FCC Censorship
By: Lisa     

Has it seemed to you lately that the FCC has been restricting what we feel is harmless entertainment more and more? Has it also seemed like it hasn’t really been doing its job, because there are a lot of things that should be censored that aren’t, or a lot of things that should be allowed that are kept from us? I have, and I decided to do something about it. Read on to see what I mean, and to find out how you can take action too. 

     Ever since Janet Jackson decided to expose her breast on national television, the FCC has been monitoring, censoring, and deciding what is “decent” enough for Americans to watch or listen to. More and more, we’re seeing some of our basic freedoms being taken away. I have to pay to listen to my favorite talk radio show, Opie & Anthony, because they’re no longer allowed on regular radio, and even if they were, their show would be terrible because they wouldn’t be allowed to talk about the things that most people find entertaining. I’m surprised “Will & Grace” is still allowed to air, being that the show is full of sexual references and jokes. And we can’t even decide what movies we want to see in theaters because major theater chains have the right to decide to not play certain films. Our choices are being limited, and the explanation that we’re given for most of this censorship is that it’s all done for the good of the children. But what I don’t understand is this: why are sexual innuendos in TV, radio, and movies completely unacceptable, while horror movies are fine for kids? Watch TV any night of the week, and you’ll see commercial after commercial advertising the latest slasher-film, ghost story, etc. Try to count the number of times you saw a commercial for a movie like “The Skeleton Key” and how many times you saw one for a movie like “Must Love Dogs,” and what you’ll probably realize is that the horror movie got more exposure than the romantic comedy. And when we’re in a society that strives to limit what adults can do for the sake of the children, this doesn’t make any sense to me. If I’m watching TV, and I decide to, for once, not flip to a different channel as soon as the commercials come on, I have to be exposed to a movie based loosely on a true story about someone who got possessed by a demon and starts seeing other people’s faces melt off. Or I get to see a trailer for a movie about a serial killer going around hacking people into tiny pieces for no apparent reason. If I’m disturbed by it, and people I know are equally disturbed by it, and we’re all adults, what makes the FCC think that kids and teens aren’t going to be negatively impacted? 

     So where’s the FCC? Apparently, they're too busy taking talk radio shows like Opie & Anthony off the air and forcing them onto satellite radio because these guys decide to talk about sex sometimes. And they’re working hard to keep some curse words and nudity off of TV. Sounds good, until you realize they’re not really doing their job, and when they are doing their “job,” they’re doing it ass-backwards. Anyone who saw the joke that’s called the MTV Video Music Awards this past August saw the debauchery caused by some of the biggest names in music today, cursing during a live recording about how much they hate each other, to the point that MTV couldn’t keep up with dumping out the curses, and words like “fuck” made it through. Never mind the fact that MTV only plays Rap videos most of the time, and these videos are all about violence, drugs, and guns. Where are you, FCC? And in the meantime, as another great slap in the face to Rock artists, Shinedown couldn’t put their video for “45” on MTV because the network wanted them to pretty much eliminate the chorus, which is nothing more than a metaphor, just because it makes reference to a gun. Am I missing something?! Because this all seems like one big contradiction to me.

     A movie entitled “The Aristocrats” came out this past summer. It’s a documentary in which a ton of hilarious comedians talk about one dirty joke, and each comic puts his/her own spin on it. I went to see it. Mind you, I had to go about 30 minutes out of my way—even though there are about 3 movie theaters within 15 minutes—to see it, but I saw it, and it was extremely funny. I really enjoyed it. But I had to drive 30 minutes out of my way to the only theater in the area that actually played it. Why? Because AMC decided to ban it from all of their theaters because it was deemed too offensive. Oh, so Satan possessing humans and making their bodies melt is just fine for the public to see, but a dirty, hypothetical joke is too much for Americans to handle. I saw the commercial for “The Aristocrats” ONCE, and never again. And yet, I see commercials for violent movies all the time. 

     So this is what the FCC is telling me: This country’s children can be exposed to violence, ghost stories, and exorcisms on TV, in the movies, and on advertisements ranging from online instant messaging programs to even news websites. But a little love, portrayed through two people having sex, is traumatizing, and people talking, or even joking, about sex would also make kids turn into horrible people.

     Maybe we humans should take a look at one of our closest cousins, the Bonobos. This ape species shares more than 98% of our DNA, so they’re very closely related to humans. Bonobos are known for their non-violent social behavior. They never fight, there are never disputes. How is this possible? They diffuse any and all tensions by having sex. That’s right, casual sex runs rampant among Bonobos. They have sex before they eat, and, in the rare occasion that they do get a little feisty toward one another, they use sex to make up. They do it in all different kinds of positions. They have oral sex, they touch each other, they even have sex with members of the same gender. And yet, they maintain social order. And here we are, the “supreme” species on the planet, and we hate sex. We don’t want our kids to even think about sex. We would rather send our kids off to war after taking them to the movies to watch someone kill off an entire community. Yes, I think we should look to the Bonobos, because obviously, we’re doing something wrong. But we don’t have much time for reflection either, because the Bonobos are severely endangered due to habitat loss and, you guessed it, hunting. We’re killing off one of our closest relatives. The hippies had it right, “Make love, not war.” The Bonobos have known this all along, but we’re too focused on the negative to see the truth.