“Why are we surprised by the decline in morality among America’s youth when we fail to put pressure on networks, music producers and other entertainment companies to act responsibly?”

Absolutely…I totally agree with the writer’s take on MTV and this show. MTV knows that they have such an influence on today’s youth yet they air a show of this nature. Don’t the executives at MTV feel any responsibility at all towards the overall good of society and the way kids (and they are kids!!) behave? This show is going way to far. It really is like marketing porn to 12-18 year olds. For what?? The sake of ratings?? Someone needs to get this off of the air. The executives need to take some responsiblity. I don’t know why MTV thinks they are untouchable and I find it so hard to believe that there was not one voice of dissent in whatever meetings they had when discussing this show. You see in the media all the time the question of why are kids the way they are today?? Because of idiot executives who just want to make a buck who air crap like this. Maybe these executives should be held to the same accountibiity as the executives who mislead the public with earnings and caused the recession. Also don’t they even think that there are pedophiles out there watching this show as well???? C’mon MTV, step up for once instead of always trying to be the ‘shocking’ network.

Somehow I think teenagers would be getting in relative states of undress and doing “adult” things without this show. The answer, of course, is to take the damn televisions out of the kids’ rooms and monitor what they are watching. Why is it every krappy parent wants censorship? I guess it makes their jobs much easier.

Lisa said:
“Why are we surprised by the decline in morality among America’s youth when we fail to put pressure on networks, music producers and other entertainment companies to act responsibly?”

Absolutely…I totally agree with the writer’s take on MTV and this show. MTV knows that they have such an influence on today’s youth yet they air a show of this nature. Don’t the executives at MTV feel any responsibility at all towards the overall good of society and the way kids (and they are kids!!) behave? This show is going way to far. It really is like marketing porn to 12-18 year olds. For what?? The sake of ratings?? Someone needs to get this off of the air. The executives need to take some responsiblity. I don’t know why MTV thinks they are untouchable and I find it so hard to believe that there was not one voice of dissent in whatever meetings they had when discussing this show. You see in the media all the time the question of why are kids the way they are today?? Because of idiot executives who just want to make a buck who air crap like this. Maybe these executives should be held to the same accountibiity as the executives who mislead the public with earnings and caused the recession. Also don’t they even think that there are pedophiles out there watching this show as well???? C’mon MTV, step up for once instead of always trying to be the ’shocking’ network.

Parent up! Don’t let your kids watch it.

Oh please Real Royal, if it was just so simple and that is the simple argument. It is not my parenting that I am worried about just as it is not my parenting I am worried about when I worry about other kids bringing drugs or guns to school or when other kids bully others on the bus. It is the OTHER parents who don’t give a crap and let their kids do whatever they want is what I am worried about.

While I have written quite a bit about the cynical way this show is being marketed with that bogus child porn story (http://www.mediaite.com/tv/is-the-mainstream-media-helping-mtv-market-skins-by-reporting-on-child-porn-story/) I think a number of people are missing one of the key points in this story: the original series was a very well made and entertaining show which used the incredibly innovative technique of being written through a collaboration of professional writers and young kids just out of high school (basically 18-21 year olds). Was it risque? Yes. But, like I said, it was high quality and unique.

The remake looks pointless (by reusing the British scripts, they wasted an opportunity to use the same technique to depict the American teen’s viewpoint) and there is definitely a good reason to question why a channel with such young viewers would air the show. But we should never forget that, in the beginning, this was good TV.

Like Roger Ebert always argues, it’s not what art is about, but how.

Being a parent, myself, it’s easy for others to say ‘play your roll’. I agree with the idea..that works out great in your own home..you can block channels between certain hours, etc….you can do all you want in your own home but that doesn’t keep it from happening in other homes.

It goes beyond handling your own household. Unfortunately, there are parents out there that don’t care…or, rather..they don’t want to know…further, there are parents who are only concerned for their own kids and don’t care what happens to other kids, at least until they see that it affects their own. We’ve gotten away from the ‘it takes a village’ mentality completely….I think mainly because we live in a society that seems to think it’s better to be further away from everyone or in our own little master communities than in real neighborhoods.

I think the other part of it is that MTV thinks “Hey..look at what FX and AMC are doing….we can do that too.” Way to think out of the box, guys.

I’m still at a loss as far as why MTV totally canned it’s music content when they could have just launched a reality TV network. They still broadcast MTV2, MTVU, MTV Hits, as well as their genre-specific channels that you find on a few random cable providers. If the TV format is ‘dead’, then why are those networks still airing music content?

This is a cheap, lazy grab for ratings. Nothing else. Kids are curious, hormones are flaring, and MTV is grabbing.

The reality is that parents can’t control their kids today the way they could in the past. Access is everywhere. A lot of barriers have been broken down, by technology, by changes in society, and by changes in lifestyles.

A lot of the “it takes a village” mentality has been replaced by a “I’m not getting involved because they will use it as an excuse to sue the crap out of me” mentality.

The first season of the original Skins was exceptionally well done and poignant and the 2nd was decent. I would fully expect the MTV version to be terrible since they haven’t had any intelligent programming on any of their networks in more than a decade.

I would never let my child watch this show if I had one, but I certainly don’t begrudge MTV airing it. Parents should care enough in general to monitor what their children consume. I get the argument that you can’t 100% stop them if you’re not with them 24/7, but at least control what you can and don’t make it easy for them. This show should have nothing at all to do with gun violence, and other people’s kids can’t hurt your kids with the drugs they may bring to school unless they tried to throw weed in your kid’s eyes or something. Just teach your kids responsibility and enforce it every chance you get.

Does MTV even play music videos anymore? Or have they already stopped pretending to be music station?