Kenyon Farrow

Emmy’s Censoring for Political Content?

September 17th, 2007 · 1 Comment

Last night I watched the Annual Emmy Awards-the highest award for television, this year it aired on FOX. This is the Emmy’s 59th year, and this one show felt as long. The only interesting things were a split-second tribute to the 30th anniversary of Roots-and I was pissed that Queen Latifah didn’t win for her role in Life Support, which I think was her strongest performance since Set It Off.

The only other thing was that there were several people whose speeches were bleeped for what appeared to be more political reasons than for “offensive language.”

Most notably was Sally Field, who accepted an award, and towards the end of her speech said “…And if mothers ruled the wars, there wouldn’t be…” Not only was the sound cut out, but they actually cut away to the an aerial shot so you couldn’t even see her. Apparently she said, according to the Associated Press, “And, let’s face it, if the mothers ruled the war, there would be no (expletive) wars in the first place,” Field said. The word missing, according to CNN this morning, was goddam. Last I checked, that word was not on the FCC’s list of words you can’t use on television. Was this really about the word, or about the sentiment of her statement? There were a couple other people who were bleeped-Ray Romano and Katherine Heigl.

Watch it now! You know FOX is going to yank this faster than Prince will sue somebody for copyright infringement!

Fields’ response after learning her speech was bleeped? “Oh well!”

Award shows, even pre-Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction, have begun to censor artists’ political statements. The Grammy’s a few years ago demanded that artists not make any anti-war statements during their telecast. If these so-called artists had any backbone, they would have boycotted the show.

In any case, just another way in which the moral majority get to decide what we watch on TV.

Categories: Media · News · Politics · Television