Fighting about Fuck
SCOTUS is going to decide whether you and I can hear the words fuck and shit be uttered on the telly.
The court will review the Federal Communications Commission’s policy that even a one-time utterance of an obscene word on radio and television broadcasts during daytime and early evening hours is subject to punishment.
The lawsuit by Fox Broadcasting arose after the commission reprimanded the broadcaster for incidents in 2002 and 2003, when singer Cher and celebrity Nicole Richie, during live award shows, used variations of a vulgar four-letter word.
The reprimand came after the FCC in 2004 reversed its position and said even "fleeting" expletives exposed the network to sanctions.
I don’t know why they feel the need to do this. I think Miguel Estrada should have had the last word on this issue (I can’t believe I said that), when he wrote:
the “F-word” is often used to express intense (and clearly nonsexual) feelings—even by political leaders. For example, Vice President Cheney’s retort of “Fuck yourself” to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on the floor of the Senate chamber in 2004 was widely reported. See, e.g., Cheney Utters ‘F-Word’ in Heated Exchange With Leahy, THE FRONTRUNNER, June 25, 2004.
In a display of bipartisan understanding that the “‘F-Word’” has non-sexual meanings, Senator John Kerry explained his vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq by asking “Did I expect George Bush to fuck it up as badly as he did? I don’t think anybody did.” Will Dana, John Kerry’s Desperate Hours, ROLLING STONE, Dec. 25, 2003; see 32 also Michael Elliott & James Carney, First Stop, Iraq, TIME, Mar. 31, 2003, at 172 (quoting President Bush as saying to a group of U.S. Senators, “F___ Saddam. We’re taking him out.” (omission in original)).
[snip]
The “‘S-Word’” has non-excretory application in public discourse, as well. In July 2006, as reported in newspapers and aired on cable networks, President Bush remarked to British Prime Minister Tony Blair that the United Nations needed to “get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit.” Peter Baker, Bush’s Bull Session: Loud and Clear, Chief, WASH. POST, July 18, 2006, at C1; see also, e.g., Transcript, CNN American Morning, LEXIS Transcript 071705CN.V74 (July 17, 2006). Surely no observer—not even the Commissioners—could believe the President was making reference to Hezbollah’s “excretory activities.” [I’ve added the fucks and shits back where Greenberg removed them]
If Cheney can tell Leahy to go fuck himself on the floor of the Senate, then Bono ought to be able to use the term too.
But apparently Scalia and Alito want their chance to write fuck and shit in a court opinion, too.
Frankly, until President Obama or President Clinton appoints a couple new justices, I’d rather have these guys be ruling on this issue. Better decide whether we can say fuck or shit for the next year than to have them carve out more privileges for corporations.
Always a case of do as I say and not as I do
Should have been beneath SCOTUS notice, but dirty word arguments can be entertaining for our highest bench, apparently. Have a ball & a biscuit, Scalia & Co…
BTW, ew, they may not have Beamish, but this pub in Alexandria (a hop, skip, & jump from downtown DC by Metro) was wonderful when relatives, friends, & I spent several eves there last Aug:
Murphy’s Pub, Alexandria VA
Off to work. Read you all later.
I expect we’ll have Scalia and Thomas writing the Majority opinion which in short will say: “Listen up fookers, no more of this shite! And your mother wears Army boots.”
I can’t believe no one has pointed this out. Scalia and Thomas(along with Robers and Alito) are in a tough position here. Do they rule that Bono was out of bounds(and therefore stick it to Faux and Murdoch? Or do they bend over for Rupert and let Fuck be aired? Is there some legal jujitsu where they can say Fuck can’t be aired yet rule for Faux?
Those seven dirty words, Lenny Bruce is laughing in his grave.
Why would they be ruling only on radio and telly and not on other forms of publishing? (Like us, eg. *gulp*)
When I was a little kid just learning to read (a long time ago), cartoon characters even then would say things in anger like “@#&$!+%&$#^*,” which puzzled me when I was five or six, so I made up a word, “bricklefritz,” to sound out for myself on such occasions. I still use it sometimes because the f-word still has a lot of power for me.
As someone who has cared for a dying partner who was incontinent, though, I think it is very important that people learn to talk about shit, even and maybe especially in its literal excretory application. I’m actually fairly determined to make some of our public authorities drop their prissiness about shit; they often use superficial manners and the proprieties as a way of covering up their irresponsible neglect of people who need help and serious care. Manners are not morals. (Sorry: this is a crusade of mine.)
Wow… what a great way for SCOTUS to make itself irrelevant. What on earth were they thinking when they took this case? SCOTUS only accepts something like 1 case out of 50 petitions, and it’s spending time on Cher’s obscenities…?
OTOH, I’d rather that Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas fuss and froth over Cher’s obscenities, rather than continue to enable oil corporations to avoid any responsibility for environmental damage caused by oil spills.
Wow.
Maybe next week they’ll tell us how many angels are allowed to dance on the head of a pin.
I’m thinking more than 500 at any given time should definitely be illegal; too much risk of ruffled angel wings in such a tiny space.
skdadl, loved your comment.
Fuck this shit!
bmaz I busted out laughing when I read this
What choices lie between totally banning certain words and banning any word ban? Quotas? Leaving it to the networks and content providers to set policies?
Oh, my God.
An imminent triumph of Conservative jurisprudence.
Has E. Brent Bozell reproduced?
Just curious.
Aha. I’d wondered why this paper was up to no.13 on the SSRN Top Papers list this week.
Btw, here’s the current top paper; it’s been top 20 or so in general of late.
Brilliant, prostratedragon–thanks for pointing that out.
