A Fine Ruling

Just yesterday I wrote about how in the last few years the 24-hour news channels have started to treat every event as though it would be getting its own chapter in the text books of future generations, even though most stories will be forgotten about by next week. Then, as if on cue, this morning a federal appeals court threw out the fine levied against CBS following the infamous 'wardrobe malfunction' during the Super Bowl halftime show in 2004, bring perhaps the most famous such example of this back to the public conscious. CBS had been appealing the half-million dollar fine because it said it could not be held responsible for an unplanned incident and the fine was both excessive and arbitrary, as the penalties were not raised for incidents such as this until after the Super Bowl. The court agreed and hopefully this will be the last time "wardrobe malfunction" has to be said in a court of law.

Still, it made me think back to when this story first happened. Remember when Janet Jackson's nipple caused everyone to lose their minds for a couple of months? We were getting the crazy from both sides: really conservative people thought this signaled the end of human decency and the America they had grown up in (quick spoiler alert: it was already gone) and was going to lead us down a path where anything went on TV. The really liberal free-speech advocates (yep, lumping myself in there) were afraid that lawmakers would use this incident as an excuse to crackdown on anything that they simply didn't like or viewed as even the slightest bit controversial in an effort to make themselves look like pious family men, rendering American broadcasting about as exciting as an Amish barn-raising. Hell, they even mentioned it during the Presidential debates of that year. Frankly, with several years in the rear-view mirror, the panic almost seems quaint.

As it turns out (because this is almost always how it works), neither side was right. TV has not become a free-for-all where you can say or do anything in the name of ratings. Nor have the boundaries been reigned in to the point where the most controversial thing on TV is a very special after-school episode of "Facts of Life" where one of the girl meets a lesbian. After a brief overreaction where the censors went a little heavy with the bleep button, things returned to normal and the lawyers started to relax again. TV has continued to evolve at its own, natural pace and, yes, you can get away with more now than you ever could before. But believe me when I tell you that its is not nearly as much as writers want to be getting away with. There is still restraint in broadcasting.

So, don't be surprised as they continue to push and attempt to get away with more. But that is because that is how life works, not because Justin Timberlake grabbed more than he mean to. [Sidebar: happens to the best of us, JT.] I'm sure in a few years we will look back at 2011 and wonder just what was the big deal about showing blood on a basic-cable channel. Basically, in the words of Stewie Griffin, "world keeps on spinnin'." It was just another example that the big news story of today is never as big as people want you to think it is. Frankly, armed with this knowledge I can't wait for "I Love the 20-teens" on VH1 in a decade when we all look back at the "Occupy Wall Street" protests and laugh. If they need me, as you can see I'm already working on material.