The Reichstag — I mean, the House — overwhelmingly passed higher fines for radio and television "indecency" the other day. This was a failure for democracy on the highest levels... and the resounding nature of the vote (391-22) indicated that this isn't a Republican or Democratic issue. It's an issue of our so-called leaders laying down for the religious right. There are apparently only 22 members of the US House with any sort of spine or principle.
My issues with this are myriad — too many to even begin to go into. I'm furious that a renegade band of evangelicals is bascially dictating to us what the rest of us can watch, hear or see. Who decides what is "indecent?" The Supreme Court only ruled on the seven dirty words - beyond that, there's nothing from the Supreme Court as who what constitutes indecency. And what bothers me most is that we've handed over our collective right to make our own judgement to these southern-fried bible-thumpers who find Janet Jackson's breast or Howard Stern's interviews with porn stars "indecent."
But you know what? I find televangelists who stage fake "healings" (like Benny Hinn does) indecent. And religious "leaders" like Oral Roberts who tell old ladies and poor people that God will call him home unless they give him $8 million by a specific date... I find that indecent.
I find the airing of the 700 Club (on which Pat Robertson and his team of loonies and liars go about passing off whatever libel and slander they wish to about Democrats, claiming to have spoken to God about election results and the paths of hurricanes, and endorsing discrimination against gays, as well as hatred of liberals or anyone who thinks differently than they do) to be indecent. I find Jerry Falwell's show, in which he had the audacity to say that America suffered 9/11 as punishment from God for tolerating gays, abortion rights, and liberal thought, to be indecent.
So how about increasing the fines on that programming? What? No? You only want fines for programming that the religious right finds indecent? A ha... now we're getting to the truth of it. This isn't about indecency so much... it's about the squelching of thought or expression that the religious right does not find acceptable. And you can bet that once they've been given that toe in the door of your freedoms, they will kick it in until they're all the way inside.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Ms. Tek
LOL...
Relax... haven't you heard... You aren't supposed to actually spend time raising the kids once you pop them out. That is what the TV, and babysitters are for. One you have them, you can run back to your "career" and your "wine tastings and cocktail parties".
Silly wabbit.
2 - Eric Olsen
Christopher, I understand your concern and frustration but I disagree with your conclusions on several levels: the religious right is NOT driving this. What is driving this is a very broad consensus across the populace and across political boundaries, that things have gone too far on the limited public airwaves (see more here). This is far more than 10% of the population saying that what goes on on the radio and broadcast TV makes them uncomfortable, does not reflect their "standards," and is particularly unacceptable when children are exposed to it. That is the significance of the Janet Jackson affair: it was the catalyst for an expression of discontent and outrage that had been building for some time.
All Congress did was increase the fines for breaking the rules, they didn't change the rules, which if you read them are hardly prudish or particularly restrictive.
You may have a point that media consolidation has allowed a company like Clear Channel, which does seem to be responding with political intent in the "zero tolerance" policy, currying favor with the current (but it could be any) administration, but Howard Stern's whole line about the focus on him being based upon his political views is just self-serving horseshit. The government hasn't done ANYTHING new to him, it was Clear Channel who shut him down (in only the six markets where they carried him), and the government has been concerned with his flaunting of the rules for years, most especially during the Clinton administration.
The rules are there, have been there, the majority of the public agrees with those rules and wants to see them enforced. That's all this is about.
3 - Al Barger
So Christopher, you're arguing that there should be NO legal standards WHATEVER for public expression? If the local porno shop wants to put up a big billboard in front of their store with pictures of hardcore guy on guy action, I'd be just a prude homophobe uptight right wing shill to object?
4 - Shark
They have the right and responsibility to regulate content on the PUBLIC airwaves. That issue was decided decades ago.
A different issue: Our culture is saturated with 'indecency' and 'obscentities'. It's a matter of aesthetics, and most Americans have none.
And I believe Tek might change her tune if/when she has a child; Sex and garbage are ubiquitous in this culture. It's just about everywhere you look. It's not as simple as a few years ago; you can't just 'turn off the TV' and withhold the flood of shit from your child's view.