EW,
It’s hard for me to take a position on this AS a parent and progressive. There have been times when we have sat down as a family to share in a televised event together only to have it ruined for our kids because of an exposure to words or concepts (during prime time) that we would prefer to “chose when and where” to talk to our kids about them. (Once sending two of my kids into tears for an hour.)
So now, we almost never watch prime time because we cannot trust what will be broadcast. Many might say, ‘Well that’s your choice.”
Yes and no. When a child bursts into tears at something on the television, broadcasting at 7 PM, then my personal choice gets “bumped” from the outside unexpectantly. I know my choice, “Shut it off.”
I am for free speech. Unfortunately, free speech on the television during prime time means a lack of choice at times for a portion of the population… In our house, we’ve accepted the “shut off” as our choice.
I’m sure I’ll probably get labeled a DLC member or something. I guess my “parent concerns” make it impossible for me to be a true “progressive”. Lately, lots of “delayed concept exposure” happens for the sake of my kids readiness…Having children was definitely a choice and my personal choice should not deny others…
I wish there was some type of “balanced” approach. And if allowing “anything” during Prime Time becomes the practice, then get rid of the word Prime Time. Prime Time infers a broader audience viewing time. But language openess would deplete the primeness.
Sorry bmaz and EW. I do not mean to offend anyone here. It is simply a tightrope walk for me as a parent in light of our efforts to raise our kids with strong social and political awareness.
I imagine I’ll be “railled” on for even posting this… I have no clear answers but I would hope dialogue could happen and not just a simple line drawn in the sand.
So because I don’t use “F**&” am I not a progressive or welcomed as one? If so, I’m a voter without a party…
Not at all–you’re allowed to not use the word fuck (we actually had a long discussion about this last night at TBA).
To me, though, it just puts it all into perspective. We’ve got a lot of things children shouldn’t see on the telly–but our willingness to hide those things from everyone means we don’t do anything about them.
But then, I’d rather have Scalia messing with this than torture, because I know how he’d rule on torture.
EW,
That’s why the idea of Prime Time was created. The concept was built on “acceptable” stuff during a child’s awake hours and more adult content later.
It seemed to make sense…I guess it does not anymore.
I am glad there was dialogue about this at TBA. I have been experiencing a great deal of “close out” from progressives lately just because of positions on issues as a parent. I honestly have this sense that I do not belong to any political party or view nor do I see myself as an independent voter.
Then you can be a member of the “Wheelers”, the most enlightened of all parties. And we do know how to party. Here is the thing, both instances at issue were in the context of live award shows or something similar and were random utterances by an individual, not the design or plan of the network or it’s affiliates. Personally, I am much more hinky about my daughter seeing five million ads for Viagra that directly talk about sexual performance and some of the contrived pitter patter and situations on network shows involving a whole host of lame situations that my daughter didn’t, or doesn’t, necessarily need to be exposed to. In my eyes, this is much more of a concern than a one off excited utterance by an individual on a live awards show; but we are talking about the latter and not the former. I watched the Super Bowl halftime show with Janet Jackson. The whole show was so intentionally raunchy and suggestive as to be putrid (disclosure: i am more of a Stones/Doors/Zeppelin kind of guy; just don’t care for hip hop or whatever the hell that stuff is). The infamous “wardrobe malfunction” however was so brief and fleeting that I was looking right at the TeeVee and still didn’t see anything. And converse to the rest of the production, the wardrobe malfunction, that would have interested me. Moral of my story is this: If you want to clean up prime time, fine do it; but this prurient tisk tisking over a random one word utterance by an unrestrained individual in a live telecast is bullshit and symptomatic of the butt ugly two faced hypocrisy of the Republican censors.
The best tool for parental control of content that children are exposed to is a wonderful bit of technology called TiVo. Most calbe companies offer similar DVRs.
It is not all that expensive. Being able to see what you choose to see when you want to see it is life changing.
Please note that I have no financial interest in TiVo.
But I can’t imagine life without it.
I haven’t missed a single Bill Moyers Journal since I acquired this technology
You can read more here:
http://www.civilrights.org/pre…..r-out.html
I appreciate your perspective and advice on TiVo and cable. However, the families that fall under the 21 million who cannot even afford the $25 for the converter box (with government coupon) get to what? TiVo?
Let’s try some other reality based suggestions…
And your cable company knows precisely what you’ve recorded, when and from what broadcast, and when and how often you play it back. TiVo tells them so every evening when it reverse downloads your individualized viewing habits, over which the cable company claims exclusive ownership, including the unrestricted right to exploit and sell it.
A simple dvd or vhs recorder accomplishes the same thing with less loss of privacy. As for the parenting angle, some words and images are truly unseemly, even for me. IMHO, kids understand things through their own lenses; a few calm words about correct literal and emotive meaning often prove boringly sufficient and get them to move on. Adults are often more upset than their children, which causes a chain reaction more harmful than the original broadcast. But excuse me while I go peepee.
Well, the world would be a far better place if more people — whether they be parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, or neighbors — put as much thought, care, and energy into their kids as you appear to do.
Swearing is a personal preference; for my family, it’s elevated into an art form. But what’s not tolerated is lying; swearing is tolerated, lying is not.
I’m emphatically with bmaz that the most disturbing things to talk about with your kids are things like Abu Gharib, torture. Beyond sick.
But I just find it unbelievably in sad that the Fed is basically telling all our kids that they have to underwrite criminal activity, while they’re surveilling Eliot Spitzer, and SCOTUS is fretting over the f-word.
When did we become so stupid…?
no kidding, thanks MW! I hope Jeralyn will look this over and realize that it takes courage to be a great blogger. There are a lot of people that say it but can’t stand to look at it or they get the vapors!
imagine a word more painful than murder? That’s a household word to people comfortable with war and plunder.
This whole censure thing on TV/Radio is stupid. Just NO ‘adult’ programs until after 9pm (younger kids should be in bed by then! and the older ones can already out swear most adults).
