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Fox's Hypocrisy on Sally Field Revealed

Surely you remember a few days back when Fox censored Sally Field at the Emmy's because she tried to say the line, "If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be any goddamned wars in the first place."

At the time, I wondered if it was because Field was making a political statement or if it was because she said the word "goddamned." To censor her for making an anti-war statement that innocuous would reveal their political leanings too blatantly, right? It was probably just the language she used.

Wrong. It turns out, assuming the worst out of Fox is always the right choice. This video by Robert Greenwald shows that not only have Fox commentators used the word "goddam" in the past, they've thrown it around playfully.

Now, admittedly, Field said the word on Fox, a network, and the commentators in this video said it on Fox News, a cable station. But that shouldn't make a difference. According to the FCC, here are the standards for censoring material on any TV channel:

  • An average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.
  • The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law.
  • The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

This situation doesn't fall into any of those three categories. Moreover, there is no list of words that are banned completely, ala George Carlin's seven dirty words, and in this FCC ruling, "goddam" is specifically categorized as "not profane."

(H/T Think Progress)

Posted by Jonathan Stein on 09/20/07 at 9:13 AM | E-mail | Print | Digg | de.licio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Yahoo! MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Netscape | Google |



Comments

Fox - I love it when Republicans refer to the Media as liberal.

It wasn't the word but at whom it was directed.

Posted by: Roselle Halter on 09/20/07 at 11:03 AM

I'm not willing to see political censorship in this. FCC fines have gotten pretty draconian, and I can see that no FOX Network employee is going to want to explain allowing a word that brought a big fine. Also, that few second delay most live programs have isn't much time do decide whether to bleep someone. I imagine in fact the decision has to be pretty instantaneous by whoever has the bleep button. There's hardly time to consult the guidelines. I blame it on the nonsense of great concern that someone might say a bad word instead of refraining themselves blowing brains out. Let's just stop being so *&^%@ paranoid about language.

Posted by: Eric Ferguson on 09/20/07 at 1:50 PM

Red Eye airs on basic cable at 2 in the morning.

Posted by: Jim Treacher on 09/20/07 at 2:03 PM

What Sally Field said is what hundreds of thousands of people say every day, "No more war".

If Fox thinks our children will be offended by statements calling for an end to war, than they should be the first in line protecting kids from fighting, suffering and dying in these profane wars.

Posted by: Larry Blackwell on 09/20/07 at 2:31 PM

We create the words, then we fear those words. It’s like Mary Shelly meets George Orwell.
The kids would call it “wacked”. I call it “fucked up”. My Dad would say, “What the Sam Hill?” and my grandfather wouldn’t need to say anything at all. You’d just know you fucked up.

Posted by: kirkbrew on 09/20/07 at 5:11 PM

Of course they were censoring the political statement. If their concern was "goddam," they could have bleeped that single word. As for the time element, I'm sure FOX would assign a very competent person to the task of censoring those radical Hollywood liberals.

Posted by: sandy on 09/21/07 at 12:02 AM

Who cares what they do at Fox, why should anybody care, and why were you watching? You can program your remote to skip over the Fox channel number.

Posted by: slanted tom on 09/21/07 at 4:31 AM

I dislike Murdoch's politics, and aside from Family Guy, American Dad and The Simpsons, I dislike Fox's programming. But, what I think happened is that they needed to go to commercial. It seems to me that Sally was flustered because she was given the cue that she only had so much time until commercial break and it just so happened that they broke before she finished what she was saying.
I could be wrong, but that's how it seems to me.
Besides, Fox does program Family Guy, which has shown liberal and progressive views.
Also, because Sally was cut off, I think that her message is getting more notice than if she would have been heard in her entirety.

Posted by: chaxc on 09/21/07 at 9:49 AM

The Red Eye program exceprted multiple times in the embedded clip above, as Jim Treacher already pointed out, airs very late at night on Fox News Channel. The Emmys aired on Fox (the main channel) during "prime time". This is clearly apples and oranges, my friend, and the post should be updated to reflect as much.

Posted by: bww on 09/21/07 at 7:14 PM

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