Golden age wasn't necessarily so golden

Editor,

I am writing in response to Brad Lord-Leutwyler's column on Wednesday titled "Clinton taught us that actions speak loudest."

I take issue with Lord-Leutwyler on several points. He portrays television content as having evolved from an age in which "virtues were taught, and the medium was being used to build an infrastructure of character ..." to today's condition where "`T&A sells'" is the "mantra of the entertainment industry."

While I'm sure most people would agree that today's television programming and advertising employ sexually suggestive content in order to garner ratings and sell product, I don't think that the "content-based" golden age that Lord-Leutwyler hearkens back to was necessarily any better. The TV programming that he cites as building "an infrastructure of character" enforced patriarchal values, oppressed women and did not uphold even the questionable values it embraced.

For example, programs such as "Father Knows Best" or "I Love Lucy" portray women as silly, willful creatures and men as practical, forgiving and, ultimately, powerful. Does Lord-Leutwyler know that the title character of the program "Dennis The Menace" was sexually abused on the set for the duration of the show? Perhaps Lord-Leutwyler feels that women need the supervision of men and that sexual abuse of minors is a morally correct and virtuous practice.

Lord-Leutwyler uses the abbreviation "BJ," a blatant reference to the performance of oral sex on a man, to refer to former president Clinton. I find it remarkable that in the same breath as he preaches morals and virtues, Lord-Leutwyler makes such a nasty attack. By my own standards, calling people dirty names is not virtuous. It merely serves to make the attacker look like a jerk.

Lord-Leutwyler gives the following advice to would-be practitioners of his "moral code:" "don't hold your boyfriend's hand and then cheat on the commitment when he's not there."

This statement seems directed toward women and implies that they are more prone to cheating in a relationship than men. Lord-Leutwyler fails to admonish men not to cheat on their girlfriends, although perhaps he intends his message for gay men. However, that hardly seems appropriate, unless Lord-Leutwyler is homosexual himself.

Obviously, Wednesday's column was meant to entertain, and I am sure that some people on campus chuckled when they read it. It even afforded me a laugh: I find it funny that such trite, glaringly partisan, historically inaccurate, poorly considered and even more poorly written garbage is considered worthy of printing.

-Ezra Depperman

Chemistry graduate student