In today's culture, if you want to protect your child from exposure to the massive amount of despicable garbage coming at them, you'd have to raise them in a locked closet, which is not a good solution either.
But again, the answer is not legislative; it's cultural. We consciously decide to stop sliding further toward the barbarian end of the scale... and see if we can't resurrect the value of beauty.
But I'm not holding my breath.
5 - Dirtgrain
Robert Anton Wilson writes in How George Carlin Made Legal History:
For instance, here in the United States---an allegedly secular Democracy with an "iron wall" of separation between Church and State written into its Constitution--the Federal Communications Commission has a list of Seven Forbidden Words which nobody may speak on the radio or television. Any attempt to find out why these words remain Tabu leads into an epistemological fog, a morass of medieval metaphysics, in which concepts melt like Salvador Dali's clocks and ideas become as slippery as a boat deck in bad weather.
One cannot dismiss this mystery as trivial. When comedian George Carlin made a record ("Occupation: Foole") discussing, among other things, "The seven words you can never say on television," WBAI radio (New York) played the record, and received a fine so heavy that, although the incident occurred in 1973, WBAI, a small listener-sponsored station, recently announced (1990) that they have not yet paid all their legal costs in fighting the case, which went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Eight Wise Men (and One Wise Woman) thereon upheld the Federal Communications Commission.
The highest court in the land has actually ruled on what comedians may and may not joke about. George Carlin has become something more than a comedian. He now has the status of a Legal Precedent. You will pay a heavy fine, in the U.S. today, if you speak any of the Seven Forbidden Words on radio or television--shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits.
The words have been forbidden, "our" Government says, because they "are" "indecent". Why "are" they "indecent"? Because a certain percentage of people who might turn on the radio or TV experience them as "indecent".
Why do sombunall people experience these words as "indecent"? Because he words "are" "dirty" or "vulgar".
Why "are" these words "dirty" and "vulgar" when other words, denoting the same objects or events, "are" not "dirty" or "vulgar"? Why, specifically, can a radio station be fined if a psychologist on a talk show says "He was so angry he wouldn't fuck her anymore" but not fined at all if the psychologist says "He was so angry he stopped having sexual intercourse with her"?
As Mr. Carlin pointed out in the comedy routine which led the Supreme Court to perform their even more remarkable comedy routine, fucking seems one of the most common topics on television, even though nobody uses the word. To paraphrase Mr. Carlin, many guests on the Merv Griffin and Donahue shows have written books on how to fuck or who to fuck or how to fuck better, and nobody objects as long as they say "sexual intercourse" instead of "fucking." And, of course, as Carlin goes on, the main topics on soap operas, day after day, consist of who has fucked whom, will she fuck him, will he fuck somebody else, have they fucked yet, who's getting fucked now, etc.
Some say "fuck" "is" "dirty" and "sexual intercourse" isn't because "fuck" comes from the Anglo-Saxon and "sexual inter course" comes from the Latin. But then we must ask: how did Anglo-Saxon get to be "dirty" and why does Latin remain "clean"?
Well, others tell us, "fuck" represents lower-class speech and "sexual intercourse" represents middle-and-upper class speech. This does not happen to accord with brute fact, statistically: I have heard the word "fuck" in the daily (non-radio) conversation of professors, politicians, business persons, poets, movie stars, doctors, lawyers, police persons and most of the population of sombunall classes and castes, except a few religious conservatives.
And, even if "fuck" did occur exclusively in lower-class speech, we do not know, and can hardly explain, why it has been subject to a huge and bodacious fine when such other lower-class locutions as "ain't", "fridge" (for refrigerator), "gonna" and "whyncha" (why don't you) have not fallen under similar sanction. Nor have we yet seen a ban on the distinctly lower class "Jeet?" "Naw---Jew?" (Did you eat? No, did you?)
