(Too Hot for TV?)
The FCC was bad enough when it was run by Colin Powell's son, Michael, but now that Bush is done with those two "Negroes," Kevin Martin is the new white man in charge of keeping Janet Jackson's boobies off your screen.
Two weeks ago the FCC hit CBS with $3.63 million in fines for airing a repeat of Without A Trace, one the million procedural crime dramas on that channel. That's more money than Howard Stern was fined in any of the years he was on the radio.
The episode depicted teenagers participating in drunken orgies and other types of non-abstinence Bush-approved behaviors.
For all it's crime sheen and "adult themes," it's the same type of cheap moralizing fare that kept Family Matters and Mr. Rogers on the air.
Watch your kids or they will hang out at the kid's house whose parents are never there and have sex.
The episode is here. But you didn't hear that from me.
If the word BitTorrent frightens you, I can e-mail you a clip of the offending content.
I don't watch CBS that much with the exception of the "The Unit" (which is produced by the creator of The Shield) but having seen this episode, it's no worse than Law and Order: Rape and Torture Division, um Special Victims Unit or any of the other brutal crime shows out there on TV.
In fact "Our Sons and Daughters" (the name of the ep) is pretty benign in the scheme of things.
Personally, I have never seen or heard of an orgy where everyone has on underwear and all the girls have on their bras.
And the lesson of the episode is similar to a clip of 'shocking' content that the Parent's Television Council used to incite complaints to the FCC in the first place.
Watch your fucking kids.
Children should not be watching The Shield, Nip/Tuck, South Park or even Law and Order in some cases. There is a reason these shows are rated MA.
I'm not going to pretend like TV is some endangered art form fighting for its purity. Most of it is shit, like anything else.
Without a Trace has cookie cutter story-less characters, who robotically gather clues and move to the next suspect as they make everything right by the end of the hour. It's not a good show.
But the anti-panty crowd's censoring creates a chilling effect that spreads past network television and onto cable.
After the CBS fines, the WB self-censored their already approved show to play it extra safe. Granted, most WB shows suck whether you get to see Amber unbutton her jeans or not (that's really what they censored) but it's pathetic indication of where we are as a society when the government continually breaks the will of the people.
Whether its colleges giving all their minority scholarship money to white kids, the media afraid to ask those in power tough questions or networks covering their own mouths in fear of slap on the wrist, people are being herded and don't even recognize it.
Peep the bullshit from Martin,
"The number of complaints received by the commission has risen year after year. I share the concerns of the public - and of parents, in particular - that are voiced in these complaints."
In reality, the viewer complaints (Who actually calls the FCC and complains? I want to beat these people) fell 86% in 2005 to 189,362 from 1.4 mill in 2004.
Oh, the lies and the bullshit!
And to top this all off, Napoleon Dynamite wasn't just playing a hardcore Mormon on TV, he really is one.
Say it ain't so...
From a recent interview,
Q. Do you fear having to do a sex scene or a scene with extreme violence?
A. I don't think I ever will do a sex scene because of my religion and my personal standards. Coming into this business has opened up many doors where I'm constantly making a decision on each project. I'll never do a sex scene where you see a man and a woman lie on the bed and the camera is still there with the naked actors in your face. I won't show the act of it on screen. I'd do a violent scene if it was in a war film or the content or story justified it. I'm open, however, to working with a writer to tweak a scene that I might personally find offensive. A young horny-guy movie like ''American Pie'' is not something I think I can do or would ever see.
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Why is America so much happier about violence than sex?
Would you rather participate in a teenage orgy or kill someone?
Don't answer that if you're over 18...
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