Saturday, January 26, 2008

We're from the Government, and We're Here to Protect You

Aren't we lucky to have a government that goes to such lengths to protect us from this kind of terrible thing?

ABC Faces Indecency Fine For 2003 'NYPD Blue' Episode - washingtonpost.com: "The Federal Communications Commission yesterday proposed a $1.43 million indecency fine against ABC television stations for a 2003 episode of 'NYPD Blue,' the second-largest proposed indecency fine against a television broadcaster ever.

The agency proposed a $27,500 fine against 52 ABC-owned and affiliate stations in the Central and Mountain time zones, which broadcast the episode before 10 p.m., when the FCC's authority to police the airwaves for indecency expires each day.

The episode in question, aired Feb. 25, 2003, contained a scene featuring a woman and a young boy. In the scene, the woman disrobes in a bathroom. She is shown in full dorsal nudity, and the side of one breast is shown."

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

After a mere 59 months, the FCC decided showing a naked woman from the back and side was indecent. Although i never saw this episode, I find it's indecent to pay bureaucrats to sleep for 4.92 years.

Anonymous said...

Kevin Martin and the rest of the Bush FCC refuse to simply face their incompetence and idiocy with a becoming silence. Instead, Charlotte Ross's full dorsal and fleeting breast, which certainly have seared and traumatized millions, becomes yet another opportunity for a round of appeals to scare the ever-corageous corporate media into watering down programming even further to the standards of dimwits. But how do I feel about it? (More naked Charlotte Ross, please, actually.)

Ross played the cop dating Sipowicz, whose 5yo son walks in on her as she's getting into the shower.

Brent McKee said...

Charlotte Ross was scarcely the first person to show her buttocks and the side of her breasts on NYPD Blue (she was however the last). Why was her episode the only one to be hit with a fine? Ever. Because I know for sure that Sherry Stringfield, Amy Brennaman, Kim Delaney, Sharon Lawrence, Jimmy Smits and Dennis Franz all gave us a good look at their tushes. And no fines were levied. In law, I think that would be called precedent, but of course the FCC is not a judicial body. This decision is the FCC pandering to a bunch of social conservative pressure groups like the Parents Television Council who have found a loophole that allows them to attack shows they don't like because American TV doesn't show all its shows at the same time in each time zone. They did this in the case of Without A Trace which showed an episode featuring a "teen orgy" and now they're trying it with everything they can think of. Disgusting. On the FCC's part that is.

Anonymous said...

The other nudity wasn't on the current FCC's watch, I suspect. And was before the "safe harbor" provision went into effect. Nudity was rare but visible on US tv in the 1970s (largely on PBS stations but occasionally on such things as ROOTS), more common in the 1980s (with some stations running, for example, uncut prints of the CAT PEOPLE remake intentionally--I'd guess the uncut THX-1138 I caught in Hawaii in 1980 or so was a mistake), still fairly frequent in the 1990s. Only with the advent of Monkey Boy and his knuckle-head/walking crew did we see a regression in such matters.

Unknown said...

Ah, PBS in the '70s. Steambath.

Anonymous said...

Yes, PBS HOLLYWOOD THEATER's production of "Steambath" made quite an impression on a lot of people, myself included. A few years later, a VISIONS episode in 1978 featured some young adolescent nudity that young adolescent me also found memorable. But it wasn't till the '80s that I was introduced to a clothed and unclothed Greta Scacchi (and an unclothed Toyah Wilcox) in an adaptation of THE EBONY TOWER also featuring Laurence Olivier (and such syndicated public-broadcasting treats as the NADINE GORDIMER STORIES adaptation of "City Lovers"). And damned if all of these weren't at least good drama as well, as much as the obviousness of the Fowles story allowed that one to be, and Bruce Jay Friedman's little classic wasn't made so solely by Valerie Perrine...

Livia J Washburn said...

I have always found it interesting that so many people consider it much worse to show the human body than a torn up bloody corpse. How could Charlotte Ross's nude body traumatize anyone? And how could the crime scenes on today's shows not?

Anonymous said...

It's a sad commentary that this is probably the least egregious thing this administration has done.

Anonymous said...

Sadly, this is probably the least egregious thing this administration has done.

Anonymous said...

Did I just stutter?

Anonymous said...

It bears repeating. It's simply typical of the pettier egregious incompetence and idiocy of this administration.

Cap'n Bob said...

I was traumatized. I wanted to see full frontal nudity and I didn't.