Cascadia Journal

Today’s news included a story that the US Court of Appeals overturned an FCC ruling that had fined CBS television stations over half a million dollars for broadcasting indecency.  What horrible indecency could we be talking about?  Well, that would be the indecency where CBS broadcast (accidentally or not) a picture of a woman’s nipple.  While this picture had lasted just over half-a-second on the screen, it apparently so offended some people that the network and its stations had to be fined $550,000!

First of all, while this incident occurred during the Super Bowl broadcast, the most widely viewed program in the United States all year, it baffles the imagination that too many people would have been watching the halftime entertainment show so intently that they would have noticed a 9/16 second display of a female nipple.  And if they were?  Then I am somewhat confused as to the harm this could have done to anyone.

It certainly cannot be the view of the female breast itself that regulators consider offensive.  Any viewer of prime-time network television are going to witness women in swimsuits, women in lingerie, women with a lot of gratuitous clevage — in general, over time, just about every part of the female breast except the nipple.  So it is that frightening nipple that we must avoid.

I would not be comfortable with sexual displays on network television.  I do have a sense of morals.  But i fail to see just what happened that might have compelled our government to assess a half-million-dollar fine on the broadcaster.  Indeed, a fine on a broadcaster presenting a live event where they had little or no control over the content.  Even if this were a deliberate act by the performer, it was still on the screen for such a short period of time that there couldn’t have been a great amount of harm done.  It seems a reasonable network, upon seeing something so horrible, would be expected to take a second or two to detect it and take it off the air anyway.

In fact, it seems likely that most did not see it live anyway.  It was only when recordings of the event were posted online that most people had the opportunity to see the incident in question.  Of course, the Internet is not network broadcast television.

So what of this incident.  There are those of us who do not want to see such displays.  A number of people will tell you that they do not want to have their children exposed to the sight of female nipples, and ask what they should tell them when they ask.  Well, I will offer you a solution.  We should not be lying to our children by insisting that there is no Santa Claus.  And we should not be trying to teach our children that women have no nipples.  We all have them.  Men and women alike.  I think that it is wrong to tell your child that they do not exist, then let them think they are some sort of mutants when they find these scars growing on themselves.

OK, I should be a bit more serious about this.  Our children should know that they have a variety of body parts: eyes, ears, feet, breasts.  Our children should be taught that there are certain of their body parts that should not be generally exposed in polite company.  But I believe that watching their parents recoil in horror when something unfortunate happens to someone’s clothing should also be handled with a rational explanation.  It seems that watching an otherwise moral parent throwing a fit when something like that happens just passes on the neuroses of that parent.  If you don’t make such a big deal over the problem, the problem will go away soon enough.

I am all for modesty.  So tell your children that what the lady did was an accident.  Or tell them that it was an inappropriate thing to do.  Or get them away from the television.  (Did you really think that a football game was going to be a source of “wholesome” entertainment?)  And if they were actually watching closely enough to see the incident, and if it does concern you or them, learn to be a parent and learn to explain things like this to your child.  They are going to see things like this in life anyway.  “Shielding” them from such things will only make it more difficult to explain when they really do see something horrible.

If this is bad, I would hate to see the level of reaction if somebody ever really did something bad in this country.