Call for Action: HBO

Dear executive officers,  Jeff Bewkes and Richard Plepler,

As a student of Human Development, I am committed to creating a world with positive outcomes for individuals and families. As a citizen, I choose to be engaged by taking action in pursuing changes in the multiple realms of influence. One such realm that affects a large amount of American people is the television industry. I would like to assist you in reevaluating your content by informing you how your current content negatively impacts our world and stifles the potential for beauty and creativity in our world.  

As a premium cable television network, you hold a substantial amount of power in dictating the quality and quantity of content that is provided to the general American audience.  Congratulations on being the oldest and longest paid TV service that has ran continuously since 1972. With such a feat, you have an immense opportunity to promote powerful messages that either negatively or positively influence the overall well-being of your viewers. Some of your shows like, Game of Thrones or The Deuce, although popular, reinforce harmful messages that normalize rape myths and sexual violence. Such sexual exploitation can create mental scripts that can influence an individual’s behaviors when placed in triggering, real-life situations.

Pornography, sexual slavery, and prostitution as shown by such TV shows,  are real-life harms that cause deep wounds that have long lasting effects. Showing graphic portrayals of sexual exploitation makes such acts seem less serious with less negative consequences. Additionally, the average consumer may unintentionally treat such real life matters as a form of entertainment--something from which they receive pleasure rather than disgust. In turn, false beliefs about victims of sexual violence are internalized by the general public, potentially minimizing the need for legal action to protect victims and seek out perpetrators.

Whether or not one is passively permitting or actively creating the objectification of another human being, all are responsible for the consequences of such choices. Often those consequences harm seemingly powerless, vulnerable populations, but the effect of such exploitation is in reality, far more expansive. By allowing for gratuitous, drawn out sexual scenes to be shown on your network, you are placing not only the fictional characters, that happen to be real humans with actual souls, in sexually objectifying contexts, but you are positioning your viewer as a voyeur of sexual assault.

Please stop producing that shows that normalize commercial sexual exploitation, eroticisizing sexual nudity and paid for nudity. Our world needs those in power, such as yourselves, to make informed decisions about the consequences of your choices. You can choose to be known as leaders of the media industry that create positive, healthy behaviors that allow for positive human development,  or you can choose to be known as promoters of the dehumanization that accompanies sexual violence for the sake of more green paper.

Thanks,

Karina Okoren