There really are no bad guys in the recent dust-up over a PBS documentary shown to seventh-graders at Schenevus Central School.

The parents of four students want the school to fire guidance counselor James Benjamin, who had his students watch Frontline’s "The Merchants of Cool" during a home and careers class May 7.

We are very happy that the parents are involved with their children’s lives and education and are taking an active role in monitoring what the kids are learning.

But should Benjamin lose his job?

Absolutely not.

That would be ludicrous as well as counterproductive.

For one thing, the video, distributed by Video World through the BOCES website, was mistakenly labeled for students in Grades 7 through 12, according to Schenevus Superintendent Lynda Bookhard.

Bookhard said in a letter May 10 that it was "inappropriate" to show the 53-minute long video, which PBS recommends for Grades 9 through 12.

"We are contacting the company to make sure the rating is changed," she said in her letter.

Still, the parents of the four students want Benjamin’s head.

"We want him out of this school," said one mother who didn’t wish to be identified.

When the others were asked by The Daily Star if that is what they wanted, they all said yes.

The video has no explicit nudity, but it does contain images of women with body parts blurred or covered in whipped cream. It also has sexually explicit and suggestive language.

"This is not an appropriate video and was not rated for the grades it was shown for," Lynda May said when the parents were heard by the school board. "My daughter was upset about it. She was upset about seeing women portrayed like that."

Unfortunately, no matter how protective parents are of their children, no matter how much kids are screened from cable TV, the Internet and other threats to their moral fiber, if the seventh-graders haven’t been exposed to Madison Avenue by now, they will be soon.

Included in the PBS program were comments from media critic Mark Crispin Miller.

"What this system does is it closely studies the young, keeps them under constant surveillance to figure out what will push their buttons," Miller said, "and it blares it back at them relentlessly and everywhere."

Mr. Benjamin may have mistakenly shown the students something they could have waited a couple of years to learn, but it was a valuable lesson nonetheless.

"Kids feel frustrated and lonely today because they are encouraged to feel that way," Miller told Frontline. "You know, advertising has always sold anxiety and it certainly sells anxiety to the young. It’s always telling them that they are not thin enough, they’re not pretty enough, they don’t have the right friends, or they have no friends ... they’re losers unless they’re cool. But I don’t think anybody, deep down, really feels cool enough, ever."

Benjamin had no prurient interest in showing the kids the documentary. He believed he was doing them a service.

The protesting parents have done what they thought was right, too.

The man, however, should keep his job. It’s time to move on.