Censoring the Emmys

The talk of the coffee shop this morning is that last night at the Emmy's several speakers started saying something against the war or against the administration and, when they did, Fox just went to black rather than exposing the public to the treasonous words. Did this really happen? I'm not a big fan of celebrity political statements, but that's an impressive combination of creepy and ridiculous.

UPDATE: This doesn't sound quite as bad as what was described to me: "Sally Field got bleeped, for heaven's sake, at the end of her antiwar, pro-motherhood acceptance speech." Did she get bleeped for saying something profane?

UPDATE II: Here's a clearer explanation:

"If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be any god -" she said when the sound went dead and the camera suddenly turned away from the stage so viewers would be distracted. Chopped off were the words "god-damned wars in the first place." (The phrase was not censored in the Canadian telecast.) [...]

Technically, Field's censored words are not profane. A 2004 FCC ruling specifically stated no objection to the use of "god damn" on TV when making a judgment on the uproar over Bono swearing at the Golden Globes in 2003 where he used more colorful language.

Here's the ruling. This sounds very plausibly like an innocent error.

Comments

"Did she get bleeped for saying something profane?"

"Goddamn" is verboten on network.

Posted by Petey | September 17, 2007 8:54 AM

And since we're talking about celebrities on TV, I'll mention that I saw a Matt Bai interview on TV recently, and that dude is god.

Scary sharp in all the right ways.

Posted by Petey | September 17, 2007 9:01 AM

Well, they definitely cut off Sally Field in midsentence, and swung the camera away, but given that she's an obscure fringe actress, I doubt anything more will be heard of it.

"Goddamn" is verboten on network.

Well, according to Tony O'Neill at the LA Times, not so much, at least in the context. He links to a 2004 FCC ruling.

Now, perhaps they were simply playing it safe, being ignorant about such FCC minutiae. Funny coincidence, though. And wouldn't simply cutting the sound have worked? What's with the camerawork?

Posted by mds | September 17, 2007 9:03 AM

"and swung the camera away"

I wasn't aware of that detail.

Posted by Petey | September 17, 2007 9:05 AM

Gaah, that's "Tom O'Neil." [BLEEP]ing [BLEEP], I'm developing Yglesias Disease.

Posted by mds | September 17, 2007 9:05 AM

And since we're talking about celebrities on TV, I'll mention that I saw a Matt Bai interview on TV recently, and that dude is god.

God seems too far, but he's pretty neat. He picks all the best topics.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | September 17, 2007 9:10 AM

There was also a point earlier in the telecast during a presentation in which the camera went to a bumper overhead shot of the crowd with no audio. I'm guessing the production crew just messed up a lot.

Posted by Max | September 17, 2007 9:23 AM

"Technically, Field's censored words are not profane."

While I'm not defending Fox's actions or motives, which are obviously highly suspect, I will note that there are other reasons beyond FCC rules why a network might want to bleep "goddamn".

Posted by Petey | September 17, 2007 9:43 AM

Max is right about the earlier error; it happened during a Ray Romano routine that seemed to have no political content as far as I could tell.

Does Fox still have a Standards and Practices department? The modern-day networks, especially Fox, seem to have very few limits these days, but it could be that the word is against network policy even if not banned by the FCC. I remember that the Kids in the Hall movie Brain Candy was originally supposed to be called "The Drug," but Fox refused to air ads for a movie with that title.

Posted by James Kabala | September 17, 2007 10:10 AM

Remember Harvey Danger's 1998 hit, "Flagpole Sitta" ? (Had the "I'm not sick but I'm not well" refrain, if that rings a bell.) It contained the line "now I'm an amputee, god damn you."

Here in the D.C. area, a number of stations decided to routinely bleep out the "god damn" part. So it's not just Fox that bleeps out "god damn."

Posted by low-tech cyclist | September 17, 2007 10:26 AM

Horse hockey!

If Fox was clutching pearls about "goddam", they could have just bleept that one word. Why the cutoff of the entire second half of Fields' sentence, which was "...goddam wars in the first place." ??

this is Fox, for god's sake. OF COURSE the anti war message was censored, and of course it was done deliberately.

I am amazed at Matt and other moderates or libs who after all the lies and hell of the last seven years, STILL look for and are ready to accept the most innocent, naive explanation for things like this.

Posted by flypsyde | September 17, 2007 10:28 AM

it happened during a Ray Romano routine that seemed to have no political content as far as I could tell.

