A Response

I got the following comment the other day – last Tuesday – that raised my blood pressure. I’m pretty much responding to his “dare” at the end; it’s the old “you guys are so liberal that you won’t dare/don’t have the guts to print my letter/run my comment” which inevitably gets people to run the comments. But I’m going to issue two warnings before I get to the meat of this thing. First: daring me to run something or accept a comment; if it’s a good comment or if it raises my blood pressure I will certainly accept the comment and might even run it in a post so I can rebut what you’re saying but don’t count on it. Second: This is most likely the last Anonymous comment that will ever be run as a post in this Blog; be a man (or a woman) and take responsibility for what you’re writing. If you’re on Blogger this will at least give me a chance me see where you’re coming from. In this sort of situation anonymity is usually the refuge of the coward.

I found this comment to be rather bizarre because the post it was written in response to is this one on a PTC attempt to get the FCC to fine FOX for airing an episode of Family Guy, which also included a response to PTC attacks on several outlets who defended Family Guy and Seth McFarlane. The biggest thing to remember here is that this article was written over three years ago! With that in mind, here’s the comment:

If the PTC's description of the episode of "Family Guy" is accurate, I understand completely why it should be censored. You might find that kind of stuff funny, but let me ask you something. Would you want your kids watching something like that? Would you watch it with your mother in the room? There are those of us who don't want to see that kind of thing at any time of day. Since you are so concerned about things being "fair," I'll be interested to see if my comment makes it onto your website. It works both ways.

Well Anonymous, that’s the fairness aspect taken care of. This has not only been accepted as a comment but it has been given a place in the main blog. Now let’s turn to the meat of the comment.

You state that “If the PTC's description of the episode of "Family Guy" is accurate, I understand completely why it should be censored.” Well that’s the big thing, and the reason why I wrote the piece in the first place. The PTC had, and still has I suppose (I gave up on regularly reading their site a long time ago), a tendency to exaggeration, hyperbole and rabble rousing rhetoric in their posts, particularly when attempting to get their supposed 1.3 million members to send complaints to the FCC – complaints which the PTC provides for them in the form of pre-written forms. (By the way I say their supposed 1.3 million members because there is some controversy about that. In 2009 former PTC Vice President for Development Patrick W. Salazar claimed that based on people who contribute to annual fundraising appeals is closer to 12,000, and that t the 1.3 million figure is a count of everyone who has every signed a petition for them or ever given the organization money.) Reports of people who actually watched the episode and who weren’t invested in trying to generate complaints for the FCC, including the other person to comment on this post stated that the episode may have been gross but the things that the PTC was outraged about were either implied rather than shown or weren’t at all what the organization claimed.

You make the statement that: “You might find that kind of stuff funny, but let me ask you something. Would you want your kids watching something like that? Would you watch it with your mother in the room?” If you had read my post without your reading comprehension skills being affected by your apparent agenda you would have read where I said that, “I am not a fan of The Family Guy. I don't watch the show and frankly some of the things that are described by both mainstream critics and bloggers were enough to persuade me that this show isn't for me.” Whether I would watch the show with my mother “in the room” is therefore a moot point, although I should note that she has a rather high tolerance for “rude and crude” humour, a by-product of living with my younger brother during his rude and crude period. She has had no trouble with the nudity and swearing in Boardwalk Empire for instance.

You asked, “Would you want your kids watching something like that?” There are two ways I can answer that as I’ve never had children of my own. I am nearly 56 years old so in theory I could reasonably have children anywhere between the ages of 1 and 40 so my facetious answer would be that the one year-old couldn’t but that the 40 year-old could watch whatever he damned well he wanted. To put things more on the grounds that you are obviously trying to lead me into, I have a 9 year-old nephew who sometimes comes over for a few hours when his dad and step-mom have things they have to do, usually involving work. And no, I wouldn’t want him to watch any episode of Family Guy, and more to the point I wouldn’t let him watch any episodes of Family Guy. On the other hand I don’t want the fact that I have a 9 year-old nephew who I don’t want exposed to Family Guy to prevent other adults or even teenagers from watching Family Guy if they want. And the truth which you, and the PTC and just about every advocacy group that is pushing for tighter restrictions on TV shows either doesn’t realize, doesn’t accept or wilfully chooses to ignore is that the mechanisms are readily available for you to avoid what you don’t want your children to see or what you don’t want yourself exposed to. The most important of these mechanisms is to take some responsibility about what you kids see by watching TV with them and not plopping them down in front of the TV and leaving them there.

