Janet Jackson’s nipple just won’t go away. More than two years after a ”wardrobe malfunction” during a performance at the 2004 Super Bowl resulted in a brief glimpse of a partially covered Jackson breast, United States TV networks and a federal regulatory body have gone to court to determine what can and cannot be seen and heard on American televisions.
Last week two US networks, CBS and Fox, filed separate suits contesting decisions made by the federal communications commission (FCC) concerning both language and nudity.
Challenging rulings that they say are both tough and vague, the networks maintain that the resulting uncertainty could mean the end of live television.
”Under the FCC’s new policy,” Fox argued in its brief to the 2nd US circuit court of appeals in New York, ”virtually any use of the words ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ are prohibited, no matter how isolated or fleeting, no matter how inadvertent and no matter whether they occur spontaneously during live programming. The result is the end of truly live television and a gross expansion of the FCC’s intrusion into the creative and editorial process.”
The FCC argues that the networks are out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Americans. ”By continuing to argue that it is OK to say the f-word and the s-word on television whenever it wants, Hollywood is demonstrating once again how out of touch it is with the American people,” the FCC said in a statement. ”We believe there should be some limits on what can be shown on television when children are likely to be watching.”
The court cases were prompted by a series of high-profile rulings made by the FCC that the networks say indicate a ”radical reinterpretation and expansion of its authority”. These include the Jackson ruling, a condemnation of NBC’s broadcast of the 2003 Golden Globes during which U2 frontman Bono said ”This is fucking brilliant”, broadcasts on Fox of the 2002 and 2003 Billboard Music Awards and episodes of NYPD Blue.
At the heart of the dispute are money and the Constitution. The networks argue that the new ”zero tolerance” imposed by the FCC, whose commissioners are appointed by the president, ”violates both the statute and principles of administrative law and … does serious violence to the first amendment”.
Others, however, point out that the $550 000 fine incurred by CBS following the Jackson episode is a great motivator. ”This was set in motion the day the rulings were made,” said Marty Kaplan, of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication. ”The fines are standing and the networks don’t want to pay them. Their recourse is to the courts.”
All the big US networks have argued that the FCC has changed the rules to make them accountable for ”fleeting” or ”unscripted” instances of obscenity. Previously, they argue, the FCC urged restraint on indecent content while bowing to the freedoms guaranteed by the constitution. Unplanned profanities were the exception. Now, say the networks, they are being punished for the unforeseen.
While the FCC says there has been no change, merely a clarification, the networks say they are shying away from live broadcasts. And when they do go live, they have a battery of people staffing audio and visual censorship buttons. The guiding mantra for the networks, they say, is ”when in doubt, take it out”.
The FCC must respond to the briefs filed by the networks within two weeks. – Guardian Unlimited Â