In the wake of the minor uproar about the Monday Night Football intro this week, Michael Powell, chairman of the FCC, was quoted as saying, "I wonder if Walt Disney would be proud?" If this is the standard we are to expect from the FCC, we are in more trouble than I had previously thought.
Contrary to the popular belief of some, all programming on network television need not conform to the standards of acceptable programming for small children. The scene may have been steamy, or salacious, or whatever other word you may want to use to describe it, but was no more so than scenes on the Desperate Housewives program the opener was designed to promote. Furthermore, Desperate Housewives airs in the exact same time slot the Monday Night Football opener appeared in, albeit on Sunday night. In fact, it was no more sexually suggestive than material found on most soap operas.
The excessive attention focused on this issue, apart from serving to remind us that the mainstream media is hopelessly bad at covering the issues that matter and ignoring those that don't, shows just how badly misplaced the FCC's priorities are.
First of all, the FCC was never designed to be the ultimate arbiter of what is and is not morally acceptable. Even the offhand suggestion of a "Walt Disney" standard for all network programming is far from acceptable. Comments like these, even if not accompanied by fines, have the possible effect of chilling speech for fear of FCC fines. The excessive fine absorbed by CBS for the Janet Jackson incident has already reportedly contributed to some ABC affiliates' decision not to air the uncut version of the movie "Saving Private Ryan". As always, it is not the large networks and media comglomerates who will be forced to tone down and overly scrutinize their content, because they stand to profit from courting controversy in amounts far beyond the reach of an FCC fine. It is the smaller media outlets who will be forced to excessively self-censor for fear of a potentially devastating FCC penalty.
Perhaps the FCC's moral policing of our airwaves would be more acceptable if they were also performing their other regulatory functions. But there seems to be far too little concern at any government level about the dangers of media deregulation. As a result, large conglomerates buy up much of our media, leading to a dearth of variety and competition that is far more dangerous than a steamy locker-room scene.