Actually, I wish all of the networks had played that clip unbleeped, just to see if the FCC would levy a fine against them for doing so. I would have liked to see them use Nixon’s statement (“Well, when the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.”) as a defense.
Some months after the boob-glimpsed Superbowl, when a new FCC administration was resetting its rules with the intention of sheltering the fragile U.S. public from the degradation and damage caused by offensive sights and sounds emanating from the broadcast media, NPR ran an interview with the new top censor for the FCC. The NPR interviewer pointed out several critically acclaimed presentations and interviews that had occurred over the preceding couple of years at which no one had batted and eye and for which no station received a complaint from the audience. The interviewer then asked the official whether those shows would be permitted under the new rulings. In each case, the official dodged and weaved and refused to say it was OK to re-broadcast them. He kept talking about “protecting” people (“innocent” people) from the terrible ravages of the broadcast media. When the NPR interviewer asked point-blank whether they could be re-broadcast, the official tried to change the subject to how they might harm someone. Frustrated by that course of discussion, the NPR interviewer then moved on to the question of determining how to vet the “bad” scenes. The official then pointed out that they would have to be broadcast, first. The interviewer came back to that point: a station could not get a determination whether a segment would be in violation until it had been broadcast? There was no possibility for an assessment ahead of time? The official replied that, certainly, a station could ask for a review by the board before broadcast, but that the board would not issue a ruling until the transmission was complete. In other words, the official acknowledged that they were definitely going to play “gotcha,” giving a wishy-washy ruling prior to a broadcast while reserving the right to level a fine on the broadcast after it had occurred with their tepid approval.
Given that scenario, I am not at all surprised that individual NPR stations are going to treat every event as though their proper Victorian grandmother circa 1945 was judging each show.
This is very sad, but it does not surprise me. Since the FCC is staffed with non-elected officials, they are not going to green light anything because if the did, and then the “moral masses” went nuts, wrote the congress critters and caused a hooplah, their name would be plastered everywhere as the one who approved the show. Then, instead of the network getting busted, that person would lose their job.
Representative Democracy at work. As the Network President said when they canceled Itchy and Scratchy, “Gentlemen, the screwballs have spoken”.
According to an interview with George Carlin I saw on Larry King a decade or more ago, there’s a radio station which celebrates it’s birthday by reading a selection from James Joyce’s Ulysses on the air. As a test, they submitted some pages from it that contained obscenities to the FCC to see if they’d be able to broadcast it. The FCC rep flat out told them they’d be fined heavily for doing so, and castigated them for wanting to broadcast such a thing. When the station pointed out that it was from Joyce’s book which is considered one of the greatest works of the 20th Century by many, the FCC rep made a disparaging remark about “the kind of trash they publish these days.”
[grumpy old man]
When I was a young’n, we never got to hear any dirty words on TV, and we survived just fine!
[/grumpy old man]
That’s the FCC’s policy in general…not just on obscenity issues, though.
Meh. They can’t “approve” the show; that’s prior restraint. The ACLU would have the Commissioners’ heads for lunch and save their asses for dessert if they tried that.
Robin
Ah, yes…great literature! Why, without my own childhood exposure to the great literature of Henry Miller (a truly great writer, btw), I might not have been the first kid in my class (by several years) to know what "cunt"means, not to mention vivid mental images of stealing money from a freshly-fucked Parisian whore when she goes into the other room of her house to care for her sickly mother.
Who wouldn’t want their little kiddies exposed to such great literature over the airwaves?
Certain types of entertainment are intended for adults, which is something the likes of Carlin don’t seem to recognize (or perhaps even care about) in their eagerness to upset the status quo. The fact that Joyce’s work is considered great literature doesn’t mean that it’s okay to foist it upon a public that finds certain elements of it either morally offensive or inappropriate for children.
Carlin is a putz! Another one of those who constantly seeks to feel superior by denigrating the beliefs and moral code of society in general. Wave a magic wand and cause anarchy to reign in this country and he’d become an angry conservative in a hearbeat.
Henry James was able to create some ot the most innovative, profound works of literature without using vulgarity or profanity.
Except, of course, when he’d yell “I’m Henry James, bitch!”
“Henry James writes as though performing a painful duty”
- Mark Twain
NPR played it uncensored the day (or day after) it happened. They probably thought that it would be unlikely for an administration to fine them for quoting their own leader.
Afterwards, they “paraphrased.”
I started listening to NPR on 9/11/01 (in fact, I’d never heard of it before that, and caught it on accident when my local talk-radio station started broadcasting their feed that day.)
