It's Official: Christian Conservatives Flooding FCC With Complaints...

im convinced this poster is really a leftwing minded person who is just trying to wind people up.

 

My backside would have seen less corporal punishment if I had to go outside and get my own switch. The way the terror just builds and builds inside, and knowing that I'm an active participant in my punishment would be incredibly effective at reducing bad behavior.

 

I'm sorry, but in the heat of a fairly interesting discussion, this passage has to be singled out as the funniest thing on bigsoccer. Seriousluy, check it out: IntheNet lecturing on manners. It's almost cute. Yet it's funny in an unintentionally satirical way, too, as he argues that it's up to "school" and the FCC to enforce these manners, and not the family. So you have a rude anti-gubment "conservative" calling for the government to enforce manners. God, I don't know what hurts more, my stomach from laughing or my head from trying to track the logic.

 

Two can still play this game.

Is it that much work to rent one movie?

If I thought that SPR would be the last of this, I might change my mind. I'd certainly reconsider. But I'm not that naive. If you let this go, Pulp Fiction will be on ABC Family within ten years.

 

Conversely, if "this" is defined as "complaining to the FCC so that it blocks programming you find objectionable," then in 10 years Pulp Fiction might not be on TV at all.

"This" in short is why we're on page 8.

 

Well if I thought this would be the last instance of censorship then i might reconsider. But i'm not that naive. Ok. Let's edit all the "f" and "s" words. well, then we have to edit damn and hell and bastard and bitch (even if we're talking about a female dog). then we have to censor women who are in bathing suits. then of course we have to edit all gay people out of shows. that would most certainly be offensive.

This movie was one instance where you had plenty of time to say, hey, i need to change the channel.

 

If you've never heard Bill Engvall (yea, the Blue Collar Comedy guy) commenting on discipline, you are really missing out. One of the funniest bits I've ever heard.

Track 6: Nobody Disciplines Their Kids Anymore

The entire disc is great, but that one always had me tearing up.

 

What I don't understand is why some people think that because something doesn't offend them, all the rest of the planet need to adjust to their way of thinking.

Why do the large majority of folks who feel certain language is objectionable now, and always has been, have to be the ones to make the adjustment?

In the last 15 years, the FCC has lowered the standard dramatically as to what is acceptable language. Why?

Why can't the ones using the profanity be the ones to adjust?

Yes, there is a lot of violence in SPR. But the violence is an inseparable part of the depiction of war. It is not, however, necessary to include profanity in order to depict the horrors of war. This is true of ANY age group, not just children.

If you want gratuitous profanity, sex and violence, go to the private cable channels or go rent a movie. The general public should not have to worry about filtering it out in prime time on major networks. To put the responsibility on parents to monitor network content is irresponsible.

Yes, proper parenting is a key component for children, but the parents shouldn't have to "parent" the networks as well.

 

If you didn't like it enough to eat it hot, you sure as **** were gonna regret it when you had to eat it cold.

 

I'm sure the language in real war was all flowers and sunshine the likes of "kill the bad guys," "darn," and "ouch, that hurt."

*cough* Desperate Housewives, Fear Factor, The Swan, NYPD Blue, Lost, Will and Grace, CSI, Survivor, The Simple Life, That 70s show *cough*

Why the hell not? Parenting isn't easy, you have to work hard at it. If it requires that you check out what your kids are watching, so be it.

 

Why stop at network tv? kids have cable in their bedrooms these days. radio? Videogames? The internet? Why must parents be concerned about taking their kid to a sports game? Why must parents be concerned about taking their kid to a library? Why must parents be concerned about any stimulous little Johnny receives from anywhere?

I'll tell you why. Because its your job as a parent. Too hard? Boohoo. Shoulda thought of that before you did that consensual thing you did. You can always donate the kid to a religious orphanage if you're so concerned about its spiritual welfare.

And for the last time - Christians, if God did not want his chosen ones to easily change the channel, he would have never given us the remote control.

 

THey'll call 911 on you in a flash

 

God also invented Blockbuster and HBO.

Including multiple iterations of the F word is a change in standard. To me, that means the burden is on you guys. (Yeah, Dante, I know...but let me ask you...has this kind of language been OK before? If it has, I don't recall the controversy.)

The notion that complaining to ABC means Pulp Fiction might end up being outlawed doesn't hold up. The people who agree with me are trying to keep standards the same, not change them. When it comes to banning Pulp Fiction, I'll be hollering, hell no.

 

the town i grew up in was deep in the bible belt. and my ABC afiliate decided that NYPD Blue was too offensive to show. Ever.

Why did my ABC afiliate have the right to tell me that was offensive and that i couldn't watch it? I didn't even have a chance to make an informed decision.