Well, at least that's fair and balanced. Censor Sally Field's antiwar statement, but spare us from some of Ray Romano's routine. Let's call it a wash.

Again, though, what happened to merely bleeping or muting the plausibly offending word? Did they cut the sound off for everything Katherine Heigl said after her expletive when announced as the winner? Hmm, perhaps that would also be a good thing.

Anyway, perhaps Ms. Field will stay off the sauce before awards ceremonies in the future, lest she further embolden the terrorists.

Posted by mds | September 17, 2007 10:49 AM

There were three cut-aways (from AP)

Getting the silent treatment: a crack by presenter Ray Romano about his former co-star Patricia Heaton sleeping with new co-star Kelsey Grammer; winner Sally Field taking the Lord's name in vain; and "Grey's Anatomy" star Katherine Heigl, who mouthed a certain four-letter s-word when she heard her name announced as a winner.

They were certainly too quick to censor, but if Field hadn't started with "God damn" (hell, if she'd had half a clue what she was going to say--it's not like she's famous for not thinking through her acceptance speeches or anything), she wouldn't have been cut off.

Posted by Matt | September 17, 2007 10:50 AM

Yes, as Matt (not Yglesias) says, Max and I were wrong: the cutaway from Romano was not accidental as I assumed, but was indeed done for content reasons. The full AP account:

"The usually staid awards needed attention from the censors from the start, with first presenter Ray Romano. He joked about his former "Everybody Loves Raymond" wife, Patricia Heaton, sleeping with her new "Back to You" co-star Kelsey Grammer.

But he used a stronger word, which prompted Fox to black out the show for a few seconds. Heigl mouthed another expletive, which Fox unsuccessfully tried to evade with a different camera shot."

These facts clinch for me the idea that this year Fox was especially zealous about cutting away from all profanity of any kind. Non-political Romano, like political Field, was cut away from, not merely bleeped, so I think flypsyde is wrong to see a deep significance in the decision to cut away from Field. This was probably a split-second decision by the director of the broadcast; Rupert Murdoch was not running the broadcast personally, and furthermore he has not censored anti-war statements on Fox network programs (e.g., The Simpsons) in the past. Field's speech was incoherent in general, as Matt at 10:50 said, and once she swore that was probably all the excuse the director needed to abandon her ramble.

Posted by James Kabala | September 17, 2007 11:07 AM

I'm not a big fan of celebrity political statements

Why? You have to check your first amendment rights at the door when you become famous?

Look, these people have microphones stuck in front of their faces. It's their right to speak politically, and really, if you're going to get that kind of attention, why not say something worth saying? The whole "celebrities shouldn't be political" is the worst kind of Bill O'Reilly bullshit faux populism, and is beneath you.

Posted by Freddie | September 17, 2007 11:20 AM

"I'm not a big fan of celebrity political statements"

That's kind of rich coming from a talking-head (or should I say writing-head). You are someone who does nothing but make political statements for a living. The only difference between your blog and the celebrity is that the celebrity has some other talent besides giving their opinion.

Posted by mildcritic | September 17, 2007 11:41 AM

This sounds very plausibly like an innocent error.

The goddamn war wasn't an innocent error. It was the criminal intent of the Bush Administration and its willing accomplice, FOX.

Nothing is innocent with these motherfuckers.

Posted by The Truth | September 17, 2007 11:56 AM

The thing about Field is that she was rambling on and had lost track of what she was saying and at one point shrieked at the audience to stop applauding and let her finish.

So, maybe it was censorship, or maybe it was production crew unsure of whether they should cut her off and get the show moving again.

Posted by Jon H | September 17, 2007 11:57 AM

There's been several of those "innocent errors" lately, most recently a Pearl Jam webcast being censored by AOL, oddly, as soon as Vedder (or whoever) started talking about the war! Look it up, there's plenty of write-ups.

Not saying that wasn't an innocent error, too, but when it keeps happening...

Posted by Joshua | September 17, 2007 12:03 PM

"God-damned wars" is rich and profound theological statement for many Christians, myself included. Why should that view be censored?

Posted by William Ockham | September 17, 2007 12:20 PM

This is the same network that told Matt Groening they couldn't parody FoxNews anymore because it would confuse their viewers, who are apparently so stupid that they can't tell whether or not they are watching the real Brit Hume or some animated guy with yellow skin. It's the network that shows "When Rabid Monkeys Attack Teenage Prostitutes" but can't handle the word "god-damn." Isn't "Cops" on Fox?

