{"id":1188,"date":"2012-01-18T13:49:08","date_gmt":"2012-01-18T18:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=1188"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:24:50","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:24:50","slug":"indecency-hypocrisy-and-dennis-franzs-bottom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2012\/01\/18\/indecency-hypocrisy-and-dennis-franzs-bottom\/","title":{"rendered":"Indecency, Hypocrisy, and Dennis Franz\u2019s Bottom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Wilson<\/p>\n

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in\u00a0FCC v. Fox<\/a><\/em>, where the Court must decide whether the FCC\u2019s \u201cfleeting\u201d indecency policy, which includes isolated profanity and brief nudity, is unconstitutionally vague. The Second Circuit found that the FCC\u2019s policy, which prohibits \u201call \u2018patently offensive\u2019 references to sex, sexual organs, and excretion,\u201d did not adequately notify broadcasters what content might subject them to fines.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all well and good, but there\u2019s something missing from this discussion. One major omission in the Supreme Court\u2019s \u201cindecency\u201d jurisprudence, famously described in\u00a0FCC v. Pacifica Foundation<\/a><\/em>, is that it deals almost exclusively with\u00a0sexual<\/em>\u00a0indecency. Indeed, the Court\u2019s non-broadcast-television obscenity standard leaves out any mention of non-sexual conduct. Obscenity, defined by\u00a0Miller v. California<\/a><\/em>, requires that the work in question appeal to the \u201cprurient interest\u201d (characterized by lustful thoughts) and describe \u201csexual conduct or excretory functions.\u201d As far as the Supreme Court is concerned,\u00a0a little bit of the ultra-violence<\/a>\u00a0does not fall outside the protections of the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

Fox and other broadcasters argue that the FCC\u2019s policy would have a chilling effect on permissible speech. But what type of permissible speech? At oral arguments, the justices discussed ABC\u2019s airing of\u00a0Saving Private Ryan<\/em>, but only in as much as the film contained characters uttering expletives. Violence wasn\u2019t even on the radar.<\/p>\n

The reality is that violence almost always passes constitutional muster. The Court said as much in\u00a0Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Ass\u2019n<\/a><\/em>. \u201cCalifornia\u2019s argument would fare better if there were a longstanding tradition in this country of specially restricting children\u2019s access to depictions of violence, but there is none,\u201d wrote Justice Scalia for a seven-justice majority. It\u2019s just about sex. Dennis Franz can spend an entire episode of\u00a0NYPD Blue<\/em>\u00a0violently interrogating suspects, but heaven forefend his butt shows up for two seconds.<\/p>\n

When proponents of broadcast regulation advance the \u201csave the children\u201d arguments, violence is an afterthought. Unsurprising, as Michael Moore pointed out in\u00a0Bowling for Columbine<\/em>. Whatever else that film did not do, it is nevertheless notable for pointing out that the United States has such a history of violence that violence has become part of acceptable American social norms (and, conversely, sex made 17th-century Puritans squeamish). How else could\u00a0\u00ad24<\/em>, a show that promotes torture be so popular? And what\u2019s a little \u201cviewer discretion advised\u201d among friends?<\/p>\n

Justice Breyer, dissenting in\u00a0Brown<\/em>, seemed to suggest that\u00a0Miller<\/em>\u00a0could be \u2014 and perhaps should be \u2014 extended to violence as well as sex. I happen to agree with the majority in\u00a0Brown<\/em>, but Justice Breyer\u2019s point is well-taken: why the double-standard? If the state interest in regulating video game content as well as broadcast content is in saving the children, then there needs to be more honesty. When the country as a whole is desensitized to violence, bad things happen. For example, war happens with little or no consideration to the consequences. When consenting adults have sex, no one dies. War? Not so much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Wilson Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in\u00a0FCC v. Fox, where the Court must decide whether the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-ja","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}