You said, “There are those of us who don't want to see that kind of thing at any time of day,” and my answer to that is that you don’t have to. No TV that I’ve ever seen has not been equipped with an On/Off switch or some form of device to change channels. Modern TVs come equipped with the V-Chip that works with on-screen ratings to prevent shows that are too explicit in some way that you define from being seen on your TV. My cable box – and presumably other company’s cable and satellite boxes – includes a feature where I can block specific TV shows and I believe entire channels that I don’t want to see or I don’t want my nephew to see (not that I too much to worry about there; when he comes to visit all he wants to do is watch cartoons from my Looney Toons Golden Collection DVD sets; he won’t even let me watch a hockey game in piece). You have the freedom to turn the TV off, to change the channel to find something that you enjoy. The networks aren’t going to stop you from setting content standards for your own household using the V-Chip, and the cable company isn’t going to knock down your door if you use their blocking software to keep every episode of Family Guy from being seen on your TV. No one is holding a gun to your head or to my head to make us watch a show that you object to or that I just don’t want to see.

The point of all this, and the point of everything I’ve written about the PTC in the past is in defense of freedom of choice. It is your choice not to watch Family Guy; in fact I make the same choice although probably not for the same reasons as you do. But should you be able to say to people who do watch Family Guy that, because you object to the show’s content they can’t watch it? Should I be able to say that in order to protect my 9 year-old nephew all TV shows – or even all TV shows running up to a certain hour – should be suitable for my nephew to watch? That’s what the PTC wants. They want to restrict everybody’s freedom to choose what they want to watch and restrict the available shows to what they think is suitable for children or families to watch. They want to threaten advertisers who sponsor shows they object to with boycotts, and to accuse critics and writers who don’t agree with their positions of at best being out of touch with “the American public” and at worst benefiting from their support of those shows. The people who are trying to force you to watch what they want you watch are groups like the PTC.

Lies, Damned Lies, And PTC Statistics

The folks at the Parents Television Council have released a new study filled with the sort of statistics that are designed to make people who read it realise that broadcast network television has become a cess pool of dirty language and just plain evil, and that it is all the fault of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals' decision July 2010 decision which declared the FCC's regulations on "fleeting expletives" to be unconstitutional. The PTC's report was "cleverly" called Habitat For Profanity (a play on the name of the organization Habitat For Humanity).

Now long term readers will know that I have little or no sympathy for the PTC. We might agree on one thing a year – this year what we agree on is that No Ordinary Family is a show that people who want more shows for family audiences, including younger kids, should be watching – but my general opinion of the organization is that when they say they want to protect "the children" they define "children" as anyone who is still above ground. I used to write a weekly piece on this blog looking at the latest from the PTC including their weekly rants against shows, their campaigns to pressure advertisers to toe their line on content, and the spewing of their various writers about the supposed evils of TV. They still do that stuff, but I think I burned out in writing about those people. However sometimes they put out something that is so irritating and just wrong-headed that I have to react. This report is one of those things. The organization has started with a conclusion – that the Second Circuit Court's decision has led to a sudden increase in the use of profanity on TV – and is using the statistics they want that will "prove" their position.

Here is part of PTC president Tim Winter's statement at the release of the report:

"After the Second Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the FCC's congressionally-mandated authority to enforce the broadcast decency law, industry and media pundits predicted a sharp increase in the amount of profanity on television. Sadly, they were correct.

