NOV 01 - 15, 2004

VOL. 2 ISSUE 21

NOVEMBER 14, 2004 – Many of you may recall a short while back, during the world series, when I had a bone to pick with a company talking way too explicitly about bone-like things during the World Series.

For those of you who don't recall the original article, here's a brief refresher:

"...we’ve all seen the tongue-in-cheek Viagra and Cialis ads.  We may have mocked Rafael Palmero as he degraded himself by whipping a bat out of a bat rack as he bragged about how his low sexual batting average was replaced with, “Batter up,” thanks to Viagra.  And we’ve cringed as poor middle-aged men are taunted by younger women in Cialis ads who can’t stop gushing about how insufficient their partners were sexually prior to taking the medication.

All of this was wrong, disgusting, and offensive.  But last night, as I sat trying to watch the major league baseball playoffs with my five year old niece, an ad came on in which a woman sat before the camera, looking right out at us all, and bragged about how Levitra gave her man, and I quote, “long-lasting erections,” which led to “quality sex.”

Now, I'm no prude, but I have to draw a line somewhere.  I mean, for crying out loud, half the children in America are watching when the World Series is on.  And, in particular, I was watching with my five year old niece - and my mother.  Levitra crossed the line.

The main issue bothering me was an apparent double standard, where people are held to a standard of decency - and punished massively if they cross it - while companies are given free reign.  As I explained it then:

The lack of outcry from the Bush/Limbaughians who made such a big deal about Janet’s ugly tit shows that for them there are clearly two Americas:  one for the people, and another, much-freer, more lenient one for the corporations.

If announcer Tim McCarver had said on the air, “I’ve been having really long-lasting erections lately, leading to really high quality sex,” he would have been fired and he and the station fined – even if it were just a spontaneous, momentary lapse of sanity and dignity.

But a company spends millions to make and air a commercial, planning step by step to talk about “long-lasting erections” right in the middle of the baseball playoffs, and there’s not a peep to be heard.

And so I did what any good American does when something unseemly, i.e. obscene, creeps into what is supposed to be the innocent and protected-for-the-family public airwaves:  I wrote the FCC.  Actually, I did more than just that.  I had a bunch of you loyal M/I readers join in the crusade.

That's right, we did exactly what people offended by Howard Stern's explicit talk did, which lead to the biggest fines in FCC history.

Well, apparently the FCC got our message.  And, so, they fired back a reply.

They kindly had representative TSR24 (a code, I suppose, to protect this most secretive of agencies - must be related to Homeland Security, eh?) forward me, as a response to the desperate outcry of decent M/I Americans, FCC Fact Sheet 51.  For those of you unfamiliar with FCC Fact Sheet 51, it bears the title "Complaints About Broadcast Advertising."

A very fine piece of literature.  And yes, it was the appropriate piece.  It detailed how, "Obscene programming is prohibited at all times while indecent programming is prohibited during certain hours."

Ok, that helped me out a lot.  The ad was pretty darned obscene - i.e. I'm so glad my man took those pills that gave him those great, long-lasting erections so he could pound away into me for some really great sex.  But whether or not it fit whatever subjective criteria the FCC uses for obscene, by any standard the ad's content was clearly indecent, and that meant it was prohibited during Prime Time.  (Nice to know we can be indecent on the pubic airwaves if we just stay up late enough.)

So the problem seemed solved.  Certainly they were going to take the same sort of action they took against Howard, whose show is on CBS-owning Viacom, or Janet, whose act occurred on CBS.  Surely there was not going to be a double-standard applied just because the Levitra ad happened to air on a network named Fox.

And certainly there wasn't going to be a double-standard because the indecent act occurred during an ad instead of, as I pondered before, if Tim McCarver had bragged about the great "long-lasting erections" he had been having lately during that same broadcast.

But then we got to a separate section of Fact Sheet 51 which was titled, "What If I Have a Complaint and/or Concern About a Specific Advertisement Being Offensive, False, or Misleading?"  And, lo and behold, as luck would have it there was this statement, "The FCC ordinarily does not have the authority to act on complaints regarding advertisements that listeners or viewers find offensive.

Now if an ad is false or misleading, it is not the FCC but the FTC, Federal Trade Commission which has, according the Fact Sheet 51, a responsibility, "for taking action against the sponsors of such material."  But the poor FCC tells us all they can do with regard to ads is, "expect its broadcasters to be responsible to the community it serves."

This struck me as a bit odd.  I mean, to have a double-standard where people who are actually a part of a program are held to one standard, while corporations are given complete freedom to offend at will, since thee FCC "ordinarily does not have the authority" to do anything about these sorts of things if they occur within the context of an ad, just seemed downright bizarre.

