Philocrites

Outrage on demand.

by Philocrites

"The Great Indecency Hoax" is classic Frank Rich. How is it, he asks, that no one complained to ABC or the FCC about Monday Night Football's skanky promotional spot for "Desperate Housewives" until fully 24 hours had passed? Sure, it may be that Rush Limbaugh was so "stunned" that he couldn't find words for his outrage until Wednesday. But it almost makes you think that people weren't actually outraged by what they saw, but by what they were told they saw. More on that in a moment.

First, however, this gem:

The hypocrisy embedded in this tale is becoming a national running gag. As in the Super Bowl brouhaha, in which the N.F.L. maintained it had no idea that MTV might produce a racy halftime show, the league has denied any prior inkling of the salaciousness on tap this time — even though the spot featured the actress playing the sluttiest character in prime time's most libidinous series and was shot with the full permission of one of the league's teams in its own locker room. Again as in the Jackson case, we are also asked to believe that pro football is what Pat Buchanan calls "the family entertainment, the family sports show" rather than what it actually is: a Boschian jamboree of bumping-and-grinding cheerleaders, erectile-dysfunction pageantry and, as Don Imus puts it, "wife-beating drug addicts slamming the hell out of each other" on the field.

Ah, Bosch for the masses! But here's the serious news in Rich's column:

But there's another, more insidious game being played as well. The F.C.C. and the family values crusaders alike are cooking their numbers. The first empirical evidence was provided this month by Jeff Jarvis, a former TV Guide critic turned blogger. He had the ingenious idea of filing a Freedom of Information Act request to see the actual viewer complaints that drove the F.C.C. to threaten Fox and its affiliates with the largest indecency fine to date — $1.2 million for the sins of a now-defunct reality program called "Married by America." Though the F.C.C. had cited 159 public complaints in its legal case against Fox, the documents obtained by Mr. Jarvis showed that there were actually only 90 complaints, written by 23 individuals. Of those 23, all but 2 were identical repetitions of a form letter posted by the Parents Television Council. In other words, the total of actual, discrete complaints about "Married by America" was 3.

Outrage is an entertainment industry, too.

Copyright © 2004 by Philocrites | Posted 27 November 2004 at 11:42 AM

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