My wife and I finished Taylor Sheridan’s miniseries “1883” the other night, and we both came to the same conclusion: This show needs to be banned. It is a vicious and brutal account of the Oregon Trail, and spoiler alert: Pretty much everyone dies. The hardest loss for us, of course, was the daughter.
We, too, have a teenage daughter, and we were crying hysterically as she was slowly taken from us in the last two episodes. Why were we forced to endure this? Why was there no warning (other than a hint in the beginning that we chose to ignore)?
The PMRC was a success. It effectively protected the innocent from harmful rock music.
After finishing the series, we were completely unable to go to bed. We tried to cleanse our palates with old “Saturday Night Live” videos, like the one where Chris Farley plays a teenager trying to take Steven Seagal’s daughter out on a date, but it didn’t work. We finished the show at 11 p.m. but drank alcohol and talked about what life must have been like back then for two more hours. My wife slept in and missed her hair appointment (where they take the gray out). She looks older today.
I was late for my workout the next morning, and it showed in the weight room. I was lifting like a geriatric, and my trainer noticed. “Ju up laye las nye?” he asked. (He’s Puerto Rican.) I grunted “1883,” assuming he’d nod knowingly, but he didn’t. I guess it’s a cultural thing.
You might see us as weak, but we’re not the only ones who were blindsided by this show. American Tough Guy Joe Rogan said he walked around in a daze for hours after finishing it. Rogan told Sheridan he does some of his “most f**ked-up thinking at nighttime” and this made things much more “f**ked up.” He was traumatized by what he saw and spent all night researching the brutal suffering that went on 200 years ago. He eventually went to bed at dawn, haunted by how recent 1883 was.
Everyone acknowledges the pioneers endured unspeakable suffering during the settling of this country (especially those who conquered the Wild West). But to endure it to such a realistic degree on television is too much. This is not what all those people died for, and it isn’t what they would have wanted. They died so we could be happy, not so we could dwell upon the slow, agonizing deaths of their children.
In 1985, Al Gore’s wife, Tipper, started the Parents Music Resource Center. Its goal was to protect young people from traumatic violence like Black Sabbath’s “Trashed” and Judas Priest’s “Eat Me Alive.” Critics such as Frank Zappa and Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider argued this would lead to distributors not just avoiding tracks but a band’s entire catalog. Yeah? So what? I don’t care if nobody ever hears “Bark at the Moon.”
The PMRC was a success. It effectively protected the innocent from harmful rock music.
We would like to introduce the Parents Sheridan Resource Center. Ideally, all of Taylor Sheridan’s work would be banned, but at the very least it should come with a warning that says something like, “Contains perilous conflict that is not fully resolved.” If that means Paramount Plus avoids his work, good. Maybe writers will start making content for the fifty-plus crowd.
The goal of the PSRC is to reinvent the storytelling structure. Currently, it goes like this: In Act One, the characters are introduced. In Act Two, conflict arrives, and you care because you’ve developed a bond with the characters. In Act Three, the conflict is resolved.
This is fine for teens. But young seniors like my wife and I have had enough conflict in our lives. Maybe just introduce the characters and let them have fun for the next two acts. Yes, young adults need to understand problem-solving, and they definitely benefit from the stress of an intense storyline. But not us. We’d like to relax and watch some TV without needing to grab a box of tissues.
We want to watch nice characters in pastoral environments fall in love and have happy families. I brought this up to my 80-year-old father, who reminded me that although he doesn’t really care about golf, he loves “watching it for the landscapes.” Well, my spouse and I would like to enjoy some landscapes, too.
Taylor Sheridan is creating horror-like content that is not suitable for young seniors. If we can’t get him banned, we need to at least curb this elder abuse so it doesn’t happen to others. We’re not looking for a war. We’re asking that you give PSRC a chance.
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