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PBS Feels FCC Chill On Censorship
Shadow Wrought writes "The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting on PBS censoring one of its upcoming drama shows, Cop Shop, due to the chilling effect of the most recent FCC rulings on indecency. Star Richard Dreyfuss offered these choice words as part of a prepared statement, 'It is inescapably censorship under guidelines imposed after the fact by those who are in temporary political power, and so it should be treated as what it is -- a real-world moral and ethical battle with grimly wrongheaded, un-American types who play pick and choose when they define our freedoms of speech and religion as it fits their particular political needs.'"
From the SFGate.com article's subhead:
3 no-nos bleeped from new crime drama -- Richard Dreyfuss blasts government censorship
And further down the article:
The cuts prompted executive producer and writer David Black and Dreyfuss to whip out prepared statements before facing the nation's TV critics here on Friday.
Tonight on PBS: the world's smallest violin plays "My Heart Bleeds For You".
I'm no fan of corporate-owned media, and the whoring of the airwaves by the likes of FOX. Today's "Reality shows" remind me of the government-run pornography industry in Orwell's 1984 -- a handy way to distract the masses from reality (election? what election?).
But I doubt that "Cop Shop" is going to be the poster boy for government interference with free speech. I suspect that the star and producer have no higher goal than propping up their show's ratings. They had a prepared statement -- the press release crying "censorship" was composed before the show was even screened. That tells me that the show needs propping up by the controversy, because it's likely to fall down under its own pompous weight.
Of course, I could be wrong...
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
A couple of months ago, definitely post-Janet-Nipple, an episode of NYPD Blue used the word "bullshit." This was the hyped up episode which was supposedly going to feature a steamy love scene at the end, where they toned down the love scene, but didn't bother to edit out "bullshit."
Bullshit is right. One quote from the article that gave me a hearty laugh:
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
More to the point, it's all about nipples, not breasts. My wife was watching a show called "Dr. 90210" about plastic surgeons, and this one lady was trying to get a boob job corrected (the first guy she went to fouled it up). They showed picture after picture (topless, full view) of her boobs as they talked about the procedure, but where the nipple should have been, they fuzzed it out.
Beyond stupid...
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Far, far too much of the current US debate is all about ad hominem attacks. It never seems to matter what anyone says anymore..
It's all about "he's just out to sell his book/movie", "get attention" or "to further his/her career". Either that or it's about who they hung around with 30 years ago. Or who they've had sex with. Or if they've ever used drugs. Or how they used to feel differently, and therefore must be hypocrites.
From following the so-called debate, you wouldn't think anyone ever said anything just because they actually believed in it. Or that it could actually be, that someone with personal faults could actually be right, and that a person with a spotless reputation could be wrong about something?
It just makes me sick. And anyone thinks this posting is itself partisan in any way*, they need to seriously start thinking about what democracy is supposed to be about.
* Not counting people who truly advocate totalitarian systems, of course
Neal Stephenson made a great point about this in "The Diamond Age." In his fictional world, moral relativism progressed to the point that hypocrisy was the only sin you could call someone on, and to be inconsistent was to invite ridicule. So the only safe bet (as a politician) was to have no moral code at all. Contradicting yourself isn't a sin; it's natural, especially in the case of an entire administration, which is made of thousands of people.
/. also made a good point in the discussion on the use of torture in wartime. (S)he said something to the effect of "Just because what we're doing isn't as bad as what they're doing doesn't make it OK; it makes both sides wrong." What Cheney said, whether Leahey deserved it or not, was inappropriate, and he's paying for it. Whether Kerry was right or not about postwar planning in Iraq, he's paying for it.
Someone here on
It's also germane to note that Mr. Limbaugh is NOT part of the Bush administration, so taking his views as though Bush said them is a mistake. You could say the same about Kerry and Al Franken. He's a bit of a nutjob, and everyone knows it.
Hamster
I'm saying that sexuality is a very complicated and delicate thing that has consequences that are difficult to manage. It's better to be wiser before entering into the subject.
But we can't deal with sexuality like adults because we're so hung up on appearing to be liberated. Who wants to appear to be repressed? The second you mention that maybe having having anal sex broadcast twenty four hours a day in Times Square is a bad idea, you're tarred as if you've just proposed mandatory ankle length bathing suits.
To put it smartly, we have a culture which pressures the sixteen year old boy to have sex in the backseat rather than hang on a few years until he has some vague chances of dealing with it in a capable way.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
And they want more profit. See the conspiracy to keep the puppet in office.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
So, let me see if I understand this. It's acceptable and appropriate for the Vice President of the United States to hurl profanities against a United States Senator on the floor of the United States Senate (not in session) but it's not acceptable or appropriate for an actor playing a United States Police Officer to do the same on a PBS TV show.
I fail to see the logic of that.
r
No, sorry, you're wrong. The semi-naked Drusilla hanging in chains in episode 9 of I, Claudius was not a figure in a documentary. The topless DeDe Day in Tales of the City was not a figure in a documentary. To name the first two that pop to mind.
The apostrophe in possesives replaces the letter 'e'. Back in the day, English, like Latin and German, has a system of 'cases', changed word endings used to denote different uses of words. The genetive (possesive) ending was 'es'. At some point, we stopped using cases, but we still needed a way to denote the possesive, and the apostrophe-s was born.
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But back to censorship, two of the original infamous "seven" dirty words, the phrase "blow job", and the FCC...
What it comes down to (and this has been batted around so many times that I'm not sure why this latest PBS concession is news), is that public broadcasting stations have different standards that they have to adhere to than private (cable, scrambled satellite) broadcasters do. There are 2 main reasons for it: anybody can watch/listen, and no two communities have quite the same standards for what constitutes indecency as far as speech is concerned.
The reason that the FCC came out with the guidelines that they just about never have to enforce is so people in the more modest of these communities can watch television or listen to the radio during a certain timeframe without having to worry too much about seeing something that they might find offensive. Later at night (when most kids are sleeping), the rules relax, and there have been a number of similar concessions made over the years that have slowly allowed what would traditionally be considered risqe' words, apparel, or behavior to show up on public broadcasts.
It seems to fly in the face of the first amendment, but it is a long standing concession to the problems that decency standards and country-wide media programming have when they butt heads. I personally have no problem with the fact that boobs or other body parts may show up on TV, but I'd rather know about it ahead of time...that's me. I also have no particular problem with swear words (and the phrase "blow job"...whoever bleeped that one was a plain and simple asshat) on TV, although, again, advance warning would be nice. The system is there to protect those at the lower end of the tolerance-for-what-they-call-indecency spectrum. Yes, they can turn it off, or turn the channel, but should they *expect* to see some boobie with their superbowl? I know I didn't.
The reason I would like advance warning is that I consider the words to be a bit too rude to use in the company of people you don't know, and I don't want my kids to inadvertently see that happen. I'd like the opportunity to have them not watch that content until they're a bit older and a little more socially aware (probably 7 or so), and can actually discuss the words with me.
Some people think that's silly and uneccesary, and that's okay. Some people think it's too lax and irresponsible, and that's okay, too. Us disagreeing is fine with me.
So, since the f-word and the s-word are traditionally not heard on the airwaves (for various reasons), why is there so much commotion over the bleeping?
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law