1115.org

A few days ago, a friend of mine directed me to a new posting on the official Depeche Mode website. The post was as follows:

Due to the recent breast-baring incident by Janet Jackson, and Bono’s use of a vulgarity on the CBS network, the FCC have now gone to the next step in securing the airwaves from indecent material. The FCC have now started a serious retroactive crackdown on indecent lyrics. Unfortunately, Depeche Mode are one of the first bands to be victims of this. A number of tunes, including fan favorites such as “Personal Jesus”, “Sea Of Sin” amd “I Want You Now” have effectively been banned from U.S. airwaves.

Now, it turns out that this didn’t really happen. It was an April Fool’s prank. But given the reaction of media and government since the Janet Jackson Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction”, something so absurd became almost plausible. After all, we live in an era when nervous censors are bleeping Janet for saying “Jesus” and normal radio interviews—such as ours, for example— are being placed on delays.

You can hardly blame the television and radio industries for being nervous. Congress, sensing an election-year issue that can be easily dealt with (after all, who is going to go on record as being “for” indecency?), is proposing massive new fines for violators of indecency statutes. But since the definition of indecency is notoriously vague, it leaves the broadcasters no choice but to be overly careful.

Imagine walking across a minefield when you only have a vague idea of where all the mines are buried. That’s what broadcasters are dealing with, except the explosives are replaced with proposed fines of up to $500,000 (compared to today’s ceiling of $27,500). And these fines could be levied against not only the media outlet, but the performer him/herself.

It doesn’t help that the FCC’s amorphous definition of “indecency” can allow the agency to play favorites when it comes to giving out fines. Just recently, Howard Stern was fined the current maximum of $27,500 for a 2001 broadcast where he discussed sexual terms such as “blumpkin” and “balloon knot”. Compare that to these nuggets from a recent Oprah Winfrey show, aired nationally on 3/18/04:

Oprah: “Ok, so what is a salad toss?”

Michelle: “Ok, a tossed salad is, get ready hold on to your underwear for this one, oral anal sex, So oral sex with the anus is what that would be.”

(…)

Michelle: “A rainbow party is an oral sex party it’s a gathering where oral sex is performed and rainbow comes from all of the girls put on lipstick and each one puts her mouth around the penis of the gentleman or gentlemen who are there to receive favors and makes a mark…um…in a different place on the penis, hence the term rainbow”

As you can see from the respective transcripts, the Oprah segment is at least as graphic as the Stern segment. Yet I don’t think it’s inaccurate to say that it will be a cold day in hell before the FCC fines Oprah Winfrey for indecency. The ultimate irony is that when Stern tried to air the Oprah segment on his show, censors bleeped it into something that was barely comprehensible. The station’s management and lawyers deemed it too much of a risk to air as it did on national television just days before. But unlike Howard Stern, Oprah doesn’t have Senator Sam Brownback (R. Kansas)—the sponsor for the Senate’s version of the indecency bill—gunning for her removal.

So here’s what we have to look forward to. We will have an FCC who can levy immense fines for indecency, when the rules surrounding indecency are murky at best. To avoid such massive fines, we will have media outlets engaging in self-censorship to a degree where the very concept of free speech will be in doubt. Things will be sanitized and safe, but at what price?

Something to think about: Imagine someone on a radio talk show is talking about religion in a not-so-positive light. No curse words are being used, yet the show garners some complaints from religious listeners due to the subject matter. According to the dictionary definition, that speaker could be considered profane, which opens the door to a FCC fine. Now, given the (alleged) separation of church and state, this scenario is probably unlikely. But it shows how loosely the rules can be interpreted.

For an insider viewpoint on the new War Against Indecency , I sent off an e-mail to Madden, host of The Madden Radio Disaster on San Francisco’s Live 105. His response covers many of the points presented earlier in this post, but is so well-said that I don’t want to cut anything out.

“The thorny question in all of this is what is considered “indecent”. Here’s what we know: You can’t say the 7 dirty words (shit, piss, cunt, cocksucker, fuck, tits, motherfucker). After that, it gets a little fuzzy. You can’t “dwell” on sexual or excretory functions, and you can’t talk about sex in a way that is only for titillation. That’s pretty vague. I can already think of a few instances where I said something and wondered if it was over the line. It’s a very weird feeling to say something and then think “Gee, I wonder if that just cost me my job”. I wouldn’t even know until the FCC announced the fine in the press.”

“In the recent rush to judgment, Congress has increased fines nearly 20 times over, made talent liable for a portion of that fine, and eliminated hearings and appeals. Our company has indicated that an indecency fine would be grounds for immediate dismissal. One listener complaint could not only cost me my livelihood, but I would owe money in fines to the government. It is atmosphere that promotes fear and destroys risk-taking, and according to almost every survey I’ve seen, isn’t actually wanted by the overwhelming majority of Americans.”

(italics added by 1115.org)

Experts are predicting that the new indecency laws will be passed shortly, perhaps by Mothers Day. So you might want to get your fill of edgy programming while you still can. Because we are in for an awfully cautious and bland future.