Interesting judgment from the United States Supreme Court earlier today: you cannot say the word “fuck” on TV. Well, you can, but you’ll be heavily fined by the FCC. The same goes for “shit”.
Unfortunately, we did not get a Peter Cook and Dudley Moore-style explanation (“What is the point of saying: ‘Fuck! Shit! Tit! Bum! Arsehole!’?“), as the Supreme Court chose to render fuck and shit as “the F- and S-Words”.
Nonetheless, it decided that the FCC decision to remove the one-fuck-for-free rule on TV broadcasts on US networks was neither “arbitrary” nor “capricious”.
Read the full Supreme Court decision here [pdf]
It’s not just these two words either – the FCC rules cover anything that denotes “sexual or excretory activity or organs”. Bono has yet to yell out that winning an award made his sphincter vibrate (it was Bono that created the new rules by saying it felt “fucking brilliant” when he won his Golden Globe a few years back) – but it would be interesting to see how the FCC reacted to that.
The Supreme Court noted in fact that the Federal Communications Commission has taken a “cautious, but gradually expanding, approach to enforcing the statutory prohibition”.
Interesting to note that there was no mention of the “C-Word” in the judgment – which is a word that Americans find incredibly offensive across the board, far more so than in Europe.
WTF?
Anyway, the case was brought by Fox and then backed up by NBC and others. You can’t help but see why. When people use this language and hear this language all day, every day – particularly in shows that appears on networks that are not subject to the same rules – it’s hardly surprising Fox and others are not over the moon at being fined large sums for a simple slip of the tongue.
It means that they will either have to drop awards shows, or put very careful controls on them. And it means they still have to produce shows that don’t have a realistic edge to them.
I understand the desire of the FCC to keep things clean but its approach is increasingly unrealistic with the Internet becoming a centre of video dispersal. The FCC probably wishes it could extend its powers over Internet content but it doesn’t stand a chance and so it is increasingly in the ironic position of punishing those that are most restrictive in their content for the behaviour of others.
Nanny in a state
It is also a little nannying for the FCC to try to stop people from saying the word “fuck” or “shit” when they are so used so unbelievably frequently. What the FCC might do better focussing on is allowing for consumers to complain about the use of language that they find offensive. If people truly are offended by the use of such language – especially if it means they won’t watch a particular show – they you can bet the show’s producers will bear that in mind if they are informed by the silent passive viewers out there.
Either way, you can’t really blame the Supreme Court – they were asked to decide whether the FCC has acted arbitrarily. Since this was the FCC i.e. part of the government, since the rules were clear, and since there would have been a huge row if the Supreme Court voted in favour of swearing, its decision was not that surprising. Still, it was only 5 to 4 against.
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