WtF????

[pfloyd]

I know that in this day and age, we're all trying to protect out kids from seeing graphic things on TV. We have the V-Chip. We have ratings on TV shows. All the porn cable channels are Pay-per-View, which has a sense of security about it. Basically, the government, such as it is, has given families the guidelines to monitor what our kids watch.

However, this time, they've gone over the line. Not just setting a toe over it, not even pussyfooting past it. I'm talking pole-vaulting here.
Tonight, in honor of Veteran's Day, ABC is showing Saving Private Ryan. Very intense combat scenes, right at the get-go.The invasion of the Normandy beachhead on D-Day is one of the most intense movie experiences I've ever had -- and I didn't even see it on the big screen. I can understand Stephen Hunter's (author and movie critic for the Washington Post) point when he said that after those scenes were over, he was so riled up that even he was looking for a German soldier so he could surrender.
I must admit that the movie may be a bit on the graphic side to air on regular broadcast TV. I can understand why ABC is showing it in all its unedited (even for language) glory, in view of the holiday. But I don't think that it's necessarily the right for the local affiliates to basically censor what we may or may not want to watch by showing something else. They're taking the choice away from us. What if I wanted to watch it, and found out at the last minute that my local ABC channel is going to show, say, Far and Away? (That's exactly what they're doing, too.) So now if I want to watch it, I'd have to run up to Blockbuster and hope that other people didn't have the same idea I had.
I just don't understand it at times... I hate it when other people take a choice away from me. If they were showing it, and I wanted to watch it, fine. If I didn't, fine. But I don't have that choice now, do I?
And neither do you.

Enough of the rant.
Carry on.

Comments

[that-xmas.livejournal.com]

That's all well and good that you feel that the local affiliates were censoring something. However, you shouldn't blame them.

They didn't show the movie out of fear. Fear that someone would complain to the FCC. Fear that a complaint would turn into a fine.

[pfloyd.livejournal.com]

Fear even when their parent company would back them up and pay for any and all fines incurred by showing this movie... Just doesn't sit quite right.

There should still be the choice of whether or not to watch it, and that choice should have been left to the individual viewer. That's all I have to say.

[lawful-evil.livejournal.com]

Oh.. on CNN they indicated that ABC had pulled the movie altogether, on every station. They wanted the FCC to decide ahead of time if it was too much and the FCC said no way, that would be censorship. They will only react if they get complaints from viewers.

BTW, we have the movie, you can borrow it.

[lawful-evil.livejournal.com]

Oh, never mind... the current article references ABC affiliates pulling it. The one they had up 5 or 6 hours ago was talking about ABC as a whole.

[pfloyd.livejournal.com]

Already seen it, and I'm in no hurry to see it again. Got others that I want to see beforehand.

[that-xmas.livejournal.com]

Well, the current bill that's bouncing around Congress would up the fines to $500K per incident with a 3 million dollar cap per day. That bill also has a three strikes and we pull your license rider in it too.

You can see why they're a little sheepish.