Remember George Carlin's "The Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say on Television" routine? As far as the Internet-porn industry is concerned, the devil - that is, the government - never sleeps, always trying to control visual content, but network TV is much more vulnerable when it comes to speech. The FCC declared "fuck" to be "one of the most vulgar, graphic and explicit descriptions of sexual activity in the English language," no matter the context. Conservative commentator Dennis Prager characterized the fight over "fuck" as central to civilization's "battle to preserve itself."
At the 2007 Emmy Awards, Ray Romano - referring to Patricia Heaton, who played his wife on "Everybody Loves Raymond" and now is partnered with Kelsey Grammer on "Back to You" - said, "Frasier is fucking my wife." It was bleeped, of course. When Katherine Heigl of "Grey's Anatomy" heard her name announced, she mouthed the word "shit." Late-night TV show hosts and sitcom characters use this "lip flap" method to say forbidden words because they want to be bleeped for the sake of naughtiness. People in the live studio audience laugh when they hear the uncensored version, and home viewers figure out what's being said as if they're doing a dirty crossword puzzle.
When Sally Field accepted an award for her role in "Brothers & Sisters," her speech concluded with, "Let's face it: If the mothers ruled the world, there would be no g-[bleeped through the end of the sentence*]-oddamned wars in the first place." And when Kathy Griffin received an Emmy for her reality show "My Life on the D-List," she declared, "A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. This award is my god now. Suck it, Jesus!" It was entirely deleted.
At the Billboard Music Awards show in 2002, Cher responded to her critics with a minimalist "Fuck 'em." On the same award show in 2003, Nicole Richie recounted her "The Simple Life" experience: "Have you ever tried to get cow shit out of a Prada purse? It's not so fucking simple." The FCC ruled that Fox TV had violated its standards. But, in what would turn out to be a pivotal decision, the FCC reversed an indecency ruling against CBS' "The Early Show" in 2005, determining that a "Survivor" contestant's calling another player a "bullshitter" did not constitute indecency because it was in the context of a news show.
In September 2007, a three-judge panel in a federal appeals court ruled in favor of Fox TV's challenge against the FCC for indecent and profane language. During live coverage of the hearing, C-Span viewers were treated to uncensored words and phrases such as "motherfucker," "eat shit" and "fuck the USA." The court reasoned that, "In recent times, even the top leaders of our government have used variants of these expletives in a manner that no reasonable person would believe referenced ‘sexual or excretory organs or activities.'" The decision cited examples that had been set by the White House.
It was acceptable to broadcast George Bush, captured by a live microphone, saying to Tony Blair while chewing on a roll, "See, the irony is what they (the United Nations) need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit, and it's over." Similarly, it was acceptable to broadcast Dick Cheney, also caught by a microphone on the Senate floor, saying to Patrick Leahy - who complained about Halliburton profiteering on the war in Iraq without competitive bidding for contracts, and about Bush's judicial nominees - "Go fuck yourself." This was on the same day the Senate voted 99-1 to pass legislation described as the "Defense of Decency Act." The Washington Times reported Cheney "responded with a barnyard epithet, urging Mr. Leahy to perform an anatomical sexual impossibility."
The government's urge to control language in the media has trickled down to the private sector. On International Women's Day in March 2007, a public high school in Westchester, N.Y., suspended three 16-year-old girls for saying "vagina" during a reading from "The Vagina Monologues." Principal Richard Leprine said the girls were punished for disobeying orders to not say the word, which he referred to as "specified material." Writer Brigitte Schoen suggested calling the play "Elastic Muscular Tube Monologues."
At the request of defense lawyers, a Nebraska judge ordered a college student who was raped to not use the words "rape," "victim," "assailant" or "sexual assault" on the witness stand, for fear of prejudicing the jury. Perhaps she could testify, "He stuck his thing in my thing against my will." Next, can we expect George Carlin to introduce a new routine about the five words you can't say in court?
This article originally appeared in the March 2008 edition of AVN Online magazine. To subscribe to AVN Online, visit AVNMediaNetwork.com/subscriptions/ .
