Tropical Tales No. 25 - Vol. 1
- A Happy Medium
Will we
now see new people in the Federal Communications
Commission and increased pressure over broadcast
indecency? Analysts presume so. But some people
think that major television networks should not
be able to control so many stations because that
tends to depart from local community standards.
Whose standards? Florida is a melting pot and
every ethnic group, religious denomination, and
nationality seems to congregate in this
peninsula, superimposing their own brand of
culture on others and resentment exists. We now
live in separate gated communities because we
don't like each other. In some areas crime is
high and the haves must protect themselves from
the have-nots.
In Britain there has always been a class
distinction; here there is no difference, only
it is an economic distinction. I found the same
to be true when I was growing up in Buenos Aires
and attended private British schools. We did not
associate with the locals and always spoke
English. Spanish was used only when we were
shopping. I remember one of my mother's friends
who did not dominate that language telling her
seamstress, "when you make my dress, I want
buttons down the front of the blouse - poner un
boton aqui y espere momento, otro boton aqui y
espere otro momento." She insisted those buttons
be spaced every other moment. I write about this
Florida class distinction in my novel: MURDER BY
ROSES.
Campaigners against broadcast indecency said
the election increased their leverage which they
intend to use over the next four years. Whereas
I do agree that society should protect children,
and parents should definitely control what they
see on television, I do not agree that we should
be treated like children with censorship by
puritanical bureaucrats in Washington, who do
not have a clue as to what is transpiring in
Florida.
I write novels for adults, not children, and
I have been criticized by a local
Miss-Thinks-She-Knows-It-All, for writing about
the Catholic Church, in HUSBAND HUNTING; but I
do hope the pendulum does not swing completely
over to the far right wing in broadcasting,
because I remember when I lived in Russia, all
we could see on TV was the inside of factories
and war movies, narrated by somebody with a
totalitarian mind, not giving us credit for even
believing our own eyes.
Hopefully we will not go from one extreme to
another, as that is just as bad.
