"The government has no control over what’s released in movie theaters oron DVD, what arrives in books or on CDs, or what’s piped into homes orphones via iTunes or YouTube or MySpace," Mark Harris recently noted in an excellent EW column. "Perhaps it’s time to ask why TVshould be treated any differently — why, in fact, the government has any business regulating it at all." Yep. Long past time, actually. But that’s not the question that the censors at the Federal Communications Commission are asking themselves this week. No, they’re wondering how they can extend their control over American pop culture even further: FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin is reportedly proposing that his agency start regulating cable TV in addition to network broadcasts. In the past, cable’s been safely outside of the FCC’s reach, but Martin has discovered a loophole based on a long-forgotten law passed in 1984. (Appropriate year!)
Right now, it’s not clear whether Martin’s proposed policy change would affect cable-TV content, or just various business practices. But that’s no excuse; history has shown that Martin is all too eager to punish American citizens for saying things that he deems objectionable, and there’s no reason to think he’d act any differently in this case. That’s something that ought to make pop-culture fans seriously wary. Just look at how HBO and Showtime have flourished while network TV has struggled to catch up creatively over the past decade. Free, unpoliced expression hasn’t just let the pay channels show more nudity or include more foul language; it’s allowed them to create more compelling works of art.
Martin has made it clear that he doesn’t care about any of that (or about the fact that government censorship is pretty unambiguously prohibited by the Constitution). Do you? I can’t imagine any real TV fan wishes that the FCC would start vetting Curb Your Enthusiasm (pictured) or Weeds, but if you have a compelling defense of Martin’s position, let’s hear it.
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Martin is the new Macarthy.
I can’t defend Martin’s position, but yours does seem odd. Essentially, it sounds like you’re saying that it’s precisely the ability to use foul language and nudity that allows cable channels to produce more provocative works of art. I’m no Puritan, heaven knows I’ve used enough foul language and seen enough nudity to fall way short of that standard, but I find it somehow disheartening whenever I hear someone make an argument that free expression is held back when nudity and foul language is censored. It just seems that creativity is made less creative when people can fall back on the easy antics of foul language and nudity. Granted there are appropriate uses for both, but I wonder if they’re just overused and/or not always used correctly. Perhaps that’s what Martin is going after or maybe he’s just a control freak – I don’t know.
I love Sean’s point.
Also, isn’t ‘cable TV’ supposed to mean regular cable channels, and not premium pay channels like HBO, Showtime, etc.? If so, this writer is diving down a slippery slope head first.
Mark Harris’s column was *most* excellent, and shold be required reading for all adult TV viewers. Why should ANYONE regulate what I’m paying very, very dearly to watch? It’s MY freaking TV, and I want the government to keep their grubby mitts off it! When I don’t like what I’m seeing, I change the channel. If someone else doesn’t like what’s on TV, he can do the same, and he doesn’t need to go mouthing off that what’s on there needs to be pulled or censored. He doesn’t come into my home and pull books off my shelf, songs off my Mac or my iPod, or bookmarks out of my browser, and it oughtta be the same way with my TV. Why can’t everyone keep his nose in his own danged business?
I also think that a NETWORK show like Arrested Development was extra funny BECAUSE it was censored.
I hate to defend the current FCC chair, but he is going after big cable companies, trying to open up the field to smaller players (competition basically means lower prices for us). No, I don’t like the FCC censorship (especially for channels I pay extra to watch), but I can’t say that Martin is all bad.
I hate the FCC and can’t stand their “hollier than thou” antics ever since 2001 took over. Powell was bad enough, but this new cat’s stinking like the pits of Gargarus 7 in mid summer heat.
The FCC’s rules on tv drug use alone are reason to believe they shouldn’t be allowed to regulate pay tv channels. Even though some 40+% of American adults have smoked a joint in their lives, not one is allowed to be shown smoking a joint on tv. This has detracted from plots in several shows.
In “how I met your mother”, they had to use “eating a good sandwich” as their analogy. In “Madmen”, everyone was shown passing the joint, but not hitting it up.