Thats how it was when I was growing up in the UK. Of course, as strange as it sounds, the British/Europeans are far far looser then the US…
I was shock when I realized they had ‘censured’ the movie Blue Lagoon over here…(US) SAD…
Well now, there’s a point! Maybe there are other things we could flood the system with … let’s see, how are the high school dresscode rulings doing?
SSRN is a pretty good repository of abstracts in econ and law especially. Often you can download the whole paper. Free subscr. is the usual e-mail damage.
I might not want to see a guy with his extreme views on SCOTUS, but you gotta admit, Miguel writes one heck of a brief.
I have always admired hsi writing style.
I agree, the excerpts are a beautiful legal opinion. I wonder if Estrada might have a different approach because of a Latin heritage? I know that among French Canadians, the worst kind of profanities are blasphemous use of religious phrases (”Tabernacle” and “Calisse”, ie the tabernacle where communion hosts are stored, and chalice) – whereas we Anglo Saxons get worked up over sexual and excretory “obscenities”. I wonder if he would take the same approach in a “blasphemy” case, and would it matter if it were Islamists or Evangelicals who were complaining? Just being devils’ advocate here!
The issue of what is said and portrayed on the telly goes far beyond whether “fuck” and “shit” may be uttered over the TV airways freely or uttered only with the price of the fine. I don’t think this decision will affect cable networks, will it? I certainly don’t see this decision affecting the quality of programming in any way. Audience equals advertising revenue. There is an big audience for “provocative.” Witness MSNBC’s To Catch A Predator. There’s just no accounting for bad taste.
I don’t envy parents whose kids are savvy enough to know what programming is available that they are not permitted to watch. In my youth, it was afternoon TV like Gilligan’s Island, harmless if not silly. Martin, a neighborhood friend, was allowed to watch but not so at my house. I can only imagine what kids get exposed to when parents don’t configure the v-chip.
I’m with EW on this one, better that the SJC occupy itself deliberating fuck and shit on teevee than making precedent on more important issues.
We have a TV made prior to 2000 and a VCR as well. No V-chip configuration going on here (and we are anti cable).
All the answers coming forward for my family are “working” answers as long as the appropriate amount of money is spent for the safeguards.
Again, I think about the 21 million with viewership who just have to “shut it off”.
bmaz, I TOTALLY agree. Advertising has been an enormous issue for us. Your additional points, could not agree more.
Agreed, but we would be stupid to think (this) SCOTUS would not jump on something like this. Of course it’s a waste of time and tax dollars. But has anyone taken on the dialogue that I have stated? Would progressives even go near it really? I am just wondering out loud.
My point is, in one sense as yours is, do not draw a line in the sand. I agree, there should be a better way than this to address Prime Time and not with the live broadcasts that brought on the cases.
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I appreciated it. There’s got to be a balance somewhere that lies beyond TiVo and v-chip…
from prostratedragon’s SSRN page:
i think i know how this whole discussion has coe about .. in current times it is impossible ot aptly explain just how severely the bush administration has cobbled someing up without resorting to such language as ” boy isn’t this shit fucked up” ..
i’d cite john kerry’s remarks as the proof of the puddin’ btw ..
and lol .. you go bmaz … first blood …
Speaking of which, anybody feel like parsing Silvestre Reyes’ latest statement on FISA?
Words that could be taken as blasphemous or as “taking the Lord’s name in vain” tend to fare better with electronic editors in the USA than do the commonly-redacted words that taken literally are of a sexual or excretory nature, I’ve long noticed.
congressman reyes seems to intimate that the PPA had shit all fucked up by the nre bill H.R. 3773 has gotten shit unfucked.. i tend to agree with that assessment.
we all know what’s wrong here .. georgie and his minions ..not being very bright .. forgot to cross all the “t’s” and dot all the “i’s” when they were going about their skulduggery of implementing the previously congressionally forbidden DARPA/poindexter T.I.A. program .. and they are about o be outed by discovery in a civil case or two .. leaving them open to charges of having committed felonies under US Law ..
the only way to cover their tracks and put the information sure to damn them ..as well as finally reveal to us all their illegal activity in fact ..and at law .. is to squelch the discovery in the civil suits and the only way to do that is to kill the suits ..and the only way to do that is to grant retroactive immunity to the telecoms. who laready have immunity if their actions came at the behest of a legal request from the gub’mint ..
so .. the only thing left is that georgie and boys didn’t vcomply with the law .. or alternately went way outside the scope of the law’s intent ..
in short they’ve got their shit all fucked up.. and are now desperate to cover the whole catbox ..
reyes email was informative .. i dn’t see any wavering in there concerning 3773 … which ..imo .. is a good thing ..
whoa ..forgive the typos please .. my RA is really screwing my hands this morning … Jkat
And another thing! I try to have my daughter watch the news so she understands the world. Regular network level news. For quite some time, thanks to the same Republican Administration that wants to censor Cher, Richie and Bono and impose massive fines on networks that had no intent, she was forced to endure watching pictures of nearly naked Arab men strung up like jesus with electrodes and wires going to their testicles. Right there on the same network TeeVee. I ask, which is more harmful to our youth, the abu-Ghraib scenes or a fleeting one word utterance by a washed up celebrity? The whole concept of what SCOTUS is considering today is some fucked up shit.
Spot on, as always … my kids walk by a high school every morning, where there are hundreds of kids smoking and using foul language … and I had a talk about the “F” word with my kids when they were 3 & 5 because they heard some kid use it on the playground …
FYI, one of my kids asked me, “Why do they make flavored Condoms?”
I’d appreciate the infinite wisdom of this blog to provide an answer … I side stepped it with some Krispy Kreme Donuts but I’m sure it will be raised again … *g*
yep fucked up shit.
