December 9, 2004
Public waves
Glenn Fleishman comments on my blogging of Jeff Jarvis‘ interlineal rant against the FCC’s Michael Powell’s op ed in the NY Times. Glenn gets all reasonable and raises a key question:
is there a line that shouldn’t be crossed on air and on TV? That is, full-front nudity: yes/no? All obscenities: yes/no? Horrible violence: yes/no?
If the answer is no even provisionally, then you have to have objective standards and a body set up to help determine and enforce those standards.
If not, then, in the words of Marge Simpson in 2020, “You know, Fox turned into a hardcore sex channel so gradually, I didn’t even notice. Yeesh!”
[Note: I’m pretty sure what I say in the following is wrong. Unfortunately, it’s not wrong in interesting ways.]
As long as the “air waves” are licensed by the federal government — which I hope won’t be for all that long (see here and here, too) — then I’m not going to take the absolutist free speech position. IMO, there are lines that public broadcasters should not cross. Otherwise, I’d have to say that I think it’s fine if all the licensed broadcasters showed nothing but __________ (fill in the blank with whatever you think is bad bad content, e.g., Nazi propaganda, Playboy after Dark, Three’s Company re-runs, etc. ). I don’t mind the government exercising some control over what can be put over public “air waves” or on billboards in the public air. So, yes, I’m “merely” disagreeing over where to draw the line. I just don’t see anything “merely” about it.
So, for me the problem with the Janet Jackson fine wasn’t that all censorship is wrong. Rather, fining CBS so much money was ludicrous and inconsistent. I mean, broadcast TV is endlessly smutty. From blowjobs to taking it up the ass to dildos to how to remove semen from your grandmother’s dentures, there isn’t a joke that isn’t made on mainstream TV. And the jokes depend on the fact that this material is supposedly not suitable for TV. The jokes work by titillating us. So, why the big fine for showing a couple of square millimeters of Janet Jackson’s nipple? Why not even a nod toward the bottomless violence on TV? And why bow to the relative handful of people who complained?
In other words, I’m your basic namby-pamby liberal. But I disagree with the larger master narrative at work among many who think as I do. That narrative says that an unregulated market will tend towards coarseness and vulgarity: If the licensed broadcasters had no controls over acceptable content, they would escalate — tit for tat, so to speak — towards on-screen sex and violence, driving out all other content, if only because shock garners attention, and today’s shock is tomorrow’s been-there-saw-that.
I think that master narrative is probably wrong. In the unregulated world of cable TV, we get the realistic language of The Sopranos, the child-safe snot-based Nickelodeon, some science channels, and dickless softcore porn at 11 pm. As everyone has noticed, we also get 10x the innovation and 3x the quality compared with what comes over the public air waves. Cable’s relatively unregulated market has tended towards increased quality, not a race to the bottom.
And yet, so long as the licensed broadcasters have any claim to being the free, common denominator of mass communications in this country, I think it reasonable to expect them to enable the public to regulate their own viewing regimes. People shouldn’t routinely stumble across stuff that outrages their moral sensibilities. That means that if you spin the dial, you should feel confident that although your children may see a woman mounting a horse, they will not come across a snippet of the vice versa. If you enjoy Will and Grace‘s faux sauciness, you should nevertheless feel confident that you’re not going to come back from commercial to see Jack wiping cum off his chin. And if you’re watching the SuperBowl and think that breasts are immoral, you shouldn’t have to worry that you’re going to be flashed during the halftime special. (On the other hand, if you’re CBS, you probably didn’t even need to be told that that was inappropriate, much less be fined mass quantities.)
Who decides this? Ultimately the licensing agency, but only as a last resort. And in proportion. And using published guidelines and common sense — There’s a difference between “Fuck! I can’t feel my legs, Private Ryan!” and “Fuck me harder with your privates, Ryan!”
The strictly Libertarian view is attractive theoretically. But we don’t live in a theoretical world. Also, many Libertarians undervalue the role of the community in favor of the individual. I disagree. Communities are real and are valuable. Unfortunately, the USA is not a community, so applying community standards is difficult. Nevertheless, I’m pretty certain that videos of people blowing their pets shouldn’t be broadcast at 8pm on America’s Favorite Home Videos, and any theory that says otherwise I’m willing to declare a failed theory.
I’m actually pretty conflicted by this topic. (Hence the length of this post.) I recognize the argument that because cable has turned out well — a range of programming suitable for different tastes and a self-rating system more finely detailed than that for movies — maybe deregulating the content of the public airwaves would work out the same. And if the licensed networks were all we had, I’d be more concerned. But, broadcast TV is so bad and most of the country has better alternatives. So, I’m inclined to say: Keep broadcast TV relatively safe and let it suck itself to death.
So long as FCC is in the business of licensing spectrum, it probably also has to worry about content. But it should worry a lot less and a lot better.
