After The Walking Dead’s savage, gory, season 7 premiere aired fans took to social media to express their heartbreak. One group, the Parent’s Television Council, definitely weren’t impressed. In fact, they are down-right furious about the episode. The watch-dog group has their panties in a bunch over the brutality of Negan’s two kills, Abraham and Glenn, and are demanding that AMC be removed from cable bundles.
Tim Winter, the president of the PTC, spoke with THR about the demand to remove AMC.
Programs with violent content are proven to be harmful, especially to children; and most parents agree that having greater control over violent content coming into their homes is vital to protecting their family. When a basic cable network like AMC edges or even surpasses the premium networks in terms of explicit content, consumers must be afforded more control over which networks they purchase and which networks they don’t.”
He also had a lot to say about ‘The Walking Dead’s’ writers.
I understand violence is inherent to the storytelling here but the manner in which the depictions were made … it crossed the line. With The Walking Dead, the creative team has resorted to the graphic violence as a crutch for what used to be better storytelling. When you can’t figure out what lines to write, you put something in easier, which is a graphic depiction. To me, it’s too much. Everything between the opening credits and the closing credits was graphic and explicit. You don’t need to show it to show it. Back in the day, you’d see violence about to be committed and then see you’d some after-effects of someone recovering or some other aspects rather than skulls crushed in. Now it seems like they can’t tell a story without adding the severity of the graphic violence, and it seems to me like a crutch.”
I think removing AMC from cable bundles is absurd. I’ve heard a lot people complaining about the hit show’s content and saying that ‘The Walking Dead’ went too far. There is a simple remedy, if you don’t like it, don’t watch it. As for complaints of kids seeing the violence and gore, I think it should the parent’s call. Everyone is aware of the fact it’s a zombie series that has a reputation of brutality. If you or your kid isn’t prepared to handle that, don’t watch it, or activate your TV’s parental control feature. But to demand AMC be removed is just ridiculous. The PTC needs to pull up their big girl panties and get over it, in my opinion.
