come out against his followers marrying their sisters? The level of moronic stupidity they demonstrate can only be explained by too much trailer park trash inbreeding.

  • I would like to know what their vision for the ideal situation would look like after they eliminate everything that offends them — what is their end goal? How far back do they want to take America? The idealized nostalgic morality they crave never existed, ever.

    I think that any time groups like this complain about “vulgarity” in contemporary culture a clip should be shown of people protesting Elvis, just to put their ridiculus hysteria into context.

    I suspect that if they had there way and purged our society of all that offends them they would then quickly turn their sights on each other, finding “heretics” among their own ranks sqabbling among themselves as to who is the most pure and aguing about nonsensical doctrinal questions and creating new controversies.

    The bottom line is that these people thrive on dissatisfaction and conflict — they will never be happy or content.

  • Well, since they’re also adamant that abstinence is the *only* useful way to stop STDs and you can’t even talk about safe sex even to people who are already obviously having sex… I think the intellectually consistent stance would be to *not* drive on the highways as the only way to prevent accidents with drunk drivers.

    Furthermore, I would encourage them to withdraw from society entirely, and keep their mouths shut as a way of ensuring their own purity. Boycott the whole society, I say!!

  • “[T]he most vulgar and tasteless programs on television” are TV preachers.

    They also don’t pay the fees and taxes of other programming – in fact, such shows are cash cows for hate mongers and superstitious idiots.

  • “[T]he most vulgar and tasteless programs on television” are TV preachers.

    Totally agree. The most funny and ironic thing that I’ve noticed is that if you tune into these “religious” radio and t.v. broadcasts you’ll hear more discussion about homosexuality and sex than if you went to an Act Up convention. They are totally obsessed with it.

  • I have no problem with the AFA expressing their opinions. They are not morons. I think they deserve credit for standing up for what they believe in. And furthermore, it demonstrates to other parts of the world that you can defend your religious views without bombing embassies.

  • Well, you’re half right, Addison. The AFA is perfectly welcome to express their views and no one here would dispute that. Unfortunately, not one of their endless boycotts has been even remotely successful that I know of, and their perpetual attempts to force people to pay attention to them starts to look pretty silly after the first dozen times or so. It’s just rather sad, really.

  • Plus, the AFA would be a lot more credible if they were using their supposed Christian values and beliefs to try and HELP people rather than try and strong-arm companies into conforming to their world view.

    It’s one thing to say “boycott Desparate Housewives because it’s trashy.” It IS trashy, and I have never watched it, but it’s pretty inconsequential either way.

    It’s quite another thing to say “boycott Ford because they don’t descriminate against homosexuals.”

    That’s just evil and shameful.

  • I would like to urge other like-minded individuals (wink, wink) to boycott the One-Million Moms Project, The American Family Association and anything they support. (Yeah…Like Televangalists are difficult to boycott…mission accomplished.)

  • Bill Maher doesn’t like Desperate Housewiives either. He sys: (I quote from memory)

    “If I cared about other people’s sex lives, I’d be a Republican.”

  • Try as I might, I can’t quite wrap my head around that analogy. Maybe someone could explain it to me.

    They come at this as a “public health” issue. So even if they turned off the TV, someone else could still be watching and become “infected” and become the new Ted Bundy and rape and kill their daughters and, I guess, marry their sons.

    I’ve been dealing with Wildmon for years. He once threatend to sue me, but chickened out. Don’t expect him to make sense.

  • What is morality? When the word morality is spoken the average person thinks sex. The notion of sex protocols as the basis of morality is ludicrous. Morality is the standard a society subscribes to so that individual members can interact with each other in a harmonous manner. The notion that sexual morality is the only one comes from those who claim the moral high ground, the moral majority as they call themselves, born again, the evangelicals who claim the right to dictate morality. They get theirs from the Bible. Oh, but there’s bad news for them.

    The Bible is a recently proved hoax. http://www.hoax-buster.org has that story and visitors by the thousands are seeing the real story of the Bible with what even the evangelicals should label as immoral.

  • Hey, Desperate Housewives is great.

    I’m am amused by that “why do we have to change the channel?” comment.

    Because we are not showing YOUR show right now!

  • I always find it amusing when people get their panties in a bunch over fictional things-Desperate Housewives, DaVinci Code, etc., but can’t ever seem to manage to find the time or energy to do anything about the real atrocities going on in the world-war, poverty, starvation, lack of healthcare,etc.

  • Pretty soon it will occur to someone that having Wildmon declare a boycott on you is actually something to advertise, as a way of attracting sane people. I actually think it would work in a Desperate Housewives ad, not that they have any trouble getting good ratings. But it would enhance their “scandalous” soap opera reputation.

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