We've seen this great huffing and puffing before, so it was no surprise to see the reaction to ABC's “Desperate Housewives” promotion on "Monday Night Football" in which actress Nicollette Sheridan drops her towel in front of Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens.
   The American Family Association and the American Decency Association went ballistic, calling on advertisers to pull out of the show, and many did: Yum Brands, Kellogg’s, Lowe’s, Tyson Foods, ConAgra Foods and Marshall Fields.
   These protesting groups raise their standard argument: We must band together to stop such filth from airing over our public airwaves. 
  To a great degree, they capture a sentiment that's widely shared by many Americans, and it's a perfectly rational one. No parent with any sense wants his or her child exposed to sexually suggestive or explicit content on TV. It's an assault on the senses and it's an assault on so many of our shared values.
  Yet that said, campaigns by the AFA and similar groups have not only failed through history, beyond gaining the groups themselves flashes of public awareness, they've actually served as amazingly effective PR campaigns for the shows to which they are objecting.
    The AFA and the creators of “Desperate Housewives” would seem odd bedfellows indeed. But as history makes clear, they are very much intimate bedmates. 
   The effect of their protests to make shows appear more unseemly than they really are, and the further effect is to heighten America's prurient expectations. In the end, we, the viewing public, lose perspective on just what's dirty and how dirty it is.
    Take “Housewives.” No doubt, some of the dialogue can be titillating, as are the occasional sequences that feature Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) in sexy lingerie. But the show is actually relatively tame compared with some of the envelope-pushing shows of television past.
   “I don’t think any thinking person could really call ‘Desperate Housewives’ indecent,” says Robert Thompson, director of the Center of Popular Television at Syracuse University. 
   “In fact, in a strange way—as provocative as that title is, and as sexy as the whole thing is packaged—it’s actually a rather chaste show for 2004," says Thompson.
   “Now we do have this one particularly hot storyline that has Eva Longoria’s character sleeping with her young gardener. But I’m thinking of scenes like the one in which Teri Hatcher’s character was caught naked outside her house. Not only was that slapstick, very little of her flesh was actually shown.
   “Compare that to a statue of a nude you might see in a public square. At most you might have a fig leaf covering the private parts, whereas Teri Hatcher was covered completely by shrubbery. Forget a trip to the beach. You can see a lot more in a trip to the mall.”
   Now consider the storylines involving Bree (Marcia Cross) and Lynette (Felicity Huffman). Both would seem to uphold traditional family values rather than mock them. Bree, Stepford Wife-like über-mom whose husband wants to divorce her, has done everything she can to save her marriage, including agreeing to see a marriage counselor. Lynette gave up her career to become a full-time, stay-at-home mom. How much more traditional can one be?
   The AFA and other protesting groups may argue that the exodus of sponsors is evidence that their efforts against “Housewives” are succeeding. But history tells us that such victories, while good for headlines over a few days, are short-lived.
    No indecency campaign has ever succeeded in bringing down a top-rated network show. If anything, it succeeds in helping the show generate more publicity.
   Consider that “Housewives” was in the headlines nonstop in the weeks after the AFA mounted its protest, at one point making it into the pages of the London Observer. But now it's largely out of the headlines, its minutes of fame spent.
   But the beneficial effect, in terms of promotional value for the show, lives on. "Housewives" is a hotter show because of it. 
    As Thompson notes, in many respects these controversies often serve as a kind of adjunct to the promotions department of the show that is being attacked.
    “Look at ‘Married: With Children,’ one of the first shows ever to air on Fox back in 1987. Fox was a brand new network. A lot of people didn’t even know where it was on their dial. Along comes Terry Rakolta with this very loud protest against ‘Married: With Children,’ saying that it was egregiously sexy and indecent. All of a sudden, the rest of America perked up their ears and said, ‘What—sexy, indecent? Fox Network? What is this show, and where can I find it?’
   "Next thing you know, ‘Married: With Children’ becomes one of the huge cornerstone hits for the new Fox network.”
   Then there was the furor over “Soap” in 1977, whose characters included an adulterous priest and television’s first openly homosexual character. Says Thompson: “That show had the unique distinction of being protested in tandem by both gay rights activists and members of the Catholic Church—who don’t often agree on too much. Yet ‘Soap’ was a huge hit for ABC.”
   Some shows do succumb to protests, or at least appear to. They may well go off the air. But what kills them is not the protests but a lack of viewers.
   “Nothing Sacred” was a short-lived ABC drama in 1997 about a young Catholic priest (Kevin Anderson) who constantly questions his faith. The show drew the constant wrath of the Catholic Church, particularly after an episode in which Anderson’s character tells a pregnant teenager who is considering an abortion that the choice is ultimately hers—advice that goes directly against the teachings of the Church.
    “Sacred” was hailed by critics for its earnest portrayal of faith, but it aired directly opposite “Friends” Thursday nights, which spelled sure death. With low ratings and an irate church to boot, network executives had every reason to kill it.
     That doesn't happen to hit shows.
    “I think some of this noise the indecency advocates are making can have an impact—but never on a hit show," says Thompson. "There is no way that something like this is going to get ABC to take ‘Desperate Housewives’ off the air."