Posted by Reality Man | September 17, 2007 1:22 PM

I'm with flypsyde. Look, none of us can know for sure the reasons behind the censorship at the Emmys. But it's way way past time for quick acceptance of "innocent" explanations, especially when we're talking about corporate censorship of anti-war, anti-administration speech. What are we, still in 2002?

Posted by Michael S. | September 17, 2007 4:03 PM

I'm with flypsyde. Look, none of us can know for sure the reasons behind the censorship at the Emmys. But it's way way past time for quick acceptance of "innocent" explanations, especially when we're talking about corporate censorship of anti-war, anti-administration speech. What are we, still in 2002?

Posted by Michael S. | September 17, 2007 4:03 PM

"This sounds very plausibly like an innocent error."

Sure, no question, absolutely, definitely, positively.

Posted by Jennifer | September 17, 2007 4:16 PM

Michael S.: But they clearly treated Barone's non-political dirty word in the exact same way. They bleeped out his whole sentence, not just the word, and cut away to a weird shot of the ceiling just as they did with Field. The director of this year's Emmys, Bruce Gowers, is not (as far as I can tell) some kind of Murdoch political appointee but an Englishman best known for directing the famous "Bohemian Rhapsody" video - and, we might note, also one of the directors of the Live Earth concert. If liberals are going to pride themselves on being part of the "reality-based community," they need to have evidence before they fling around accusations.

Posted by James Kabala | September 17, 2007 4:57 PM

James Kabala: I don't mean to fling around accusations. Sure, it's "plausible" that the whole thing was innocent. Maybe even more likely than not. It's also plausible that Fox intentionally censored political speech. Being a part of the "reality-based community" requires being able to consider all plausible (and sometimes even not so plausible, such as that our government has instituted torture as official policy) possibilities.

Posted by Michael S. | September 17, 2007 5:16 PM

ha! james! that's adorable! you called him "barone" that was his last name on everybody loves raymond, his real name is ray ROMANO

Posted by yuri abbot | September 17, 2007 6:19 PM

If this (what Fox is telling us) is to be believed, there are thousands of things Field could have said. She would have been fine if she’d said “no damn wars, no carnage overseas, no stupid wars, no pointless wars, no unwinable wars, no Republican wars, no killing of innocent people and children, no wars based on lies, no wars for oil, no wars that include raping and mutilating of innocent girls and children, no wars without exit strategies, no wars filled with poor disadvantaged ‘volunteers’ who see military service as their only chance, no angry-old-white-man-initiated wars or a myriad of other things.

But goddamned might 'offend some people'who still believe in a white haired father figure, creator of the universe and decider of who goes to heaven and who burns in hell? Does anyone with a working brain actually believe this anymore in an interconnected global economy of billions of people who believe in a variety of gods, no god or are struggling with exactly WHAT they believe?

No. Nobody with a brain actually believes this anymore. But it sure is a great smokescreen for doing or avoiding anything that runs counter to the agenda, isn't it?

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"

The Wizard of Oz

Posted by namaste | September 17, 2007 6:47 PM

Yuri: Yeah, that was pretty stupid on my part. Sorry.

Namtaste: Well, one could just as easily say that the overwhelming majority of adults have had sexual intercourse and shouldn't be offended by the word "screwing," but they bleeped it when Romano said it. As for religious issues specifically, ABC bleeped Joy Behar for saying a sarcastic "Thank you, Jesus" after she quit her diet. (The bleep actually ended up being criticized rather than praised by fundamentalist groups.)

Posted by James Kabala | September 17, 2007 9:10 PM

Oddly enough, on the local Fox affiliate here in LA (Channel 11), they played the whole clip on the morning news, with only "goddamn" bleeped out. Whereupon one of the news presenters said, "What did she do, drop an F-Bomb?," and someone else chimed in, "no I'm pretty sure she just said 'goddamn.'" As was immediately pointed out, if a news anchor can say "goddamn" on the air, bleeping the original clip was fairly superfluous.

Posted by EJ | September 17, 2007 9:29 PM

No, there was no room for confusion. She was talking and they cut her mic. No bleeps of the "offending" word, just about a second of dead air. I didn't watch the entire show so I don't know if that was their plan for nasty, bad words, but It does look like rank censorship of an antiwar message. It is pure speculation to suggest she could have gotten the message out without that nasty, bad word.

Posted by Fr33d0m | September 18, 2007 9:47 AM