The original post: /r/television by /u/AporiaParadox on 2024-05-06 13:03:50.
Shows need drama, and often they get drama by fearmongering about “things that could happen to you” or “things that could happen to your children, won’t somebody please think of the children!” and making a big deal out of them. Cop shows are especially guilty of this.
Drugs are one of the biggest sources of fearmongering in media. Now I’m not saying that drugs are good, but the way TV shows tend to portray drugs, drug dealers and addicts is extremely misleading. Marijuana is portrayed as a dangerously addictive drug that will ruin your life, and serves as a “gateway” to harder stuff like cocaine or heroin. Drug dealers stalk schools offering free drugs to kids out in the open to get them hooked, and he won’t take no for an answer. Addicts are either low-class losers that aren’t worth feeling sorry for and should be thrown in jail, or attractive higher-class young white people who made a mistake and deserve sympathy. These inaccurate depictions help reinforce biases in the viewership and influence public opinion, which has real world consequences.
And if you go back further in time, you’ll see plenty of fearmongering in old shows about homosexuals, feminists, video games, commies, hippies, satanic cultists, whatever music kids are currently listening to etc. and how they’re ruining society. And you still do in some cases.
What other things have TV shows fearmongered about, usually in inaccurate or misleading ways?