By Matthew Laurrie
Features Assignment Editor
Parents are there to watch your first steps, hear your first words, teach you to learn and grow and mentor you along your way. They may be the most important people in a child’s life.
“The New Normal,” one of NBC’s newest sitcoms, follows a gay couple and their decision to have a child together through a surrogate. Each episode captures the trials and tribulations of family drama, relationship issues and growing older. Since before the show’s debut on Sept. 11, there have been cries of controversy from some less-than-progressive minds.
Recently, an NBC affiliate, KSL-TV, in Utah owned by the Mormon Church announced it would not air “The New Normal.”
“For our brand, this program simply feels inappropriate on several dimensions, especially during family viewing time,” Jeff Simpson, CEO of KSL’s parent company, Bonneville International, said in a statement, according to an Aug. 28 Huffington Post story. “The dialogue is excessively rude and crude; the scenes are too explicit and the stereotypes are offensive on all sides.”
I don’t think Mr. Simpson and I have been watching the same show. What exactly is the “brand” he is speaking of? Bigotry? Hatred? Intolerance? And why would a sitcom about two individuals trying to build a family be “inappropriate?” I doubt a show featuring a heterosexual couple would impede family values in the eyes of this NBC affiliate.
The issue transcends freedom of speech, and it borders on attacks against personal liberties and censorship.
People don’t choose to be gay, just as someone doesn’t choose the color of their skin or who their biological parents are. It’s wrong to penalize people, on a television show or in real life, because their sexual orientation digresses from the “norm.”
If the audience of KSL is shaking in their baby booties about the message “The New Normal” is portraying (a message of unconditional family love and acceptance), then I would simply advise them to change the channel every Tuesday at 9:30 p.m.
It’s not about who raises a child, it’s about how a child is raised. It doesn’t matter if a man and a woman, two men, two women or a single parent or guardian bring up a child. As long as that child is taught how to be a good person, I don’t see why the ‘who’ is such a big deal.
Jake Witter, co-president of SBU Spectrum, the gay-straight alliance on campus, explained the show is a great opportunity for viewers to see how gay couples are no different from their heterosexual counterparts.
“Why can’t we have a show that only wants to spread awareness about how our (gay) community lives a normal everyday life like our heterosexual friends?” Witter said.
I couldn’t agree more.
It’s refreshing to see shows on TV that embody an underrepresented and misunderstood topic in our culture, and I love how this television show is addressing parenting in a more contemporary way. It becomes frustrating when individuals in power use their privilege to take that away.
I applaud so many NBC affiliates for airing “The New Normal.” The show is a brilliant representation of modern-day shifts in family dynamics, and highlights how it doesn’t necessarily take one man and one woman to create a successful family. The title says it all; this is the new normal.
