\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Less than a year ago, at halftime of the Super Bowl, a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wardrobe malfunction” involving performers Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson exposed one of her breasts, throwing millions into high dudgeon.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 So skittish is the regulatory agency, the FCC, over the fallout of the breast that launched a million ships, lips and heart-skips, that it’s warning the networks of what \u00e2\u20ac\u0153family hour” used to mean.<\/p>\n
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps I was the only one on the planet who missed the commercial featuring a Philadelphia Eagles star Terrell Owens and Nicollette Sheridan of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Desperate Housewives,” in which Sheridan did a Bridget Bardot imitation, dropped the towel and invited Owens to miss the kickoff on Monday Night Football. Usually I receive a dozen \u00e2\u20ac\u0153links” to access that sequence that so angered the FCC. This time, I received zilch, nothing, zip, nada. Can anyone help –< if only for sociological reasons?\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The repercussions of the Super Bowl tempest in a C-cup, and the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Desperate Housewives\" promo, with the threat of fines, are reminiscent of a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Simpson's\" episode in which one of Homer's loan-sharking buddies uttered something like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don't think you'll be able to repay me, so before I extend the loan, I'm going to break both your legs < in advance.\"\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Never one for censorship, I believe that the public votes by deciding whether to buy the objectionable publication or turn on the TV. Wednesday, a speaker on NPR posited that raunchy TV, vitriolic radio and pornographic materials, in print and on the Internet, exist because of the public's lust for them. If people didn't demand trash, the purveyors would starve to death, and the problem would be solved.\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 As idealistic as it seems, that's not going to happen. Some people are naive enough to believe that if we simply refuse to buy our daughters hooker-type outfits or to watch what we consider prurient programming, we can make a difference.\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 True, if a lot of us refused to deal with businesses that promote deleterious products, we might make a dent, but I contend that generally the industry drives the market and convinces us that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that's what the public wants.\"\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The product of a generation that once considered \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Madame Bovary\" risqu\u00c3\u00a9, I grudgingly have gone along with the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153maturation\" of mores.\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 How and why have morals, or at least the acceptance of salacious material, changed?\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 In my early years of teaching, I got a call from a West Las Vegas High School teacher who asked my opinion on requiring \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tortilla Flats.\" I urged him to go ahead, as it's a great novel. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But,\" he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153you realize it has some forbidden words.\"\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I needed to re-read the Steinbeck opus to recall that one character utters a profanity in Spanish, the equivalent of the English f-word.\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Two other works which I believe every American student should read, are Rudolfo Anaya's \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bless Me, Ultima,\" and J.D. Salinger's \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Catcher in the Rye.\" Yes, one of them uses the four-letter Anglo-Saxon expletive and the other implies it.\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 And for that we should ban them?\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 In the 1970s my family rented an apartment in Charlottesville, Va., while I worked on a degree in literature. Our landlady, a strait-laced puritanical woman, made it known she disapproved of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153trashy literature\" and accordingly, entered our apartment during our absence.\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Her housecleaning relieved me of books like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sons and Lovers,\" \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Jane Eyre\" and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Woman in White.\" Now these classics fall way below the radar of obscenity, but yet, our landlady read long enough to find words like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153thigh,\" \u00e2\u20ac\u0153breast\" and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153leg.\" And that justified her actions.\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 She admitted burning my textbooks, but I needed remind myself, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was for my own good.\"\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Assuredly, social mores will continue to change, and for every shocking image or utterance in books, magazines, radio or TV, there will be legions of censors.\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 These ramblings convince me that 1) people themselves need to be allowed to choose what they read, hear and watch; 2) regrettably, the billions of dollars advertisers spend apparently give them the right to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153create\" a need by the public; 3) regardless of how repulsive some material is, attempts to censor it are worse; 4) nothing good ever comes of doing something \u00e2\u20ac\u0153for your own good.\"\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Ten minutes ago, after concluding that there are some palatable programs on the tube, I tuned in to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153West Wing.\" And there, in this brilliantly scripted program, the woman who plays the president's press secretary tells an associate -- (and here I'm trying hard to convey the thrust of her statement without being too explicit or clinical) -- to shove an object somewhere. No teacher in the world could ever use that vernacular in class without facing a morals charge and possibly suspension or termination. Strange, but common expressions we pick up on the tube are absolutely taboo in the classroom, or even in a family newspaper, such as this one.\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Less than a year ago, at halftime of the Super Bowl, a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wardrobe malfunction” involving performers Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson exposed one of her breasts, throwing millions into high dudgeon. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 So skittish is the regulatory agency, the FCC, over the fallout of the breast that launched a million ships, lips and heart-skips, that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}