Is the FCC Sleeping?

Yesterday morning I sat in my room to watch Trust Me‘s premiere episode. I enjoy basic cable shows on occasion (I’m a pretty causal USA viewer, but Mad Men has me), but I came away at the end of the episode wondering if something had happened to the FCC that they decided two small pieces were fine for broadcast.

As background, I’m all for swearing and vulgarity (as anyone who’s spent time with me in person) and I’m also all for dirty jokes that make it on TV, but these two made me go “What?” more than anything else.

The first point to catch my eye, was a middle finger, drawn, on my screen. Outside of the HBO, Showtime and their ilk, I’ve never heard (let alone seen) someone flip anyone off. Not to say that the finger isn’t effective (I can’t begin to count the times I’ve used it), but at 10 PM on a basic network now? What’s next, getting to say the word on the air without a bleep? (I know this won’t happen, but where’s the line, truly.)

The last point is more on the innuendo of a tag-line used in the episode. Perhaps it’s all the time I spent with kids these days, but the first imagine I have when I hear “What can you do with one hand?” is not about me and my cell phone. Sorry, but that isn’t going to work.

What both of these moments makes me want to ask, however, is when did I start complaining about what the FCC put on my television. I’d rather go back to the days when I was happy to hear things slip through (if I could go back to some moments in late Buffy season seven, I would. Or, for that matter, anything from Veronica Mars.)

Now that I’ve said all of this, I’m sure, the FCC will go back to their joke and keep me from being amused by dirty jokes.