Mike's Musings: Why the "NYPD Blue" Indecency Case is Pathetic
A few days ago, I read an article on my Time Magazine app by Erika and Nicholas Christakis concerning the Supreme Court case involving the nude scene in the TV show "NYPD Blue." The show, and the controversial episode in which actress Charlotte Ross stripped on prime time TV, has long since gone off the air, but it has popped up in conversation again now that the case is before the Supreme Court.
Lots of people have raised questions about our seemingly hypocritical views on sex and profanity versus violence. Film critics like Roger Ebert and James Berardinelli have written extensively about the subject many times, and a number of sociologists and psychologists have also written their views. What's different about the Christakis' article is that they aren't coy about who they might offend. They are blunt to the point where it's eye opening, and they are also right on the money.
Personally, I can understand a parents' skittishness about their 5 year old viewing a naked woman on Prime Time TV. As liberal as I am, it's not something a little kid is ready to see. But the show had a TV-MA rating, which is meant to tell parents that they shouldn't be watching it anyway, and it was also on late at night, when, at least in theory, kids that age would have been in bed. Playing the devil's advocate, I'll ponder the likely comeback for people who agree with the FCC: what if a kid was up late and "accidentally" came across the show and started watching it? True, it was a possible situation and undoubtedly happened from time to time. But that's not the show's fault. Their making it for adult audiences, and to fault them for a kid coming across it by accident is immature. It's the parents responsibility to make sure the kids don't see something they shouldn't. To deny adult audiences the pleasure of viewing a show that is meant for adults because of irresponsible parents is unfair.
But the controversy over profanity is something that I can't wrap my mind around. Swear words are just words. Damn. Shit. Bitch. Bastard. Fuck. They're just letters arranged in a certain order that society has given meaning to. They're no different from any other word. The key difference is the meaning that society has given them. Damn is a word that has a religious background, although the way it's used in normal conversation doesn't have that. Shit is an exclamation and another word for feces. Bitch is a female dog and a sexist term, but when preceded by "son of a" it becomes an insult or an exclamation. Bastard is an out of date term for a son born out of wedlock, and is now merely an insult. Fuck, widely considered one of the most offensive forms of profanity (for reasons I can't fathom), probably has more meanings and uses than any other word in the English language. But why are they "bad" words? Because we were told they were as kids. No other.
Like all words, profanity has its uses. In some cases, they have meaning. Calling a female dog a bitch is not a use of profanity. It's the appropriate term. Bastard can be used in a historical context, but as an insult, it's really no different than calling someone an idiot; the flaw here is not the word, but the act of insulting a person. Damn and shit are words used to describe something or an emotion; if someone hits their shin on the coffee table, they might cry out "Damn!" as a way of expressing their pain. Profanity is appropriate because they add an extra emphasis to what someone is saying. If you hit your shin on the coffee table, crying out "Fudge" (which is a funny substitute for "fuck") doesn't have the same impact.
Trying to protect our kids from hearing profanity is a futile endeavor. They're going to hear it eventually. Whether it's by accident or from someone who doesn't think it's that big of a deal, they will hear it, and they will use it. Parents must accept this fact and tell them the truth about what the words mean. If you think it's inappropriate for them to use profanity, tell them so. But don't try to enforce your beliefs on others.
The emphasis on sex over violence is absurd. If someone convincingly could explain to me how seeing a naked woman or two people having sex is more damaging to a kid than seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger shooting and killing a bunch of bad guys, I would love to hear it. People have tried, but I haven't heard it. I remember once going to Blockbuster and seeing a kid who couldn't have been older than 7 asking his dad to get "Pirhana 3D" for him. I overheard him say that if they saw a sex scene that they would turn it off. I told him not to get it for the kid. It's awash in blood and gore from top to bottom, which could traumatize him. His reply was that he could handle the violence and gore, but the sex was inappropriate.
My instinct was to think about the question honestly, but while there was sex in it, I should have lied through my teeth and said that it was wall to wall orgies. I remember seeing Bruce Willis blow off Jack Black's arm in "The Jackal" at the age of 9, and got panic attacks from it. I've seen sex scenes in movies ever since I can remember, and never had panic attacks from those.
