While American soldiers risk their lives overseas to protect freedom, broadcasters at home are cowering in the shadows of government censors. The latest story involves Fox Network’s decision to electronically blur a cartoon character’s posterior for fear of being fined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The rear-exposing episode of “Family Guy” originally ran five years ago without complaint, but things are different now. The FCC has super-charged its enforcement activities.
I can't remember precisely what it was the other day that covered this same basic subject, but as I pointed out there too, the point of censorship is ironically not to stop the behaviour, but only the expression. You could make a show in which a wife was treated like dirt, yelled at, harrassed and generally put down and likely never recieve a peep. But have the actor playing the husband call her a bitch..... I think my favorite TV moment had to come on Penn & Teller's Bullshit, on Showtime, where some holier than though, sanctimonious lady offered her friend a sign saying some cheesy message about avoiding bad language and when it fell over commenting, 'shit!'. lol This lady also seemed to be unable to imagine that the other 90% of the world didn't think like her. Why? Because she didn't bother to pay any real attention to the rest of the world and everyone probably knew she was a stuckup ...., well, lets just say that it was probably hard to deal with her if you didn't act like the real world was a episode of 700-club. - As Penn & Teller explained it, FCC regulation of the air waves was 'first' put into effect for two reasons a) there was at the time more newspapers than TV stations, so it was argued that you could avoid reading the news you found offensive, but not the TV shows you did and b) there was no direct way to prevent someone from seeing shows on the TV (other than of course turning the damn things off). Now, we have V-Chips, Cable, Satalite TV, Digital Cable, hundreds of channels to pick from, ect. If you want to be a mono-cultural twit that is offended by a bare breast or bad language, you can edit out or block any station that shows them and instead watch nothing but those stations which specifically cater to your narrowmindedness. Why the hell is the FCC still even involved? Oh right.. I know, it is because the extreme right and, unfortunately recently most of, the left both despise true freedom, they just hate and want t control different parts of it...
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When Freedom Becomes an F-Word
Posted by: Sonia Arrison January 21, 2005 05:00 AMWhile American soldiers risk their lives overseas to protect freedom, broadcasters at home are cowering in the shadows of government censors. The latest story involves Fox Network’s decision to electronically blur a cartoon character’s posterior for fear of being fined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The rear-exposing episode of “Family Guy” originally ran five years ago without complaint, but things are different now. The FCC has super-charged its enforcement activities.
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As Penn & Teller explained it, FCC regulation of the air waves was 'first' put into effect for two reasons a) there was at the time more newspapers than TV stations, so it was argued that you could avoid reading the news you found offensive, but not the TV shows you did and b) there was no direct way to prevent someone from seeing shows on the TV (other than of course turning the damn things off). Now, we have V-Chips, Cable, Satalite TV, Digital Cable, hundreds of channels to pick from, ect. If you want to be a mono-cultural twit that is offended by a bare breast or bad language, you can edit out or block any station that shows them and instead watch nothing but those stations which specifically cater to your narrowmindedness. Why the hell is the FCC still even involved? Oh right.. I know, it is because the extreme right and, unfortunately recently most of, the left both despise true freedom, they just hate and want t control different parts of it...