- miker / Shutterstock.com
- A protester holds a sign at the Change the Mascot Rally last month in Minneapolis.
Amy Schatz at Re/Code says a petition to relabel the name of Washington DC’s football team as an obscenity has been rejected by the FCC. If the petition had been successful, broadcasters would have been fined every time it appeared on their networks. The FCC’s reason for rejecting the word highlights the inanity of our profanity laws:
“Because the law defines profanity as sexual or excretory in nature, we cannot find the word profane,” the FCC’s media bureau said Thursday in a notice denying the petition.
So the rule is, if it’s not about shitting, pissing, or fucking, you’re good to go on American television*. It’s unbelievable to me that a sports team has a racial slur for a name in 2014, but I don’t know if making the word illegal is the right course. I’m not a fan of banning words; I think education and public shaming is a more effective path. Turning it into a “bleep” word would only encourage a generation of shitty standup comics to incorporate the word into their act so they can seem edgy. The clock is running out on the Washington football team’s name, but this attempt to force the issue with the FCC is not going to be the deathblow.
* Sometime soon, we’ve got to have a serious conversation about swearing. It’s insane that the New York Times still won’t print profanities; they’re swapping accuracy for prudishness. And a huge pet peeve of mine is that the Huffington Post (among other media outlets) for some reason thinks using “F*ck” in their headlines is somehow more socially acceptable than “Fuck.” Who are you fooling with that asterisk?