My first reaction to the ridiculous uproar over the Desperate Housewives opening to this week's Monday Night Football was, "oh god, the morons are at it again." Don't get me wrong, I still think the Coalition of Assholes Determined to Inflict Their Morality on Others (CADITMO, for short) are knee-jerk reactionaries best relegated to the fringe of public opinion. And I think the FCC is WAY too inclined to listen to said a-holes, but that's kind of beside the point. (There's an interesting article on this guy's blog showing that the last round of big fines doled out to Fox for Married by America were generated by a grand total of… 23 complaints, 20 of which were simply copies of a form letter complaint. So much for the millions of people who watched that show—admittedly, probably to their great detriment—and weren't offended.)
But I started thinking about it and realized that, much as I disagree with this whole mess (it was the lead freaking story on every news promo I saw for two damn days!) I have to wonder what kind of moron, considering the reactionary climate we're apparently currently living in, figured this wasn't going to be an issue? I mean, does it take a genius to figure out that the damn games air at 6 PM on the West Coast… plenty of time for people to get worked up over "what the children might see"? Are they blissfully unaware that, maybe, these same idiots that got foaming-at-the-mouth worked up over Janet Jackson's boob-i-sode at the Superbowl are going to be watching TV, especially the NFL on TV, just looking for something to complain about?
Because, giving the devil his due, the tone of the intro was of a more adult tone, one that might cause parents a little discomfort if little Johnny pipes up with "Daddy, why is that lady taking off her clothes?" in the middle of dinner.
Frankly, I like the fact that there's entertainment on my TV that ISN'T meant for children. I like the Sopranos, Sex and the City, CSI, and countless other shows that are inappropriate for children and I want to keep it that way. What we don't need is the FCC getting worked up over every damn thing that happens on TV and ready to fine willy-nilly, scaring the hell out of TV execs that are more interested in their bottom line than producing anything with any content and having them freak out any time anything even remotely "adult" shows up in their programming.
So, while my first reaction was to get pissed at the a-holes doing the complaining, I'm more than willing to throw some blame ABC's way for not thinking things through and maybe, just maybe, realizing that somebody might get ticked off about their pre-show shtick. (And no, I don't buy the "there's no such thing as bad publicity" idea that people seem to be falling back on, accusing ABC of knowing they'd generate controversy to improve ratings. How does after-the-fact interest in something that's obviously not likely to be repeated turn into ratings? I'm missing that particular logic path entirely.)
But I started thinking about it and realized that, much as I disagree with this whole mess (it was the lead freaking story on every news promo I saw for two damn days!) I have to wonder what kind of moron, considering the reactionary climate we're apparently currently living in, figured this wasn't going to be an issue? I mean, does it take a genius to figure out that the damn games air at 6 PM on the West Coast… plenty of time for people to get worked up over "what the children might see"? Are they blissfully unaware that, maybe, these same idiots that got foaming-at-the-mouth worked up over Janet Jackson's boob-i-sode at the Superbowl are going to be watching TV, especially the NFL on TV, just looking for something to complain about?
Because, giving the devil his due, the tone of the intro was of a more adult tone, one that might cause parents a little discomfort if little Johnny pipes up with "Daddy, why is that lady taking off her clothes?" in the middle of dinner.
Frankly, I like the fact that there's entertainment on my TV that ISN'T meant for children. I like the Sopranos, Sex and the City, CSI, and countless other shows that are inappropriate for children and I want to keep it that way. What we don't need is the FCC getting worked up over every damn thing that happens on TV and ready to fine willy-nilly, scaring the hell out of TV execs that are more interested in their bottom line than producing anything with any content and having them freak out any time anything even remotely "adult" shows up in their programming.
So, while my first reaction was to get pissed at the a-holes doing the complaining, I'm more than willing to throw some blame ABC's way for not thinking things through and maybe, just maybe, realizing that somebody might get ticked off about their pre-show shtick. (And no, I don't buy the "there's no such thing as bad publicity" idea that people seem to be falling back on, accusing ABC of knowing they'd generate controversy to improve ratings. How does after-the-fact interest in something that's obviously not likely to be repeated turn into ratings? I'm missing that particular logic path entirely.)
Comments
I also like adult entertainment on my TV. I also am glad my daughters weren't asking what the naked lady was doing grinding on the big football player. But, what really annoys me about this whole fiasco is that ABC thought about it, and then decided to thumb its nose at America anyhow. The free pub was worth it to them. THAT, to my mind, is the real abuse of privilege here. They shouldn't be punished/fined because a large contingent found the piece indecent. They should be nailed because they KNEW it would be considered indecent and didn't give a hoot.
Q