Inooro TV, like many other vernacular TVs and radio stations, is doing a good job reaching out to the minds and souls of their listeners.
Linguists agree that every time you speak to a people, you speak to their heads, but when you speak to the people in their language, you speak to their hearts.
But vernacular TVs are not exempt from the rule of watershed hours for adult content, and yes, discussions on private interactions between the private parts of the opposite sexes, scientifically known as sex, are in media ethics categorised as adult content.
Matters are not helped when viewers call in and, in the heat of the debate, describe how long or how short their partners last in ‘bedminton,’ including one calling in to recommend smoking weed, saying he can outlast any woman after one puff.
And all this time, the two Inooro TV presenters during this mid-morning TV show are laughing their heads off on air, either too ignorant or uncaring about the damage the content is inflicting on the children out there. Yes, we have thousands of underage audiences out there who tune in to Inooro TV.
Look, we have no problem with Inooro TV teaching its audience all about erectile dysfunction. Why, we are impressed when, in the wake of reports of old fellows dying ‘in-action’ while trying to boost their libido, vernacular TV stations invite medical experts to explain that although old cats also drink milk, they need not love it too much to want to die on a pint.
Thing is, obscenity by any other language smells the same. In fact, it smells so much that it stinks when packaged in a language that goes beyond the mind to the heart of the listener.
Linguistics 101 teaches us obscenity in the mother-tongue sounds even more obscene than in any another language. If you doubt this, try saying the F-word aloud in your mother-tongue and observe the reaction of those who share the language.
Still on the watershed hour rule, Citizen TV’s 7pm prime time discussion on children secretly conceived from illicit relationships outside marriage, also stunk to the high heavens. The stench rose a whiff higher when one listener sent a message that she was pregnant with her secret lover’s baby; and that her husband had no idea.
From where we sit, this discussion makes for some very uncomfortable viewing and listening at the dinner table where Mr and Mrs Kamau and their children are sitting watching TV.
Why? It might just stoke suspicion, and sow seeds of mistrust in an erstwhile happy, closely-knit family. Expect furtive glances from some a loving Mr Kamau who suddenly starts thinking: Wait, are these children really mine?” And bewildered looks on the children’s faces at the rude realisation that the man they have been calling daddy all along might in reality, be their uncle!
So here’s the rule of thumb in this business of adult content – any discussion or debate that you cannot hold within the earshot of your children, do not hold it on TV or radio before you are sure that the children are ready to be sent off to bed.
Got that?
