Private Ryan Is Saved, But Now the FCC Investigates the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony

Philip Stone December 15, 2004

The FCC has finally made it clear: One “F” word used by a star at a US televised awards ceremony is a no-no! But many “F” words used by many movie stars in proper context within a televised award-winning movie are ok. Having resolved that, it is focusing its attention on those cavorting Greek mythological characters portrayed in the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Athens to a mammoth global TV audience. And opening day wasn’t even a Sunday!

Within days of one another, the FCC decided that Saving Private Ryan was not indecent, even though the film contained a great deal of cursing. But just as the applause light lit for that decision, the FCC confirmed it had asked NBC for a tape of its broadcast of the opening of the Athens Olympic Games. Dim the applause light!

Up to nine members of the public are said to have complained there was something in the opening ceremony’s coverage that was indecent, and the FCC says it must investigate every complaint. No one is quite sure what the complaint is. Most of the world, except the US, saw the opening ceremonies live, and those ceremonies did include artistic dancing representing ancient Greece. It didn’t take too much imagination from the costumes to figure who were the boys and who were the girls. But none of that made it to US. screens – NBC edited it out. So now we wait for the FCC to tell us what they are looking for.

Saving Private Ryan, a multi-award-winning film offers one of the most pictorial presentations of the D-Day landings. And the language matched the pictures. ABC had shown the film twice previously without complaint or any affiliate backing out, but after the recent rash of FCC fines for indecency, no less than 66 stations – about one third of ABC’s total affiliates – said they feared if they showed the film this past Veterans day that they risked FCC fines for indecency. Remember, this was just nine days after George W. Bush won re-election, moral values were said to be high on the American voter’s agenda, and the FCC had been cracking down on indecency all year.

The Ryan decision is really more political than it is freedom of expression – but free speech must take its victories any way it can these days. Senator John McCain, considered THE Senate Vietnam War hero tried very hard on Veterans Day to assure the 66 ABC stations there was no indecency issue. – this was a good realistic film that told about war the way it was. There is no way the White House or the Republican-led FCC was going against John McCain on this issue.

And that was signaled just a few days after the film showing when Lynne Chaney, in a CNN interview, was asked about the film’s language and she said that when strong language was used in an appropriate setting, as this was, then there was no problem. Mrs. Cheney, wife of the vice-president, is a political powerhouse in her own right in Washington, having served, for instance, for seven years as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. If she said the movie was ok, then so go the Republicans.

FCC Chairman
Michael Powell

Private Ryan is not actually out of the woods yet. FCC Chairman Michael Powell has let it be known he does not consider the film indecent, but two of the remaining four commissioners must still side with him. It’s an interesting political twist for Powell who earlier this year led the FCC, in a similar manner, to reverse its own enforcement board’s decision that when the entertainer Bono used the “F” word in accepting an award on television it was not obscene because the word was used as an adjective, and was not used to describe a sexual act.

Many broadcasters are conscious of exit polls in the November Presidential election that indicated that voters put “moral values” as their highest concern. The reaction to showing Saving Private Ryan less than two weeks after the election showed how fearful television stations had become. But a newly released Gallup Poll indicates this may all have been a red herring, and, according to Mediaweek magazine, one lobbying group in the US is responsible for 99.8 per cent of all the indecency complaints made to the FCC in 2003.

In a Gallup Poll released this week, when Americans were asked what was the most important problem facing the US today, moral values was listed fourth, well behind Iraq, terrorism, and the economy.

In 2000 and 2001 the FCC received about 350 indecency complaints a year. In 2002 it went up to 14,000 and in 2003 it hit more than 240,000 complaints. According to Mediaweek 99.8% of those complaints were generated by the Parents Television Council (PTC).. This in turn has advocacy groups complaining that a tiny minority, very well organized with a very focused political agenda is trying to censor US television.

The television networks agree. Fox is fighting a fine of $1.2 million for a show on which the FCC said it received 159 complaints. Not all those complaints can now be found, but Fox, in appealing the fines, says that all but four of the complaints were identical, and only one complainer actually watched the program.

How do you figure a $1.2 million fine for a program that the ratings said entered 5.1 million households and only one complainer actually watched the show?

Stay tuned.