More puritanical idiocy from the USA

[Darth Wong]

Check this out: ABC is forced to apologize to an outraged public because of a shot of a naked woman's back, from the waist up.

ABC apologizes for steamy MNF intro

Posted: Tuesday November 16, 2004 4:02PM; Updated: Wednesday November 17, 2004 8:58AM

-- NEW YORK (AP) -- ABC's "desperate" bid at cross-promotion backfired on Monday Night Football.

The network's steamy intro to the Philadelphia-Dallas game, featuring a naked Nicollette Sheridan jumping into the arms of Eagles receiver Terrell Owens, drew complaints from viewers and the NFL.

ABC Sports apologized Tuesday for the segment, used a day earlier to promote the hit show Desperate Housewives and broadcast just nine months after another football flap -- the Janet Jackson Super Bowl fiasco.

"We have heard from many of our viewers about last night's 'MNF' opening segment and we agree that the placement was inappropriate," ABC Sports said in a statement.

The NFL called the intro "inappropriate and unsuitable for our Monday Night Football audience."

"While ABC may have gained attention for one of its other shows, the NFL and its fans lost," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said.

The spot showed Owens and Sheridan in an empty locker room, with Sheridan wearing only a towel and provocatively asking Owens to skip the game for her.

After she dropped her towel, he smiled, agreed to be late for the contest and she jumped into his arms. Sheridan was shown only from behind and above the waist after she dropped the towel.

Then the shot panned out to two more stars of Desperate Housewives, Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman, watching the scene unfold on a television and commenting on desperate women.

The Eagles said they appreciated ABC Sports' apology.

"It is normal for teams to cooperate with ABC in the development of an opening for its broadcast," the team said. "After seeing the final piece, we wish it hadn't aired."

ABC has broadcast Monday Night Football with a 5-second delay this season, a precaution after Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at February's Super Bowl.

At halftime of that game, Justin Timberlake ripped off part of Jackson's brassiere, exposing her right breast to a TV audience of some 90 million. The Super Bowl was broadcast on CBS, which was fined a record $550,000 by the FCC.

Yes, now we're so hopelessly puritan that the back of a woman's torso is cause for viewer outrage, hand-wringing, and gnashing of teeth. Grow up, America.

[Stravo]

Yes, now we're so hopelessly puritan that the back of a woman's torso is cause for viewer outrage, hand-wringing, and gnashing of teeth. Grow up, America.

Damnit Mike you're not thinking of the children.

[Bertie Wooster]

It looks some folks want it to be 1954 all over again.

Could this push that we're seeing to revert to a nostalgic 1950's America be correlated to the American economic supremacy of that era?

I'm wondering if this puritinism and pandering to fundamentalism is a symptom of a greater trend of the country being in a state of denial about our lessened status in the world since the end of WWII.

[Kuja]

Jesusland strikes again.

[Lord Poe]

Howard Stern was talking about it this morning. He predicted that its just going to get worse, and he'll be laughing his ass off once he's on satillite radio.

If you notice in America, the highest rated shows, the biggest Emmy winners, come from cabe TV. The Sopranos, The Shield, Larry Sanders Show, etc. Interesting, isn't it? Who's bidding is the FCC doing? Certainly not the majority of the viewing public.

I wonder how soon the Internet will be hit...

BTW, radio personality Tom Leykis said the specific reason given for his radio show being dropped from Canadian syndication is that they wouldn't allow him to call people "retards" and "bitches"!

[Chardok]

I.

Want.


Pictures.


The google! it does nothing!

[Lord Poe]

I.

Want.


Pictures.


The google! it does nothing!

Its from the back. Something you've seen a million times. However, this was a WHITE WOMAN offering herself to a BLACK MAN....

[Darth Wong]

Howard Stern was talking about it this morning. He predicted that its just going to get worse, and he'll be laughing his ass off once he's on satillite radio.

If you notice in America, the highest rated shows, the biggest Emmy winners, come from cabe TV. The Sopranos, The Shield, Larry Sanders Show, etc. Interesting, isn't it? Who's bidding is the FCC doing? Certainly not the majority of the viewing public.

This goes back to what the imbecile Grendel was trying to say in the other thread, where he claimed that the FCC was just upholding "community standards" while simultaneously saying that the people in the community don't know what's good for them and the government needs to be their nanny. You can always tell that someone is a dogmatic fucktard when it doesn't bother him at all to contradict himself.

I wonder how soon the Internet will be hit...

They already tried, with the CDA which was struck down. They will undoubtedly try again at some point.

BTW, radio personality Tom Leykis said the specific reason given for his radio show being dropped from Canadian syndication is that they wouldn't allow him to call people "retards" and "bitches"!

I doubt that's it. They show uncensored softcore pornography on late-night broadcast TV from CityTV here in Toronto, after all. More likely he was dropped because of protectionism; they don't really like Americans coming in here and getting ratings that would otherwise go to Made-In-Canada radio productions.

