Table Of ContentSaturday Morning Censors
CONSOLE-ING PASSIONS Television and Cultural Power
A series edited by Lynn Spi,gel
Saturday Morning Censors
Television Regulation before the V-Chip
HEATHER HENDERSHOT
Duke University Press Durham and London 1998
@
1998 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper @I
Typeset in Quadraat by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear
on the last printed page of this book.
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Adults, Children, and Censorship I
1
Attacking (TV?) Violence 13
2 "We Call Our Company Motel": Looking for Sexism and
Racism in the Children's Entertainment Industry 35
Action for (and against) Children's Television: "Militant
Mothers" and the Tactics of Television Reform 61
4 Toys, TV, and Toaster Pictures: Children's Entertainment
and the Free Market Mentality 95
5 Turned-on Toddlers and Space Age TV: Debating Sesame
Street 137
6 Sesame Street Technologies: The Quest for Cultural and
Scientific Neutrality 161
7 Hey, Hey, Hey, It's "Good" TV: Fat Albert, CBS, and
Dr. William H. Cosby 193
Conclusion: Talking across Boundaries? 217
Notes 223
Bibliography 261
Index 275
Acknowledgments
Many people and institutions helped me research and write this book. The
staff of the University of Rochester Interlibrary Loan Department found in
numerable books and articles for me, and archivists and librarians at other
institutions were also helpful above and beyond the call of duty. Thanks to
the staffs of the Action for Children's Television Archive at Harvard Univer
sity's Gutman Library, the Margaret Herrick and American Film Institute
Libraries in Los Angeles, the University of California, Los Angeles, Film
and Television Archive, the Museum of Television and Radio in New York,
and the University of Massachusetts Special Collections.
At the University of Rochester, Nancy Hall, Rosemary Hattman, Patty
Neill, Lucy Peck, and Cindy Warner helped me endure the daily trials and
red tape as the book was initially taking shape. Thanks are also due to
the Susan B. Anthony Center for Women's Studies, which provided fund
ing on numerous occasions. Michelle BaIze, Jeanette Delamoir, Amanda
Howell, and Anna Williams carefully read early drafts of several chapters.
Over the years, Mark Betz's relentless acumen has contributed crucially
to my own intellectual development. Jan-Christopher Horak was always a
scrupulous and helpful reader, D. N. Rodowick offered professional savoir
faire, and Constance Penley provided professional support and several fine
meals that linger in memory. I thank Lisa Cartwright for reading closely
and giving advice and encouragement. At Vassar College, the Henry Luce
Foundation provided funding for a year of teaching and book revisions.
Sarah Kozloff, Bill Hoynes, and Jim Steerman were all supportive Vassar
colleagues. Thanks also to Marsha Kinder for her feedback and to Henry
Jenkins for his valuable help with the manuscript and his ongoing support.
When I was at wit's end, a number of students sustained my energy
and made me feel like my teaching and research really mattered. I extend
my gratitude to Jay Bartow, Jamie Bradshaw, Dante Bruno, Michelle Eden,
Caroline Hanni, Kevin Maher, Sheila Murphy, and Rob Sosin, among many
others. lowe a particular debt to the students in my Hampshire College
classes on media censorship and animation history and aesthetics. The
viii Acknowledgments
Paper Tiger Television collective also played a crucial role in reinvigorating
my interest in this project.
In my salad days, Joyce Ackermann taught me how to read books.
Lew Hendershot inspired an early interest in the pleasures of movies and
cartoons; Peggy Hendershot and Ethel Gallagher enabled a healthy ge
netic disposition to writerly stubbornness. Special thanks are due to Eric
Smoodin, a good friend who spurred me on and had confidence in my
work, even at its earliest and most tenuous stage. Myrtle was the best e
mail pal a girl could ask for; Siobhan supplied the necessary tarts and
roasts; and Lynn helped me wig out. Finally, I thank John Palattella. His
companionship, perspicacity, and eggplant parmigiana provided suste
nance.
Introduction
Adults, Children, and Censorship
Debates on censorship invariably see it as a prohibitive
process. assuming that a censored text. by distorting
"reality" or in some other sense falling short of it. is in
some sense partial in its representation .... This view
is grounded in a distinction between a "rea\" world of
social action on the one hand. and texts and represen
tations on the other. It assumes. moreover, that the
"real" constitutes a kind of self-evident truth. a truth
that should -or in certain circumstances should not
be reflected in representations; and that censorship
stands. rightly or wrongly. in the way of this process of
reflection.-Annette Kuhn. Cinema. Censorship. Sexuality.
1909-19251
Censorship is usually understood as prohibition: censorship forbids, ob
structs, denies vision. It functions like a blindfold or a pair of scissors.
This conception of censorship is misleading. In actuality, censorship does
not just cut out images, sounds, or texts whose politics censors object to.
The act of censorship is a social process through which the politics of class,
race, gender, violence, and other potentially "problematic" issues are de
constructed and reconstructed, articulated and scotomized. Censorship is
a social process that both prohibits and produces meanings.
Feminist film scholars Annette Kuhn and Lea Jacobs have shown, for ex
ample, that censorship does not simply eliminate genres censors object to.
Some generic conventions (indeed, entire genres) owe their existence to
censorship as a social force. In her study of early twentieth-century British
cinema, Kuhn explains that "the union of cinema and [censorious] pub
lic morality ... produced a new cinematic genre," the propaganda film.2