The main theory behind this is that kids will get the idea to experiment sexually and it will destroy their innocence. The first one is inevitable. Kids will experiment sexually at young ages. It's natural human behavior. The real fears are that fourteen year olds will start having sex. It is happening, and a lot of it is because they're not getting an honest education about sex and its consequences. Hormones rage in adolescence, and they will have sexual urges. It's a fact of life. Some will resist them until they're ready to have sex, others won't. Again, it's a reality of life. All we can do is educate them about sex, their bodies and how to protect themselves against STDs. One of the scariest things about this debate is the surge of abstinence-only sex education which denies kids almost all of this information and misleads them. To believe that religious or moral beliefs will overcome hormones is painfully and dangerously naiive.
The idea about destroying their innocence...well, to each his own. But movies and song lyrics aren't the only causes to blame. Pop stars like Britney Spears are always dressing provocatively and dancing suggestively. And parents buy their kids her songs and concert tickets by the truckload. Talk about hypocritical.
The Christakis' claim that people obsess about the use of profanity and sex because they are trying to whitewash their own lack of parenting skills. I think that's a little harsh, but there's an element of truth in it. Parents try to do the right thing by their kids, but with so many outside influences with easy access, it's damn near impossible to protect them all. Add to the fact that adults like mature content and the situation becomes even more complicated. People want to be able to fix a problem, and we are a nation of quick fixes. When I was in college, there were so many people going to the Emergency Room for alcohol poisoning that the ambulances could barely keep up. But the police insisted on passing a bill that would ban everyone under 21 from the bars, and they never upped their arrests for public intoxication. It sounds like a sensible solution, but it doesn't solve anything, and it creates more problems than it seeks to solve. For one thing, underage students would simply go to house parties, which are unregulated and everyone is drunk; if someone does have alcohol poisoning, the drunken partygoers may assume that the person just passed out. Secondly, it doesn't whitewash the situation that they created; where being outrageously drunk is okay while drinking underage is not.
So why do people seek to solve the little inconsequential problems instead of attacking the big picture? Often times, there is no easy solution. I don't envy the Supreme Court justices in this case. They have to rule on a case that is going to make one side very unhappy. In the case of Iowa City, it's partly laziness, but they are undermanned and underfunded and have to show results. When there is a solution to a big problem, there's bound to be opposition across party or ideological lines, and even if not, big solutions require drastic, risky and often expensive endeavors.
And yet we have to convince ourselves that we are doing something. Sitting idly by when something is wrong is not easy, even if you don't know what the solutions is.
The bottom line is that if we want to protect our kids, we have to think critically about what is really important.
Lots of people have raised questions about our seemingly hypocritical views on sex and profanity versus violence. Film critics like Roger Ebert and James Berardinelli have written extensively about the subject many times, and a number of sociologists and psychologists have also written their views. What's different about the Christakis' article is that they aren't coy about who they might offend. They are blunt to the point where it's eye opening, and they are also right on the money.
Personally, I can understand a parents' skittishness about their 5 year old viewing a naked woman on Prime Time TV. As liberal as I am, it's not something a little kid is ready to see. But the show had a TV-MA rating, which is meant to tell parents that they shouldn't be watching it anyway, and it was also on late at night, when, at least in theory, kids that age would have been in bed. Playing the devil's advocate, I'll ponder the likely comeback for people who agree with the FCC: what if a kid was up late and "accidentally" came across the show and started watching it? True, it was a possible situation and undoubtedly happened from time to time. But that's not the show's fault. Their making it for adult audiences, and to fault them for a kid coming across it by accident is immature. It's the parents responsibility to make sure the kids don't see something they shouldn't. To deny adult audiences the pleasure of viewing a show that is meant for adults because of irresponsible parents is unfair.
But the controversy over profanity is something that I can't wrap my mind around. Swear words are just words. Damn. Shit. Bitch. Bastard. Fuck. They're just letters arranged in a certain order that society has given meaning to. They're no different from any other word. The key difference is the meaning that society has given them. Damn is a word that has a religious background, although the way it's used in normal conversation doesn't have that. Shit is an exclamation and another word for feces. Bitch is a female dog and a sexist term, but when preceded by "son of a" it becomes an insult or an exclamation. Bastard is an out of date term for a son born out of wedlock, and is now merely an insult. Fuck, widely considered one of the most offensive forms of profanity (for reasons I can't fathom), probably has more meanings and uses than any other word in the English language. But why are they "bad" words? Because we were told they were as kids. No other.