[Darth Wong]

Its from the back. Something you've seen a million times. However, this was a WHITE WOMAN offering herself to a BLACK MAN....

That's an interesting observation; I wonder how much effect that had on the "viewer outrage".

[Chardok]

I.

Want.


Pictures.


The google! it does nothing!

Its from the back. Something you've seen a million times. However, this was a WHITE WOMAN offering herself to a BLACK MAN....

I wonder how on EARTH something like this could have been thought up...


Could it have been....








SATAN?!

[ReinnResauq]

However, this was a WHITE WOMAN offering herself to a BLACK MAN....

You're kidding me...a white woman...a black man?! What does ABC think we are, a civilized racially irrelevent society or something?

[Lord Poe]

That's an interesting observation; I wonder how much effect that had on the "viewer outrage".

You'd be suprised. I hate to keep bringing up Stern, but porn stars have told him thst their price goes DOWN if the dared to do porno with black men.

[Wicked Pilot]

Someone needs to hurry up and sue the FCC and end this bullshit before Bush gets his fundie judges in place and all hope is lost.

[Durandal]

Its from the back. Something you've seen a million times. However, this was a WHITE WOMAN offering herself to a BLACK MAN....

That's an interesting observation; I wonder how much effect that had on the "viewer outrage".

I'd wager a lot. Who watches lots of football? Rednecks.

[Stravo]

Its from the back. Something you've seen a million times. However, this was a WHITE WOMAN offering herself to a BLACK MAN....

That's an interesting observation; I wonder how much effect that had on the "viewer outrage".

I'd wager a lot. Who watches lots of football? Rednecks.

Who doesn't vote for McCain because Bush phone lobbysists called and said he had a black child? Rednecks.

[Darth Wong]

I like the way these infantile fucktards think it's going to send a bad message to let kids see a woman's bare back, but all of the fucking BEER COMMERCIALS shown during a typical football game are great family programming.

[Montcalm]

I saw the commercial last night,and there is nothing to freak about its a humourous ad..*Who watch that crap*

[Trogdor]

Its from the back. Something you've seen a million times. However, this was a WHITE WOMAN offering herself to a BLACK MAN....

That's an interesting observation; I wonder how much effect that had on the "viewer outrage".

I'd wager a lot. Who watches lots of football? Rednecks.

Though you make a good point, EVERYBODY watches football. I live in Jersey, not exactly the hillbilly capital of the nation, and the damn campus practically stops on Sunday and Monday nights for football.

[Mange]

Oh brother, this is scary. The naked back of a woman is enough to make people feel upset?

[Durandal]

That's an interesting observation; I wonder how much effect that had on the "viewer outrage".

I'd wager a lot. Who watches lots of football? Rednecks.

Though you make a good point, EVERYBODY watches football. I live in Jersey, not exactly the hillbilly capital of the nation, and the damn campus practically stops on Sunday and Monday nights for football.

Yes, but how does this change the fact that rednecks, who are much more likely to be upset by a white women throwing herself into a black man's arms, watch a lot of football?

[BoredShirtless]

I'd stay away from beaches this summer if I lived in Jesusland.

[Darth Raptor]

Its from the back. Something you've seen a million times. However, this was a WHITE WOMAN offering herself to a BLACK MAN....

That's an interesting observation; I wonder how much effect that had on the "viewer outrage".

My mom bought a used suitcase from a garage sale once. She found a hardcore porno mag inside and the worst thing about it by her tearfull account was that a black man was doing a white woman. In the ass.

[Ghost Rider]

I like the way these infantile fucktards think it's going to send a bad message to let kids see a woman's bare back, but all of the fucking BEER COMMERCIALS shown during a typical football game are great family programming.

But the drink of Champions must be okay...because it's not a White Woman offering herslef to no dern black man!

It does give though the lovely perspective of what's really important to these folk.

[RedImperator]

Sometimes when these things come up, I come into the thread and say, "Oh no, it's not that simple. They look like screaming retards, but actually they're reacting this way because of this valid reason that's being obscured." I've got nothing this time around. This is nothing but hysterical puritanism. When I saw the promo, know how I reacted? "They're going to give TO shit because this commercial implies that he would abandon his teammates if some blonde cupcake threw herself at him". I didn't even think about it being sexually objectionable until...well, hell, this morning, because there was nothing about it yesterday.

From what I can gather from all the hysterical bleating, the main objection is not that they showed her back, but that she dropped the towel and jumped into his arms. Race hasn't been brought up by either side in the local media yet; I suspect that had she jumped into a white player's arms (say, Peyton Manning or Tom Brady) the reaction would have been about the same. Locally, anyway.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Lord Poe, I love your new Spidey sig, and props to Chardok for the Church Lady.

That being said, let's not delve into Canadian Idiocy, Mike. Quebec anyone? Its just that here in the US more people complain, so we have to accomodate them. Its not like we've gone crazy and legislated bilingual laws