Craig Sjodin/ABCThe TV series Scandal is now making a scandalous headline of its own.
The Parent Television Council is attacking the popular ABC series after an "intense and bloodied" torture scene originally aired on the political drama Thursday night, posting a statement of protest on the PTC website.
"On the very same night that Vice President Joe Biden met with entertainment industry leaders to discuss the issue of media violence and its impact on children, ABC—the television network owned by a company named for Walt Disney—aired an intense, explicit and bloodied torture scene during its show Scandal," the PTC wrote in a statement Tuesday.
The group's statement continued, detailing the graphic torture scene that occurred at the opening of the show after Huck (Guillermo Diaz) was arrested and accused of trying to assassinate the president:
"For nearly three minutes, viewers were subjected to graphic and disturbing scenes of a man struggling to breathe while being waterboarded, his nose being broken and his face beaten into a bloody mess, blood spattering on the walls, and being kicked and beaten into submission."
This is hardly the first time the PTC has clashed with the entertainment industry. The organization previously slammed the Motion Picture Association of America after the Weinstein Company released the documentary Bully as an unrated film.
The conservative group also praised TV star Angus T. Jones after his infamous Two and a Half Men rant where he called the sitcom "filth" and urged viewers to stop watching. PTC President Tim Winters expressed concern for the comedy show's "indecent content" on public airwaves.
The debate surrounding violence in the media has recently intensified after the tragic Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn.
Vice President Joe Biden met with members of the U.S. House of Representatives Monday to prepare recommendations on how to curb gun violence in America.
ABC has not yet returned calls for comment.