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Fri. Nov 19, 2004

TV Morals

In a case of cultural auto-cannibalism, in one week our society’s “moral values” were under attack by an Oscar Award winning movie about the sacrifices made in World War II, and the very next week they were assaulted by Monday Night Football.

As a precaution to preserve the few and apparently very fragile moral values that we have left, Thanksgiving has been cancelled, for fear of what might happen next. Our nation’s delicate moral sensibilities simply could not take another blow this quickly.

You’ve likely heard about this most recent threat to our American Values, in the form of an allegedly “steamy” intro to Monday Night Football. I say “allegedly” because I didn’t see it myself, only the coverage in the aftermath. In fact, if so much heck had not been raised over it, I would have gone through the rest of my life blissfully unaware of it (that’s something those “crusading” against this kind of content might want to consider … by raising a stink, you insure it will be played over and over).

It was all a ploy to cross-promote another ABC show I didn’t/don’t watch, Desperate Housewives. Terrell Owens was also involved, as is apparently required by league mandate whenever there is a controversy in the NFL.

When I first heard about this the day after, I paid it little heed, and lumped it in the same category as Dennis Miller’s stint on MNF, and Rush Limbaugh’s on ESPN. Just another failed attempt by some network bigwig to create some kind of cross promotional synergistic voodoo, when the people are merely “ready for some football,” as Hank sings interminably and ironically each week (ironic because his singing significantly delays the actual football we are indeed “ready for”).

But as has been proven time and time again, I am often out of step with the mainstream reaction. This major assault on our moral values will be investigated by the FCC, and has caused everyone near the wake of this bellyflop to humbly apologize.

Even Terrell Owens.

That’s when I knew this was really big. This is a man with a long history of controversial ego induced acts and statements, who once said “Exposure is exposure, whether it’s good or bad.” He once responded to those who took offense to his acts by saying “People are personally attacking me, calling me a classless asshole because I did something creative during a game. Why?” Now, his response is “Personally I didn’t think it would have offended anyone and, if it did, I apologize.”

Terrell Owens apologizing is like the Red Sox winning the World Series; it simply wasn’t going to happen … until it did. I’m humbled at the power. And I suddenly feel more … moral. Indeed I do.

If this was the Crusade to Humble Smarmy Assholes, I’d be signed up and in boot camp. I’d be helping form the List of Enemies. But our earlier battle in this crusade shows that’s not what this is about at all.

In fact, I’m not sure I can really explain what this is all about. Because we have a steamy locker room scene involving a dropped towel facing the very same government investigation and potential fines as a war movie honored by veterans who fought in the battles it depicts.

Both are somehow indecent, and threaten our country’s moral values. Or so a very few would have you believe.

ABC’s decision to air “Saving Private Ryan” unedited drew a few defenders Thursday even as a conservative Christian group threatened to flood the FCC with complaints.

At least one-fifth of the network’s 250 affiliates nationwide pre-empted the R-rated World War II film Thursday over fears that the FCC will slap them with fines. ABC has promised to indemnify any affiliate that receives a fine.

OneMillionMoms.com and OneMillionDads.com, a pair of groups affiliated with the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Assn., issued plans to file thousands of indecency complaints against local ABC stations for airing “Ryan” on Thursday night, citing the rough language and violence in the Academy Award-winning film.

The groups’ action comes as Congress prepares to reconvene and could take up legislation that exponentially increases the fines for indecent broadcasts and could make individual performers liable for the same fines as broadcast licensees.

Hollywood Reporter: “Group plans complaints for ABC affils airing ‘Ryan’”

Their complaint? At least 21 times, the movie depicts men so angry/frightened/shocked by the death and injury of their fellow Americans than they use strong language, specifically, the F-word. The movie also recreates graphic violence depicting war. In other words, it is historically accurate. We can’t have that on Veteran’s Day, not when our moral values are threatened.

And the complaints over Saving Private Ryan are not spontaneous, a simple case of a genuinely offended citizen making a complaint. The film has run on ABC in its entirety, unedited, on Veteran’s Day in 2001 and 2002. But there are differences this year.

The first is the source of the complaints. This particular story is being run like a PR campaign by the American Family Association, and they’ve asked their members (in advance) to be offended by this broadcast in ways they weren’t in 2001 and 2002.

The American Family Association is run by Rev. Donald Wildmon, who has previously lambasted everyone from Disney to 7-Eleven for their corrupting ways. He’s been doing it a very long time. Wildmon’s “first effort to attract national attention was a campaign called, ‘Turn the Television Off Week,’ which targeted mostly southern cities in July 1977.”

