A couple points I want to make:
- Leave religion out of it. The U.S. isn't Christian by default. So don't shout from your perceived moral highground. I find it humerous when bible-toting know-it-alls praise America and find it blasphemous to be unpatriotic, and then instantly want to take away peoples' "freedom of speech" which is the foundation of the US constitution.
- Leave children out of it. For the most part we are talking about shows aimed towards adults. Nobody is saying there should be topless cheerleaders freebasing heroin on Sesame Street at 7am but examples of "mild nudity" during daytime hours doesn't hurt anybody. Parents should be FAR more restrictive of internet usage where material is much more explicit and readily available. This is the job of a parent, not society. You had kids, deal with it, because I don't care about YOUR childrens upbrining and I wouldn't expect you to care about mine.
- People act as if they have "the right to not be offended" and this has got to stop. You choose to turn on the TV and you choose what you watch. So if you don't like a show, find something else, and if you don't like TV all together then go fly a kite and stop whining. Stop infringing on other peoples' rights while shouting "Land of the free". With the priviledge of Freedom of Speech comes the tolerance of hearing/seeing things you might not like, but thats OK. We can all like/dislike anything we want but that doesn't mean there should be laws pertaining to it.
- I think the standards towards network TV will eventually change as the old folks in charge begin to retire/die off. Cable is changing at a faster rate but still has a long way to go. Cables execs should be ashamed of themselves for not exercising their freedoms and catering to advertisers. How about seeking advertising that agrees with a more uncensored philosophy?
- To me, it's not about nudity or language or violence. It's about being boxed in by antiquated rules and being told what to do in situations where there should be no restaints in a country that calls itself "free". A friend of mine is from South Africa and when he came over to the US to live several years ago he was shocked by how many rules/laws there were. His previous notions of freedom in the US were wrong.
- To people that think nudity would run rampant on airwaves 24/7, this is just silly. People would get very bored, very quickly and begin to turn off television all together. If you don't believe me, take this exagerated example: watch the raunchiest dirty porno imaginable for literally 24 hours. After a while you will be so bored you'll be wishing the power goes out. It's like at the turn of the century where people would go to the beach in large grey wool dresses and dare not show their ankles. This eventually changed and now such dress would be very odd.
- Several channels already don't (or, used to not) censor themselves and nothing bad has ever happened. There are no riots in the street, no demons spewing from the underworld. For the sake of argument I will leave out movie channels such as IFC, MGM, etc. I find that these general interest channels that aren't based on airing movies are some of the better ones on TV. Examples of these channels are HDNet, LinkTV, PBS channels, and so on. Even Bravo (which is now a joke) used to air their films uncensored with no problems. I once saw the film "Sirens" on Bravo uncensored and nobody jumped out of buildings. It was a welcome site to see a channel do the right thing for a change.
- There is no legal difference between basic cable and premium cable. Cable companies just use the word "premium" so they can charge more money since those channels get revenue from subscribers and not advertising dollars. I don't know about you but I don't think Toyota, Pepsi, or Ruffles Potato Chips should be setting any kind of moral standards.
- Nudity isn't pornography, nudity isn't sex, sex isn't pornography, and pornography isn't evil. None of these things go hand-in-hand. Whether or not you believe something to be distasteful is irrelevant. Nobody cares what YOU think, nobody cares what I think. We all have different tastes so no single standard can cater to 300,000,000 people. So lets stop setting the bar so low by restricting ourselves so much and let people create things (TV shows in this case) without endless regulations and restrictions.
- If you can depict, on television, someone getting beheaded by a Swiss Army Knife then you'd think anything goes. Society changes, and after a while those changes are seen as the norm and you don't remember what it was like before them. Such as the Hays Code from the 30's-60's. Most of us view this code as complete rubbish today. See for yourself how foolish this "code" was:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hays_co...ns_of_the_Code
- People here use words like "classy" and "tasteful" to justify their freedom. While I'm all for classy, tasteful (aka: serious) programs that are interesting and/or entertaining from time to time that doesn't mean everything needs to be like this. The Jerry Springer Show, or "The Bikini Carwash Company 2" are not classy programs but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be on TV. There's room for all types of programming on televsion. Seek out what you enjoy, and the rest of us will do the same.
If these words inspire a response, please email the networks, cable channels, and FCC. Feel free to copy & paste this post. I hope we can set a new precedence in the future and not resort to moving backwards as a society.
The reason I write this is because, for the most part, I am against political correctness for the sake of political correctness, hyper-sensitive society, the hypocritical nature of television, and censoring art & information for the sake of profit-drivin' corporations.
Thanks
