'Dracula' TV Series Too Sexy for TV: One Million Moms Calls New NBC Show 'Extremely Violent' and Near-Pornographic
2 photos(Photo: Jonathon Hession/NBC)Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Alexander Grayson, Victoria Smurfit as Lady Jayne Wetherby in NBC's "Dracula" (episode 2 "A While of Sulfur").Concerned that young children and teens might come across NBC's new "Dracula" TV series during its Friday 10 p.m. ET broadcast, conservative group One Million Moms has called on supporters to "take action" by pressuring the peacock network's sponsors to withdraw their ads.
"Dracula," which stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Alexander Grayson/Vlad Tepes/Dracula, was lauded by television critics on its Oct. 25 premiere for its fresh take on the Gothic lore created by Bram Stoker. While reviewers like The Los Angeles Times calls the NBC series "sumptuous, sexy and, yes, bloody fun," One Million Moms insists "Dracula" is "extremely violent" and "entirely too graphic in too many ways" and needs to be taken off the air.
"Warning! NBC's new program 'Dracula' airs on Friday evenings at 10:00 p.m. ET/9:00 p.m. CT with a TV-14-SV rating. The gory series will air on weekends when children and teens usually stay up later. Not only is this show extremely violent, but it also includes a high level of sexual content that should be considered pornographic material," the organization proclaims on its website.
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It adds, "NBC's website describes the series with words like sex, style, mystery and adventure. Even the previews included several brief clips of sex scenes that would be considered soft porn. This program is entirely too graphic in too many ways.
"Previews of this program also included: terrifying screams, a rotted corpse, death, murder, a woman burned alive while tied to a stake, spirits, satanic and occult elements, homosexual content, tons of blood (mostly on Dracula's face and victim's necks) and other gore, including decapitated heads in boxes and pools of blood."
One Million Moms has encouraged supporters to write letters to Chili's (Brinker), Olive Garden, L'Oreal, Revlon, JELL-O (Kraft Foods) and Rolaids (Chattem) using a pre-written email that states, "I strongly encourage your company to drop all plans to financially support the program 'Dracula.' This program is extremely dark and damaging to our culture."
Supporters of OMM, which number about 60,000 on Facebook, seem to be on board with the campaign, although some wondered online if "Dracula" should be of concern since it is not directly marketed to children. The TV network rating suggests that parents with children under the age of 14 should take care in monitoring how they watch the program.
One Million Moms, which rallies mothers who are "fed up with the filth many segments of our society, especially the entertainment media, are throwing" at children, has had some success in the past in convincing companies to agree to its demands. Most recently, Capital One revised its quicksilver card commercial featuring Samuel L. Jackson that previously had the actor saying "every damn day." After complaints, some of them credited to One Million Moms supporters, Capital One now has Jackson declaring, "Every single day" in the revised ad.
One Million Moms, founded by the conservative American Family Association nonprofit, has a counterpart in its efforts to clean up the airwaves on behalf of children in the similarly titled OneMillionDads.com. That AFA-run website, created to "give dads an impact with the decision-makers," is decidedly less active. Its most recent campaign calls for supporters to file an FCC complaint against Fox for allowing the broadcast of NASCAR crew chief Chad Knaus' f-bomb during the 2011 NASCAR "Coca Cola 600."