Indecent is what how we tortured Iraqis at abu Grhaib. Indecent is how civilian military leaders gave the order and skirted responsibility.
pardon me .. but is TV now considered as some kind of basic right ?? those who can’t abide it’s standards .. or lack of them.. aren’t compelled to watch.
while i appreciate that all parents ..and mothers more than most .. would wish to spare their children each bump and bruise and small cut encounted while growing up ..and to protect their innocence in perpetuity i suppose.. having raised four children to maturity who now have children of their own i can assure you it’s not possible .. and i’m not even if it’s preferable in terms of the preparation for life after childhood ..
to me it seems as if the demand is akin to the security debate .. the apparent expectation that we be protected from all things at all times .. without fail or surcease…and that’s not a reasonable expectation ..
nor is it reasonable imo .. to expect any public media to operate in such a manner as to insulate each and every person from a violation of their personal standards of pickyness..
there are those who would argue that “shucky-darn” is beyond the pale
TV isn’t a right .. and the expectation to live free of offense .. and that one’s children be insulated to whatever one’s particular standards of cloaking might be is unrealistic .. imo
i personally think tampon adds .. and ads for women’s hygenic douches are much more revealing and damaging than an occasional slip of a vulgar term .. and “vulgar” of course is sensiblilty which isn’t uniform amongst the population as a whole .. what offends me might be instrumental to you .. or vice versa ..
I’m trying to imagine a conversation between Scalia and Cheney while hunting together. I bet the air would be so blue they wouldn’t be able to see the fowl.
The Roberts Court only does two kinds of cases, those where they fuck around and those where they fuck us over. It’s just so much legal porn.
Heh, thats about right.
Ah.
So apt.
This very topic took up hours and an entire thread of exchanges between citizen journalists for an independently produced news site last week.
In question:
– was the use of the F-word and the N-word by white supremacists/nationalists in threats against Obama “news” that should be quoted in full, original context or no?
– was the use of the N-word by Detroit’s mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in last week’s State of the City speech “news” that should be quoted in full, original context?
WaPo already decided for us with an article yesterday about Kwame’s use of the N-word; the use of the word was a story, but the repetition of the word in the story wasn’t acceptable for WaPo.
Still have no decision about the first question in re: white supremacists’ story.
Personally, I think we need to figure out how to remove the N-word from our culture; repeating the word doesn’t reduce its negative connotation, only legitimizes and reinforces its use as a meme. Derogatory words about other races and ethnic groups have died out, but they were dropped from everyday speech; my kids would have no idea what negative terms were used about persons of Jewish or Polish, Irish, Italian heritage for example, because they never hear those words. That’s what needs to happen with the N-word.
The F-word, on the other hand, is merely out of vogue now at this time; there were words like that in the past that weren’t acceptable and are now used all the time. Remember how shocking George Carlin’s “Seven Words” schtick was when he first used it in live comedy? No big deal now, eh?
Jkat
That was interesting to read. Just sent it off to Civilrights.org
Look, life happens and every parent faces this reality in parenting. And many parents do the work to navigate their children through understanding life including watching the news. However, I have never experienced any kind of a “thoughtful” response on the concerns of full “open language” versus some kind of other consideration. I hear equal passion from opposing sides…no willingness for a solution that lies beyond a personal expenditure.
Look, I know bmaz knows I do not have my kids “in a bubble”. With all that I have shared wrt my oldest son’s participation on progressive issues, bmaz knows quite well.
ROT,
I am emphatically with bmaz too. It IS beyond sick. But there are many who cannot afford the “stop gaps” to have some parental input like tiVo and v-chip. So those who are “for” total open language at all broadcasting times have the freedom to just view. Others, have to shut it off.
I still do not think there are any easy answers here. And you are spot on when you write:
I do indeed know that. And I don’t know what the answer is. I agree with the proposition that TV is not a right and it is kind of caveat emptor (buyer/user beware); I also agree with your thoughts. I do know this much, I am serious that I am much more concerned about a whole host of things on TV than I am the occasional utterance of “fuck” or “shit” by an individual in a live setting. Out of everything we have discussed, that is the one that just doesn’t do much for me. I don’t think it should be encouraged or condoned particularly, but it pales in comparison to so much else. There ought to be some happy middle ground, but if it gets down to one or the other, I will tend toward the open and uncensored over the opposite alternative.
bmaz, I agree.
I will say, after working in at-risk neighborhoods it is a “hard pill” to swallow (in light of ads dialogue here, so sorry for that one) -the thought that it’s not a right… when there are “free” airwaves if you can get your hands on a TV. I would have a difficult time stating to one of the families I have worked with, “This is not for you…unless…” TV is a source of connection to the greater society…
John L. @ 44. Thanks for your post. Ditto ROT @ 50, Ishmael and LHP…
While the Administration and SCOTUS are fiddling with “fuck”, the real shit is hitting the fan and our country is burning like Rome.
BUT WAIT! There is more sex to talk about! Those naughty New Yorkers have another pot boiler going up there in that hothouse flowerbed known as Albany! Now both Paterson and his wife had affairs in the late 90s and early 00s; and Paterson apparently had multiple affairs, including one with a subordinate. WWRS??? What Will Republicans Say? Oh my….
Bruno at least is safe. Sheep don’t talk.
You are WICKED!!!
;-))
Thats b a a a a d Hugh!
rOTL – You have been agreeing with me an awful lot lately; you feeling okay? Does this mean you will be cheering the Sun Devils come this fall? I actually kind of like 24, it’s just a TV show to me but maybe the most thriller type seat of your pants, edge of your chair, TV I have ever seen. Is it gratuitous on the torture stuff; yeah, probably it is. But to me it is just a TV show, not a vehicle for either side of the torture argument.