One thing I loved about them is that they didn’t seem to edit anything. In those heated days after 9/11, it seemed that every other interview was peppered with a swear word or two, and the station didn’t seem to bat an eye. At first I thought it might be due to special circumstances, but even long afterwards they would read poetry laced with the word bullshit (a favorite among poets) or feature rap songs unedited.
I’ve noticed that they now bleep almost everything.
Is that because of Janet Jackson’s tit*?!!*
Before a programme is broadcast on TV or radio there is normally an indication of what the subject matter will be. Such as Radio ABCD celebrates its birthday today with extracts from Ulysses by James Joyce. appearing in a listings magazine or on the TV menu.
People, especially parents, who take the trouble to read these listings will either allow their children to watch/listen to the programme or not, depending on their assessment. OK, children have their own TVs and radios and could watch/listen to the programme irrespective of their parents’ wishes. But children will see and hear much worse without their parents knowing, and if you truly see a need for censorship as far as Ulysses is concerned there is a whole lot more ‘morally offensive’ media content which needs to be censored as well. You then have to ask yourself where it will all end and, perhaps more crucially, what constitutes moral offensiveness.
Incidentally, and for those of us who are unfamiliar with Ulysses, it is not beyond the wit of man to look up the book on the internet, or another reference source, and gather some detail about the style and content before deciding whether it is suitable for viewing/listening to by children or others who might find elements of the story morally offensive.
Well, Jackson/Timberlake and Howard Stern. Beginning in 2001, the Administration has, with the concurrence of Congress, been loading up the FCC with people who think that Leave it to Beaver should be watched carefully for subversive activities while Rupert Murdoch should be free to be the sole owner of every broadcast outlet in the U.S.
Spurred on by the hoopla over the Superbowl incident, the FCC announced that they were going to begin paying a lot more attention to the tender eyes and ears of the audience and began assessing much harsher fines (for more trivial events).
Starving Artist, as admirable as it is that you seek to defend the rights of America’s prudes and tightasses, the fact of the matter is that the American public, as a group, does not really care about obscenity being broadcast on the air. In fact, over 99% of the complaints filed with the FCC in 2003 were filed by the same activist organization: The Parent’s Television Council. You are correct in your perception that what’s happening here is a tiny minority of this country trying to force their morality on the rest of the nation, and you are right to be outraged. You’re just mistaken about who you should be angry with.
Also, what’s so hard about explaining “bullshit” to a kid? “It’s when a cow makes poops. But don’t say that word yourself, it’s not nice.” We need a federal agency to protect us from that?
Having read Henry Miller, and having been a child that everyone who knew me claimed I was highly intelligent, I can say for certain damned few kids would have the brain power and the desire to read Henry Miller, or even skim his writings, to find the sex scenes (especially not when it’s so much easier just to grab one of your mother’s romance novels and flip to the sex scenes which are more graphically described than 99% of anything Miller wrote).
And how many little kiddies are going to want to listen to a radio station that reads selections from a novel, when they can tune into radio stations where you hear people singing/rapping about sex in uncomplicated language? Of course, no one’s forcing people to have a radio, and it’s not until next year that Federal requirements take effect prohibiting the manufacture of radios and TVs with off switches.
Frankly, I find the subject of 99% of country music songs to be morally offensive and inappropriate for anyone], including adults, does that give me the right to have it prohibited from being broadcast?
Lesse, Carlin’s a wealthy performer who’s had a successful career over the course of several decades, while you’re someone who uses the name Starving on an internet message board who likes to hurl insults and ideas parroted from Rush Limbaugh (who openly states he doesn’t want his followers to think). I’d say the only putz here is you.
In my experience, most kids don’t learn the bad words and such from TV-they learn them from Mom and Dad. Or in my case, from Gramma and Pap.
Too funny. Saw Anne Coulter last night, talking to a conservative women’s group at like, Sarah Bernard college. Either a screened crowd or the biggest bastion of intacta since Baylor allowed dancing.
She was doing her riff about how liberals want to teach kindergarten kids about fisting. She waited a beat and then said “Yes, its exactly what you think it is…” Judging by the looks, they hadn’t any idea wtf she was talking about, but were duly shocked, nonetheless.
OF course, that was CNN2 or whatever they use for deadly dull book reviews and the like…
Considering the mouth Ann Coulter has, and how she once wrote about Clinton jerking off into the sink, she’s one to talk.
And isn’t it funny that people like Bush and Cheney want to “protect” us from words that they themselves are on tape saying?