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Friday, July 14, 2006

Seven Thousand Words You Can't Say on Television

A couple of summers ago, I read a quartet of similarly-themed novels one after the other. I started with Orwell's 1984, then moved on to Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I then read Fahrenheit 451, the only one of the four which I hadn't read before, which is strange, given that I cut my eyeteeth reading Bradbury in junior high. (I don't know exactly how I made it to junior high before cutting my eyeteeth, but there you go.)

These are all excellent novels and each presents its own variation on the theme of government gone wild (just like Girls Gone Wild, but with fewer boobs and more fascism). They're scary novels and really get you thinking about what happens when we give the people who control our country too much power. Kind of like how the Bush administration is right now.

I was cruising around the internet, doing a little light breakfast reading and I happened upon a blurb in Salon.com's The Fix, which mostly does gossip and snarkiness (in a good way). This morning, though, they referenced a Reuter's article on how the FCC is going to start cracking down on live broadcasts of sporting events wherein a fan or player throws out an f-bomb or two in all the excitement and happens to get picked up by the microphones.

This is getting ridiculous, folks. Because of a few noisy assbags like James Dobson, we're going to strip away the freedom of millions of Americans to watch adult-oriented programming? Because a handful of bible-thumpers are too moronic to know how to work the V-chip on their TV, we're going to make cable networks so fucking paranoid that they won't show anything more controversial than Freaky Friday? (And I'm not talking about the original Jodie Foster version, people, the one Julie Harris tells John Astin to kiss her rosy-red ass; I'm talking about the tepid remake that foisted fucking Lindsay Lohan on us for the next decade.)

When my wife and I were visiting a friend in Spain a couple of years ago, we watched a bit of television (because what the hell else are you going to do in Spain, I ask you). And, man, one TV-movie we watched had sex scenes graphic enough to give the pope a boner. (Knick-knack, paddywack, give the pope a boner! I like that!) It also had acting worse than your average elementary school Christmas pageant, but that's neither here nor there. This wasn't on a premium cable channel or anything, mind you, this was on the Spanish equivalent of FOX (which I guess would be ZORRO).

I'm not saying that we need to have nekkid tatas bouncing all over the place on Good Morning, America or anything. But it's one more example of how our politicians go on and on about defending our freedom and how much more repressive every place else in the world is when they're doing their fucking utmost to strip those freedoms away from us. It's not really as big a leap as you might think to go from banning a list of curse words from the airwaves to banning criticism of the government. The only freedoms Bush and Co. are interested in defending are their freedom to make more money and inflict their will on the rest of us.

This crusade by the FCC needs to be stopped. We need broadcast and cable networks to put out some of the raunchiest shit they can find and then challenge whatever fine the FCC imposes in court. And we need to get these conservative nut-garglers out of office.

Because, someday, I want to be able to see Charlie Rose tell a guest to fuck a goat.

posted by Joe # 7:53 AM

Comments:

your point was completely evident during the broadcast of the homerun derby on espn on monday night when all audio was cut out when a player made an out and cursed...which could've just been solved by not wiring the drunken sailor-mouthed players of major league baseball for sound...
wow i ramble.
have a nice day.

# posted by

Amanda : 9:40 PM

just what the F*** are eyeteeth?

# posted by

the beige one : 4:23 AM

If they start showing nekkid tatas on GMA, I'm moving to, um, Espana. (how do you get the ~ to work on these comment features, anyway? Sheesh)

# posted by

Anonymous : 9:29 AM

Friday, July 14, 2006

Seven Thousand Words You Can't Say on Television

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		Friday, July 14, 2006 Seven Thousand Words You Can't Say on Television A couple of summers ago, I read a quartet of similarly-themed novels one after the other. I started with Orwell's 1984, then moved on to Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I then read Fahrenheit 451, the only one of the four which I hadn't read before, which is strange, given that I cut my eyeteeth reading Bradbury in junior high. (I don't know exactly how I made it to junior high before cutting my eyeteeth, but there you go.) These are all excellent novels and each presents its own variation on the theme of government gone wild (just like Girls Gone Wild, but with fewer boobs and more fascism). They're scary novels and really get you thinking about what happens when we give the people who control our country too much power. Kind of like how the Bush administration is right now. I was cruising around the internet, doing a little light breakfast reading and I happened upon a blurb in Salon.com's The Fix, which mostly does gossip and snarkiness (in a good way). This morning, though, they referenced a Reuter's article on how the FCC is going to start cracking down on live broadcasts of sporting events wherein a fan or player throws out an f-bomb or two in all the excitement and happens to get picked up by the microphones. This is getting ridiculous, folks. Because of a few noisy assbags like James Dobson, we're going to strip away the freedom of millions of Americans to watch adult-oriented programming? Because a handful of bible-thumpers are too moronic to know how to work the V-chip on their TV, we're going to make cable networks so fucking paranoid that they won't show anything more controversial than Freaky Friday? (And I'm not talking about the original Jodie Foster version, people, the one Julie Harris tells John Astin to kiss her rosy-red ass; I'm talking about the tepid remake that foisted fucking Lindsay Lohan on us for the next decade.) When my wife and I were visiting a friend in Spain a couple of years ago, we watched a bit of television (because what the hell else are you going to do in Spain, I ask you). And, man, one TV-movie we watched had sex scenes graphic enough to give the pope a boner. (Knick-knack, paddywack, give the pope a boner! I like that!) It also had acting worse than your average elementary school Christmas pageant, but that's neither here nor there. This wasn't on a premium cable channel or anything, mind you, this was on the Spanish equivalent of FOX (which I guess would be ZORRO). I'm not saying that we need to have nekkid tatas bouncing all over the place on Good Morning, America or anything. But it's one more example of how our politicians go on and on about defending our freedom and how much more repressive every place else in the world is when they're doing their fucking utmost to strip those freedoms away from us. It's not really as big a leap as you might think to go from banning a list of curse words from the airwaves to banning criticism of the government. The only freedoms Bush and Co. are interested in defending are their freedom to make more money and inflict their will on the rest of us. This crusade by the FCC needs to be stopped. We need broadcast and cable networks to put out some of the raunchiest shit they can find and then challenge whatever fine the FCC imposes in court. And we need to get these conservative nut-garglers out of office. Because, someday, I want to be able to see Charlie Rose tell a guest to fuck a goat. posted by Joe # 7:53 AM Comments: your point was completely evident during the broadcast of the homerun derby on espn on monday night when all audio was cut out when a player made an out and cursed...which could've just been solved by not wiring the drunken sailor-mouthed players of major league baseball for sound... wow i ramble. have a nice day. # posted by Amanda : 9:40 PM just what the F*** are eyeteeth? # posted by the beige one : 4:23 AM If they start showing nekkid tatas on GMA, I'm moving to, um, Espana. (how do you get the ~ to work on these comment features, anyway? Sheesh) # posted by Anonymous : 9:29 AM Post a Comment << Home		Links The Conversation Special Productions Izzle Pfaff Freida Bee Sometimes I Just Talk Alisa and the Stuff Alisa Does Tuna Girl Defective Yeti The Incurable Insomniac The Savvy, The Extreme and The Idealist Caballito del Diablo The Ambivalence of Open Spaces Bug-Eyed Blog Whiskeymarie Version 53 Things I've Noticed (S)wine: ShortLeanCuts Out of Tune Missives from the Beige Sister of Hairshirt Apostrophe Abuse Jonestown Tobacco Brunette The Public Intellectual That's Why Archives July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 March 2011 April 2011