Core Response

TV, Time, and “Adult Content”

            Jane Feuer notes in her essay, “The Concept of Live Television: Ontology as Ideology,” that TV is a medium that indicates the time of day. It is marketed towards a specific audience based on when the program airs. She uses Good Morning America as an example of a show that is meant to appeal to families. It showcases family appropriate content–interviews with celebrities, uplifting stories. The American families watch it before their morning to commute-to school or to work.

Upon reading this I began thinking of the adult programs and when they air and who they target. One channel that came to mind was Adult Swim. Adult Swim appears on Cartoon Network, a channel that is largely dedicated to showcasing cartoons designed for children. Post nine p.m. adult cartoons air. Comedic cartoons (rated TV-14 to TV-MA) filled with racy jokes and violent anime are available to cable consumers who want cartoons for adults.

Adult Swim is a term that indicates a time (usually 8 p.m. or later) where the public pool is reserved for adults. Though the pool is a public area (as TV can also be seen as), adults want to use the resource while being free from children splashing and yelling.

To compare the public pool to TV as a space and time, kids programs appear during the day on CN, free to consume. These shows often convey social messages such as in Teen Titans, a super hero program that attempts to teach children right from wrong. In a Teen Titans episode one of the Titans, Cyborg, reflects upon being a quasi-robot/human. He states that he cannot put 100 percent into his performance as a hero. Whereas, when he was human, his football coach told him he has to give 110 percent in every game. This is something that is human–unlike machines we have souls and we can put 110 percent into our efforts. We are distinguished from machines based on the presumption that machines lack identity. Children are building their identity and they should try their best because they are not limited, they do not reach capacity like machines do.

Adult Swim on the other hand is absent of any moral message. It is designed to be mindlessly watched, a complete form of flow, and nothing more. If Feuer’s analysis addresses targeted audiences and that Good Morning America is meant to “bring the family together,” I would argue that Adult Swim and it’s “wtf” (a term that I have coined to help define the random humor and unconventional dialogue in shows like The Brak Show and Aqua Teen Hunger Force, which are two prominent Adult Swim shows) content is meant to be watched alone. It is designed for young men to watch stoned. Adult Swim is meant to be incoherent and filled with gratuitous violence and sex (what Williams notes is the beginning of flow, an act of violence to entice the viewer). Robot Chicken, an AS fan favorite, consists of non-sequiturs of toys reimagined as screwed up characters who cannot do anything right. In a way, Adult Swim is a flow of chaos. And it can only be shown as late-night television.

In my conversation with Television scholar, Jonathan Gray, he noted that his research indicated that Adult Swim is targeted towards young adult males (primarily white, and primarily college students). I remember distinctly watching shows such as Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Robot Chicken and The Brak Show on Adult Swim while in college. After reading Jane Feuer’s piece I began examining these programs once again and I found that they heavily deal with nothing…they appear to be just an outlet to watch when under the influence.

            Adult Swim acts a reflection of growing up–becoming an adult. Though the young men of in the academy are able to still watch the same program they did, Cartoon Network. Instead of following moral messages, they have fallen into the category of late-night users. Watchers who watch their toys, their childhood characters become signifiers of nothingness, absolute nihilism. And this is scheduled at night, on the same channel of their childhood shows. Men who can stay up late enough to see their sadboy life.