In two decisions, the FCC rejected 36 indecency complaints filed by the Parents Television Council:
- In re: Complaints by Parents Television Council Against Various Broadcast Licensees Regarding Their Airing Of Allegedly Indecent Material (FCC 04-279, Jan. 24, 2005).
- In re: Complaints by Parents Television Council Against Various Broadcast Licensees Regarding Their Airing Of Allegedly Indecent Material (FCC 04-280, Jan. 24, 2005).
Isolated uses of the word “dick” or variations thereof as epithets “intended to denigrate or criticize their subjects.” Such a use is not sufficiently explicit or graphic to be patently offensive. Similar uses of words “penis,” “testicle,” “vaginal,” “ass,” “bastard,” and “bitch” are not patently offensive when used in similar capacity. 04-279 at ¶8.
Depictions of partial nudity where sexual and/or excretory organs are “covered by bedclothes, household objects, or pixilation” do not rise to the level of patent offensiveness. 04-279 at ¶9. When partial nudity is a fleeting and rudimentary depiction of “a cartoon boy’s buttocks,” that material is not sufficiently “graphic or explicit, or sustained, to rise to the level of being patently offensive.” 04-280 at ¶9.
Vague references or innuendo to sexual organs or activities are insufficiently graphic or explicit to be considered patently offensive. 04-279 at ¶10, 04-280 at ¶11. Additionally, material that only alludes to sexual activity or depicts men and women engaging in physical activity that implies sexual activity is not sufficiently graphic or explicit. 04-280 at ¶10.
Jeff Jarvis: The Parents Television Council loses one 36: “I have a theory that the people in the FCC — including even lame prude Michael Powell — are secretly embarrassed that they have turned themselves into the nation’s chief prigs and mouth-washers, that they have kneecapped the First Amendment, and that their tenure will be marked in history for the stupidity of following along with what they thought was a political movement but turned out to be only a few religious nutjobs with no lives. But that’s just a theory. If it were true, it would explain how the FCC decided to reject these 36 PTC complaints just as Michael Powell ducks out of office.”
Previously: Pixellating a cartoon character’s ass
