An Indecent Congress

In non-Iraq news, Congress recently approved a bill increasing indecency fines against television broadcasters tenfold, from $32,500 to $325,000. The momentum for the fine increases, to be levied by the Federal Communications Commission, was pushed largely by the now-infamous Janet Jackson incident from Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004, during which her breast was accidentally exposed.

Although the politicians who overwhelmingly voted for the measure think they've struck a blow for decency, the circumstances in which Jackson's faux pas took place proves how vulgar American culture really is. After all, this took place at the Super Bowl, a sporting event that makes British soccer games look like tea parties. (The day before the 2004 game, Matt Zoller Seitz, writing in the Newark Star-Ledger, declared that the annual game, with all its tasteless and outlandish showmanship, defined who we are as a nation.)

There's also a good deal of hypocrisy in this, considering that American broadcast television shows a good deal of gratuitous violence in the form of murders, military killings, and the like, yet it's long been considered inappropriate to show even the most tasteful lovemaking between two consenting adults. There's also a tinge of racism and misogyny in the furor over the Jackson incident. Jackson, a black woman, is constantly mentioned as the instigator of the striptease - never mind that her breast was never meant to be exposed - but it was Justin Timberlake, a white man, who did the exposing. (Probably not coincidentally, Representative Donald Payne - New Jersey's only black House delegate - voted against the fine increase, though his vote more likely was for free speech reasons.)

The fine increase will have little effect on television broadcasters, as the networks and locally owned stations (assuming there are any locally owned stations left) usually do a fine job overall of deciding what goes on the air without government interference. The Republican Congress and the Republican White House occupant don't seem to care about that.