You can argue that they want to ban drug use on tv because drugs are illegal, but that logic fails. Why? Because we see murder, robbery and other illegal acts committed on tv every day. If they ban drug use, then they need to ban everything illegal on shows.
Agreed it’s unconstitutional anyway.
I don’t think its cable’s ability to show nudity or say foul language that allows it to flourish creatively, I think it’s the fact that they don’t have to think about government intervention *at all* that let’s them run free with ideas. It’s not just bad words and naked people that get network censors rattled about what the FCC will do. It’s ideas, concepts, and themes that get shot down.
In any event, let the FCC try to regulate cable. The courts won’t have any of it. The FCC only has the power to regulate broadcast because people cannot prevent it from coming into their homes if they own a TV (courts aren’t much for personal accountability or parental responsibility, sadly). You have to pay for cable, meaning you can prevent it from coming into your home. I’d like to see the FCC try to get around that, loophole or no. In fact, they should be worried that TV ratings and filters may make the “nonconsensual home infiltration” argument moot for broadcast too.
I guess us Brits are quite lucky with this sort of thing. We have a government enforced 9pm watershed, so before 9pm shows don’t have swearing or excessive violence, but after 9pm we can show whatever we like. It’s a common sense policy that doesn’t try to tell people what they can and cannot see. That’s why American cable shows with adult content can be shown on British network TV. In fact the time I ever heard the word “c*nt” on TV was an episode of Larry Sanders on BBC2!
I agree with Ep Sato. The quality of TV went down after the Janet Jackson thing because the people and FCC over panicked. (Gosh, its just a nipple.) I’d hate to see more censorship on cable television. What’s going to happen to [adult swim]?!
The FCC is appointed isn’t it? If so Mr. Martin could be out of a job in 14 months. So expect him to do all he can to protect us from ourselves until January 2009.
I think we should realize that sometimes great art comes with foul language and nudity, and that just because something has foul language and nudity doesn’t make it worthwhile in itself. I’ve often wondered whether some serious Soviet-style censorship would act as a sieve for all the self-styled artists who essentially get by merely on shock and awe. Probably not a good idea to test that out, though.
Won’t someone PLEASE think of the children!?? (Wretched, wretched things) So censorship is illegal, yet practiced on a regular basis? Only in America.
BlinkyM, I completely agree.
Not to mention the very valid arguement of why is swearing and nudity considered “inappropriate”, but I can turn on ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox at any given time to see a woman’s mutilated body, some sort of fight, or a head in a box. I don’t want to see THAT. I find that inappropriate. And highly offensive. And so I turn it off. It’s really quite easy to change the channel.
And I understand we have to be careful for our children, but I’LL do that. I know what is inappropriate and what isn’t. And quite frankly, if by some chance my kid happened to see something inappropriate, I’d rather have to explain what a breast is (a body part that we all freaking have) than why that person just got stabbed, or shot, or raped… This puritanical idea towards nudity and language, and blaze attitude towards violence, is just ridiculous.
I think this is a great idea! I mean, “Tell Me You Love Me” is coming on, and my little sister is right in the room. What do I do? I don’t want her to see it! And there’s no way I can stop her from seeing it! I wish there was some way to…get it..off my tv! Is there a way? What can I do???
P.S. Yes, I’m being sarcastic
If people are offended by a show, they won’t watch it. If enough people are offended by it it will get canceled.
Time to get rid of George W Bush and all of his reactionary right wing pals in our government. These guys are clowns.
No. They have the White House, I get Showtime. That’s the rule!
I really could care less. If the government wants to regulate what’s on cable, go for it. So what?
Our American culture has become too prudish and uptight for words! I’ve been watching British comedies and dramas for years on PBS and BBC America, and it’s so refreshing to hear characters talk (and occasionally curse) like real people! God forbid a character on an American sitcom might get into trouble and mutter “s**t” in frustration (see? I’m not even allowed to type the full word here). What would happen–would our society collapse into utter chaos, with people running in the streets throwing rocks because someone on TV used a four-letter word? I hardly think so.
Just when I thought political correctness had run its course, it seems to be alive and well on broadcast TV–and, apparently, soon on cable. This is sheer madness. The FCC members, in cahoots with the abominable Bush administration, are trying to drag us back to the 19th Century.
