The other CSI Effect...

Back in 1981, I went to see Raiders of the Lost Ark at the Devonshire cinema (it was a mere triplex at that time, they have four times as many screens there now) and endured several genuinely tortuous nights afterward. Although I thrilled to the action-adventure heroism of Harrison Ford, and still do at age 36, my tender ten-year-old brain was not quite ready for the kind of horrific imagery that made this movie a precursor to the PG-13 rating that would come along a few years later. In fact, so traumatized was I that when the sequel came out, I made a point of staying home, and didn't get to experience Indy's adventures with Short Round and Willie Scott until several years later, on video.

All of this came back to me recently while watching an episode of NBC's Heroes. In case you haven't experienced it, the show is about a cast of characters, strangers to each other, but linked by the fact that they are all inexplicably afflicted with super powers. Specifically, what brought the unpleasant memories back was the episode in which the troubled-but-innocent all-American cheerleader, played by the young yet far-from-inexperienced ingénue Hayden Panettiere, narrowly escapes a date-rape scenario by the simple expedient of getting herself murdered by her loutish assailant. This she can do by virtue of her preternatural healing powers, which enable her to wake up again a few hours later, vividly depicted, stretched out on a slab, sliced open from collarbone to pubis. As for me, sitting peacefully at home, enjoying an evening slouched in front of the TV, this I don't need.

What I'd like to know is: Between the forensic likes of Law and Order, CSI, and now Heroes pushing the envelope of the kind of imagery that can be shown on ordinary prime-time TV, how much farther can the pendulum swing before it starts to swing back? And are the implications for kids' ability to sleep, and their subsequent mental health, worse or better than bad language (it's only words, after all), preadolescent sexuality, and anatomical frankness (hey, what's a little scrotum between friends)?