Highly Controversial TV Moments

Networks will put just about anything on television these days. From a naked dating show to documenting a woman's 600 pound life, nothing is too outrageous for viewers anymore. The more extreme the better—and if you want some serious bonus points, throw in some shocking storylines. Throughout television history, there have always been those moments and characters that were extra controversial. Here are a few of the most memorable.

In HBO's The Newsroom, Don, played by Thomas Sadoski, went to a college campus to pre-interview a female student who had created a website to out rapists anonymously after she was raped herself. Don is supposed to find out more information about the woman, but he ends up discouraging her from going on his news show to tell her story and debate her attacker. This led to an attack on series creator, Aaron Sorkin, and his stance on the issue. According to The New York Times, viewers felt Sorkin was victim-blaming women and showing more concern about the after-effects of a man who was wrongly accused of rape.

In April 1997, Ellen DeGeneres and her sitcom, The Ellen Show, changed television history when her character, also named Ellen and based on herself, came out on national television. Even though she'd only publicly come out a few days earlier in Time Magazine, it was still a risky move for the late '90s. Only a handful of scripted shows starred gay characters, and the approval rating for gay marriage was at a low 27 percent. Advertisers reportedly started pulling their ads from the show, although only Chrysler admitted to it, citing a corporate policy to avoid controversial clients. While it wasn't the popular thing to do at the time, Ellen said she didn't do it to make herself a standard-bearer for the gay community—she just had to do it for herself.

All in the Family was that realistic look into the '70s blue-collar lifestyle that some Americans had never seen before. The show covered many hot-button issues like sex, politics, and race—but there was one controversial character who topped it all: Archie Bunker. Archie was a bigot, prejudiced against anyone who wasn't born in America, and disregarded anyone who did not agree with his conservative ideals. With his blatant sexism and frequent use of racial epithets, Bunker always seemed to be pushing the envelope just a little bit more in every episode.

In January 2014, 21-year-old Englishman Mark Howe was found guilty of the murder of his mother after a jury determined he had slipped into her bedroom late at night and used a 12-inch knife to slash her more than 50 times around the face, throat and chest. He dumped the weapon and claimed to know nothing of the attack, but it soon became clear that Howe was not only guilty, but that he had been inspired to commit the murder by a TV show. An examination of his internet history revealed that he searched for "Dexter's kill knife" as well as "what does a sociopath need to do to blend in seamlessly with society," underlining his fascination with the TV serial killer and creating a debate over whether the show should be taken off the air.

It wasn't the first murder to be blamed on Showtime's hit crime drama. In 2008, aspiring Canadian filmmaker Mark Twitchell (who had been going under the name Dexter Morgan on Facebook) lured two men to his home under the pretense of making a horror film about a sword-wielding mass murderer. Twitchell killed one of the men; the other managed to escape. Dexter has had female mimickers too, the most notorious being S&M practitioner Jessica Lopez, who strangled a woman and attempted to "chop her up" like the show's protagonist.

When U.K. television shows are remade for American audiences, it isn't uncommon to hear complaints that the British did it better. While reworking Skins' third episode "Chris," the writers of the MTV-produced U.S. reboot decided the best way to go was to copy the original shot for shot, though in doing so they inadvertently caused a child pornography controversy.

The episode in question features a 17-year-old boy ingesting a large dose of Viagra and running down the street with his erection on show to the world (though only his behind is visible to the viewer)—which U.K. producers could get away with, seeing as how the age of consent in Britain is 16. This isn't the case in the States.

The Parents Television Council was quick to react, insisting that the Department of Justice open an investigation into what they deemed the exploitation of minors on Skins. Fearing they would be breaking federal child pornography statutes by airing the episode, MTV executives relented and ordered it to be changed.

Family Guy is another show that has invited accusations of antisemitism thrown at it in the past, though season 3 episode "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" struck a particular nerve with a number of viewers. The episode (in which Peter kidnaps a stranded Jewish man and sets him to work handling his money) was finally aired on Fox four years after the rest of the season, though the network refused to relent when it came to season 8 finale "Partial Terms of Endearment."

The so-called "abortion episode" was made but rejected, with Fox exercising their right not to air it and instead releasing it as a standalone DVD that played on the episode's notoriety. It was a decision that creator Seth MacFarlane saw as a copout aimed at placating conservative viewers. "Times really have changed," he argued. "The network is making a decision that is, unfortunately, probably based on people's current ability to handle and dissect controversial narratives."

Screenwriter Michael Patrick King certainly never shied away from using language that many would consider crude during his time working on Sex and the City, though he seems to have been saving his most colorful work for his own show, 2 Broke Girls. The CBS sitcom follows the exploits of two New York waitresses as they attempt to start their own cupcake business, but many viewers find the pair far from sweet.

A Freedom of Information request revealed in detail the nature of the complaints sent to the FCC about the show's content, with one concerned mother urging the authorities to review an episode that depicts naked dolls being manipulated into graphic sexual acts. She wasn't the only complainant looking for the primetime show to be censored; in fact, one Texas viewer urged a complete review of TV censorship laws. "From constant comments about sexual positions and ejaculation in every orifice to menstrual cycles in much more vulgar terms, 2 Broke Girls is unrelenting," reads their complaint. "I don't know when TV censorship died in this country but we need it back."

Too Close For Comfort was a 80s sitcom based on British show Keep It In The Family, created specifically for Mary Tyler Moore co-star Ted Knight. It premiered on ABC in 1980 with Knight in the role of San Franciscan Henry Rush, a highly strung cartoonist living with his wife, two daughters and a male lodger named Monroe, who was the focus of controversial 1985 episode "For Every Man, There's Two Women."

The episode begins with Monroe (Jim J. Bullock), a hapless man-child and the butt of most of the jokes in the house, stumbling through the door with his work uniform in tatters. He reveals that he was kidnapped by two women, who threw him in the back of a van and "helped themselves" to him as he "cooperated all night." Monroe is told by a detective to forget it happened, as the courts wouldn't believe that a man could be raped by a woman, anatomically speaking.

Originally produced for the fourth season but not appearing until the fifth, this episode largely escaped notice, existing as little more than a legend after production on the show ceased until someone ripped a rerun in 2011 and uploaded it to YouTube. The retrospective criticism was widespread—not only for its take on male rape, but for its tongue-in-cheek debasement of an actor quite clearly in the closet.