Is nudity and profanity allowed on network tv in America?

I live in Canada and Sopronos play on primetime networks. Nudity swearing is ok,violence is delayed til after 9 pm.

Though people in undergarments and quite skimpy bathing suits are de rigeur. Certain "milder" profanity (like hell, damn, b*tch) terms are allowed but others are still banned.

Fuck is ok. Graphic violence is not so common.

It's ok to see people get beaten to death and have their heads blown off, but if a nipple pops out or (perish the thought) two guys look at one another lovingly all hell breaks loose. :eyes:

From 10 PM to 6AM local time, broacasters may air indecency. These rules are in effect becuase children are most likley to be in a "safe harbor" during these hours. However, most networks choose not to take advantage of this rule. This is why PBS airs shows such as Blackadder and Monty Python after 10 PM, so they will not run afoul of the FCC. This rule is also why the FCC did not go after The Tonight Show a while back when a member of Motley Crue yelled "Happy fuckin' new year" to the drummer of the band during their performance on a live New Year's Eve special. (The uttereance was edited out for the West Coast rebroadcast.)

Now cable can air whatever the hell they want to because by paying for cable rather than receiving over-the-air braodcasters for free, subscribers "invite" cable into their homes, so cable is not subject to FCC content regulation. The decision on wheteer to air indecency is left up to the individual channels. However, there are moves in Congress led by Senator Stevens (R-AK) and backed by moralist groups such as the Parents Television Council and the over-the-air networks to have the FCC regulate content on cable.

If they don't want their kids to watch something they have a variety of choices.

1. The V-chip
2. The channel blocking technology provided by their cable or satellite TV provider
3. Don't have a TV
4. Actually supervise their children like parents are supposed to, rather than letting the TV do it and then expecting everyone else in the nation to suffer because they (the parents) are too lazy to do their job.

These are the people who want "small government" yet clamor for the government to intrude into the most minute details of individuals' lives. :eyes:

Regarding cable, the PTC has been pushing more towards a la carte, but has indicated that FCC regulation of content on cable would be "a suitable alternative".

Man, Fuck the PTC, they're a bunch of fundamentalist nutjobs.

Hopefully it would push down the ridiculously high price of cable, and shut up the wingnuts.




(And when I get my own place I wouldn't have to spend the time and effort to block out the seven or so holy-roller channels either. ;-))

Having cable without EWTN, The deranged dominionist fundiebot channell, and Faux News.

I'd also skip all of the sports channels.

I'd love to block the holy-roller channels here at my weekend job so I wouldn't have to hear my crazy co-worker yelling "Amen" and "Praise the Lord" to the TV. However blocking doesn't simply delete the channels from the lineup, it gives you a bluescreen with a prompt to enter the password, so she'd know what had happened, and figure out that I'd done it. :shrug:

But I think that's just a scare tactic. If I order, say, 10 channels a la carte, how can that cost more than the 30 or so in their basic package? :shrug:

I don't know if I will be able to get cable once I move. The cable providers in my area no longer offer "basic" services but only "expanded basic" and up. "Expanded basic" is nearly $50 a month :scared: (which is for roughly 70 channels). The reality is that so many of them are channels I don't even watch (sports, religion, news, cartoons/kids, game shows, shopping, etc.). It would make so much more sense for me to pay a la carte for the maybe 20 or so channels I actually want rather than go without (where both I and the cable company lose) or the bundle (where I pay out the nose for a bunch of channels I never watch).

in the burboonies. And I'm not dealing with the satellite fucks again. They're just as bad as the cable fucks, plus they require a year-long commitment, so you can bet your ass they do a credit check. And I don't like the idea of having a phone line connected to my teevee.

So I've got me an old-fashioned antenna on the roof. Sucker does pretty good, too. :D

I was doing a paper on this topic. I found a recent FCC study that showed that a la carte would actually mean slightly lower cable prices.

the channels that pay to be on cable, which many people wouldn't want if given the choice- help subsidize the costs of the more popular channels.

:grr:

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

There is that.



( :hug: )

B*m, W*inkle, and Semprini.

:shrug:

:grr:

"Right, who's got a boil on his semprini, then?"

over the years. It was shocking — shocking, I tell you — when Hawkeye Pierce said "Son of a bitch" on a MASH episode in the early '80s. Now we hear that pretty regularly, especially Sunday nights on Faux.

It's the type of profanity, though. That which describes bodily functions is still right out (except for milder epithets), and sex is still mentioned only in innuendo. :eyes:

Nudity? Perish the thought! Don't you know a female nipple can kill you? :scared:

But, wait — Death By Nipple would be violence, and violence is fine. :shrug:

(Re "milder epithets," I wish somebody would explain to me why "crap" is okay but "shit" isn't.)

...so America is still keeping its priorities straight...

I remember they did a spoof of NYPD Blue featuring a bare of bare bottoms. A hairy male butt (sorry ladies, I don't think it was Jon's) and a shapely female one. It was kind of "shocking" at the time... early '90's I guess.

Friday afternoon they did a story of some sort on the porn industry. They clearly showed a woman fondling her breasts for three or four seconds, and then cut just before she lifted her shirt. A year or so ago they showed a graphic, again about the porn industry, with a nude woman's legs splayed (I didn't see this one, just saw it here on DU.) There was nothing "investigative" about this report - they just wanted to keep their aging audience stimulated enough to watch the next commercial by stroking their closeted, holy libido.

I'm not a prude, but this pandering to the prurient interests of repressed Fox-watching troglodytes under the cover of "investigation", while at the same time demonizing the loose morals of "liberals" is hypocritical. Money over morals. Profit over people.

on CBC can have some pretty gruesome and explicit violent scenes, esp about war.

I've seen them on during the afternoon.

And you wonder why America is so fucked up.

and as for profanity, it depends on the network.

I'm thinking of shows like "NYPD Blue"

Profanity? I've heard "pissed" "son of a bitch". "Fuck" is certainly not allowed.

I've seen Canadian television and you're years ahead of us.

The Janet Jackson Super Bowl incident and the remarkably stupid, immature reaction to it has ushered in a new puritanical streak on American network television.