The Rim Of Hell

Wayne Friedman over at Mediapost.com wrote an interesting article (which if you would like to read in it’s entirety, will require signing up on the site. Sorry!) regarding MSNBC’S Joe Scarborough inadvertently dropping the f-bomb on the air during the ‘Morning Joe’ program yesterday (watch it HERE if you’re so inclined).  Friedman’s point being that it was on cable, which is not under direct jurisdiction of the FCC, so not only wasn’t the ‘forbidden word’ a big deal but perhaps cable nets should do MORE of that sort of thing to further differentiate themselves & their product from over-the-air TV.

Now this ain’t a political blog nor is it a media industry journal – so my first question has nothing really to with Friedman’s points (which I agree with, BTW) but more along the lines of . . . why do we still care so much?

Seriously, are we so naive to think that our children don’t hear those words each & every day, or at least read them on blogs and chat rooms (god damn those foul mouthed bloggers!!), Myspace & Facebook pages, IM’s or text messages from cronies? Or worse, out of the mouths of their OWN PARENTS?

Agreed, that doesn’t mean give young children front row seats to the Cheech & Chong reunion but the occasional slip up? Does it need to be a big deal? Who are we REALLY offending?  Has anyone anywhere ever proven psychological damage, moral corruption or acne are caused by an off-the-cuff ‘Fuck You’ every now and again? My folks tried for years to warn me away from profanity, and you can see what good that did.  When someone cuts you off on the freeway, well. . . ‘gosh darn’ doesn’t do enough.

But without regard to opening up the parenting debate, or a religious snit, my true thought is this; if it’s ok on cable, why isn’t it ok over the air? I don’t recall signing a profanity clause when I signed up for Time Warner . . . so where’s the cut-off? Are cable subscribing households immediately declared less ‘moral’, and thus able to withstand a steady assault of profanity??  I have access to CNN thus I can handle the varied and colorful use of the word ‘shit’ on rare instances, especially if in a dramatic setting?

And why, you may ask – on this blog, with the usual subject matter that spews from my git, am I bringing this up?  Because my friends, it’s still about CENSORSHIP.  A minor example, I’ll give you that but anytime you force a speaker to alter his words to conform to a template or set of governing rules – to me, you are shaving off the edge to that person’s ideas.  Taking a bit of the sting from his tail, so to speak.  If you penalize someone for NOT toning down his language, to me it’s not much different.

As an amateur blogger & aspiring novelist, I watch these kinds of developments with a certain amount of disdain.  When all is said & done, aren’t we past all of this by now?