The fact that some enclaves of religious conservatives do not use the word "fuck" (or are embarrassed if they get caught using it) seems to provide the only clue to this mystery. The Federal Communications Commission, it seems, bases its policy upon persons who believe, or for political reasons wish to seem to believe, that the rather paranoid "God" of the conservative religions has His own list of Seven Forbidden Words and will become quite irate if the official Tabu list of our government does not match His list. Since that particular Deity has a reputation for blowing a few cities to hell whenever he feels annoyed, the F.C.C. may, in the back of their heads, think they will prevent further earthquakes by maintaining the Tabu on the Seven Unspeakable Words.
The Wall of Separation between Church and State, like many other pious pronouncements in our Constitution, does not correspond with the way our government actually functions. In short, the Seven Forbidden Words remain forbidden because pronouncing them aloud might agitate some Stone Age deity or other, and we still live in the same web of Tabu that controls other primitive peoples on this boondocks planet.
Some light seems about to dawn in the semantic murk...but let us press further and ask why the conservative's Stone Age "God" objects to "fuck" and not to "sexualintercourse" or such synonyms as "coitus", "copulation", "sexual congress", "sexual union", "love-making", etc.? Should we believe this "God" has a violent prejudice against words which, in reputation if not in reality, seem to reflect lower-class culture? Does this "God" dislike poor people as much as Ronald Reagan did?
Perhaps the reader will appreciate the immensity of this mystery more fully if I ask a related question:
If the word "fuck" "is" obscene or "dirty", why isn't the word "duck" 75% "dirty"?
Or, similarly:
If the word "cunt" "is" unacceptable to the conservative's "God", why does the word "punt" not receive a 75% unacceptability rating? Why do we not see it spelled "p---" in the daily press?
To quote the admirable George Carlin one more time, "Such logic! Such law!"
I don't have a problem with society collectively deciding what is acceptable and what isn't acceptable--so long as it makes sense and so long as it's not a corruption of the separation of church and state. The taboo status associated with swear words is arbitrary. One could just as easily apply taboo status to the word, "the," because it gets used so often in phrases like, "the dickhead," "the asswipe," etc.How do swear words harm or corrupt children? I learned words such as fuck, shit, piss and ass when I was in first grade. They didn't mean anything to me. I knew how to say them, and I knew they were bad--that's it. Don't we all learn these words at an early age? Is it some key phase in our development that we have to have forbidden yet tempting words in our vocabularies--that we have to wait until a certain age and certain social situations when we can utter these words? Please explain.
6 - Dirtgrain
George Carlin's list has grown beyond seven words.
7 - Al Barger
Now here Shark, we seem to be very much on the same page:
the answer is not legislative; it's cultural. We consciously decide to stop sliding further toward the barbarian end of the scale... and see if we can't resurrect the value of beauty.
I would take that to mean that we should be trying to point out the better to people, and rely more on gentle persuasion and perhaps a bit of private cajoling rather than running to the heavy hand of government with every complaint.
Thing is, nearly any attempt at private persuasion or shaming get greeted with great cries of derision. You're a censor, or just a right wing jerk who wants to impose your white male oppressor Catholic God on the poor downtrodden oppressed people who just want to express themselves.
Really Shark, how could you?
8 - Dirtgrain
It's corporate culture. We, as individuals, are not having the same impact on our culture anymore. Yes we consume, but it is the corporations that manipulate us to consume this or that. Corporations are dictating and creating our culture based on machine-like calculations. The human element seems to be disappearing. So, we have thongs marketed to ten-year olds, music performers who lip sync and are more about image than quality (I find Britney Spears to be more disgusting than Luther Campbell), so many movies that are about drug dealers and cops killing each other, and so on. Sorry to rant again, but we need to become aware of the corporate influence on our culture. Is it taking us where we want to go?
9 - Debbie
"It's corporate culture. We, as individuals, are not having the same impact on our culture anymore. Yes we consume, but it is the corporations that manipulate us to consume this or that."
Only if you allow them to. It is the individuals collectively that can change things. If you don't like violence in every movie that comes out of Hollywood, don't go see movies and don't rent or buy them.
