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FCC Won't Punish Stephen Colbert For Controversial Trump Insult (slashdot.org)

Posted by BeauHD on from the case-dismissed dept.

Earlier this month, the FCC said it would look into complaints made against The Late Show host Stephen Colbert over a homophobic joke he made about President Donald Trump. Well, it turns out the FCC is not going to levy a fine against the comedian for using the word "cock" on late-night network television, reports The Verge. From the report: "Consistent with standard operating procedure, the FCC's Enforcement Bureau has reviewed the complaints and the material that was the subject of these complaints," reads the FCC's statement, according to Variety. "The Bureau has concluded that there was nothing actionable under the FCC's rules." Helping Colbert's case was the fact that the broadcast, time delayed for incidents like these, bleeped out the questionable word and also blurred the host's mouth as he was saying it. The FCC has broad authority to regulate what can and cannot be broadcast based on legal precedent regarding obscenity laws. Yet looser rules apply during the hours of 10PM and 6AM ET, when Colbert's show airs. So it would appear that the ample self-censorship on behalf of CBS saved the program from a guilty verdict in this case.

39 of 305 comments (clear)

  1. If you can't call a cunt like Trump a cock holster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Then it isn't America.

  2. Shouldn't be punishable anyway by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He didn't harm anyone, it wasn't hate speech, he just made a crude unfunny joke. If people think that's fine, it's fine. If they think he's an idiot, they should ask their network to fire him. If they think he's a hypocrite (as I do) they don't need to watch him. Save legal enforcement for serious things.

    1. Re: Shouldn't be punishable anyway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not hate speech because it's not targeting Trump for what he is, but what he does. It has nothing to do with his political leaning.

      Also, fuck any conservative that thinks they, of all people, get to decide what is and is not homophobic. They lost that footing when they launched a multi-decade anti-queer campaign across the globe.

    2. Re:Shouldn't be punishable anyway by Narcocide · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So, the issue I see here is we've grievously mislabeled the political parties. The "conservatives," as they call themselves, are in fact authoritarians. The entire Republican party has actually now become the party of extreme authoritarianism. There's nothing even remotely conservative about their key views anymore. The label "conservative" they wield like torches and pitchforks is nothing but a weak but surprisingly effective disguise that they only really care to use to fool themselves. And make no mistake; Nothing offends them more than disrespecting what they perceive as their righteous authority. Once you realize that, the apparent madness of the situation evaporates and the big picture becomes completely clear.

    3. Re:Shouldn't be punishable anyway by swillden · · Score: 5, Interesting

      he just made a crude unfunny joke

      Actually, it wasn't intended to be that much of a joke. A little, sure, but the only source of humor was the shock value.

      His real point, and his reason for using such a surprisingly crude phrase, was a very serious one. He was making the point that in America one can say the nastiest things possible about the most powerful government officials without fear of consequences. His rant was about free speech, about how crucial it is and about how Trump has absolutely no respect for it... but in spite of Trump's lack of respect for the principle, the principle holds, and Trump's power can do nothing about it.

      When you understand the whole context, this FCC ruling is an important victory for all Americans, even those who found it offensive. Which, to be honest, included me, though I understood the point and appreciated the value of the point and the fact that the very offensiveness of the comment was what made the point forceful.

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    4. Re:Shouldn't be punishable anyway by swillden · · Score: 2

      We can only guess his reasons since we don't know what was going on in his head.

      You haven't watched the monologue. He explained his rationale very clearly. There was no ambiguity, and no need for guessing.

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    5. Re:Shouldn't be punishable anyway by Aighearach · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The whole claim that it is "homophobic" is silly, because the clear purpose of the joke was to offend Putin because Putin is believed to be homophobic.

      If Putin isn't homophobic, then the homosexual nature of it is irrelevant anyways. There is no "phobia" there at all, it just becomes an accusation that they're too close, even personally close.

      If somebody wants it to be phobic, it is merely homophobaphobic.

    6. Re:Shouldn't be punishable anyway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Hypocrisy in my view comes from the Colbert-adopted far left view that Trump is demeaning people -- whether it's women, illegal immigrants, or Ted Cruz -which in turn comes from the set of values that no human being should be so treated, yet Colbert demeans Trump.

