Image via MeeVee.

By now you’re probably heard about the geriatrically-minded, stuck in the 1950s FCC planning a $1.4 million fine against 51 local TV stations across the Midwest and West which are ABC affiliates $27,500 each (a total of $1.43 million) for an NYPD Blue episode that aired in 2003. The issue? it showed a woman’s (actress Charlotte Ross) naked bootie calling it, “sexual organs and excretory organs — specifically an adult woman’s buttocks.”

She should get that ass insured by Lloyd’s of London for that price.

Mind you, in the episode, she was embarrassed about it and rushed to cover up. It’s part of a storyline about the difficulties facing a male single parent. She got out of the shower, gasped, and covered. Here’s the scene:

Shame over the human body (specifically female) in all its natural form should have been enough to keep it within FCC’s standards. But guess what? It wasn’t just the FCC being ignorant to the human condition all around it, as it is wont to do, or money-grubbing, which is its nature. It’s two things: a Republican majority on an anti-sex entertainment agenda led by former White House aide Kevin Martin, with help from the American Family Association. Hollywood Today’s Alex Ben Block has the best article about Martin, ABC’s response, the details (on the episode and FCC response) and why this is about to become a First Amendment case, snip:

This occurred Feb. 25, 2003, when about three quarters of American TV homes already had either cable TV or satellite TV, over which the FCC has no control. In those homes, shows air with a great deal more than a glimpse of butt, but it is beyond the control of the blue noses anointed by the Bush administration to carry out its social conservative agenda. So they take their frustration out on the broadcast networks.

This holier than thou B.S. is only the latest outrage from the FCC under a Republican majority led by Kevin Martin, a former White House aide who has offended many with his high handed manner. Only a few weeks ago Martin rammed through the FCC a rule change allowing cross-ownership of newspapers and TV stations in the same markets (at least in the 20 largest cities). The vote was called and taken with an unusually short comment period for those opposed to speak against the measure.

The FCC had sat on a number of indecency cases for months, after being chastised by a Federal Court for their ruling on brief bits of obscene language in programming.

This past June, the he FCC’s complaint against Fox have been thrown out and its “fleeting expletives” policy as currently defended found to be “arbitrary and capricious” by a federal court.

(…) There is no solution to this until there is a different administration and a different party in charge in Washington, D.C., and the new President selects FCC commissioners and judges who are part of the community, part of the future, part of the real world and not living in the past.

Link.

(post inspiration thanks, MB!)