"Corporations are dictating and creating our culture based on machine-like calculations."
They are creating this crap because there are the ignorant masses out there that buy it.
"So, we have thongs marketed to ten-year olds, music performers who lip sync and are more about image than quality (I find Britney Spears to be more disgusting than Luther Campbell), so many movies that are about drug dealers and cops killing each other, and so on."
It is truly sad that parents would ever even consider buying 'slut-wear' for 10 year old little girls. But buy it they do, and then they want to act all shocked when their little darling gets pregnant at 14. It must be the 'governments' fault, they didn't teach enough about birth control, they didn't give out free condoms, didn't pass out the morning after pill....
It's very hard to be a parent these days, it has become socially acceptable to hold no moral values at all, as long as it feels good it must be good. I feel like a Salmon swimming upstream fighting the secular world with the 'trashy' values they have and want to push on everyone else.
These higher fines are a backlash from people that are tired of being force fed trashy moral values. It really upset people that such a trashy halftime show was presented to people at the super bowl. The super bowl has become the biggest sporting event in this country. Lots of kids like to watch the game. Why would people think that the type of songs they played and the sexual antics they displayed during the show would be presentable to children. Was it just to shock us? Was it just because they really didn't see anything wrong with the show that they were presenting? That they really thought that it was an appropriate show for kids to watch? That a halftime show on a football field was an acceptable place to display that behavior?
I would like to see that type of behavior only on after a certain time, or only on certain channels...some way of limiting it from my household.
Personally, I'm glad that people finally woke up to realize that we are under assault from the 'morally vapid' buffoons in Hollywood.
It never ceases to amaze me that Hollywood can peddle the most ridiculous crap and then turn around and receive awards for it. They make movies that glorify violence, just for the sake of higher revenues, they show lots of 'skin', sexual behavior, violence just for the sake of violence and yet they all want to 'protest' and speak out against the 'Passion of Christ' movie because of violence. I think that speaks volumes about their 'agenda'. They go out of their way to condemn a religious movie, claiming it will cause anti-semitism, it is too violent, etc. But they don't have any problem promoting a movie that defames religion or that mocks religion. The Last Temptation of Christ was to be defended, the right of an 'Artist' to throw feces and urine on the crucifix and call it art is to be defended and encouraged?
That's why they are jokingly referred to as Hollywierd, they are so far out there it's almost a different planet.
10 - sheri
What would the polar opposite of "christian right" be? Satanic left?
There are other religious groups, non-christian, who subscribe to a code of decency.Some may have no religious preference at all.
I'm getting tired of moral issues being dumped at the feet of "bible-thumping christian right blah blah". It is time to adapt a new way of thinking.
11 - Shark
So we all agree? It's a cultural issue based on a lack of aesthetics that can only change given a refusal by the consumer to participate in the mass consumption of garbage --- and #2; encouraging the development of a aesthetic approach to one's culture.
Okay then. Mark yer calendars. This is a BC first!
Let's close up shop and go fishin'.
~And I'll buy the beer!
12 - sheri
One more thing.
A whooooole lotta southerners (of the fried variety, and baked, for the more health conscious of us)spent the LORD'S day worshipping the Gods Of Nascar, on the altar of the Atlanta Motor Speedway!! Sacrificing 450 MILLION dollars into our economy. I'm gonna have to have a talk with GOD about this ;0)
Congratulations Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
13 - Ms. Tek
I think the south and texas should just go away and form their own country.
They're all weirdos anyway. ;)
14 - sheri
I'm a cute one though...shall I throw fried chicken at you now? :0)
15 - Ms. Tek
Hm....
But I do like fried chicken...
OH THE CONFUSION!
16 - Eric Olsen
Shaun, we collectively endured your vulgar, blatant, crude, unsubstantiated anti-Semitism for some time. I told you when the line was crossed for the last time. You're just discovering it now? No one has EVER spoken here of Arabs or Muslims the way you have consistently spoken of Jews. You appeared to be moving in a direction of somewhat greater understanding and then you reverted to the same vile shit worse than ever.