Now there’s a radical idea … if you find something on TV objectionable, turn it off! Suggest that others do the same! It’s a shame Rev. Wildmon’s first campaign wasn’t more successful, or we wouldn’t be here today.

He completed abandoned the concept of personal responsibility for the electric appliances in your home, but that didn’t stop him, not while Satan’s minions still cavorted on the boob tube: “In the spring of 1978, Wildmon announced his first boycott of advertisers. He told Sears that his supporters would boycott its stores until it withdrew sponsorship of three shows at the top of his hit list — Three’s Company, Charlie’s Angels, and All in the Family.”

Satan’s 70’s Minions apparently included Farrah Fawcett, Jack and Chrissie, and the Meathead. Today, Wildman alleges they include the award winning depiction of men who fought and died for freedom on Utah Beach in 1944.

And whose sanity and moral values are we supposed to be questioning here?

I don’t mean to be an inversion of the absolutist Wildmon is. I think network stupidity should have a price. If the brain trust at ABC can’t recall what happened when sex and football were mixed at the Super Bowl, nor take the nation’s pulse from the previous week’s hub-bub over an Oscar winning film, then maybe they deserve grief for being so tone deaf.

But an FCC fine?

I have no desire for the broadcast networks to intentionally run amuck. If Ray Romano spills his milk at 8:05pm, and issues the F-word as a part of the script … well, it simply wouldn’t happen. It wouldn’t get past the network standards department. But if it did, by all means, make your legitimate complaint about a family show behaving outside expectations.

But when I’m watching an Oscar winning movie depicting a man who has just seen his buddy’s head blown off in the hailstorm of death on Utah Beach, and his response is a shocking vulgarity … I buy it. It’s real. So much so that the word itself isn’t even noticed. It is one small detail in an effort to depict the harsh reality of war.

But in Rev. Wildmon’s world, war is heck, not H-E-double-toothpicks. Because that would be morally wrong. We must be careful to depict war only in morally sound ways. No cussing, and as little blood and guts as possible. You know, like John Wayne used to do it.

Ask a veteran whether John Wayne’s movie or the one with that cussin’ Tom Hanks came closer to the truth. If you’re interested in truth, that is.

There’s a part of me that simply wants to slag this whole thing as just a few people who want to control what appears in your living room. As Wildmon’s record shows, for over 25 years he’s been trying to save America from broad threats ranging from Charlie’s Angels to Walt Disney. But he started off with the right idea, the concept that you already control what appears in your living room. That remote control has a bunch of buttons that will change the channel, and usually one big red one that will turn the gosh darned thing completely off.

But Wildmon wants the government to be your remote control. How’s that for a conservative moral value? However, what about the day when an administration takes office that doesn’t share Wildmon’s moral values? Will he want his remote back then? Will he even remember how to use it?

As I said, this is the type of thing that is normally best dismissed. Most of the parties involved benefit from it remaining an ongoing controversy. Though they’ll apologize and grovel, ABC has gotten more free press for both Desperate Housewives and Monday Night Football than their steamy little introductory promo ever would have on its own (i.e., sans post-event controversy). And Wildmon is the other side of that same coin, a person who benefits from continued controversy … because he creates it.

On reflection, though, I can’t imagine a better test case to generate some backlash. Here we have an Oscar award winning movie, praised by veterans for the accuracy of its portrayal of war. We have a legal American contract between ABC and the owner/creator of the film that they could only run the film unedited. Not a word or scene could be altered. The film has run in that exact manner twice on Veteran’s Day with no resulting FCC investigation or fine.

But suddenly this year, it’s wrong. And it isn’t just Rev. Wildmon, as a quarter of ABC’s affiliates chose not to run the movie due to the risk of FCC fines. This is what’s called “chilling effects.” The FCC’s actions and fines this year (as well as Congress’ moves to increase fines) essentially have a quarter of these big TV owners scared enough to duck and cover (their wallets).

I’m not in favor of letting the networks have free reign on language at all hours, but this pendulum has swung too far. And this is the perfect case to push it back. Let the FCC fine ABC, Spielberg, and the individual affiliates who did run the movie. Let the American Punditocracy, left and right, chew on that one for a hundred columns or so.

In the past, test cases have often involved Howard Stern, Hustler magazine, and similar fringe content. Make the battle about a word uttered in a heroically honest movie about American soldiers in the midst of one of history’s greatest events, and let’s see what conservative moral values have to say about that.