‘Sons of Anarchy’ creator Kurt Sutter defends season six premiere against Parents Television Council

Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter is always quick to defend his work and just hours after the Parents Television Council slammed FX for the season six premiere of the hit show, which featured a school shooting.

“What FX chose to show – a scene of a young boy murdering innocent children in a school with a semi-automatic gun – is enough of a reason for consumers to have the choice not to underwrite such horrifically violent and disturbing material,” the PTC complained. “Think about the parents who have been personally affected by real-life school shootings – even they were forced to contribute to FX on their cable bills. This is an outrage, and the time for consumers to have real choice has come.”

The media watchdog group also cited it as an example of why an a la carte system for cable should be available.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Sutter took to his YouTube channel to respond to the PTC.

“I would imagine these are not evil people...But they are just not very intuitive or intelligent individuals,” he told his fans. “It’s such a small and simple view of process. The fact that people want to be monitoring what my children watch is terrifying. There is no awareness of what is the bigger objective of that episodes, the bigger point of the narrative. And to me that’s a really simplistic, dangerous view of anything, never mind the creative process.”

He said it is “scary” when it someone gets close to suggesting censorship, “not just on a creative level but a personal level.”

He continued, “There are some people who have a deep amount of sensitivity toward the idea of a school shooting and how painful that is, and what I’m about to say will probably sound somewhat callous and I don’t mean it to … I trying to be thoughtful. But for me, I’m a storyteller.

“...My job is to engage, entertain and perhaps make you think. That’s what I do on a daily basis. I’m blessed that I have a God-given gift to do so, and to bring you along for the ride. When anybody tries to take that away from me, or impede that, I get defensive. I take that to heart,” he concluded.

According to TheWrap, Senator John McCain, who is supporting legislation to create an a la carte system, said that blocking controversial content was not the reason why he’s pushing for the bill. “I think people make choices. Nobody forces them to watch those shows,” he said. “As long as it’s not child pornography, those things that are just beyond the pale — I can’t blame a television show for causing violence. I just can’t. Some people make that connection but I haven’t been able to do that yet.”

image: Fox/FX

WordPress › Error

There has been a critical error on your website.

Learn more about debugging in WordPress.