Post-Super Bowl, Bare Breasts on 'ER' Raise Alarm (Nipplegate II, Coming Thursday Night on NBC)

TelevisionWeek ^ | February 3, 2004

[hattend]

Roots...in the 70's
Bare breasted slave women jumping off the ship

[Redcloak]

Idiots all - why is "a view of an elderly female patient's bare breast" even necessary?

...especially considering the view of the antique hooter we all saw last Sunday.

[Eowyn-of-Rohan]

Schindler's List... oh but it was "tasteful", and "necessary" in order to fully understand what happened. And not all the women in that scene were fully into the spirit of the scene either, as I recall an attractive, well-endowed woman, strategically placed in the frame, walking through as if she were a runway model rather than prisoner.

[kanawa]

I was attempting to characterize those movies as examples of use of nudity and its relation to plot/character development, not your taste in movies.

They were the first ones that came to mind and probably not the best. Other posters have suggested other and better examples.

[freedumb2003]

Possible counter-examples, off the top of my head, are 'The Full Monty' and 'The Crying Game"

And of course, the critical shadow scene in "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective."

[Warhammer]

A network that will provide great entertainment without seeking to "push the envelope".

Like PAX?

[TigersEye]

This has been announced ahead of time. It is in the context of a hospital setting. Viewership is far lower and a far narrower demographic. I will assume it is not a scene simulating or depicting a rape or a prelude to sex; whichever the Super Bowl stunt was supposed to be.

While it sounds unappealing and stupid to me it doesn't sound equivalent at all.

[weegee]

Bare butts have been on evening dramas for years now. Not to excuse any of it but Pandora's Box was opened for commercial tv over 10 years ago. Profanity came in around that time too.

[weegee]

I brought up that racist double standard on another thread when someone wondered if Janet Jackson supporters would be shouting "racism" as the reason she got taken to task for her act.

The German/Italian film "Liane Jungle Goddess" (made in the late 1950s) was sort of a female Tarzan story. The white gal Liane (boasted as the German Bridget Bardot) walked around topless in the movie (until the safari "civilizes" her by giving her some clothes). The American and Canadian movie promotional materials showed shots of the naked "savages" but made sure to use shots where the white "savage" was discretely covered by her long hair.

In all my years of watching PBS, I've never seen shots of topless natives in Miami or European beaches or at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. There were thinly veiled white breasts in "I, Claudius" though.

[BSunday]

umm...my guess would be to gain ratings, using the no such thing as bad publicity theory. But other than that, all I can say is, ewwwww.

[weegee]

I won't relax until they are as free and loose in showing those parts that men cover up, as they are with the parts women cover up.

Careful what you ask for:

KRON-TV fined $27,500 for indecent exposure 'Puppetry' show performer flashed genitals on camera

The Federal Communications Commission fined the owners of Bay Area television station KRON $27,500 Tuesday for broadcasting a live news segment in which a performer from a stage show flashed his genitals.

The penalty is the maximum allowed for a single infraction and was only the second fine in the FCC's history for a television broadcast, according to one commissioner. [snip] The KRON incident occurred on the morning of Oct. 4, 2002, when the two members of a traveling theater act titled "Puppetry of the Penis" were invited to the station's San Francisco headquarters. After a brief discussion about the show -- which features performers twisting their privates into shapes resembling people, places and things including a hamburger and the Loch Ness Monster -- a camera panned over "Puppetry" member David Friend's uncovered genitals, which flashed on screen for less than a second.

KRON maintained from the beginning that the station hadn't intended for viewers to see the penis, and station owner Young Broadcasting Inc. challenged the fine. But the FCC maintained in a nine-page ruling that KRON failed to take adequate precautions "despite its awareness that the interview involved performers who appear nude in order to manipulate their genitalia. Under these circumstances, the airing of the indecent material during the interview was clearly foreseeable."

"While hard to believe, this appears to be only the second time the commission has ever found a television broadcast to be indecent,'' said Commissioner Kevin Martin.

While the FCC said the incident could have been prevented, KRON employees were clearly horrified the moment Friend was exposed. Members of the morning news team apologized repeatedly on the air immediately afterward.

KRON General Manager Paul "Dino" Dinovitz continued to express regret on Tuesday after hearing about the FCC decision.

"It's unfortunate,'' Dinovitz said. "It happened, and we're very sorry about it."

While the FCC ruling is officially a proposal that allows the station to seek a reduction or cancellation of the fine, Dinovitz said he considers the matter over.

"Our intention is to pay the fine,'' he said.

Friend and Simon Morley had been doing promotions for "Puppetry,'' which opened at Theater on the Square later the same month. Friend and Morley also said the exposure was accidental but acknowledged that ticket sales spiked after the controversy.

The FCC started its investigation on the day of the broadcast after receiving a complaint from a viewer.

Lawyers for Young defended KRON, pointing out that the station apologized repeatedly and suspended three employees after the incident. The FCC also rejected an argument by Young that compared the "Puppetry" news coverage to the 1997 uncut broadcast of "Schindler's List," which contained full frontal nudity when it aired on NBC.

"By contrast, the manner of presentation of the complained-of material ... was pandering, titillating and shocking... ,'' the FCC ruling states. "We note, in particular, the off-camera employees' comments urging the performers to conduct a nude demonstration, and the partially off-camera demonstration to the show's hosts.''

[weegee]

What the heck does "tastefully shot" mean?

I'm just hoping that it doesn't involved whipped cream...

[dubyagee]

ROTFLMBO...

[weegee]

If there had been a reporter present in the Garden of Eden (s)he would have defended their eating from the Tree of Knowledge. "Ooh, so wicked but oh so good!"

[Sabertooth]

why is "a view of an elderly female patient's bare breast" even necessary?

To blaze a trail for younger breasts, in less clinical situations.

[mtbopfuyn]

I could swear they already aired that about 3 weeks ago. There was an elderly white lady laying on the stretcher with both flopped (actually flattened) out there while the docs were doing their thing. I thought surely it's fake, but sadly knew it wasn't.

[weegee]

Dean isn't the only Democrat in denial:

SHEILA JACKSON LEE SAYS LIVE ON C-SPAN THAT THE BEST EVER 2004 SUPERBOWL UPHELD FAMILY VALUES.

[dubyagee]

Bingo.

[Lady Eileen]

Yep.

[Centurion2000]

Thank God I don't watch television