Letters to the Editor
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"gutless"? no, just practical
Given the overzealousness of the FCC these days, it's understandable that Fox (or any other network) would hit the panic button as soon as they hear anything that could be interpreted as obscenity. Had Field not said "goddamn," she'd have been fine. Yes, it was an overreaction, but an understandable one in the current broadcasting climate, and there was nothing political about it.
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silly season
I am sure their defense - if one even ever comes - will be that she said "Goddamn," which is such a dirty word they had to protect the viewers from it...
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As...
broadcasters of an entertainment show don't they have the right to edit potentially offensive content when they wish?
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Muzzle Fox
II refuse to watch FOX netwrok. If everyone just quit watching Fox we could muzzle them. Tu them off!
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Pfffft
Fox could have dropped the word, instead the dropped the phrase. It had nothing to do with profanity, it had to do with stifling anti-war sentiment. More Republican cowards afraid of free speech, just as they are usually scared of fighting the war themselves.
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She said "god" and "damn"
Can you blame them? Consider the alternative headline:
"Fox Lets Sally Field Say 'Goddamn'; Millions of Viewers Die From Shock"
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Obscenity?
I thought the reason they cut it was because "God damned" is an "obscenity" by FCC standards. Ms. Field seemed to confirm that when she told reporters, "I think I probably shouldn't have said the 'god' in front of the 'damned.'"
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It's so clearly not about the swear word
To the poster who said this was only about the swear word: if they were so worried about the "goddamn", they could have just silenced that one little bit without cutting the whole thing. Try watching TV sometime. They do it everyday.
To see how they cut it (with piss-poor editing) is startling. It looks almost to be a glitch, but once you see the real footage, it's clearly not.
Too bad someone hasn't told the Fox execs the 50s are over and we are in the 21st century. In their zealotry, they have created the next must-watch moment for the power of the internet to play endlessly showing their foolishness, now that we're all finished watching Britney's VMA performance.
So sad, because if they hadn't cut it, we probably wouldn't even be talking about it. Except, of course, in places like O'Reilly, where they like to slam celebs for having an opinion that doesn't match theirs, instead of actually reporting real news.
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I Understand Your Point
But I know how gutless FOX is without seeing any of the video.
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Decency lessons?
It's the height of comedy for Fox, purveyors in the past of such offensive programming as Joe Millionaire and Temptation Island to get their knickers in a twist about the phrase "goddamned war." It's funnier, in fact, than most Fox Network comedies.
Or maybe it just makes them uncomfortable to think that God would condemn the act of war.
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Goddammit
What is so goddam hard about understanding that goddam, while not objectionable to most goddam grownups in this goddam country, gave those goddam censors at Fox the pretext for eliminating the message--for taking the goddam high road? That tactically the rhetoric was goddam weak.
I mean, fuck.
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To the Fox Defenders here
This is what the 7 second delay is for. This is why every talk show in the US has a "Bleep" or Mute button. You obliterate the one word and continue. The only reason they cut was because they objected to more than the one word.
Mostly because they are a propaganda station first and an entertainment station second.
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Goddamn is OKAY
Officially, at least. They could have, in an abundance of caution, bleeped the *God* the same f[bleep) way they bleep the f word so that you know what was said but your ears are protected from bleeding when you hear the Lord's name -- well, actually not his NAME, just his description -- taken in vain, and not during the sermon of a designated insane TV preacher.
However, what they censored was the whole sentence, which had to do with war. Don't give me the crap that they had to take out the whole sentence. It was on a delay. The engineer keeps his finger on a button. He hears an objectionable word, he goes back five seconds or so and presses a button that put the bleep there. By the time it gets to you, it's bleeped. They've been doing that for 60 years or so. They cut out the reference to war.
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Fox even does it to (some) Republicans --
I watched some of the re-broadcast of the Republican debate on Fox, and Ron Paul was making his point about getting out of the Middle East. After that pissant Chris Wallace sneered "So we should follow the orders of Al Quaeda?" Ron Paul thundered "NO! We should follow the constitution."
And then, going on as I had actually seen him do in a previous broadcast on CSPAN, he said "9-11 wouldn't have happened if we hadn't put a military base in Saudi Arabia."
And Fox just happened to lose ALL SOUND for 10 seconds.
I have long heard that Freedom of Speech was intended for political speech, but I guess we've finally gotten to the unpleasant destination pointed to by John Wirenius in his truly important book: "First Amendment, First Principles: Verbal Acts and Freedom of Speech" (Holmes & Meier, 2000 ISBN # 0841913838) -- I have no financial or other interest in this author, this book or this publisher, other than to admire the hell out of all three.)Freedom of Speech is intended for those the media owners like, and/or the people they think aren't being influential. During the Vietnam war someone said to Jules Feiffer: "You must have a lot of influence." And Feiffer said words to the effect of "Don't be silly -- if I were having influence, my strips would be censored."
Can't wait to see what little Rupert Murdoch does with his new toy, The Wall Street Journal.
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Missing Edie
Honestly, Sally Field comes off as such a frenzied, ridiculous goof that I'm kind of glad she DIDN'T wind up Emmy's anti-war spokesperson.
She's a self-important, crappy one-note actress who has never learned to hide the mechanics of acting, and her shreiking, sputtering hysteria on stage was just as unentertaining.
I would have been far more interested in hearing what Edie Falco had to say.