Ummmm… I’m just taking tons of ‘breaks’ because what I’m supposed to be doing is driving me bats. Clearly, not a good day for me 8^p
I will no way in f*cking hell be rooting for Sun Devils this year, nor any other godda*n year. You insulting a$$ho*e ;-))
If I can figure out time to make a little diagram of mirror neurons, I’ll send to along. Those images enter your optic nerves; travel up your brain, and your ‘mirror neurons’ process them. They were discovered by accident, when some researchers wondered why regions in the brain of Monkey A — who was ONLY WATCHING Monkey B eat a peanut — lit up in the region that they assumed would light up **only** when Monkey A was eating. Thus, they stumbled on ‘mirror neurons’. (Wikipedia has more. Probably of interest to a criminal atty, BTW.)
What we see (or envision), we become.
Our visions precede our actions; we make the world as we dream it to be.
“24″ is bad for your brain, although I have no doubt it’s compelling. If it weren’t, there wouldn’t be an audience.
Speaking of sports… where’s freep?
Still no Beamish for you after that comment at 49.
Mamma mia.
…As if the very idea about having to explain ‘flavored condoms‘ wasn’t all I needed for one morning 8^0
When I finally moved to a European country a while ago for a year stay I was shocked to discover civilian newspapers printed a system of ratings so parents would know whether their progeny would be viewing safely appropriate for age and societal subgroup material. At the time in the US by contradistinction, public press had no such rating system. Times have changed.
To me scatological language is a momentary revelation of internal anger and discord, a kind of misplaced weakness, though not to wax overly homiletic.
Somehow I viewed a swatch of some LBruce monologues at the POnion when visiting that area a while ago, and found the worry which permeated the performance vitiating to what might have been a funny routine if written carefully before the show, and polished.
I once studied video production with an acquaintance of a notoriously quick witted television comic; theirs was a trade relationship. The comic remains active, though less so now than a decade ago, so he will remain unnamed here. Our producer-trainer afforded us the treat of reviewing a complete reel of out-takes from the comic routines the performer had delivered to us from his editors’ studio. Some deleted clips were obscene, but some also were nonairable because of content describing behavior. Ironically, I think Scalia and Thomas both have fairly open records about lurid speech; years ago there was an interesting scotusblog parsing of those two Associate Justices’ votes on a range of speech-related cases. Predictably, college age adults have intense interest in openness of speech and its relation to ideals; Prof.DougLinder has one of the most ample sites examining a range of subjects his students enjoy exploring in his constitutional law coverage of first amendment issues; the webpage design is somewhat eccentric, so to see the compendium of speech links to his subpages, scroll about 2/3 of the distance down the homepage. There are varieties of speech more perilous for society than vulgarisms; Linder explores those evenly, though in limited fashion, at that site.
There is a lot of bizarre material out there in the image world. I was interested to see MRoget’s site linked above. But I am outside the television world for the nonce, so much of the flap in Scotus has little bearing on my personal quotidian variables. During a few years I had the pleasure of transporting a friend’s daughter to highschool in a savvy and aware part of the US; I chafed when we would be mired in vehicle traffic crawling close to campus and some nearby bumperstickers and window decals depicting the rude imaginations of those cars’ owners’ would become legible in the jam. Steel emblazoned with talismans of brave confusion. Yet, what municipality is prepared to ban decals; rhetorical question. What Pinal county is doing to the San Pedro riparian protected zone is more obscene than a highschool decal.
You can always discern which car in the parking area is mine: it has no bumper stickers, and the only decal is the yacht parking lot pass.
I agree about the scale of obscenities which seems inverted in some Scotus rulings. I would hope the Justices recognize there is political hay to be made in Martin’sFCC’s levying fines for expletives aired undelayed, and that consequently Scotus will declare the matter unjusticiable after all. I read this article citing one of the most irrascible of the Justices; the text records his preferred kinds of torture he would like to see legalized in the US. I doubt I would attempt to explain that to children as something other than his own aspiration for fame or perhaps his confusion about the function of human affection.
The issue of the extent to which words like “fuck” and “shit” are permissible in public, on the airwaves, on the blogs, in newspapers and in books really goes to the heart of the First Amendment. With respect to the “what about the children!” argument, I turn, as I so often do when faced with a parenting issue, to the words of Atticus Finch, who said as follows:
“Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they’re not attracting attention with it, hotheadedness isn’t.”
In other words, I am dismayed much more by the disrespect Dick Cheney showed to Senator Leahy than the vocabulary he used to express it. I once worked for a senior partner who treated fuck as a prefix, suffix, gerund, adjective, verb and noun in virtually every sentence, but he never said it in anger and was universally loved, while I can think of others who were far more cruel, cutting and hated despite all their “gosh, darns”.
FWIW, the Sopranos are shown in prime time in Canada on a national network, uncut and uncensored, with a strong warning to anyone who might be offended. In a 5000 channel universe, when far fewer are watching than in the days of the Big Three, I think that there are far less compelling reasons for any kind of censorship, other than some kind of review for complaints on a license renewal.
Hearing about a man’s problem with ”erections” is far more offensive to me…..how do we explain it to the kids?
You just tell them that it means “when the moment is right” and that the moment for them comes when they are 34. *g*
But I can’t wait for the virtual excitement of being told that I may have a problem that lasts longer than four hours. That contraindication is actually a marketing tool.
Sex is OK when it makes money for sponsors, not when it’s used for enjoyment by political opponents. In contrast, even the prudish BBC occasionally broadcasts a woman’s bare breast, but not the clips from those American thrillers showing her chest blown apart by a shotgun. Which is the more obscene?
I always wondered if the punchline to “a problem that lasts longer than four hours” should be:
Call a neighbor!
