The Fascist Parents Television Council

Television is the first truly democratic culture – the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want.
– Clive Barnes

The self-righteous and power-hungry “Parents Television Council” is at it again. Recently the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal by the FCC of an appeals court ruling upholding Newscorp’s challenge of FCC rules on “fleeting” uses of four-letter words on awards shows. Newscorp’s point was that since the words were not uttered in a “sexual or excretory” context, and no fines were imposed, the FCC should clarify its standards and drop their complaint. The appeals court agreed, as any sane person would.

Now the PTC is all cranked up. Current PTC head Tim Winter is praising the fact that the case has been accepted for the high court. But he huffs to his e-list:

I’m definitely relieved the Supreme Court did not uphold the shocking lower court decision that allows the worst kind of profanity to be broadcast on the public airwaves at any time of the day or night, even in front of children. But this is really NOT a victory for our cause — at lest not yet. The Supreme Court will not even hear this case until the fall — and they won’t issue a decision until even later. What’s worse, the Court could still rule in favor of the networks, leaving them free to air this kind of material wherever they like, whenever they like, as often as they like.

They are framing this legal technicality as some sort of moral battle for the souls of “the children.” Back when I was promoting FX’s The Shield, a show the PTC tried to have boycotted and cancelled, I emailed former PTC head Brent Bozell and told him how I felt about his meddling in my livelihood–and other people’s entertainment choices. Somehow, that got me on the PTC’s e-list. The email continues:

American families can’t afford to wait for the Supreme Court to act sometime next year for the FCC to stop the flood of sexually graphic and profane content coming into our homes on a nightly basis. In just the last few weeks, we’ve seen strippers in tassels, and naked women running through a gambling casino on prime time broadcast television. Even more shocking, we’ve also heard two prominent actresses — Dianne Keaton [fuck] on Good Morning America, and Jane Fonda [cunt] on the Today show — uttering four letter words on morning talk shows! That’s why we’re calling on all friends and supporters of the Parents Television Council to flood the Congress with demands for legislation that will guarantee children are not exposed to nudity on television, and to the worst kind of profane language wherever they go.

Or so goes the false dichotomy: either impose government censorship on every second of every program, or suffer an orgiastic free-for-all that will rape and permanently scar children’s minds. But this silly caricature doesn’t take into account that TV networks are ruled by ratings and advertisers. If people don’t like something, they tune out. They don’t need someone else to tell them what and what not to like. So TV has become a reflection of society–not the other way around.

But that doesn’t sit well with the power-brokers who want to undemocratically control other people’s entertainment. To really understand what kind of scumbags make up the PTC, you have to go back to “nipplegate” (pictured above) which occurred on February 1, 2004. Janet’s Jackson’s breast was exposed at the Super Bowl for a few seconds (horrors). Opportunist and PTC scumbag-in-chief L. Brent Bozell III saw his opening, and the lifelong conservative crusader rode the mile-wide-inch-deep “moral outrage” and the red-state religious puritanical fervor to national prominence and congressional hearings. Television has never been the same.

According to a Mediaweek article from December of 2004, more than 99% of all complaints to the FCC following nipplegate came from PTC members, making it more like a lobbying organization rather than any representation of grass-roots sentiments:

The number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in the previous year, Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, “a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes.”

What Powell did not reveal apparently because he was unaware was the source of the complaints. According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003 99.8 percent were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group.

This year, the trend has continued, and perhaps intensified. Through early October, 99.9 percent of indecency complaints aside from those concerning the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl halftime show broadcast on CBS were brought by the PTC, according to the FCC analysis dated Oct. 1. (The agency last week estimated it had received 1,068,767 complaints about broadcast indecency so far this year; the Super Bowl broadcast accounted for over 540,000, according to commissioners’ statements.)

The prominent role played by the PTC has raised concerns among critics of the FCC’s crackdown on indecency. “It means that really a tiny minority with a very focused political agenda is trying to censor American television and radio,” said Jonathan Rintels, president and executive director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media, an artists’ advocacy group.