      Sorry, that's bullshit. It may be the far left view that no person deserves being demeaned, but it is merely the moderate left view that people in general shouldn't be demeaned--women, immigrants, etc--but individuals may have done actions deserving of being demeaned--Ted Cruz, possibly, but I don't know enough about him. It follows from the same logic that one cannot take away freedom or liberty from all people, but a person who commits a crime can be judged and punished that reduces or removes freedom or liberty.

      Of course the flip side of that is something like respect which is earned, which I think is like being demeaned*. The "let others live their own lives" aspect of the left doesn't have the time or desire to waste respecting or demeaning the vast majority of people or persons. It's mostly nosy busy-bodies that involve themselves in that, including writing letters to government officials about they're offended.

      Now, if you can show me something from Colbert that he's actually far left and is of the do-not-demean crowd, I'll change my mind. But there's plenty of people who are decried as "far left" who aren't of the sort to think individuals aren't, well, individuals.

      * Funny thing, btw, since it would seem more of a southern thing--and hence a "conservative" thing--to be of the mindset of "if you have nothing nice to say [about someone], don't say anything at all". Although I've always seen that as a rather thin veneer on either (1) very vindictive people who are so prone to think negatively that they have to give themselves such a rule and/or (2) people who simply don't actually follow that rule. Not being an expert on Christianity or anything, but the whole "love thy neighbor" doesn't mean not speaking negatively of other people but of trying to engage them in more positive action through talk, which invariably brings up discussion of the not-nice things you believe they're doing. It also includes not, you know, trying to force yourself on them to do your bidding or otherwise make them live under your world view because smothering people is not love.

    7. Re:Shouldn't be punishable anyway by swillden · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Trump has made many attempts to silence speech he doesn't like, like kicking major news organizations out of the White House press corps, to name just one example among many. He undertstands that the system stops him from doing it, but he clearly sees that as a bug, not a feature. Watch the monologue, Colbert makes this point quite well.

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  3. Re:If you can't call a cunt like Trump a cock hols by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Then it hasn't been America for decades. You can say what you like, except on public broadcast TV where there are some limits, as George Carlin famously pointed out.

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  4. Re:US censorship? by Zaelath · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yes. It was a homophobic 'joke' according to SJW's.

    Bullshit. It was a homophobic joke according to Fox commentards.

    Someone gave Fox'n'Friends a copy of Saul Alinsky's book and it's been nothing but ever since.

  5. Re:US censorship? by desdinova+216 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    there is an extremely vocal minority of "christian" fundamentalists who tend to file complaints over anything remotely sexual. There was also a possibility of Trump, being as thin skinned as someone who claims that any negative news stories are "fake news" would use the FCC to silence a critic.

  6. Not homophobic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I was once in a conversation with a friend's partner. I used the term "my wife" when speaking to her about .... my wife. This woman replied that she thought it was gross of me to refer to the woman in my life using the term "My" which implied that she was a possession, not a human being. I had to make the point that, while yes, I'm sure some people use that term for that purpose, I didn't and I didn't like that she jumped to that conclusion with me. The phrase "my wife" refers to my relationship to her, just like "my uncle" or "my brother" does not refer to ownership. In that conversation, was I being sexist because I was using words that could be construed as sexist if you tried really hard?

    Homophobic refers to the attitude in which the comment was made, not the way it was received by you. Could someone uttering those words be trying to make disparaging remarks about the President by suggesting he was homosexual? Sure. But a person uttering those words could instead and equally likely be making a point about the subservient position the person doing the pleasing is in relative to the person getting serviced, without any consideration toward the genders involved.

    Knowing the history of Colbert's advocacy, I am as certain as anyone can be that he was making the comment with the latter intent. He could just as easily have made the comment about Theresa May if she were as deeply in Putin's pocket as Trump and it would have the same meaning. His point is about Putin having his way with Trump, not about a male having his way with another male.

    1. Re:Not homophobic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You're missing something very important. All the Putin/Trump homosexual jokes that have been going around for a long time (as well as Colbert's joke) are capitalizing on the fact that both Trump and Putin openly despise homosexuals, so calling them homosexual is in itself an insult, not because being homosexual is bad, but because they presumably can't stand the thought of being thought of as homosexual.

      I don't think this was in any way intended to insult homosexuals. The homophobic assholes crying to fire Colbert for his "homophobia" clearly don't have a clue as to what constitutes homophobia.