Our analysis of the first two weeks of this still-new fall television season shows a disturbing trend that shocked even us. Profanity is far more frequent and the profanity itself is far harsher than just five years ago. Even worse, the most egregious language is being aired during the timeslots when children are most likely to be in the audience. In 2010, 111 f-words were used during family hour compared with 10 in 2005.

Is this a coincidence? Is it an aberration? Or is this exactly the path that broadcasters and the 'creative community' in Hollywood set out when they began launching their legal attacks against the broadcast decency law?

While broadcasters continue to claim that they can regulate themselves, this type of increase in profane words aired on scripted programming - not on live broadcasts that are the subject of ongoing judicial review – suggests otherwise. Are we to expect a 69 percent increase in TV profanity every five years?"

The study counted the number of incidents in the first two weeks of the 2005-06 season (except for ABC which started their season a week later) and the first two weeks of the 2010-11 season. The PTC press release includes the following summary of the study's findings:

• Use of profanity increased 69.3% from 2005-2010
  
• Use of the bleeped or muted f-word increased from 11 incidents in 2005 to 276 incidents in 2010, an increase of 2409%
  
• Use of the bleeped or muted s-word increased from 11 incidents in 2005 to 95 incidents in 2010, an increase of 763%
  
• During the "family hour" (my quotation marks) incidents of the f-word increased from 10 in 2005 to 111 in 2010; use of the s-word increased from 11 in 2005 to 42 in 2010
  
• FOX showed the greatest increase in the use of profanity from 2005 to 2010 with a 269% increase.
  

Sounds ominous doesn't it? And the PTC even provides a handy-dandy chart of the various incidents of profanity to show the exact profanities that The PTC objects to. And for me this is part of where the whole thing breaks down because of the words that the PTC considers "profane." Maybe they are profane by the most strict definitions but quite frankly I think most of these are absurd. I've taken the PTC's figures and reorganized them in a way that is more logical.

	8:00			9:00			10:00			Total
	2005	2010	%Δ	2005	2010	%Δ	2005	2010	%Δ	2005	2010	%Δ
Mild Non-Sexual Profanity
Damn	55	37	-32.73%	64	66	3.13%	30	38	26.67%	149	141	-5.37%
Hell	74	62	-16.22%	95	119	25.26%	24	63	162.5%	193	244	26.42%
Bastard	33	23	-30.30%	45	52	15.56%	17	36	111.76%	95	111	16.84%
Bitch	12	2	-83.33%	12	11	-8.33%	3	4	33.33%	27	17	37.04%
Possible Sexual or Scatological Context
Crap	23	29	26.09%	13	29	123.08%	8	11	37.5%	44	69	56.82%
Screw	16	27	68.75%	7	17	142.86%	5	18	260%	28	62	121.43%
Suck	15	25	66.67%	11	14	27.27%	3	13	333.33%	29	52	79.31%
Body Parts
Ass	52	64	23.08%	53	59	11.32%	14	25	78.57%	119	148	24.37%
Boobs	5	19	280%	5	2	-60%	1	0	-100%	11	21	90.91%
Other Breasts	6	15	150%	14	8	-42.86%	5	3	-40%	25	26	4%
Balls	0	5	-	1	1	0%	2	3	50%	3	9	200%
Other Genitals	22	28	27.27%	26	26	0%	3	18	500%	51	72	41.18
Bodily Functions
Piss	4	20	400%	10	17	70%	11	7	-36.36%	25	44	83.33%
Douche	1	0	-100%	2	1	-50%	0	2	-	3	3	50%
Bleeped Fuck	10	111	1010%	1	156	15500%	0	9	-	11	276	2409.09%
Euph. Fuck	5	13	160%	10	11	10%	5	17	240%	20	41	105%
Bleeped Shit	11	42	281.82%	0	45	-	0	8	-	11	95	763.64%
Euph. Shit	3	1	-66.67%	2	3	66.67%	0	3	-	5	7	40%
Total	347	523	50.72%	371	637	71.7%	131	278	112.21%	849	1438	69.38%
Total minus Bleeped Words	326	370	13.49%	370	436	17.84%	131	261	99.23%	827	1067	29.02%

