June
12
"Swingtown": 'Basically, it's defiling marriage'
Shannon C. Barry of Trabuco Canyon, Calif. (near Mission Viejo in Orange County) is not a self-appointed media watchdog, or an activist by nature.
She's a wife and mother of three who works as a waitress and a professional horse rider, and as a "taxi driver" for her kids. She doesn't have much spare time to watch TV, though she makes a point to "never miss an episode of 'American Idol.'"
But Barry was incensed and spurred to take action after getting a glimpse of CBS' "Swingtown." Last weekend she emailed a letter of complaint urging CBS affiliates to yank the show that revolves around the lives of three married couples and their spouse-swapping, Quaalude-dropping adventures in the summer of '76.
"Basically, it's defiling marriage," Barry said in a telephone interview Thursday. "The more we put things like this on the air, the more the public is exposed to things like that, it becomes OK. But it's not OK to represent marriage that way."
Barry first heard about "Swingtown" through an item in People magazine. A look back at the era of sex, drugs and spouse-swapping didn't sound like anything that belonged on broadcast TV, in Barry's opinion.
Her instinct was confirmed after she saw a promo spot for the show on CBS. Then she went on the CBS website and watched a trailer "that showed three people in bed together," Barry said. "It definitely really rubbed me wrong."
Just as her outrage over the show was rising, Barry received an email alert about "Swingtown" from One Million Moms, an org run by the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Assn., a pioneering crusader in the culture wars led by the Rev. Donald Wildmon. The alert urged mothers to email complaint letters to CBS and others (including Variety).
Barry said she has not seen a full episode of "Swingtown." What she saw in the trailer was enough. Barry does not particularly care if the provocative stuff is used in a storytelling context to develop the central character of Susan Miller, a suburban Chicago housewife who is very conflicted about the anything-goes attitude her husband embraces after they move to a new neighborhood.
"All the drinking, drug use and spouse-swapping -- it's highly inappropriate, especially for regular TV," Barry said. "I feel really strongly about not viewing it or anything else on CBS since I've seen (the trailer)."
The fact that "Swingtown" airs at 10 p.m. in most markets (9 p.m. in Central and Mountain time zones) is beside the point. The issue is not keeping it away from kids; the issue is that the subject matter doesn't belong on free over-the-air TV at all, Barry says. HBO maybe, but not what she calls "public" television.
"It should be on an adult viewing channel that you should be paying privately for if you want it," she says. "Something like that shouldn't exist on public television."
Barry emphasized that she doesn't expect everything on television to be G-rated, nor does she want her preferences to dictate what the public can see. She doesn't even impose that discipline on her children, ages 16, 14, and 10. But "Swingtown" is over the line, in Barry's view.
"You can't fight everything you don't necessarily agree with or believe in," Barry said. "I have kids watching TV and making choices that I don't necessarily like...But I felt this was way over what should be allowed on regular TV."
Barry said she's considered trying to organize an advertiser boycott or some other protest effort, but at the same time, her life is busy enough, as she works nights, her husband works days and their three kids are all active in sports teams.
So in the time that took Barry to write an email (which she says she wrote herself even though it's virtually identical to others sent to Variety this week), she hopes her voice and the protests of others will be heard by the powers that be at CBS.
"I really hope they pull the show," she said.
Cynthia Littleton is deputy editor, news development at Variety and a veteran television reporter. 
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I live right up the 405 from this woman (only about five miles) and I felt obligated to tell you that we people of Orange County do indeed know how to change out TV channels, even if this woman doesn't.
She apparently doesn't know where the off switch is, either. And possibly, she thinks it's mandatory to have a television.
Lady, turn it off if you don't like it. Not everything should have to pass your smell test, which evidently was devised in the 1950s.
Just pack your kids into the car, drive over to Saddleback Church or wherever it is that you learn that you are more important than everyone else (including the 8 million others who watched and enjoyed the pilot) and leave us alone.
And for the rest of you, you can come visit my blog and discuss the show.
http://iamatvjunkie.typepad.com
Posted by: Joe B. | June 19, 2008 at 12:46 PM
I watched the show first(as anybody should who feel they have to comment) and found it a fairly accurate depiction of the times. Far from being a "wild and crazy time aobut swining and drugs" (my quotes) I found the show very thought provoking about how married couples relate(d) then and now about changing mores in sopciety. In the three shows I've watched, there has never been a sense of free license or lack of consequences about what can and might happen if (married) couples engage in swapping. There is a lot of internal and externall conflict, miffs and tiffs about it. The swapping is referred to, but seldom done (except at the beginning, which like the trailers always do, give you the hook to keep watching.
Lighten up people. It's only TV, and yes it's a history of a time. Just like the failed focus on "abstinence" for the kids, no thinking adult is going to be swayed by paid actors acting. Thought police?...We're not there yet, thankfully.
Posted by: Paul | June 20, 2008 at 10:22 PM
The point the woman makes is a valid one as its not just this show but probably the final show in a long list of shows that represent the decline of values across America. Without having the TV on at 10:00 her kids and others can come across advertisements on and off-air for shows that glorify prostitution, mass-murder and in not only one instance, infidelity. The same holds true for the trend for much of the content of news to highlight grisly crimes. It is only deemed newsworthy because it is shocking.
The woman is right that if you don't put a stake in the ground, if you don't say enough is enough - the values illustrated in the lives of people shown on television via news and programs will create the values of society. Unfortunately, those values suck.
Posted by: Brad T. | June 24, 2008 at 02:15 PM