    2. Re:Not homophobic by Pfhorrest · · Score: 5, Insightful

      like how all the tiny hands jokes aren't parvamanuphobic or actually suggesting that there's anything unusual about Trump's hands even, it's just a know sore spot with him, a hangup about being thought to have small hands, which makes it a good insult against him whether or not he really does and whether or not there'd be anything the matter if he did.

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    3. Re:Not homophobic by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      This woman replied that she thought it was gross of me to refer to the woman in my life using the term ["my wife"] which implied that she was a possession...

      One of my favorite sayings is "don't complain without having an alternative ready".

      I'll agree that phrase is a bit awkward, but what's an alternative that doesn't introduce new forms of awkwardness and/or confusion? "The lady I'm married to" is long-winded: "That's a good idea, I'll run the plan by the lady I'm married to and get back to you."

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    4. Re:Not homophobic by tehcyder · · Score: 2

      This woman replied that she thought it was gross of me to refer to the woman in my life using the term ["my wife"] which implied that she was a possession...

      One of my favorite sayings is "don't complain without having an alternative ready".

      I'll agree that phrase is a bit awkward, but what's an alternative that doesn't introduce new forms of awkwardness and/or confusion? "The lady I'm married to" is long-winded: "That's a good idea, I'll run the plan by the lady I'm married to and get back to you."

      If I called my wife "the lady I'm married to" I imagine she'd deck me.

      --
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    5. Re:Not homophobic by meta-monkey · · Score: 2

      I introduce my wife as "my first wife." (we've never been divorced). I think it's funnier than she does, though.

      --
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  7. Re:Fucked by Imrik · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I would disagree about it being homophobic. It was certainly a joke involving homosexuality, and obviously it was intended to be offensive, but those don't make it homophobic.

  8. Re:Fucked by DogDude · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But we all know that's now how these labels are used. They're weaponized. Had a conservative figurehead said a similar thing about a liberal figurehead, or an actual homosexual, that word would be bandied about like stink at Coachella.

    You're arguing with a scenario that you created in your own mind.

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  9. Re:Fucked by not+flu · · Score: 2

    I say if it doesn't reflect fear and actual aversion of a thing, then it's not "*-phobic".

    So you're saying the joke was homophobic then because clearly it was the "ha ha faggot" kind of derogatory joke that presupposes that homosexuals are subhuman scum.

  10. Re: Fucked by swillden · · Score: 3, Informative

    In trying to say the most insulting, offensive thing he could think of to paint Donald Trump with, he thought of an act of love between two men.

    With all respect, I don't think the phrase "cock holster" implies any sort of love, regardless of the genders involved. It doesn't imply an act of giving pleasure, it implies use as a storage location.

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  11. Hate speech is easy to comprehend. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    The USA already has something very similar for decades: fighting words.

    If your words are intended to rile people up to violence against another, it's hate speech.

    Yelling "GET THE FAGGOT!" is hate speech, saying "you're a fag" isn't.

  12. Colbert's remark wasn't homophobic by hyades1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Colbert's remark was in no sense homophobic. It was about power and a non-reciprocal relationship. In fact, the only way it could be perceived as homophobic is by people with an agenda...people attempting to insulate themselves from charges of homophobia by falsely accusing others. Colbert's remark could only be considered homophobic by somebody who believes a submissive man fellating another man who is in a position of power is somehow worse than fellatio performed by a woman who is in a subservient position.

    In either case, the remark is intended to insult a person, in this case Trump, who has voluntarily reduced themselves to nothing more than an appliance for the sexual gratification of their master. Referring to Trump's mouth as Vladimir Putin's "cock holster" is about Trump's fawning, servile obsequiousness with respect to Russia's dictator, not about homophobia.

    Sorry to shoot down that simplistic, misleading right wing meme, but there ya go!

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    1. Re:Colbert's remark wasn't homophobic by topology · · Score: 2

      somehow I doubt that kind of language would be tolerated against Hillary, no network would air it to begin with, but if came up Democrats and Republicans would call it "woman hating"

      If Hillary had bragged about how she likes to grab men by the cock, had multiple accusers of sexual assault, and was more than sympathetic to the will of the leader of a rival nation, I'm pretty sure calling her a cock holster for that foreign leader would be fair game. You are forgetting that Trump went crass long before Colbert did.

    2. Re:Colbert's remark wasn't homophobic by hyades1 · · Score: 2

      You must have missed the buttons on sale at Trump campaign rallies calling her a "C^nt", and the ones saying she would "go down faster than her husband's pants".

