Janet's right breast better be a scoop of indisputable mammary magnificence. Otherwise her half-a-rack hasn't been worth all this ruffling of federal feathers and national nannyism.
The fallout from the antics of Her Boobness at the 2004 Super Bowl continues to swell, culminating last week in a freedom-of-speech malfunction when President Bush signed into law legislation that wallops TV/radio broadcasters with fines for "indecency" ratcheted up a whopping tenfold, from $32,500 to as much as $325,000 per violation. The president and Congress have turned the FCC into the baddest baby-sitter on the planet. ... Sorta.
Networks for years have been hemorrhaging viewers to cable, satellite services, Internet providers and home theater/DVD. The FCC action targets none of those, even though networks reside side by side with them on most systems, and viewers hardly differentiate anymore: The "humps" collared on Law & Order are just another choice next to the "c--ksuckers" populating Deadwood. The FCC wants to scrub clean the public airwaves, a quaint notion given that more than 85 percent of viewers receive TV through subscription-powered cable and satellite.
No matter how hefty the monetary hit from governmental guardians, Nielsen shrinkage and unabated advertiser bailout represent the bigger bogeyman—so let the screwing and profanity-spewing play on. And beyond wandering American eyeballs, the nets won't waver for fear of losing more writers, directors and performers to cable than have already written their resignations. Even bedeviled by vanishing viewers and talent defections, the nets, still luxuriating in millions in quarterly profits, aren't likely to double over in fiscal pain from federal wrist-slapping, even upgraded to wrist-breaking. So, as quick as you can say "screw the little guy," that leaves local stations to suffer for the decisions made by their affiliated networks or forced into insane censorship such as the infamous blackout by numerous cowed locals of Saving Private Ryan, fearful that the raw language in the midst of wartime carnage—entirely appropriate to an honest, honorable film and not the least bit gratuitous—would trigger FCC ire.
Sure, fines are designed to discourage less lofty free speech. It's tough to justify radio's Opie and Anthony encouraging listeners to hump in public—including at Manhattan's Saint Patrick's Cathedral, bestowing points for performance and describing the acts thrust by thrust, earning their station 13 indecency violations, fines totaling $357,500 and a threat to yank their license—as anything more than adolescent crap. But in a nation gone porno-chic, that feigns outrage while supporting a $10 billion-a-year "adult entertainment" industry, leave it to the government to try and unring a bell. Or do we even feign outrage when analysis of the FCC complaints reveals the bulk of them result from e-mail campaigns by the Parents Television Council and the Christian Coalition (which placed passage of this bill fifth on its 2006 legislative agenda)? Oh, and just an afterthought: Since Congress declined to define "indecency," that leaves it to the discretion of the FCC. Fathom that for a moment. Then start shuddering.
Few people advocate fleeting, Super Bowl titty shows. "When families are watching a Sunday football game, they shouldn't have to brace themselves for a televised striptease," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said. He's right. And the nets have instituted time-delays at live events. Mass media has coarsened. It would be an act of moral magic if media outlets suddenly applied self-imposed codes of conduct. But let's live in the real world. In business, profit is the only moral deed.
Free markets rule capitalism. When porn makes obscene amounts of money and viewers favor freewheeling cable over federally-restrained broadcasters, the market—good, bad, indecent or obscene—has fucking spoken.