Standards of indecency

Bill Maher and George Carlin represent two generations of free speech entrenchment in America. Maher’s biggest claim to fame is his provocative post-9/11 commentary, which proved too "Politically Incorrect" for ABC. The comic legend Carlin is perhaps best known for his FCC-baiting list of the "Seven Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Television."

But when Carlin appeared on Maher’s "Real Time" program on HBO recently, it was the prim and proper former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell who got off the last (or at least best) word on the indecency debate currently raging in America. If you live in a place where nothing offends you, she argued, you don’t live in a free society.

And we Americans do so dearly love to be offended. This is the country, after all, that bestows huge commercial success on celebrities who talk with their butt cheeks, rappers for whom "nigga" is a term of endearment and flabby reality-show castaways who play with their pants off.

If sex sells in America — not to mention violence, profanity, crass attempts at humor and all-around tastelessness — then why are we just now questioning our own standards of decency? Or perhaps more accurately, are we really questioning them at all?

If sex sells in America — not to mention violence, profanity, crass attempts at humor and all-around tastelessness — then why are we just now questioning our own standards of decency? Or perhaps more accurately, are we really questioning them at all?

It might be argued that a very vocal minority (which seems to include the entire presidential administration) are shaming the rest of us into submission. Is there a pattern to the mounting list of targets? Hard to say. An unclothed female nipple, while undoubtedly surprising during a football broadcast, is no threat to the national security. But there are those who would say a subversive-minded comedian is.

The conspiracy theories are growing. The radio giant Clear Channel recently dumped syndicated potty-mouth Howard Stern from a half-dozen local affiliates, claiming the host’s lewd chatter was inappropriate in the wake of that certain Super Bowl unmentionable. (Unmentionable not because it was upsetting for the poor, traumatized children — frankly, we’re just sick to death of hearing about it.)

Interestingly, however, the heretofore apolitical Stern is claiming that the corporate crackdown was politically motivated, coming as it did immediately after the jock began broadcasting his newfound disdain for President Bush (who happens to be very chummy with Clear Channel’s top executives).

In the fallout from the Super Bowl fallout, the Federal Communications Commission and its shocked — shocked! — chairman Michael Powell, son of Colin, drastically raised the penalties for on-air indecency. Clear Channel dropped Bubba the Love Sponge, its top-rated Tampa radio host, after he was hit with a staggering $755,000 in fines.

Free video Stern's defense March 22: Radio shock jock Howard Stern, who is facing fines from the FCC, is firing back, and as NBC’s Mark Mullen reports, Stern is invoking a famous name in his defense, Oprah Winfrey. MSNBC

Nothing political about that. That’s a costly employee, no matter what his ratings were. But why the scapegoating? One of Bubba’s infractions was the slaughter of a live pig on-air. Surely the pig wasn’t pleased, but "Fear Factor" hasn’t exactly been kind to animals, either.

It’s all a matter of context. That certain someone exposes a breast during the halftime show, and we’re told the country is beside itself with indignation. But wild woman Courtney Love goes on "Late Night with David Letterman" and reprises Drew Barrymore’s infamous desktop strip tease for ol’ Dave — desperately trying to use those lungs to breathe some life into her own sagging career — and the country suppresses a collective yawn.

Another boob, the one on the Justice Department statue that so offended Attorney General John Ashcroft two years ago, cost taxpayers $8000 to cover with curtains. Talk about your obscenities!

See no evil? Hear no evil? Speak no evil? Welcome, to paraphrase the aptly named radical hip hop group Public Enemy, to the Terrordome.

James Sullivan covers pop culture for the San Francisco Chronicle and is a regular contributor to MSNBC.com.

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