In fact, the idea opened up a real troubling question for me and, of course, the decency-expecting people of America:  does that mean if Janet exposed her nipple during an ad instead of during the actual Super Bowl program, or Howard made whatever comments he made during what he called and ad instead of during what he dubs his show, that they would not have been subject to the fines they and their owning company were hit with?

Actually, this idea was pretty exciting, because it seemed it could be the end of all FCC censorship and fining as we know it, as Howard or anyone else could simply dub their entire show - or any portion of it in which they wish to be obscene - as 'advertisement time,' and so be free of any threat of fine or punishment.

I mean, just to clarify, I couldn't possibly think for a second that there was a double-standard being applied because the FCC head is the Bush-appointed son of our Secretary of State, Colin's son Michael.  It couldn't be that Howard got such a massive fine for doing stuff like describing sexual things just because he decided he was going to talk out against Bush's re-election, while the Levitra ad in question was aired on Bush/Limbaugh-backing puppet network Fox.  The fact may be that Howard never even got as explicit as to talk about long-lasting erections and the great sex they bring, and he got the biggest fine in history, but it couldn't have been a bias based on that which got him nailed but let Fox off the hook.

Nor would I possibly consider that Janet's action got such a big fine mainly because it occurred on CBS, a station the Bush/Limbaugh right despises and attacks constantly because it takes President Bush and the right-wing on a bit.

No, I wouldn't think either of those things, nor that the fact that Howard's show is also operated by the same company that owns CBS, Viacom, might have something to do with how the punishments were handed out.

No, the fact that the 'long-lasting erections' my five year old niece learned about was thanks to right-wing puppet network Fox couldn't have had anything to do with the fact that the FCC was trying to brush off this incident without acting.

It was just this amazing, exciting double-standard where, while during programming you have to watch yourself, during ad time it is unbridled party on!

Just to be sure, I wrote back to good ol' TSR24 and asked, for clarification purposes:

"So let me get this straight - programs have to meet standards or can face massive fines, like with the Janet Jackson incident or Howard Stern, but ads are free to be as obscene as they want?  So if Janet flashed her breast in the ad, you could do nothing about that?  If Howard pulled his antics during ads instead of free airtime, you couldn't fine him?

"Just so I am understanding correctly.

"Thank you for the clarification."

I guess Mr./Ms. 24 keeps up to date with the goings-on at his office, as he/she didn't need any clarification with regard to who this Howard or Janet I was talking about were.  But, apparently, bringing up these topics set off some serious trauma which required TSR24 to head off for some recovery sick leave, passing the whole mess of FCC Problem #00749902 over to his/her best buddy, TSR43.

Now, I'm not saying TSR43 is really Rush Limbaugh moonlighting to earn an extra buck to help pay his lawyer for his ongoing drug-related issues, but whoever TSR43 is, they are either rather mentally inept or prone to trying to sound pompously superior, as he/she began their respone, "Dear Consumer:" - with a capital 'C' nonetheless.

This brainchild knows my name is John S. Ashton, both from the signature on my correspondences and the jashton@moderateindependent.com e-mail address I possess.

In any case, Mr./Ms. 43 was making a point clearly enough:  that to the FCC, we are just labeled and treated as types.  CBS-program-content-types get one label and are treated in one manner, Fox-ad-content-types are treated in a separate manner, and those of us who aren't part of the Bush administration or one of their support groups are dubbed Consumer.

In any case, Mr./Ms. 43 was kind enough to suck it up and admit, "There would be a fine for indecent or obscene ads."

So that little Fact Sheet 51 sent to me by TSR24 apparently, according to TSR43, meant nothing really with regard to Problem #00749902.  24 was just giving 00749902 the runaround by sending me irrelevant information.

So, for those of you who did participate in this crusade to help keep our precious World Series safe for all five year olds to watch without fear of being obscenely assaulted by satiated sluts gloating about 'long-lasting erections,' rest assured we are still on the case.  Fact Sheet 51 may have attempted to trick us into thinking the FCC could do nothing against poor innocent Fox for airing the obscene and indecent ad it did, right during Prime Time, but we weren't fooled.

Our kindly friend TSR43 is now, having admitted his/her office does have the authority and responsibility to punish broadcasters for airing obscene or indecent ads during Prime Time, I'm sure, contemplating just how big a fine to hit Fox with.  As I wrote my new friend, "Thank you for the response.  That was my complaint, that the Levitra ad was clearly obscene... I hope you will take appropriate action against the company and the network that chose to air it."

More to come...