…and I seem to recall that Justice Scalia was alleged to have uttered an Italian profanity “Vafancul”, along with accompanying gestures, in public to his critics, although he later denied saying the words (the gesture was on film though). Roughly translated it is “go fuck yourself”.
JohnLopresti @44: I’m with you on the whole concept that bulldozing riparian zones (!!) after redesignating them as ‘public domain’ to argue an emergency rezone/redesignation is just obscene. Absolutely obscene. But to understand all the reasons why, requires brain cells and an attention span larger than that of a mouse.
And if anyone here REALLY wants to get into a discussion about ‘bad teevee’, I could launch into an explanation about the neurons known as ‘mirror cells’, and what they suggest for the social toxicity of content like “24″ and its reputed torture scenes. To say nothing about the fact that evidently Scalia is a viewer, and if we take Scott Horton’s posts as credible evidence, Scalia is now taking his legal opinions from a televison show that portrays torture as a ‘patriotic’ activity.
Man, if Jack Bauer says ‘the f-word’, then perhaps Scalia will decide it’s an acceptable word…?
The mind boggles.
klynn at 10 and 18:
I am sympathetic to any parent, guardian, aunt or uncle trying to instill human values and protect young ones. (Yes, I also like a good apple pie. Duh-oh!)
However, I think the varied replies, above, show that you will not get any real world, no-cost solutions to this dilemma over bad words on the teevee. Because –
“Protect the Little Children” is such a reliable Trojan Horse to stealth transport CENSORSHIP and SOCIAL MIND CONTROL.
First is the presumption about how much responsibility The Commons bears for raising the offspring of individuals.
The Commons is damned well responsible for stuff like food without poison in it … protection from pedophiles … and how about that SCHIP child health care, which, unlike television, IS a right.
When The Commons is supposed to substitute for parental guidance — for anything that may befall a clueless child — then we got problems. Like prescription child-proof caps that lock most seniors out of their meds? (In some states, you can certify to the pharmacist that there ARE NO CHILDREN in your residence so you can get Rx vials your arthritic mom can open. How about moms and dads keeping their prescription meds out of reach??)
Which words are okay for TV is even more problematic, cuz it ain’t just audio track words on television. It’s nuclear sticks and stones images AND scripts — endless shootings, murders and murder investigations, slapping women around, mindlessly evil stalkers and serial killers to Increase Paranoia Quotients. And don’t forget those ads for “amazing” remedies for Limp Dick. An occasional and fleeting audio “fuck” or “shit” can not hold a candle to the relentless Violence & Viagra theming of even Prime Time television.
Your only remedy, klynn, without employing the V-Chip, is to use your TV as a playback unit for which YOU are the Content Programmer. DVDs, VHS tapes of your choice. Broadcast, Cable and OnDemand television will NEVER reach Child-Safe thresholds; so take control over what your children are allowed to see.
Second, as a lifelong defender of the Bill of Rights (including Free Speech) and a 30-year member of the ACLU — who is neither pedophile nor child-hater — I am very suspicious when someone says, “I do not believe in censorship” BUT BUT BUT; then ends on the speculation, “Maybe I can not be accepted by a Liberal ‘Progressive’ crowd.”
That’s right-wing framing: Liberals and Progressives are perverts who don’t care about The Little Children. And, it is right-wing-nuts on the Supreme Court about whom emptywheel posted this piece.
ew has an excellent argument — Shiny-Thing-Distraction for the SCOTUS Droolers and Knuckle-Draggers! If they are wasting their limited brain cells on trying to scrub longtime Dutch-origin English cognates (”fock” and scatalogical “shit”) from all public venues, well then they are too busy being censors to pass more Torture Is Dandy decisions, OR to keep dismissing cases involving treason, war crimes, ignoring Congressional subpoenaes, et. al.
Here droolie SCOTUSes; Here little Fascist Poppas. We got some Bad Words for you to scrub from the public airwaves. Just like not seeing flag-draped coffins arrive at Andrews Air Force Base, if the great unwashed masses don’t see it or hear it, then it ceases to exist. Eh?
Every censor’s wet dream.
klynn .. i was perhaps 10 years old before i saw a television and we didn’t own one until i 12 or so .. and the reception where i lived wsn’t very good .. as a consequence i never watched much televison and i don’t to this day .. i used to run the kids outdoors and make them play rather than allowing them to sit glued to the tube ..and i encouraged reading ..
i’d advise you that your best course is to encourage other interests and de-emphasize that infernal black box as much as you can .. and food luck with those children .. i’m certain you’ll do your best..
I enjoyed 24 for a couple of seasons when it was all fast action and cardboard characters that left no time to think about anything. But then torture began to intrude a little too often on and off the screen and it began to seem less a throwaway plot device and more a perverse fetish of sometime torturer and sometime torturee Jack Bauer.
I kind of agree with that to some extent. I thought the first and second season was some of the best TV I have ever seen, maybe the best, in the action/thriller genre. It has not been as good since then, but, at least to me, better than a lot of stuff, so I watch.
rOTL – Despite your intransigence, you are still loved here in Devil Country…
bmaz: – Despite your
intransigence, discerning sensibilitiesyou are still loved here in Devil Country…All fixed now
—————–
MDV, and others interested, some years back I was talking with some psychs and ed psychs about issues related to early aggression and anti-social behavior. We were talking about teevee and ‘violent content’ and after a bit, I felt like I was watching people chase each other round in circles faster, and faster, and faster, until they almost turned into a blur. They were talking about CONTENT, without paying the least bit of attention to how that content is created in the first place, and how the way in which its created tends to bias the nature of what is portrayed.
