TV or not TV? You Tell Me What's Indecent!

By Number Six

Sunday, June 18, 2006 at 04:18 AM

This originally started off as a reply to fellow conspirator Lee over my last needlepoint over the FCC's handing out big fines, and it's grown into another direction, as you might could guess...

Lee feels a tad paranoid, as do I: How much longer will it be before the FCC gets their prudish, childish and moronic hands on everything in general? Will there come a day and time when I cannot blog openly? I always said that any form of censorship is a bad, bad thing, as the day eventually comes when we start censoring concepts, dissidence, other voices, but, of course, that's also the dawn of another revolution, just ask the former residents of the U.S.S.R. about that joke, eh?

But, what's always made me wonder and so, is the double-standard that's existed for decades, and with TV, of course. My itch?

Why is a naked female breast a no-no, and pure carnage is acceptable? Why can we not show two humans having intercourse, but we can show two humans shooting at each other?

Let's forget about the decades' worth of cop shows that always showed bang-you're-dead ep by ep by ep by ep. Let's do closer to today, shall we?

CSI. Oh, don't get me wrong, despite some scientific goofs in places, it's still pretty darned accurate about how forensic science works, albeit compressed into an hour, as most will tell you, it takes weeks to months, and some cases, well, sadly, there is no happy ending allowed, but that's life.

CSI doesn't show "skin"....unless said is laying prone on a table in the morgue. Dead. Usually with the chest cavity open. Sometimes, a leg or arm is missing. With the season finale piece, "Way To Go", gee, a dude loses his head to a train. Cute shots of Nick holding the head, too.

Gross? Sick? Disgusting? Depends. Ask a cop. Ask a sheriff's deputy. Ask a coroner. Ask someone who works an ER. SOP to that crowd, part of the grind of fighting crime, obviously.

But, for years now, decades, in fact, broadcast TV has played this strange game: We cannot show naked humans, sex, or say certain words, but we can show you death, destruction, war, fire, arson, nuclear destruction, and oodles of dead people, oh yeah, we can get away with that, right?

So, why do we bother discussing this? "Well, Six, we, well, we don't want our kids to see certain things on TV!"

"Meaning, they might be influenced, correct?"

Sound of my right work boot hitting the floor now. "So, now, despite some heavy research that clearly shows that showing acts of violence tends to make us dull to it, and the fact that many kids who shoot up schools and pack weapons, um, where, pray tell, do we suppose that they obtain such ideas?"

Why, the one-eyed brainkiller, of course. Humans are highly dependant on visual data, far more than our other senses combined. We see, we map, we load data. It does change us, shape us, and make us, later on, into something we may or may not wish to be facing other humans.

Yep, the research was done ages ago: The more you see dead bodies, carnage, violence, the less sensitive you are to such. Watch enough and after a time, they cease to do anything to you.

Thus, crap like Columbine comes to mind. "They played that game, DOOM, a lot.", okay, I was told, but I still had to ask myself, "And how many episodes of crime shows did they watch since they were in diapers, pray tell, and can you tell me THAT wasn't an influence, eh?"

Kids in street gangs. Kids with TEC 9's. Kids killing other kids. Where do they get these ideas? One guess, and it wasn't Debbie Does Dallas, of course.

Many of us have said this for decades, and still, nobody gets the joke: We dare not show a naked female or male, allow them talk using the Carlin seven-dirty-words, or allow them to have intercourse on the tube. We could, of course, show them both armed with machetes hacking each other to pieces. So, a unique "perception" of indecency exists: Sex is bad, violence, death, war, dismemberment, murder, that's pretty cool.

One might ask if this explains the massive popularity of CSI and her clones. I doubt it, I always thought CSI appealed to the Trekkie crowd: It's not a stupid show by any means. No dumb jokes played to the lowest-common-denominator, and without the jiggling vertigo-inducing camera work of COPS. It's pretty scientific, that amazes me no end. Gee, you mean science has an appeal?

But, CSI and the others can show dead bodies. Humans shot, knived, drowned, dismembered. That appears okay. Even a coroner yanking out organs, that's okay, right?

But we will, at this time, never see Sara drop her robe to the floor and crawl atop Grissom, not on camera! "Why, that's.....!!"

Indecent? Gee, golly, gosh, how did any of us get here? Answer: Mom got tipsy, Dad got lucky. Case closed. I exist because because my parents love each other madly. I thank them and God I am here.

And no, I do not relish violence. That's the darkside of humanity, yes, it happens all the time, each and every day, like it or lump it. I just so wish our schizophrenic FCC learned: Acts of violence are as indecent as anything, show them and our children will learn those habits, and they will become guilty of teaching children to become killers all.

Killers or lovers? Which should we prefer for our children? You tell me.

Oh, and as a footnote of sorts: CSI always, to the most eps, shows the bad guy getting nailed and sent to prison. Like Batman or Star Wars, that's a prayer we all have, when good nukes out evil. That, I so pray, we could see more often.

Hmm. CSI DC? I can't wait!!!!!!!!!