On the dearly departed “Studio 60″, at least the president of THAT network refused to give in on the issue.
What makes me sad is that a classic sitcom like “All In The Family”, with all of its ground-breaking topics, language, and genuinely funny comedy, would never get on the air today, mostly because of the choice words Archie Bunker used for various minorities. Special interest groups would hound the FCC, which would in turn have the show’s language diluted out of existence. And everyone would miss the point entirely.
Todd, NO cable channels are considered public airwaves–we have to pay to get everything but NBC, ABC, PBS, CBS, Fox,local channels, and (maybe) the CW. Everything else is cable, it’s paid for by viewers who want to watch what it offers, and it’s not part of the public airwaves. The fact that the FCC is looking into regulating it is outrageous. It’s the principle of the thing as much as the specific effects it will have on creativity. What’s next–movies, books? It’s not the government’s job to interfere with creative works and their availability. At a time when our country is at war, I guess it’s no surprise that this current administration thinks there are more important things to focus on.
So…what’s with the FCC and this Martin guy in America…would the likes of him have the mobsters on The Sopranos saying things like “Oh my goodness” and/or “heavens to Betsy” and things like that when somebody “needed” to be whacked etc? How ridiculous is that?
So what Joe? The “what” is that if the FCC has it’s way at least half the shows on cable would be canceled or censored. Adult Swim, The Daily Show and Colbert Report, Arrested Development, The Shield, Nip/Tuck…if it’s won an award it’ll be on the chopping block if the FCC is allowed to regulate cable.
Personally I hate the FCC and all it stands for (which is a blatant contradiction to the first ammendment of the Constitution). But the sad reality is that a majority of Americans are so SENSITIVE these days that for the protection of their daily practices, networks have to invest in the FCC to ensure that there is at least some form of a scapegoat when something slips through the cracks and hundreds of thousands of people harp on it to complain. So in the end who’s really to blame? The FCC? Or the people who actually take time out of their lives to mouth off to the FCC about something they found “offensive” on tv? The first battle in the war over TV content has to be won at home. Silencing all those activists, Christian extremists (which oddly seem to outnumber everyone else – or are at least more vocal about their cause), family groups, etc. would be to the benefit of us all and our viewing practices.THEN we should be able to take on the FCC.
If anyone has a cable box in their home you should be able to program it so shows with certain ratings are blocked from kids. Its so simple to use but unfortunately some people are too friggin lazy to parent their kids.
Wow. Where are adults allowed to be adults and enjoy adult entertainment? Certainly not in movies right now. So much of what comes to wide-release is meant for teenagers or children. But a lot of what comes on cable television is meant for adults, from Inside the Actor’s Studio and Deadliest Catch to Big Love and Real Sports and Weeds. Limiting the content of those shows is discouraging to their creators. Where will they be able to go after that? Where will I find adult entertainment?
I am baffled at the folks who will defend this type of activity. Why aren’t you okay to do your own censoring? You do it in every other aspect of your life. Why is television different?
RP, I hear ya, and really, I don’t think the government should regulate TV at all; my initial point(poorly made, it was early) was that there are more important things to take this current administration to task for(Hurrican Katrina, the war in Iraq,) etc…Still, I apologize; should have been more clear with my first post. My bad.
Maybe I’m just off today. I meant to say the administration should be taken to task for its RESPONSE to Hurricae Katrina, not the storm itself. Time to drink more coffee!
okay, where to start. Let’s start with Aramis. You want to SILENCE others so you can finally go after the FCC. Hmm. Really? While I don’t agree that the FCC should be able to regulate cable just because people do pay to have it in their homes and are therefore culpable for what they don’t self-censor, no one has the right to SILENCE anybody’s views or opinions about the quality of tv programming. Much like we seem to be doing here. As for everyone else who deems to throw the ‘current administration’ or Bush into the argument , well, it would be so easy to dump all you don’t like on one person who happens to be the president at this time. I assume you’ve done this with the other presidents in your lifetime as well including the one’s you really liked. Because that would be only fair and stupid. Bush isn’t in cahoots to ruin your tv watching. Get a grip.