It's like people who are against books without even reading them.

I know people who think Harry Potter is evil. They haven't read the books, but they've read leaders of christian groups' reviews that says everything about it is evil. They won't research it themselves. They just take other people's word for it.

Well, i want the choice to determine for myself whether or not it's right for me.

 

You're giving them more credit than they deserve. We have the standards that we have now because someone fought for them and against past censorship, not because of any consensus among viewers. Some of the people who agree with you on this film would gladly endorse more censorship overall than you do.

...and there may be no one left to listen. That slope is slippery on both sides.

 

Exactly. Isn't it wonderful to have choices as consumers?

That's some slippery slope but I'm not seeing it. Can you explain how we go from a special event showing of a war film on Veteran's Day to Pulp Fiction being shown on a network that won't show anything worse than PG-13?

 

I'm sure it wasn't though I was never there. However, my point was about the physical horror. You could run a silent movie and get that point.

Yes, those as well. But to that point and the one below, there is a lot of junk of TV and parents must do their job. However, my summary point is that the major networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, should be held to a higher level than to just say you can change the channel. Unfortunately, the reality is that the bar has been consistently lowered so that what was considered trash just a decade or two ago, is now mainstream to some.

 

Dante, I told you that avatar was confusing as hell!

 

This is a valid point.

I agree that they should be held to a higher standard, and that what was trash then is now mainstream, but you don't hear these same groups banding together to protest any of the shows I mentioned. If you're going to protest the announced showing of SPR, you must also protest the scheduled airing of Desperate Housewives, NYPD Blue, Las Vegas, etc. with the same fervor or you essentially become a hypocrit.

 

On the subject of children watching SPR:

My son is 5. His mother and I divorced 2 years ago. About 18 months ago, he began to become seriously interested with the military (guns, tanks, camo, etc.). At first I told my ex-wife not to worry about it too much, that all little boys "play war" (I know I did growing up). Needless to say, his interest was turning into an obsession. He constantly talked about how he would go into the army to "kill all the bad guys". When I asked him what he would do if he got shot, or bombed, or otherwise killed, he told me that he wouldn't get killed, he was a good guy. It was obvious that, in his imaginary war, there were no consequences to war, for him, a rather fantastic picture indeed.

They were not showing this film in Dallas, but they were where he and his mother live. We discussed it, and decided that she would sit down and watch it with him. If he wanted to change the channel or do something else, that was OK. He watched the movie, and afterwards he and I spoke (after he and his mother had spoken). Watching the first 20 minutes, he finally understood that there were consequences to war, that people die, and do so horribly.

Call me a "bad" parent, but I felt that, with supervision, this was something that would actually become a positive. He saw that people died, that "war is hell", and he has tempered his "army play". He hasn't talked about "shooting some bad guys" since last week, and my ex-wife and I feel we made the right decision, for our child.

 

Actually AFA does protest those others as well. It was just that this particular show had a much higher profile than the ones you mentioned.

 

OK, but you're moving the goalposts here.

I don't think a primetime show should have multiple iterations of the F word. I didn't see the opening (meaning, beginning at 8pm) sequence, so I don't have an opinion whether or not it was inappropriate.

 

All the rest of the planet? Oh, God, not the cursing heathen inflicting their profanity on the Godly majority rhetoric...

Do you really think that a majority of people object to profanity? Do you have a link to prove this assertion?

But more importantly, no one makes them use profanity, or hear it on the airwaves. If anyone doesn't want to listen to profanity on TV, don't watch shows where profanity occurs. That way, they can be happily unoffended, and those who don't object to profanity can watch what they want.

And as far as profanity being a product of "now," read Shakespeare. Then read Plautus. Then read Aristophanes.

Because TV is finally catching up with literature, where obscenity trials pretty much ran their course in the late '50s and early '60s.

Here's the problem. I use profanity, but not at certain times. I don't use it when I coach kids soccer, for instance. But I did use it on Sunday and was putting insulation in my attic and I kept hitting my %@*#*$ head on the beams.

But in reality, this isn't about "using" profanity. It's about art. And while I think SPR is a crappy movie compared to, say, "All Quiet on the Western Front," which has no profanity that I can recall, Spielberg (whom I can't believe I'm defending as an artist, or even on artistic grounds) has a right to represent reality. His representation of reality in this case is very graphic and "realistic," and if you are going to go for that level of realism, you can't have soldiers go "Gee whiz, I just got shot!"

So... I object to people objecting to Spielberg's right to represent reality as he sees fit. If people object to that representation, they always have the opton of doing what I do when I object to an artist's mode of representing reality.

Ignore it. Watch something else. Or read something.