by the El Reportero’s staff
NBC’s top advertisers will receive a letter this week from Morality in Media asking that they use their influence to stop NBC from airing “The Playboy Club” this fall and warning them not to advertise on the show if it airs.
“We will expect advertisers to steer clear of the promotion of the Playboy lifestyle and pornography,” said Dawn Hawkins, executive director of Morality in Media. “On a recent media tour, the show’s producers stated–with a straight face–that The Playboy Club is all about “female empowerment,” she noted. “Sexual exploitation of women is not empowering,” she added.
“For nearly six decades, Playboy has been the top pornographer in the world. Pornography has cause the addiction of many adults and even children, has led to increased domestic violence, and the treatment of women and children as mere sex objects to be used, abused, and discard, just like Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends,” Hawkins said.
“ Today – with NBC’s use of the public airwaves – Playboy is poised to cause even more harm, this time bringing its pornographic worldview directly into America’s living rooms,” said Patrick A. Trueman, President of Morality in Media. “We don’t need NBC to pour more fuel to that fire.”
Playboy, once equated with ‘soft-core’ pornography, distributes hardcore pornography on pay TV channels and the Internet. The company also has just partnered with the largest distributor of hard-core porn on the Internet.
Distribution of hardcore pornography can be prosecuted under federal and state obscenity laws, according to Trueman, a former chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC.
Hawkins is encouraging citizens to sign the pledge at www.CloseTheClubOnNBC.com to make it unprofitable for NBC to exploit women and to contact their local affiliate and ask that the show not be aired. The letter sent to advertisers is also available on the site.
Morality in Media, Inc., is the leading national organization focused on opposing pornography and indecency through public education and the application of the law. MIM is leading The War on Illegal Pornography, a coalition of more than 100 national and state groups whose goal is to stop the distribution of illegal pornography. For more information visit www.waronillegalpornography.com, www.pornharms.com, and www.moralityinmedia.org.
