Jiggle television is a term coined by NBC executive Paul Klein to criticize ABC's television production and marketing strategy under Fred Silverman, describing the use of female television characters who wear loose clothing or underwear in a way that their breasts or buttocks appear to shake or "jiggle".
Description Klein referred to ABC's programs as "porn" in order to tap into the 1970s moral panic and anxiety over the spread of pornography, using the neologism to describe the use of female television celebrities wearing loose clothing or underwear in a way in which their breasts or buttocks appear to shake, or "jiggle". An American invention, it was used to refer to programs such as Charlie's Angels, Wonder Woman and Three's Company,Censoring Sex: A Historical Journey Through American Media. John E. Semonche, Rowman & Littlefield, 15 Aug 2007 which used the sexuality of young women as appeal to their audiences.Wallowing in Sex: The New Sexual Culture of 1970s American television. Elana Levine. Duke University Press, 19 Dec 2006
Characteristics The programs' plots were often full of innuendo and suggestive language, and unrealistic in nature.Perspectives on Radio and Television: Telecommunication in the United States. F. Leslie Smith, John W. Wright (II.), David H. Ostroff. Routledge, 1 Aug 1998 Producers of such series would make sure that its lead actresses would appear in a bikini, one-piece swimsuit, négligée, underwear, or naked under a towel, in each show.Female Action Heroes: A Guide to Women in Comics, Video Games, Film, and Television. Gladys L. Knight. ABC-CLIO, 8 Jun 2010 Angie Dickinson, star of NBC's Police Woman (1974–1978), which preceded and influenced Charlie's Angels, said that although "essentially a woman’s job is being a woman", by the show's last season, she was tired of scenes "where the phone rings while I'm taking a bath". Due to censorship standards of the time, however, programs made for U.S. television that fell into the "jiggle television" category were not allowed to move beyond innuendo or slight suggestiveness, with actual nudity and sexual content generally not allowed.
Reception and legacy At the time, the ABC target audience was 18 to 35 years old.Programming for TV, Radio, and the Internet: Strategy, Development, and Evaluation. Philippe Perebinossoff, Brian Gross, Lynne S. Gross. Elsevier, 24 Feb 2005 Jiggle was also called "tits & ass television" or "T & A" for shortAlfred R. Schneider, Kaye Pullen. The Gatekeeper: My Thirty Years as TV Censor. Syracuse University Press, 2001 and in the 1970s, the amount of sex on television increased, as did its ratings, creating social controversies and consequences.Condom Nation: The U.S. Government's Sex Education Campaign from World War I to the Internet. Alexandra M. Lord. JHU Press, 23 Nov 2009
James T. Aubrey produced a TV movie about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, which Variety later said "aired on ABC to huge ratings at the height of its T&A phase". The concept was later taken to new extremes by the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s and early 2000s on such television shows as Baywatch, She Spies, and numerous USA Network series.
The term has been used to describe the dramatic television series of Aaron Spelling such as The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Charmed and others.Jiggle Tv: Charlie's Angels and Aaron Spelling's Television Legacy. Courtney Hutton. BiblioBazaar, 2010. . Jiggle TV is seen as trashy and escapist entertainment.Television Everywhere: How Hollywood Can Take Back the Internet and Turn Digital Dimes Into Dollars. Andrei Jezierski. i2 Partners LLC, 12 Oct 2010 Programs or female performers are often judged by their "jiggle factor"America's Favorite Radio Station: Wkrp in Cincinnati. Michael B. Kassel. Popular Press, 15 Jun 1993 and many, such as Pamela Anderson,Points of View. Rex Murphy. McClelland & Stewart, 23 Sep 2003 had their bodies surgically modified to increase it. The term "jiggle-o" is used to describe a character which uses jiggle factor, and "jiggle syndrome" refers to the phenomenon as a whole.
See also Sexploitation film Network era
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