The Parents Television Council is urging its members and the public to tell Verizon to stop underwriting graphic content on Fox’s new TV show, The Mick, which disturbingly features minor children using explicit language and put into sexualized situations. Ads for Verizon FiOS and Pixel were aired on The Mick.
In the show, teens are shown smoking, drinking and swearing as their alcoholic, drug-using aunt does nothing to set boundaries or stop them. A 6-or 7-year-old boy accidentally ingests a balloon filled with drugs; a teenage girl has sex with an adult man and engages in a drinking contest with her legal guardian, among other egregious examples.
“Verizon should refuse to be associated with such destructive and harmful TV content on The Mick. Apparently, the show’s producers and network executives believe such disturbing content is appropriate for the public airwaves, even at times when children are likely to be watching. Verizon must choose whether it will invest its media dollars to underwrite such content. Child characters should not be used for ‘shock value,’ and supporting a show that makes children participants in that kind of vulgarity directly calls into question Verizon’s corporate standards,” said PTC President Tim Winter.
“We ask Verizon to take the appropriate measures to ensure the company’s ad dollars do not go to supporting explicit content on The Mick.”
The PTC recently documented that broadcast TV shows are more frequently using children to say explicit language and put them in adult situations, a “trend” that The Mick continues. {eoa}
This article originally appeared on the Parents Television Council.
