When host Alanis Morissette appeared onstage at the Juno Awards Sunday night in a faux-nude bodysuit, her anti-censorship message was softened by the medium of a humorous skit. She said she was unhappy that U.S. radio networks had required her to change a word in her new song Everything if she wanted the song aired there. The original line -- warning: potential offence ahead -- was, "I can be an asshole of the grandest kind." She substituted the word "nightmare." Canadian radio has been playing the unaltered version of the song. Hence her line at the Junos: "Well, I am overjoyed to be back in my homeland, the true North, strong and censor-free."
However, since free expression inevitably butts heads with the desire of broadcasters (and, yes, print media) not to gratuitously offend their audiences, Ms.Morissette's skit turned in on itself. She continued: ". . . and censor-free, a place where I'm allowed to say things like [bleep]and [bleep] and I can even say [bleep bleep bleep] Oh, apparently I can't say those things?"
Her mock surprise segued into a reference to the outrage that followed the exposure of one of singer Janet Jackson's breasts during the Feb. 1 Super Bowl halftime show. "Well, at least we live in a land where we still think the human body is beautiful, and we are not afraid of the female breast. Which is why I am proud to be able to stand here and do this." At which point she dropped her robe to reveal not a naked body, but the bodysuit with fake nipples and pubic hair -- adornments she proceeded to rip away on being mock-informed by a voice-over that "you can't do that. . . . We can't show nipples on national TV. . . . And you can't show your pubic hair either." Ms. Morissette's very Canadian response: "Oh. Okay."
The range of what is considered acceptable for broadcast is necessarily fluid. As any viewer of Canadian television knows, whether you see nipples or pubic hair or hear foul language, even on national TV, depends on which channel you pick and what time you tune in. There is more chance of encountering them on regular Canadian channels than there is in the United States, but cable channels in both countries have, and exercise, greater latitude because of the implicit consent of subscribers. We can't claim to know whether the Junos would have let Ms. Morissette bare an actual breast, but chances are the audience (lots of kids) and the channel (over-the-air) would have dictated that hers be kept as concealed as Ms. Jackson's should have been. This, despite Ms. Morissette's contentious statement to reporters backstage that "any repression of acceptance of the human body [and]. . . our sexuality" manifests itself in "everything you see from eating disorders to pornography and rape."
However, Ms. Morissette is right to sound an alarm about the official U.S. overreaction to the Jackson stunt. Lastfall, the enforcement branch of the Fed-eral Communications Commission ruled that U2 singer Bono was not indecent and profane when, in a spontaneous fit of enthusiasm at the 2003 Golden Globe Awards, he described something as "fucking brilliant." Last month, the FCC board overruled its staff. FCC commissioner Michael Copps laments that the agency has been seen as a "paper tiger," and says he looks forward to a couple of licence-revocation hearings to put the fear of government regulation back into the hearts of broadcasters.
After the Super Bowl, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 391-22 for the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004, which would increase fines for violating decency standards to $500,000 (U.S.) from $27,500. The Clear Channel radio network ordered two of its Wisconsin stations not to run commercials for the innocuous show Puppetry of the Penis -- ads that Clear Channel executive Jeff Tyler conceded would have been fine to run six months earlier. CBS put a five-minute delay on the Grammys; ABC put a seven-second delay on the Oscars. A brief shot of a patient's bare breast on ER was deleted. The bare rear end of an animated character on UPN's Game Over was obscured. A sex scene on NYPD Blue was darkened in some parts of the country. The FCC's Mr. Copps mused about cracking down on steamy soap operas.
With this retrenchment comes theprospect of timorous second-guessing,of undue self-censorship, of caution that translates into not taking artistically valid risks with adult fare. Media buyers for broadcast TV were quoted in Advertising Age last month as fearing that if network shows are muzzled, even more viewers will switch to cable or satellite TV. As though reading their minds, the Senate commerce committee approved a proposal to expand the government's regulatory power to cover satellite and cable -- a threat the cable owners said they would fight on constitutional grounds.
Ms. Morissette's anxious reaction to this climate change is understandable, whatever comic gloss she may have added to entertain the crowd at the Junos.