Why should we endure the poison any longer? Besides, you're a really bad speller.
17 - Christopher
First of all, Eric, thank you for getting rid of the last post... I don't know the background on Shaun, nor do I care to, but a personal attack on the moderator for removing anti-Semitic bile just didn't seem real germaine to this conversation.
Now... WOO-HOO! A real, live, honest-to-god discussion of and respectful exchange of ideas on the issue! As Eric Cartman might say, "Sweeeeet."
Thanks, everyone, for your insight and viewpoints; I've appreciated them even when I haven't agreed... thanks for making me think some more.
Al, I would say that the difference between a porn shop billboard and television is that on TV, you're free to change the channel. If you don't want to watch it, don't watch it. A billboard such as the one you describe would not give people the option of ignoring it. And if your point is that everything on the airwaves is offensive to you now and so you don't have the option of changing channels, I respectfully and in the spirit of friendly discussion suggest that you simply turn the television off. Don't watch it. Read books. Play with your kids. Conduct Bible studies. Do whatever you like. Again, that's an option that people wouldn't have with a billboard, but do have with the public airwaves.
Eric, while I think Stern is quite self-serving and I don't agree with his point that it's all about quieting his political speech, I do believe he is being targeted because he is such an easy first target - one whose squelching would not generate too much backlash. Of course there won't be a whole lot of people who argue that Stern's juvenalia shouldn't have some sort of restraint... but that's just where it starts. It's a very easy first step - and I believe it is only the first step the Decency Crusaders have in mind. I don't believe for one moment that Stern would be their only target. I similarly don't believe that the other crusades for public decency would be focused on such blatant boundary-pushers/borderline cases as Stern. I'm pretty sure that other, less cut and dried targets would be next... once given an inch, a mile would be next.
(For those conservatives here who are about to disagree, ask yourself why the NRA and many gun enthusiasts won't accept a ban on cop-killer bullets or assault rifles... it's the same concept: you feel that once the opposition gets a foothold, even on something that seems like common sense, they will not be satisfied unless & until they've gone well beyond common sense and taken ALL guns. Same point here - the decency brigades will start with Stern and the easy targets, but won't be satisfied until the public airwaves are stripped of everything they find objectionable.)
CBS announced today that they're going to put a 10 second delay on the NCAA finals. (http://sports-att.espn.go.com/ncb/ncaatourney04/news/story?id=1760236) What possible decency is that upholding? Or, is it just another case of that network caving in to the pressure of a few loud activists -- the same ones who got a Reagan biopic off the air without even seeing it because they believed that the script wasn't reverential enough?
(By the way, if everyone's so fed up with the "indecency" that's so prevalent, then why does pushing the envelope like that virtually guarantee a boost in ratings? If people were really that sick of these easy targets, wouldn't ratings crash through the floor as people turned away in droves? Hmm... but I digress.)
Okay, Sheri and those others who (perhaps rightly) took me to task for laying this issue at the feet of religious southerners... saying that there are plenty of people of no religious affiliation who support "decency." Okay, point taken... but no one addressed my question of Who Gets To Decide What Is Decent? There are a lot of things I do not find decent. Do I get to decide for you what you can watch? There are a lot of people who are interested in things I find indecent or unworthy of watching (religious programming, bloody & violent shoot-em-up movies of the Stallone/Schwarzenegger/Seagal/Van Damme variety, Fox "News", NASCAR... just kidding)... do I and people who think like me get to make that call on your behalf?
See, it's easy for one to say that they're for "decency" when they're pretty sure that "decent" includes their own tastes. But if the shoe were on the other foot, and there was someone else deciding that your tastes don't meet the Decency Meter, I imagine you'd be pretty upset about that - and rightfully so.
Please don't misunderstand. I'm not here to praise Howard Stern, Jerry Springer, Girls Gone Wild, f-bomb dropping comedians and musicians, or those that pander to the lowest common denominator. But I am here to defend them.