And this is the heart of the matter. A tiny minority of arch-conservatives have hijacked the notion of “decency” to advance their narrow fascist agenda, which is at its core a strictly religious agenda (Bozell is a colleague of blowhard Bill Donohue and also sits on the board of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights). They are not just opposed to sex, they are opposed to humor. They are not just opposed to specific acts of violence, they are opposed to entire themes. Since we live in a democracy, and people have the right to freedom of speech and expression, Bozell and Co. had to figure out how to enlist the mindless masses to support censorship. “Decency” has become the battle cry.

Any advertiser who makes a media buy in an “indecent” program can be targeted for a boycott. This kind of pressure directly curtails freedom of speech. Who elected these unaccountable morons to represent all parents? Who is watching the watchers? Well for one, the Center for Media and Democracy, which lists the following private groups and foundations who contribute to the PTC’s censorship efforts and largely provide the organization’s annual $4.5 million budget:

Ackerman Presbyterian Church, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Cly-Del Manufacturing Company, Dodge Jones Foundation, Philip M. Friedmann Family Charitable Trust, Grover Hermann Foundation, Hickory Foundation, The Holloway Family Foundation, John E. and Sue M. Jackson Charitable Trust, the Forrest C. Lattner Foundation, The Schloss Family Foundation, The Stuart Family Foundation, Bill and Katie Weaver Charitable Trust, Gil and Dody Weaver Foundation

It’s so obvious, I shouldn’t even have to say it: Arts and entertainment are important ways society holds conversations about real issues and formulates cultural rules. We do this so every act doesn’t have to be covered by a law. Cultural codes are much more fluid and allow for people to change their minds by taking context into consideration. In short, the PTC would like to ruin this process by completely controlling how artists, writers, directors and actors are allowed to have those conversations with the viewing public. They want to impose this control by any means necessary.

Now I have no trouble admitting that the Jackson/Timberlake stunt was contextually inappropriate for the Super Bowl audience. Having said that, it’s clear it was not the intent of CBS to somehow subject viewers to “indecency.” People see more exposed flesh at the beach on a sunny California weekend. But even if it was a punishable offense (breach of contract, etc.) any penalty should have been limited to the people involved in the incident–Timberlake and Jackson themselves. But the firestorm touched off by that brief flash was out of any reasonable proportion. Here’s how it affected me and my work personally: On The Shield and Nip/Tuck promos, we used to include the occasional “ass,” “bitch,” or sex scene. After nipplegate, every promo had to be reviewed by the legal department, and basically be sanitized to be suitable for all ages, even though the shows were clearly adult-themed TV-MA material.

And that brings up my next point: the PTC is all lathered up about how TV ratings are falsified. Well it’s clear that they don’t want these shows airing at all, so to me it’s highly disingenuous to spend so much time quibbling about the ratings. The only rating the PTC cares about would be “unacceptable.” In fact, the PTC has started issuing the opposite “seal-of-approval” type ratings–to Sky Angel (offering the Faith Package, Family Package and Family Values Pack in case you’re not really sure), Trinity Broadcasting, and Cleanflicks. So it’s pretty clear that the PTC won’t be satisfied until every entertainment offering is suitably “Disneyfied”–and suitably religious.

But wait, isn’t Disney supposed to be the gold standard for family values? Not according to the PTC. Disney president Robert Iger opposes the PTC’s attempts at censorship. And the PTC is taking him to task for it.

It seems there is no end to the hubris of these self-appointed moral guardians, many of whom have skeletons in their own closet. If they had their way, most of the best programs of the past decade would never have made it on TV. These include The Shield, Nip/Tuck, Dexter, Monk, Rescue Me, Sex in the City, South Park, The Family Guy, and countless other gems. Even Ugly Betty isn’t spared their conserva-wrath. So I say fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke–and joke ’em if they can’t take a fuck.