Sunday, September 16, 2007

Censoring Sally


Sally Field, accomplished actress of film and TV, whom I've adored since her days as The Flying Nun, got censored during her acceptance speech at the Emmys tonight. She won Best Actress in a Drama.

I didn't watch the show. I was at a barbeque having fun. But in Hollywood, several actors got censored for using four-letter words.

Fox, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who has admitted to being biased in favor of President Bush and the invasion of Iraq, deleted Field's reference to mothers being upset about their kids being sent off to a "god damned war."

The question being raised is whether Field would have been so censored if she only hadn't used a swear word. The channel that spewed out years of blatantly pro-Bush, pro-war, anti-peace, anti-liberal propaganda might have let Field make an anti-war statement, is only she hadn't put the words "god" and "damned" together, not used it as an adjective for "war."

Allegedly.

But apparently, putting those two words together and saying them on broadcast television loosens the very fabric of our nation, and will result in the complete unraveling of our national sanctity.

Forget that the entire "war" has been proven to be a complete fraud, Alan Greenspan castigated Bushco for the "war" being nothing but an obvious oil grab, and a majority of polled Americans want Bush/Cheney impeached.

But say "god" and "damned," and say goodbye to your quotable quote while you hold a fake statuette.

You wouldn't know that from reading the Associated Press article about Emmy censorship, which even censored any mention of Sally Field being censored! A second Yahoo/AP article specifically focusing on Emmy censorship also deliberately omitted referencing Field.

That's show biz!

Thankfully, at least the LA Times' Tom O'Neil included the Field fracas in his coverage.

Oh, and watch Brothers and Sisters, for which Field won the god-damned Emmy. It's good TV, despite coming from the network that brought you the utterly fraudulent Path to 9/11.

Oh, and Ugly Betty on ABC is the gayest show since Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. America Ferrera won for Best Actress in a Comedy. And my local ABC affiliate aired the G-rated and yet war-referencing bit of Field's acceptance speech without the GD words, but didn't mention Fox's censorship.

Gee, maybe they're not so bad, at least some of the time.

LATER: Others chimed in, and many celebrity shows aired her complete quote, with just god-damned bleeped out.

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