      --
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  13. Re:If you can't call a cunt like Trump a cock hols by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, whatever the limits are/were, as TFS says: "bleeped out the questionable word and also blurred the host's mouth as he was saying it.

    So, we can argue about what should or shouldn't be acceptable on "public broadcast TV," but since CBS didn't even BROADCAST the supposedly offensive word... I'm not sure why this was ever a thing in the first place.

  14. Re:Fucked by ceoyoyo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The phrase "cock holster" itself very strongly denotes a dominant-submissive relationship, whether it refers to two men or a man and a woman, a mouth, a vagina, a whole person, whatever.

    Colbert wasn't in any way calling Trump a bad person for being homosexual. He was calling Trump a bad person for being Russia's cock holster.

  15. Re:US censorship? by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, but what was bizarre about this case was the timeline. One day, the FCC chairman was interviewed saying it's a free country. The very next day the FCC chairman basically announced that "if we hear complaints, we'll investigate" on Fox. By this point the story had blown up on the internet for a few days. SURPRISE! -- The next day he announces that they've heard complaints, so they'll investigate! Well sure, you basically told them on TV to complain the day before.

  16. Re:Fucked by Imrik · · Score: 2

    If the insulting part is that he is gay, then it is homophobic, that isn't the case with this "joke."

  17. Re:If you can't call a cunt like Trump a cock hols by Aighearach · · Score: 2

    The cock is my family crest, you insensitive clod!

  18. Re:If you can't call a cunt like Trump a cock hols by Aighearach · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The "thing" was a complaint, which they have to investigate. They got the complaint, they investigated, and they didn't find anything worthy of a fine.

    Some people are simply confused about why they were investigating. But if you get the details, it is hard to claim it is bad for the government to investigate complaints about rule violations. They didn't even get it wrong!

  19. Re:More distractions, lock her up by OrangeTide · · Score: 2

    We have room in prison for both Senator H.R. Clinton and President Trump. We shouldn't limit ourselves to this being an either-or position.

    Unfortunately for Trump, the men's federal prison is not as easy as the women's prison.

    --
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  20. Re:If you can't call a cunt like Trump a cock hols by mjwx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For Fucks Sake America... Here in England and other civilised countries we can say "cock" on daytime TV. In fact probably a repeat of Top Gear on Dave with James May saying "Oh Cock" right now.

    We can also see boobs.

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  21. Re:If you can't call a cunt like Trump a cock hols by LifesABeach · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It kind of says something about the Trump Snowflakes who can't sleep at night? My wife says, and I agree, "Trump Snowflakes can dish it out, but they can't take it. Typical of a bully."

  22. Re:If you can't call a cunt like Trump a cock hols by tbannist · · Score: 2

    I think the point was that those staunch defenders of Trump's freedom to say anything he damn well pleases seem to get their free-speech-panties in a knot as soon as someone else says something not nice about Trump. The complaint should never have been submitted to the FCC in the first place, but apparently there were a lot of Trump supporters who couldn't stand the fact that someone might criticise their Dear Leader.

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  23. Re:If you can't call a cunt like Trump a cock hols by Walter+White · · Score: 2

    For Fucks Sake America... Here in England and other civilised countries we can say "cock" on daytime TV.

    Can you say bloody?

    We can also see boobs.

    I am reminded that the Puritans left England to come to what became the US.

  24. Re:If you can't call a cunt like Trump a cock hols by cellocgw · · Score: 2

    I am reminded that the Puritans left England to come to what became the US.

    Except that they didn't. They tried to settle on the other side of the North Sea,where the locals were not happy with their extremist religion. They got kicked out and *then* went to the Colonies, where there weren't any (European) folk to get in their way.

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  25. Re:US censorship? by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 2

    Yes, obviously you're right. People submit all sorts of crap complaints to the FCC. The question is -- in how many of the cases that you cite did the FCC chairman comment directly on them? In how many did he publicly announce an investigation into them? In how many did he effectively goad the public into submitting more complaints by saying, "Well... if we get complaints [wink, wink], we'll investigate!" I have no doubt that (1) people were going to submit FCC complaints about this anyway, and (2) the investigation was obviously never going to go anywhere, so I sincerely doubt anyone in the Trump administration thought they could "shut down anti-Trump views." Nevertheless, the whole thing with the FCC chairman is just plain weird.