Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

broadcast tv: now with expletives

Will the f-word be creeping into more broadcast television programming soon?

The FCC, which received several complaints after U2 singer Bono offhandedly used the f-word during the Golden Globe Awards, recently ruled that Bono’s use of the word did not violate decency/obscenity rules. (AP: “FCC Gives Bono a Pass on Cursing at Awards” - 10/07/03)

The FCC, using the F-word more often to explain its decision than Bono did on the air, said the word “may be crude and offensive, but, in the context presented here, did not describe sexual or excretory organs or activities.” That distinction is a key test to measure whether a statement meets a federal standard for broadcast indecency.

David Solomon, chief of the FCC’s enforcement bureau, said in the ruling that Bono used the vulgarity as an adjective or to emphasize an exclamation and that “the use of specific words, including expletives or other ‘four-letter words’ does not render material obscene.”

Before The X-Files ended, star David Duchovny complained, in a 2000 interview with Entertainment Weekly, that part of why the show wasn’t doing as well as it used to was that it was running against competition on premium cable, like The Sopranos, where the f-word can be used pretty liberally.

“It’s very hard to write the show,” he says, “and I think we have the best writers on TV for what they do. They have to come up with 22 good stories a year. It’s impossible. You can’t just rely on Sipowicz going into the interrogation room and calling somebody a hump — which is good TV but it’s cheating. Our writers can’t cheat.” Nor can they compete with their cable competition, The Sopranos: “They say ‘f—.’ Every time you say ‘f—,’ you win.”

The error in Duchovny’s statement, though, was in assuming that The X-Files was as good as it used to be, or as good as The Sopranos. Colorful language doesn’t make up for lack of overall quality.