So there you have the PTC's data and their methodology, and now a couple of things about my groupings. I grouped "Crap" "Screw" and "Suck" in the Possible Sexual or Scatological Context category on the grounds that these words can be used in a context that has nothing to do with (respectively) feces, sexual intercourse, or fellatio. Indeed Wiktionary defines "suck" in the context that it is commonly used as "To be inferior or objectionable: a general term of disparagement, sometimes used with at to indicate a particular area of deficiency," while "crap" is defined as "Something of poor quality," or "Something that is rubbish; nonsense."

The whole question of euphemisms and other words for bodily parts is another area worthy of some exploration. Does someone saying "poop" when confronted with feces qualify as a euphemism for "shit?" How about when a woman refers to her "vajayjay" in the style of Oprah Winfrey on her afternoon talk show and is that wrong? How about calling someone a "real dick?" Are you referring to other genitals or do you just not like people named Richard (I joke here, but a lot of "nannybots" on comments boards will censor the name Dick)? The inclusion of most of the words on this list is quite frankly an absurd attempt to turn the clock back to the 1960s as they were seen on TV.

What is of not of course is the increase in the two bleeped words. The reasons for that can be summed up with two words: Reality Television. If you'll notice, the majority of incidents in which the bleeped words were heard (or rather not heard, and not seen either) occurred in the first two hours of primetime, which as it happens is also the time period when most reality shows air. In both 2005 and 2010 there was only one reality show on in primetime; in 2005 it was ABC's The Bachelor, while in 2010 it was NBC's The Apprentice. On those shows the words are used in conversation – often angry conversation, but conversation nonetheless – the way that most people use these words. In other words my view of the matter is that they are not being inserted gratuitously by the producers but are included because there is no way to exclude them from the conversation and retain the sense of what was being said. TV producers have made obvious efforts to keep viewers from hearing the words or even lip reading the words. And yet the PTC is complaining about words that they not only don't hear but in most cases don't see because the networks have blurred or pixelated the lips of the people saying them.

Scripted programming generally doesn't include bleeped expletives because the writers and show runners wouldn't dream of including the words that would have to be bleeped in the first place. They would use euphemisms if they had to use the words at all. But again we have to note that most of the words that the PTC lists as profanity are either not considered objectionable by most people (including the PTC in the case of "damn" and "hell" and a couple of the others since they refer to them as "mild profanity" in reviews).

The thing about this whole report that makes me wonder about the PTC and question their methodology is the number of references, both in the report and in Winter's statement in the press release, to the Second Circuit's ruling on the constitutionality of the FCC's regulation of broadcasting. Winter specifically mentions that "...industry and media pundits predicted a sharp increase in the amount of profanity on television. Sadly, they were correct." This seems to be a deliberate effort on the part of the PTC to link the "increase" in profanity to the Second Circuit Court decision. And that is something that this study really doesn't do. If you want to show the "impact" of the Court's decision you either offer a comparison between the first two weeks of the 2009-10 season or the 2010-11 seasons – one immediately before the decision and one immediately after the decision – or you show the year by year figures for each year between 2005 and 2010. If you took the latter course, and if the PTC is right about the impact of the decision you would see a relatively stable number of incidents for the period 2005-2009 and a sudden jump with the 2010 season. The thing is that I am convinced that you wouldn't see that; I'm convinced that what you'd see is an increase over time on a fairly stable basis. Is that good? If you believe that a bleeped expletive is as bad as hearing the actual word because you can imply what the word is, then no it isn't good. But the fact is that the broadcast networks are not violating the law; in fact they are obeying the law because they are not airing the actual words. It's not a loophole, it's the law. and certainly the "blame" for this cannot be laid at the feet of the Second Circuit Court and their decision no matter how much the PTC would like it to be the true.