And this is the Fox Affiliate in New York City, no less, not some Podunk.
This reminds me of the way KBYU, the PBS affiliate that broadcast out of Brigham Young University in Provo Utah would censor things that KUED, the PBS affiliate from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City would not.
It’s not just that they’re blurring the boobs on Art – it’s Cubist Art. They’re practically cartoons (as one critic once said of Picasso’s stuff – and not disparagingly). We’re talking about censoring dots in circles, practically.
I notice that they didn’t blur what appears to be a cartoony butt. Asses are OK, but Boobs aren’t.
Here’s the un-blurred version, which I notice the HuffPost article did not include.
I just noticed that this was in the Pit in the Stupid Republican Idea thread, but I had put this here because, while Fox’s leaning is obvious, they’re not officially “Republican”
In the past, broadcasting “Art” on TV didn’t get you in trouble with the FCC. It was the basis of a 1970s Saturday Night Live skit, in fact, where Dan Ackroyd played a seedy host pointing out features on nudes in classical art.
Not that this makes much of a difference – Fox doesn’t think the FCC is strict enough as it is:
My parents told me about seeing an episode of I, Claudius on a PBS station in a hotel in South Carolina. A scene had a topless actress and the censors had put some small black dots on her nipples. And it was apparently difficult to keep them on target. Mom said it was fun watching the dots try to keep up as she moved around. The overall effect was to keep the viewers attention on the nipples instead of the plot. So I guess it’s ironic censorship.
When I was a kid in the 1960s my first exposure to nude paintings was on Channel 13, the educational channel in NY, where I saw a program that featured works by Ingres and Manet. (Probably NSFW if you work at Fox News.;))
Just a side note, and a good reason why this did not belong in the “stupid ideas” thread: a Fox Network affiliate has little to do with the Fox News Network. It might just as well have been a CBS, NBC or ABC affiliate. They are just local franchises who get their prime time programming from the network (plus a few other complications, I suppose). This particular Fox Network affiliate may be conservative; ours in San Francisco is not particularly distinguishable from the other local affiliates.
So as a mnemonic device, here’s a handy guide:
Fox Network - the cartoon “The Simpsons”;
Fox News Network - cartoony political opinions but from live people.
While true, this particular Fox Network affiliate is owned by Fox Television Stations, which is part of the greater Fox family. Both Fox Television Stations and Fox News Network are part of Fox Entertainment Group.
I think I can top this. A while ago, I caught a little bit of Curse of the Pink Panther on TV. If you don’t remember that one, Inspector Clouseau has gone missing (this was made after Peter Sellers’s death) and inept detective Clifton Sleigh (played by Ted Wass) is put on the case to look for him. When we first see Sleigh he’s in a bad drag outfit, with a tight top and fake breasts, taking part in a prostitution sting operation. It goes awry and he’s in his captain’s office being taken to task. The station blurred out the area around his upper torso, despite the fact that a) he was wearing a top, and b) he’s a guy.
