So, how much you think the FCC would fine Fox for this?

http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2006-09-25/#tv3

Vincent

Wow, I didn't even catch it. I'll have to watch my recorded disc again.

It was beeped in New York.

Am I the only one who thinks it's absolutely asinine for the bleeping of a word that's totally obviously being said to be A-OK, but to actually hear the word (that we all know is being said anyway) being uttered is grounds for a fine to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars?

It is asinine. You know, I was watching an episode of COLD CASE several months ago, in which the mystery had to do with a woman avoiding rape by convincing the rapist to rape her pre-adoloscent son instead. It was the most obscene thing I had ever seen on television. No, it wasn't graphically depicted, but the events of the narrative were clear.

Now, I don't think that episode should be censored or fined. I no longer care for the show - due to similar descents into gratuitous tastelessness - so I will just not watch it.

But using the F-word still carries a fine. American art is never going to grow up.

D.

Totally agree in principle, as long as the show is rated MA (something I pay attention to as a father of three), and as long as it airs after 10:00.

What are the rules?

Curb Your Enthusiasm was fairly profane at times, but that is HBO, so it's different, right?

What can't you say, and when, on US Network TV?

Cheers,
Alex...

The rules are both complicated and arbitrary, and based on a incredibly poor Supreme Court decision called Pacifica, which ironically involves complaints of indecency for NPR airing George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words monologue.

The very, very short version
1. "Obscenity" is never OK, but the definition of what is obscene is very fuzzy and a lot less broad than it used to be.
2. "Indecency" is OK after 10 pm.
3. "Indecency" is also a fuzzy concept, but in practice means dirty words or nudity, at least as the FCC applies it. (though different administrations apply it in different ways, and with vastly different degrees of severity).
4. The FCC only has the right to censor broadcast networks, i.e., if it flies through the air, it can be censored, if it goes through cable, it can't. Satellite falls under the cable rules. It's a silly distinction, based in federal control over bandwidth.

So HBO, Comedy Central, etc. are all safe; NBC, ABC etc. are not. However, ABC can show butts and swearing on, say, NYPD Blue with impunity provided it is on a 10pm. Superbowl ... not so much. One rarely sees nudity and swearing on cable or late-night networks more for self-censorship reasons - concerns over sponsors, fears of provoking the gov't to action, etc..

Those are the basic, basic, basic rule of thumb versions - I am overgeneralizing more than a little. If anyone disagrees, feel free to correct me.

David, you have done a good job of explaining, yet these rules seem deliberately designed to twist one's melon!

Cheers,
Alex...

Part of the problem is that they are the very opposite of "deliberately" designed. Rather they are a mish-mosh of decades of poorly thought-out and often contrary decisions by both courts and the FCC.

The precedents are totally contradictory, for example, repeated swearing during the playing of John Gotti tapes during a news magazine broadcast (I've listened to some of those tapes, in another context, and it's amazing how few actual words work their way into all the swearing) was ruled OK by the old FCC, but the new FCC goes after Bono saying "fuck" once.

It's a dumb system, that only falls within the acceptable bounds of the First Amendment through some extremely tortured reasoning by Justice Stevens, and really needs to go.

"It was supposed to say 'beloved aunt'!! Aunt!! It's a typo!!"

Its amazing to me that people will go up in arms when profanity is uttered on the networks but those same people also pay for cable...

So if you had a free-for-all regarding profanity, nudity, indecency, etc. flooding the network airwaves would we then turn into a nation of maniacs, murderers and rapists?

And what if a kid hears profanity on the networks - will it destroy his/her psyche - will he/she pull a "Columbine" as a result?

Just who is the FCC protecting - the "children?"

A side - it was said Howard Stern wouldn't be as funny without the constraints of the FCC - hogwash. His show is funnier, more biting, more satirical on satellite without the restraints.

I'm pretty immune to profanity, so I don't understand why people get so uptight about it. They're just words. As far as what's allowed on cable, I heard worse than that when I was a kid and would go to the bowling alley with my dad.

But bad language is a lot like violence when someone's looking for a scapegoat as to why they or their kids screwed up. Remember how it was Judas Priest's fault when a fan committed suicide? Columbine? Marilyn Manson's fault. Some kid has strange sexual thoughts? Must be Janet Jackson's nipple.

I didn't give my parents a lot of grief growing up, but there were a couple of instances where I was stupid and had to own up to it, and neither I nor my parents blamed Lucio Fulci or Ronnie James Dio for it.

I did set my parents' garage on fire when me and a buddy were influenced by watching FRANKENSTEIN and all those people had cool flaming torches. We just wanted to emulate running around with sticks afire by dousing them with gasoline and lighting them up. A trail of gas went down my arm onto the garage floor. When striking a match to the soaked stick, flames licked up my arm - I threw the stick on the garage floor, which was puddled with ethyl and whoosh!

I was okay - garage damage was minimal. I was grounded but my parents never said, "NO MORE FRANKENSTEIN!!!"