Sunday, March 13, 2005

Censorship is a many splendored thing.

When I read the above article- I wasn't sure which was more amusing- ABC censoring a show about Censorship... or the reader comments pointing out it's NOT censorship.

Basically David E. Kelly wrote a script for Boston Legal where he had a guy from Boston Public fit the school's TV with fox blockers... to stop the kids from watching Fox because the character believes fox to be a piece of right wing garbage. ABC told him to change the script... and the above linked article has BOTH scripts.

I think I'm more peeved by the right wingers say it's NOT censorship... that ABC has the right to change the product to avoid lawsuits. How is that different from Clear Channel dropping Howard Stern because he cussed too much for them? It's not.
Yes the patron of art can change something but you have to check the reasons to decide censorship... And what ABC is doing is censorship. They changed the script not to make it flow better but because( for whatever reason) they didn't want to air an attack on Fox's News creds.

I expect the networks to be balless at this stage of the game... I mean several ABC affiliates opted out of showing private Ryan for FEAR of getting in trouble with the FCC. But let's call a spade a spade. ABC, most likely out of fear of either Fox or the FCC, ORDERED a script change for tonight's Boston Legal.

Heck, part of the reason I think it's censorship is because ABC did NOT complain about how unrealistic this is... because they haven't really worried about realism in The Practice and Boston Legal. Which is to say, I'd find it more acceptable if they had tried to scrap it based on the idea of how many Boston PUBLIC schools have cable for the students? Then the idea of 'gee white out Fox so we don't get sued'

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