Enforcing Decency

Last week the president triumphantly signed into law the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, increasing fines on networks who broadcast indecent material. The whole affair strikes me as mere symbolism and, in fact, illuminates the value pandering and substanceless government action hold in politics today. For sure, entertainment is saturated with gratuitous sex and violence, but tighter FCC regulation and steeper fines are unequal to the task of curbing this. The thought that a three-hundred thousand dollar fine will curb, or even dent, the sex and violence culture preponderant in entertainment is absurd, as is the message this law proffers: it is incumbent and necessary for the federal government to stem salacious pop culture entertainment. There are avenues through which televised sex and violence can be ended, FCC action is not one of them. (Never mind the farcical pretense of the government regulating cultural mores of proprietary conduct and behavior. If the indecent material targeted by this regulatory regime was really so far outside of our common cultural conception of decency it would not be accepted and thus would not be so widely permeant, defeating the supposed need for government regulation in the first place.)

Just as darkened windows protect the innocent passerby from the lewd contents of a strip club or adult bookstore, the "Power" button on the standard t.v. remote protects the innocent television viewer from uninvited images of sex and violence. You do not need to rely upon punitive regulation from the federal government to protect you. If you do not want to watch pure raunchiness, or do not want your children to, then change the channel or turn the t.v. off altogether. My suggestion: ESPN is a Sistine Chapel-sized sanctuary from the archetypal prime-time lineup.

If simply utilizing the television viewer’s veto—the remote—on an individual basis is not enough, then those indignant at the entertainment industry’s product can handle matters the old-fashioned way: through mass consumer boycott. Entertainment is a business just like any other; if no one watches their product they will not offer it any more; lest profit turn to loss, black ink into red. The entertainment industry wants your money, and they will pander to you to a degree that would make Senator John Kerry blush in order to get it. Were there a broad revulsion towards televised sex and violence, such images would never reach your television screen.

Moreover, bad publicity is the bane of any profitable business. Monsoons of disgruntled letters to the editor, public rallies and demonstrations, even picketing corporate headquarters, will garner the industry’s attention if substantial enough. At the very least they will accomplish more than a fine from the boys at the FCC will.

Then again, mass, organized action is probably unnecessary. Ratings get the attention of the entertainment industry better than all else because they determine their revenues. The concerned and conscientious citizen may effect change, as I have argued here already, by simply turning the channel and watching something else, diminishing a particular program or network’s ratings. Lower ratings equal lower profits, and if no one is watching a particular program, or genre of programs, then networks will not show them. The individual viewer can enforce decency in broadcasting with his or her remote far more effectively than the FCC can with its regulations and fines.

If anything, such individual action is an important indication of our republic’s civic health. After all, one characteristic of a country more appalling than an entertainment industry replete with sex and violence is a citizenry dependent upon the government to do for them what they can and should do for themselves. It does not take the federal government to enforce decency, just a simple click of the remote.