So I started to wonder whether the CONTENT was the issue, or whether technologies related to film production, and the editing styles could offer more insight about the problem of antisocial behavior. I came home and videotaped a bunch of cartoons, plus Sesame Street, and Mr. Rogers. Then I timed the edits in all three. The two most interesting were Mr. Rogers vs. some violent robot-kill-everything-right-now cartoon.
I quickly discovered that for the robot-kill-everything-right-now afternoon kiddie cartoon, the AVERAGE edit length was 1.2 seconds. In other words, the image remained onscreen only long enough to be seen, and then changed. So it’s tailor-made for ‘bam! crash! kowplowee!!’ No character said a sentence more than 10 words long (kinda like Arnold Schwartzenegger’s movie dialogs). And the action shifted rapidly — lending itself to hitting, smacking, crashing, and general mayhem. We don’t have good long term studies on the very long term, long lasting impacts of exposure day, after day, after day to that kind of teevee (apart from, say, rising obesity rates in children).
I don’t hope that anyone reading this will actually watch Fred Rogers reruns, but nevertheless, I’ll note that the AVERAGE edit length of the Mister Rogers shows I tested were 5.6 seconds. Some people call him ‘boring’, but he’s a very calming, slow-paced, speaker – and that allows kids to see his face, focus on it, and then have time to absorb what he’s telling them before the image shifts. In other words, he’ll speak an actual sentence before the camera moves… remember that he’s talking to an audience of 2 – 5 year olds, whose little brains are still absorbing language.
What does this have to do with “Fighting About F*ck?”
Well… if you’ve grown up on rapid-motion, rapid-shift, rapid-edit cartoons, followed by years of MTV, then you have a different expectation, and a different ‘rhythm’ that you expect from communication.
But of more concern to me is the issue of what can actually be conveyed in 1.2 seconds. You can’t say a reasonable sentence that fast. You can’t negotiate that fast. Quick edit styles — which I assume are used to create the quick-transitions and visual effects of ‘24′, are compelling to watch. But I’d argue that they limit what can be said; they strangle it. The lead to a dumb, blind, unthinking acceptance of sound-bite politics.
It doesn’t occur to the American government, much less the public, to tell the media corporations that when it comes to politics, they’ll have to DONATE 30 minutes per day, uninterupted, for broadcast of 28-minute, uninterupted interviews with federal candidates. If we thought about how humans seek out, absorb, and process information, we’d insist on ‘radical’ things like this. Because to squeeze politics into the same ‘container’ as a beer ad or a car ad is social insanity.
Yet we act as if political conversation shouldn’t be treated any differently than beer commercials or hair shampoo. That’s like saying f*ck, f*ck, f*ck let’s all be stoopid, dudes. The MSM’s idiotic one-size-fits-all-and-everything-is-equally-trivial is like pushing the pedal to the metal so that we can all get stupider, faster.
That media model is tailor made for a sociopath like Karl Rove; it’s made for short term, disposable, forgettable messages that have no means of meeting any standards for accountability.
To argue about CONTENT is what people usually do.
Which is why we end up with idiotic stupidity like a US Supreme Court worrying whether Bono or Cher can say ‘f*ck.’
What we really need is a media that can give Bono the time to be heard about his expertise on Africa, about his experiences and what he’s seeing in the world. If our media were configured into longer, more sane ‘conversations’ then if he said ‘f*ck during a 20 minute interview, I doubt most people would even notice.
It’s when we get these short, cognitively damaging, cut-and-switch styles of media that we end up fussing over stupid, erroneous, ultimately futile issues like ‘did he say f*ck? And should we fine him for it?’
I don’t give a damn whether you think certain content should be allowed, or not allowed.
More harm is done in permitting young, growing brains to sit in front of screens where images flicker every 1.2 seconds — for up to 4 hours every single day!!! — than is done by saying the f-word.
If SCOTUS were going to grapple with what ails us, they’d rule that short edit cuts should be outlawed in ANY content created for anyone under the age of 16.
And I’d be willing to lay a heavy bet that if they did that, the next generation would have higher, better reading scores.
The damage we do is subtle, we don’t fund the research to really examine what happens over long periods of time to exposure to certain kinds of media. Until we do that, we squander our time fretting over f*ck, while allowing every growing brain to get f*cked over by our ignorance, stupidity, and ruthless grasping after ad dollars.
It’s not WHAT we communicate.
It’s HOW we construct those communications.
We get hung up on ‘what’.
The HOW is what’s making us stupid and toxic.
Great comment rOTL. I couldn’t agree more. How information is packaged gets to the very heart of our stunted political discourse. 40 minutes of a well thought out cogent argument (i.e., Obama’s speech) is infinitely more informative than 10 second excerpts from a sermon. Imagine the social/political dialogue that would be possible in our democracy if we were all accustomed to listening and discussing 40 minute speeches, rather than spewing vitriol over 10 second snippets devoid of their full context.
That 60 was supposed to be for Hugh’s #58.
Sigh…
Hugh at 49:
[Re: Spitzer Sex]
Bruno at least is safe. Sheep don’t talk.
Thank you, HUGH! As a NYer, longtime Albany watcher, and Bruno-hater, THAT IS THE 1ST TIME I have spewed all over the computer at the “Pussy Posse Vs. Spitzer” drama. Can we do a Woodie Allen sequel, where Bruno ends up unshaved, in the gutter, swilling Woolite???????
lol .and that “food luck” in my last was supposed to be “good luck” …but considering the status of the our food chain.. “food luck” coukld ju st as well be a nice sentiment towards anyone raising kids today …
It should surprise no one that it is Fox Noise that asks for the Court’s opinion – and will get it. The Bush Court in action. If the Court feels it necessary to opine about the legality of imposing a financial penalty for using obscene words on the public airwaves, perhaps it could give us its opinion about obscenely using words we rely on for everyday government.
