This past week, I unsubscribed from the mailing list of the Parents' TV Council after the US Supreme Court decided to hear a case regarding the FCC's policy about punishing television and radio stations for broadcasting "fleeting expletives." This all started with Paul "Bono" Hewson's minor breach of politeness at the 2003 Golden Globes. The FCC decided the entire broadcast, because of Bono's faux pas, was indecent. This led to later citations against Cher and Nicole Ritchie. And who can forget the "wardrobe malfunction" that got CBS in hot water?
Even PBS isn't exempt. It has gotten so ridiculous that the Denver affiliate refused to air Marie Antoinette because of some explicit pencil drawings; and last year Ken Burns' masterful miniseries The War was distributed to stations in two versions -- one with swear words, one without. (Thankfully, my satellite service carries Boston's WGBH, which spelled out what FUBAR and SNAFU means among other expletives, so I saw the uncensored print.)
The Second Circuit ruled that the FCC has gone too far, that what's often said on TV is no worse than what one sees in a PG movie or walking down the street. While the court acknowledged community standards may vary from rural Kansas where the f-word is verboten in the lingua franca to lower Manhattan where one is expected to drop the f-bomb every sentence, it also said the FCC is divorced from reality and its rules probably violate the First Amendment.
The FCC has appealed. It will mostly likely try to cite the 1977 Pacifica case, where the Supremes ruled the First Amendment does not apply to radio or TV (the case revolved around George Carlin's Seven Words). Not sure if the CBS case is also being heard but the network wants its fine in the Super Bowl incident reimbursed.
I originally got interested in the PTC's work because there were some examples of material on TV that were truly demeaning to women -- stuff both feminists and anti-feminists would find offensive. However, I've come to realize that there is a difference between free speech and license, and most of the stuff out there is free speech. As long as the law is not being broken, no long term harm is done. Besides, one only has to take a look at Canada, the EU, Australia and other countries.
We see the same violent and explicit movies, listen to the same violent and explicit music, and watch programs on TV in prime time that would never be allowed in the States -- the firewall (also called the "watershed") drops after 9 pm Eastern in Canada; and there is no proof that more rapes are happening because networks are allowed to show simulated sex in prime time.
No ... my problem is networks and cable outlets who try to make local murders of sexy women national stories, and also mply their murderers are worse than Osama Bin Laden or Timothy McVeigh. (A view I share with freelance journalist Alexandra Kitty.) You don't see the PTC complain about that. Instead, they put forward Dean Jones (star of the original Love Bug) who actually suggested Chandra Levy and Laci Peterson were murdered because of porn on TV. As if. Anyone with half a brain should be offended by that suggestion.
If people are offended by something they see on TV, they can turn the channel. Ratings systems now measure people's watching preferences by the second and if people turn out what is really offensive then programming will change to reflect that. Until then, let the marketplace decide. Let a thousand flowers bloom. For among the thorns, an idea may very well sprout into something bigger. The FCC's approach is swatting a fly with a sledgehammer and creates a Puritanical climate of fear, potentially suppressing good ideas even if such ideas come encapsulated in a foul word or phrase. Even a five second delay is unacceptable -- live should mean live, and what goes goes.
The US Supremes should so rule and uphold the Second Circuit. The people may own the airwaves, but the FCC does not have the right to regulate the airwaves as if only those who write letters to the commission and their standards should be the rule of the day. If George Carlin wants to say the seven magic words in succession on network TV, he should have that right. As should anyone else. And no one was ever damaged by adult full frontal nudity on TV -- they were damaged by those who broke the law behind closed doors (rape, incest, child exploitation) and no one is going after those people.
UPDATE (11:13 am EDT, 1513 GMT): Fixed a bad link and grammar errors, added an attribution.
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