Fox censors Sally Field’s anti-war speech at Emmy’s.
from ThinkProgress
At tonight’s Emmy Awards show, the audience cheered Sally Field’s acceptance speech, which recognized the mothers of U.S. troops. “Surely this [award] belongs to all the mothers of the world,” she stated. “May they be seen, may their work be valued and raised. Especially to the mothers who stand with an open heart and wait. Wait for their children to come home from danger, from harm’s way, and from war. I am proud to be one of those women.”
Field then continued, “If mothers ruled the world, there would be no –” But the Fox Emmycast cut off her sound and pointed the camera away from the stage, silencing the rest of her sentence: “god-damned wars in the first place.” Watch it:
At tonight’s Emmy Awards show, the audience cheered Sally Field’s acceptance speech, which recognized the mothers of U.S. troops. “Surely this [award] belongs to all the mothers of the world,” she stated. “May they be seen, may their work be valued and raised. Especially to the mothers who stand with an open heart and wait. Wait for their children to come home from danger, from harm’s way, and from war. I am proud to be one of those women.”
Field then continued, “If mothers ruled the world, there would be no –” But the Fox Emmycast cut off her sound and pointed the camera away from the stage, silencing the rest of her sentence: “god-damned wars in the first place.” Watch it:
Powered by Blogger
1 Comments:
I’m no Fox-Fan, and I suppose that Forest Gump’s mom may have just cause for her feelings about war, but when pure innocent Gidget asks God to damn someone even The Flying Nun must be confused.
So, I have to admit it, I did not watch the Emmys or even know that Sally Field had a TV show, but I am reluctant to just judge Fox’s actions without knowing how the decision was made. Do we know if it was the language used that prompted the censure or the subject matter ? The covenantal wisdom is that it was Field’s talked about the war, but could it be her ”obscene” language ? Didn’t Fox televise the Janet Jackson wardrobe mishap and wasn’t Fox fined over a million dollars by the FCC for an episode of Married by America? PBS Frontline ran a documentary A Company of Soldiers that the producers were concerned because of the soldiers’ language.
Differentiating news value from artistic interpretation has caused the media to look at things in a different light … remember when Bush was discussing the upsurge in violence in the Middle East with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and said that Syria should press Hezbollah to “stop doing this shit” ? The media had to ask themselves if the President using the “S-word” was a news story itself ?
Field’s comments were mass broadcast over television, so the scrutiny is tight … while the words may be acceptable in print format …. Consider November 2005 , when Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.
“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”
“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”
So Bush can tell us that the Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper but no actress can propose that if women ruled the world that there would not be any god-damned wars in the first place.
Post a Comment
<< Home