ABSTRACT
A few years ago, the Ad Council prepared a series of public service announcements encouraging parents to be careful about exposing children to frightening, aggressive, or sexual content on television. (See the “Boss of Slasher” and the “TVBoss. org” public service announcements, available on YouTube and other video sites.) In one of these service announcements, a mother answers the doorbell, to fi nd two horrible monsters at her front door-one wielding an electric saw and the other with blood dripping down his face and scars all over his body. She invites them in with the kind voice any mother would use with children and offers them tea and cookies. Only after they are comfortable does she tell them in a sweet, highpitched, motherly tone, “I am not going to be able to allow you to be here after 3 o’clock when my children come home, as you are a little too scary for them.”