– Orwell, “The Politics of the English Language”
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
MDV-
Wow… I’ll tell THAT one to my parents and family…They will just have the chuckle of their lives… I’ll stick with bmaz.
Thanks Hugh. Manage to do that currently.
30 – I think what is most harmful to our children is never seeing the scenes from Abu Ghraib, but that’s pretty much where we are going. We never see scenes of the real effects of our occupation in Iraq. The things that are left to be loaded into body bags, the brains that ooze from the holes in the head of the “collateral damage” or “the whole village is bad” toddler, we don’t show those.
I don’t cuss/swear much, don’t like how it revs up my already too rev’ed anger, but could care less when others do. Still, I have never really understood what makes “intercourse” and “excrement” acceptable, but other words that mean the same thing not-so-much.
But while you’re on the topic of censorship, McCain’s Navy is keeping us safe terrorism by censoring drawings made by a GITMO detainee – his representation of being strapped into a feeding tube chair is apparently so, well, so truthful, that the terrorists will win if we allow it to be seen.
Klynn, my children are now 39 and 37, but I shared your issues when they were young. We set the dial on the PBS station and took off the knob. 8-D PBS doesn’t have many award shows, no smirking advertising for personal products, and the schedule seems to honor the primetime concept.
We are all readers. Books are our vice. They played outside or did ranch chores daily.
Being progressive means thinking about your decisions and making a considered judgment about your own activities. Inflicting your decisions on everybody is the Republican way.
I resemble that remark. My evangelical duty is to bring you to the Light, and persuade you to buy my company’s products, whether they be religion, corn flakes or ED drugs. And to persuade you to enjoy them, but only after you’ve paid for them. Taking the knob off your television, other than the regrettable Freudian connotation (which must make Bush shiver), obstructs me in my duty and ought not to be alowed.
That seems to be the true neocon religion, which makes me a contented unbeliever.
lol
txellen ..my kids are almost as old as yours .. but reading that i asked myelf:
“geeze ..how long has it been since tv tuners had a knob”
ans: longer than i care to remember ..
.
Yeah, I think that Hayakawa and Korzybski would have a cow at the semantical distinctions that are made and violently argued over these days. Of course, that cow (1) would not be the same as another cow (2)….
My 75 was in response to Mary @68
“Intercourse the penguin.”
Graham Chapman
bmaz/skdaddle – damned if I didn’t just get time to go back to the Hatfill thread and was almost done with a kind of long response, when something clicked, made it all disappear, and said comments were now closed on that thread. *g*
I may, if I get time, go back and try to recreate bc I think that I still haven’t been clear and apparently in particular I wasn’t clear vis a vis Plame, but since it is more to clear that up and not so much bc I think you mind will change, I may just punt. If I do try to recreate(I need to learn to draft on word and just copy over bc I always have problems with my posts) I’ll dump it on an oldish thread and give you a heads up on a more recent one, so as not to break the flow.
Mary, I have a Hatfill post I will be putting up either Friday or this weekend sometime if it is really on that subject and can wait; otherwise, have at it wherever and let me know.
Thanks, Mary. My mind can usually be changed about most things. Civil liberties, mainly no, but the strange journos of the Washington press corps — I tell you, those guys (gender-neutral usage) really made me rethink some commitments.
TE
It’s great your kids had such great parenting.
We have similar approaches. We have a TV with a “knob”. We watch PBS. We read like crazy. Our kids read two 300+ page books a week. Our kids participate in 4 sports, play two instruments each, paint, and volunteer in at-risk neighborhoods and on environmental projects plus manage to enjoy time with friends…
ROT,
Interesting dialogue. Thanks. Shared with my oldest that apparently I have a new political party to join…He laughed and just shook his head.
BD @73,
Working on a “greening” report. Can multi-task here.
rOTL @ 11, thanks.
And prostratedragon @ 9, thanks also: on and off today I’ve been reading Solove on the “I’ve got nothing to hide” argument, which interests me — the very fact that an argument against it has to be mounted interests me. Forgive me for going on about my childhood, but I can’t have been more than ten or eleven when my dad (who was an old Tory of a kind that doesn’t exist any longer) taught me to stand up against that position. To him, it meant that the police could walk into your home at any time, tell you to go on with what you were doing while they just take a look around — “Don’t mind us: if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
I see that Solove is arguing that the variants are becoming more nuanced and therefore our defence against them has to be, but I’m not sure I agree. I found Posner’s way of putting the problem, eg, quite offensive. That doesn’t seem more nuanced to me; it seems like a degeneration of democratic thought, frankly.
But the problem is fascinating (the fact that we have to deal with it is interesting to a historian), and I haven’t finished reading yet, so I should stop there. Dürrenmatt was right: “A crime can always be found.”
76 – substitute a young Iraqi and use a phosphorescent light and if you just act it out instead of say it, you’ve got a scene for 24.
81 -ok. I may put it up when I have time and let you know and you can see how on point to Hatfill (as opposed to other stuff) it is and I can copy it over if it synchs with your post and we can just bury it if it doesn’t.
When I log in you send me to fdl to log in,which logs me into fdl but not you ,ew. what’s up?
At least we can form a common bond with the Iraqis on censorship.
Patrick Cockburn has a good summary piece up at the Independent where he mentions, in passing,
emph added
Those journalists should probably be glad they were beaten off before they got the pictures. Apparently, actually getting the pictures and letting people know what is happening can buy you a one way ticket to GITMO and if you take pulitizer prize winning pictures for the AP, it can cause you to be immediately disappeared by the US military in Iraq and held with no recourse, until you are handed over for a “secret trial” by Iraqi judges (who are good enough for AP photographers but not Blackwater killers), while still being held by — the U S military.
Registered. It hurts too much to say more than that.
Oh, a change has gotta come.