Archive for the ‘Television and Radio’ Category

Braving the limits of permissible expression

Sunday, January 23rd, 2011

In connection to MTV’s decision to tone down its new show “Skins” rather than risk prosecution under child porn laws, Solon has an interesting summary of how the participation of children mainstream imagery has tested the boundaries of expression permitted in the “land of the free”.  Most of the examples will probably be familiar to you, but it’s interesting to revisit the pictures in the current  environment of fear encouraged by government and the media in their perpetual pursuit of self-serving public attention.

I watched the 1978 movie “Pretty Baby” last night.   While I had already seen it soon after it was released, I don’t really recall any sense of shock at its content.  This time, watching it in the context of today’s paranoia that a pedophile lurks behind every tree, I sincerely doubt the movie, if released today, would have seen the inside of a theater without serious editing.

While these examples are about child nudity, U.S. Justice Department  has again moved the line so as to broaden their definition of a prosecutable offense, under the term “child erotica“.  Under this strategy, Alabama photographer Jeff Pierson was indicted in 2006:

In a federal indictment announced this week, the U.S. Department of Justice accused Pierson, 43, of being a child pornographer–even though even prosecutors acknowledge there’s no evidence he has ever taken a single photograph of an unclothed minor.

Rather, they argue, his models struck poses that were illegally provocative. “The images charged are not legitimate child modeling, but rather lascivious poses one would expect to see in an adult magazine,” Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the northern district of Alabama, said in a statement.

The ease with which the government can curtail free expression in the name of protecting children encourages more and more of it and, indeed, almost all internet censorship crusades worldwide currently leverage off the public’s enthusiasm to sign over their freedom in exchange for a vague promise of security for children.

Posted in Art, Censorship, Child Pornography, Movies, Nudity, Television and Radio, United States | 6 Comments »

MTV tries to steer clear of U.S. censorship laws

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

In an environment of vague U.S. censorship laws that govern what media outlets can and can’t do, MTV has decided to tone down its new show, “Skins”, rather than risk a chance that some ambitious federal prosecutor will target the network for a high profile career-making crucifixion.

They are particularly concerned about the third episode of the series, which is to be broadcast Jan. 31. In an early version, a naked 17-year-old actor is shown from behind as he runs down a street. The actor, Jesse Carere, plays Chris, a high school student whose erection — assisted by erectile dysfunction pills — is a punch line throughout the episode.

While simple nudity of minors is not outlawed by U.S. porn law,in the current environment of pedophile and child porn paranoia, state and federal governments have a history of threatening and harassing producers of material which is clearly within the bounds of what the courts consider protected expression.   While its nice when corporations stand up for First Amendment rights, a business’s first obligation is to the bottom line and not to martyr itself for the cause of freedom at the expense of shareholders.

Of course, those scenes may be what attract young viewers in the first place. Jessica Bennett, a senior writer for Newsweek, wrote last week, “ ‘Skins’ may be the most realistic show on television.”

If there’s any thing you don’t want children exposed to, it’s realism.

It is unclear when MTV first realized that the show may be vulnerable to child pornography charges. On Tuesday, a flurry of meetings took place at the network’s headquarters in New York, according to an executive who attended some of the meetings and spoke only on the condition of anonymity. In one of the meetings, the executives wondered aloud who could possibly face criminal prosecution and jail time if the episodes were broadcast without changes.

Of course, what makes this interesting is that MTV has no clue whether they would be breaking the law or not.  The laws are so subjective that no one can know what constitutes a violation in advance.  The first chance you get to know that you’re breaking the law is when you’re tried and convicted.  So the solution is to steer clear of anything that might excite some self-serving over-zealous prosecutor who sees high profile sex crime prosecutions as a pathway to higher political office.

Posted in Censorship, Child Pornography, Television and Radio | 6 Comments »