I don't like Shock "entertainment." I find it frankly very uncreative. But I have a big problem with any "They" trying to say that it needs to be cleaned up. Don't like it? Don't watch. When enough people turn the channel, guess what? Networks will listen. Until that happens, I think this is all a bit of posturing -- much of it by people desperate for an issue to divert attention from some serious policy failures or an agenda that most Americans won't be comfortable with.
But most of all, I am very uncomfortable with handing over to the government - any government, but in my case especially one led by someone whose views and beliefs are so diametrically different than my own - the power to decide for me or anyone else what is "decent" and what is not. That's a decision that I get to make. No one else. Me. Because what's indecent for you and what's indecent for me may well be different... and just as I wouldn't presume to be able to tell you what you should watch, I get very aggrevated when someone is presumptuous enough to tell me what I should/can watch.
Like I said before, if people are really sick of this stuff, they should just stop watching. Enough of a viewership drain would make networks stand up and take notice in a hurry. Until then, I just don't buy it.
Anyway, my 2 cents... or looking at the length of my response, more like 20 cents. At any rate, thank you one and all for a lively, interesting and for the most part respectful discussion. Cheers!
18 - Shark
MsTek: "I think the south and texas should just go away and form their own country."
Um, we tried, believe me, we tried.
Y'all just wouldn't let us.
Must be our music.
19 - Christopher
Shark,
Not every Yankee dislikes country, nor do we all dislike Texas blues (Stevie Ray is my hero). You can keep NASCAR, but we'll share country and Stevie Ray. How's that? ;-)
20 - Mark Saleski
yea...i'm from the northeast and i like country. 'real' country though, not this suburban guy with 5 o'clock shadow and big hat stuff.
let's see, what do i like about texas?....
dallas cowboy cheerleaders
.
.
.
uh...i'll get back to ya.
21 - Ms. Tek
YUCK @ country!
22 - Dirtgrain
There have been a lot of comments of this kind: "until the people decide. . . ." What is overlooked is that people are being manipulated by marketing, advertising and propaganda techniques. Coercion has become a science, and corporations are ever seeking new ways to turn the people into on and off switches (that is exactly how they see us). No, we haven't lost free will yet. But isn't that the ultimate goal of the marketing industry? Read some journals on marketing and advertising techniques--new studies abound. They want to be able to make you do what they want you to do--without you being aware of it. (I still can't figure out why the hell I bought a juicer.) With the rise of corporations and corporate political power, and the advancement of the science of coercion (and propaganda), I don't think the people will be deciding in the way some here have suggested. There has to be an organized effort to counteract the amoral impact of corporations on our culture. We have to wake people up. Adbusters, maybe.
Yes, I truly believe this. Yes, you probably think it's over-the-edge looniness. Yes, I will check myself into a psycho ward, just as soon as I figure out which voice in my head I am supposed to listen to. Right now, William Shatner is trying to sell me Priceline or something. Please start singing "Mr. Tambourine Man" again. Yah Chris, I better turn off the TV.
23 - Shark
The most profound realization of the early 21st century will be that the UnaBomber was right.
And have a nice day!
24 - Debbie
Dirtgrain,
"(I still can't figure out why the hell I bought a juicer.)"
It's because you want to be in the great physical shape that good ole Jack is in at his age..... :~)
It's not even that I want everything censored, I just want some rules applied. Like maybe, certain channels that show the smut and violence; or certain times it can be aired.
Never, ever, ever at a football halftime show!!!!! I don't want it sprung on people as a surprise, it should be labeled up front so people can make the decision on whether they want to watch it. I don't think that these are 'over reaching' rules, I don't think that they trample any rights. It shouldn't be difficult to put these in place and it won't hamper anyone that wants to watch the 'smut and violence'.
25 - Eric Olsen
Debbie, everything you asked for is already in place - it has only to be enforced and that is what all thestink is about now: enforcement. there haven't been any new rules put into place regarding content, they are just upping the penalties for violations.
I realize in theory the market should take care of this, but there are some areas where the public asks for help in being saved from itself. This is one of those areas.