Like all words, profanity has its uses. In some cases, they have meaning. Calling a female dog a bitch is not a use of profanity. It's the appropriate term. Bastard can be used in a historical context, but as an insult, it's really no different than calling someone an idiot; the flaw here is not the word, but the act of insulting a person. Damn and shit are words used to describe something or an emotion; if someone hits their shin on the coffee table, they might cry out "Damn!" as a way of expressing their pain. Profanity is appropriate because they add an extra emphasis to what someone is saying. If you hit your shin on the coffee table, crying out "Fudge" (which is a funny substitute for "fuck") doesn't have the same impact.
Trying to protect our kids from hearing profanity is a futile endeavor. They're going to hear it eventually. Whether it's by accident or from someone who doesn't think it's that big of a deal, they will hear it, and they will use it. Parents must accept this fact and tell them the truth about what the words mean. If you think it's inappropriate for them to use profanity, tell them so. But don't try to enforce your beliefs on others.
The emphasis on sex over violence is absurd. If someone convincingly could explain to me how seeing a naked woman or two people having sex is more damaging to a kid than seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger shooting and killing a bunch of bad guys, I would love to hear it. People have tried, but I haven't heard it. I remember once going to Blockbuster and seeing a kid who couldn't have been older than 7 asking his dad to get "Pirhana 3D" for him. I overheard him say that if they saw a sex scene that they would turn it off. I told him not to get it for the kid. It's awash in blood and gore from top to bottom, which could traumatize him. His reply was that he could handle the violence and gore, but the sex was inappropriate.
My instinct was to think about the question honestly, but while there was sex in it, I should have lied through my teeth and said that it was wall to wall orgies. I remember seeing Bruce Willis blow off Jack Black's arm in "The Jackal" at the age of 9, and got panic attacks from it. I've seen sex scenes in movies ever since I can remember, and never had panic attacks from those.
The main theory behind this is that kids will get the idea to experiment sexually and it will destroy their innocence. The first one is inevitable. Kids will experiment sexually at young ages. It's natural human behavior. The real fears are that fourteen year olds will start having sex. It is happening, and a lot of it is because they're not getting an honest education about sex and its consequences. Hormones rage in adolescence, and they will have sexual urges. It's a fact of life. Some will resist them until they're ready to have sex, others won't. Again, it's a reality of life. All we can do is educate them about sex, their bodies and how to protect themselves against STDs. One of the scariest things about this debate is the surge of abstinence-only sex education which denies kids almost all of this information and misleads them. To believe that religious or moral beliefs will overcome hormones is painfully and dangerously naiive.
The idea about destroying their innocence...well, to each his own. But movies and song lyrics aren't the only causes to blame. Pop stars like Britney Spears are always dressing provocatively and dancing suggestively. And parents buy their kids her songs and concert tickets by the truckload. Talk about hypocritical.
The Christakis' claim that people obsess about the use of profanity and sex because they are trying to whitewash their own lack of parenting skills. I think that's a little harsh, but there's an element of truth in it. Parents try to do the right thing by their kids, but with so many outside influences with easy access, it's damn near impossible to protect them all. Add to the fact that adults like mature content and the situation becomes even more complicated. People want to be able to fix a problem, and we are a nation of quick fixes. When I was in college, there were so many people going to the Emergency Room for alcohol poisoning that the ambulances could barely keep up. But the police insisted on passing a bill that would ban everyone under 21 from the bars, and they never upped their arrests for public intoxication. It sounds like a sensible solution, but it doesn't solve anything, and it creates more problems than it seeks to solve. For one thing, underage students would simply go to house parties, which are unregulated and everyone is drunk; if someone does have alcohol poisoning, the drunken partygoers may assume that the person just passed out. Secondly, it doesn't whitewash the situation that they created; where being outrageously drunk is okay while drinking underage is not.
So why do people seek to solve the little inconsequential problems instead of attacking the big picture? Often times, there is no easy solution. I don't envy the Supreme Court justices in this case. They have to rule on a case that is going to make one side very unhappy. In the case of Iowa City, it's partly laziness, but they are undermanned and underfunded and have to show results. When there is a solution to a big problem, there's bound to be opposition across party or ideological lines, and even if not, big solutions require drastic, risky and often expensive endeavors.
And yet we have to convince ourselves that we are doing something. Sitting idly by when something is wrong is not easy, even if you don't know what the solutions is.
The bottom line is that if we want to protect our kids, we have to think critically about what is really important.
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