Censor the Sunday Evening Moon?
I was watching the Bears game on Sunday Night Football witnessing Jay Cutler throw shitty passes and then pout about it on the sidelines when something happened…
I was only half paying attention to the game and half surfing the web because I knew that the Bears were destined to shit another winnable game away. That’s not the point though. With only a few minutes left in the 4th quarter NBC decided it was a good idea to show a slow-mo replay of Devin Hester’s bare ass. I did a double-take – then almost a spit take… then rewound it just to make sure that I had really seen that happen.
Immediately I thought of:
… but I know that Hester was not at a Bodega trying to score weed (at that moment – probably later). That’s not the point either though. The point is that there was just a half naked dude on TV and everyone was OK. No one died – no children were warped or perverted – there was a naked ass shown, the announcers were super awkward and the game went on.
This was almost the exact same thing that happened at the Superbowl when Janet Jackson’s nip popped out except with that event there was an absolute uproar. People freaked out. I never understood why people cared so much about that. People got fined, and major changes were made to how live events are presented (they included more of a delay to certain events) and the FCC got a lot more sensitive to what kinds of things were getting on TV. Writers were forced to adopt a more conservative take on whatever they were presenting to the audience. This has loosened up a bit recently but it is still repressed.
With the proliferation of the internet, television and print communications we can express ourselves like no other time in history. The expansion of our ability to participate in mass media allows many different voices to be heard and is a positive thing. Why do we need to lock down television and regulate it’s content? Queue the pro-censorship people to say “Won’t somebody think about the children!!!” Which is a bullshit cop-out that always has a hand in getting stupid censorship laws passed. Congress tried to lock down the internet (unsuccessfully) with numerous bills including the Child Online Protection Act and the Communications Decency Act which both attempt to insert government filtration of the internet to “protect the children”. They were both (correctly) struck down by the supreme court. I agree that children should not have the ability to turn on the TV and see anything that their parents don’t want them to see. However, it is the parent’s responsibility to regulate it, not the governments. Personally I find “The Hills” far more offensive than 3 seconds of Janet’s nipple. The only person who should be able to regulate my viewing is me - not a bunch of creepy old men in congress.
I propose that television is given as much openness as channels like HBO or Showtime. There are already mechanisms within televisions and cable boxes to protect children’s viewing without restricting mine. Giving writers the flexibility to express themselves in any way that they see fit is a good thing. It will improve the viewing experience for everyone that wants to see it and for the people that don’t want to see it… DON’T WATCH IT!
To the people who know me and know what I do in real life this post will seem very ironic – to those people I say – Fuck You! Do as I say…. not as I do!
By the way – No posts until Monday due to the holiday… stab someone for mentioning Tryptophan for me!
