Ed Vitagliano
AFA Journal news editor
November-December 2002 – Almost 30 years ago comedian George Carlin's routine, "Seven words you can't say on television," shocked many Americans and delighted others. His irreverent approach to public profanity eventually brought him even more fame in a case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
At the time there was a reason why certain things couldn't be said – or done – on TV. In the early 1950s the National Association of Broadcasters developed the Television Code to govern the content of TV. The effort blended the individual content codes of the three networks – at the time ABC, CBS, and NBC – in a voluntary attempt to prevent the government from ever stepping in to regulate television subject matter. The Code was revised through the years, and disappeared from use altogether in the 1980s.
Times have changed, but the shift is more shocking when the Television Code's self-imposed regulations are placed in juxtaposition with current content. For AFA Journal's annual review of the new fall television season, here – to borrow from Carlin's concept – are the things you can say and do on television in the year 2002.
"Profanity, obscenity, smut and vulgarity are forbidden, even when likely to be understood only by part of the audience." (Television Code, 1971)
Today there are only a few words that are not used during prime time on the major television networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox.) Profanity is virtually everywhere present. On Fox's new detective drama, Fastlane, for example, the first two episodes contain 17 and 23 profanities, respectively, as well as crudities such as "peckerwood." On the season premiere of the NBC sitcom Scrubs, viewers were subjected to 20 profanities – in a half-hour show.
When it premiered almost a decade ago, ABC's NYPD Blue became instrumental in demolishing whatever standards existed in regard to profanity. This season is no different. In its debut episode this fall, NYPD Blue filled the airwaves with a whopping 34 profanities of the worst sort. During a subsequent episode, an officer used the word "bullsh--," a rarity even in the salty world of network television.
Just as disturbing is the vulgarity and lewd dialogue that fills virtually every sitcom and drama on TV. One of the worst is NBC's sitcom, Just Shoot Me. For example, at a staff meeting on this year's season premiere, Jack, looking to sweeten his coffee, asks where the Sweet ‘n' Low is. Series degenerate Dennis points to his crotch and says, "Right here, Chief – just ask all the ladies." Elliott says to Dennis, "I think he meant the other tiny pink package."
References to female genitals, while not as frequent, are becoming more common. Thus, on the season premiere of Will & Grace (NBC), the word "gash" is used as a dual reference to both a cut on Grace's head and her genitals.
Explicitly smutty dialogue is in vogue. On the season premiere of Friends, for example, the episode contains jokes about various sexual positions, public sex, and sexual foreplay. "Screwing" is used as a euphemism for sex, but viewers of the new fall season could also hear plenty of other vulgar euphemisms on many shows.
"Illicit sex relations are not treated as commendable." (Television Code, 1971)
A casual attitude toward sex – especially fornication – is a regular theme of network television. On the season premiere of The King of Queens (9/23), Holly says that because of her poor driving, she'll have to sleep with the next cop who pulls her over, and later says she'll have to sleep with her mechanic just to pay for getting her car fixed – all to audience laughter.
On Fastlane, Van, a cop, and Cassidy – a suspect in a criminal investigation – have a sexually explicit rendezvous that is nothing less than soft-core porn, as the two are shown disrobing one another, in various sexual poses, and participating in implied oral sex.
Prostitution shows up as a defensible practice on NYPD Blue's season premiere, as Det. John Clark attempts to cover up the ongoing habit of his father's visit to a prostitute. The father is also a cop.
On Good Morning, Miami (10/10), Jake's grandmother jokes about his having to resort to "purchasing sex" from prostitutes, because he can't get a date.
Group sex is also used as a source of sitcom humor. On Friends, Phoebe fixes Joey up with her friend Mary Ellen, whom Phoebe describes as a girl who's "not opposed to threesomes." On Frasier, Roz (a female) misunderstands Niles' and Daphne's invitation to join them for some fruit as an invitation for three-way sex. Her embarrassment deepens as the couple continues to twist everything Roz says into a joke about her supposed taste for group sex.
"Sex crimes and abnormalities are generally unacceptable as program material. The use of locations closely associated with sexual life or with sexual sin must be governed by good taste and delicacy." (Television Code, 1971)
When it comes to unnatural sex, however, the homosexual emphasis of NBC's Will & Grace may exceed all other network programming. That sitcom focuses on four main characters: Will, a homosexual man; his straight, female, lifelong friend Grace, who is his roommate; and their two friends – the out-loud-and-proud homosexual Jack; and Karen, a rich, married, boozy snob with a tart tongue.
On the September 26 season premiere, Will and Jack talk about going out to "cruise guys" at a new "gay" club, and Jack says he's not wearing underwear in anticipation. Jokes on this show about anal intercourse – by both homosexuals and heterosexuals – are not uncommon.
On the October 10 episode, there is a joke about Jack buying condoms for his promiscuous lifestyle, as well as the fact that Jack got his YMCA membership revoked for cavorting with "companions in the shower."
However, Will & Grace is not the only show to treat homosexuality as comedic subject matter. On Scrubs (10/3), someone teases J.D. about the fact that he had homosexual relations with his "bunkmate" at a camp when he was a young man; and later there is a fantasy sequence in which J.D. wears women's underwear and says, "It's actually not that bad. And the lace feels soft against my package."
Other grotesqueries are common, such as a scene during the October 10 episode of ER, in which a man has a still-functioning sex toy removed from his rectum – obscured by the man's tortured expression.
Even bestiality can be used to prompt a good hearty laugh on network TV. For example, on the September 23 episode of ABC's Whose Line It It Anyway? one of the skits ends with someone reading a "hillbilly fortune cookie" that reads: "You just ate what could have been your lover."
"The use of horror for its own sake will be eliminated; the use of visual or aural effects which would shock or alarm the viewer, and the detailed presentation of brutality or physical agony by sight or by sound are not permissible." (Television Code, 1971)
While instances of sex and profanity make up the majority of objectionable content on television, dramas are getting more bold with graphic displays of violence and gore.
Many critics of television continue to be disturbed by the violent and often bloody crimes portrayed on TV shows, such as a disturbing knifing scene – shown up close and repeated in later episodes as part of the main character's flashbacks – on Push, Nevada.
However, there also appears to be a relatively recent trend toward showing other types of disturbing images. For example, the long-running NBC hit ER opened its new fall season on September 26 with a graphic scene of Dr. Romano getting his arm chopped off by the moving blades of an emergency helicopter. Likewise, on ABC's spy-thriller Alias, a scalpel is shown cutting open a conscious man's forehead; later, Sydney, the female main character, jams a hypodermic needle with adrenalin into the chest of an unconscious friend.
Shows which center on criminal investigators appear to be relying more and more on gore as a way to create a visceral reaction in viewers. On the first two episodes of the season for CBS' new crime drama CSI: Miami, viewers saw a severed arm; decomposed bodies; a side view of a man's head with the front blown off, leaving a crater filled with brain matter; and the body cavity of a bomb-blast victim, exposed as the epidermis is pulled back by a medical examiner, revealing what she calls "organs turned to soup."
On the season premiere of CSI (CBS), an interesting and well-written drama is marred by an extremely graphic autopsy. As the medical examiners perform their jobs, the camera angles clearly show the scalpel cutting the skin on the head, and then, in a scene that is almost unbearable to watch, examiners are shown pulling the face off the corpse.
While the new television season is worse than ever before, it has not actually taken a big step downward into depravity. Rather, the current state of TV has come from many smaller steps that began decades ago. Nevertheless, the debauchery on the small screen is something that would undoubtedly make George Carlin
very proud. 
