About the time Don Imus started pontificating about nappy-headed hos, I was watching
Shut Up & Sing, the documentary about the fallout from Natalie Maine's anti-Bush remark in London. There have been numerous high-profile incidents of censorious and punitive bans on speech in the not-to-distant past. Without exception, the dialogue surrounding each incident reflects a single, unquestioned, axiomatic, wholly self-evident premise: expression is a privilege granted by capital. Over and over again people took to the airwaves this week to denounce Don Imus' comments and defer to the judgment of Proctor & Gamble's proxy,
Leslie Moonves, as to whether America could – or
should - continue to listen to Don Imus. The "right" here belongs to Proctor & Gamble (and other providers of advertising revenue) – it's the right to pull funding, and, as a right, it has tacitly been awarded the sacrosanct title "Inaliable". What this means, quite simply, is that corporate CEOs have usurped the responsibility of deciding what is (and what is not) appropriate material for your ears and your eyes.
This is such a universally accepted fact of American life that it seems absurd to even mention it. As a society we have sold our Freedom of Speech, quite literally, to the Free Market. As a consequence, we have forfeited our freedom to hear. Petitioning businesses to censor media outlets is now a cottage industry. (Who, ultimately, is the intended beneficiary of this censorship is anyone's guess).
When Rosie O'Donnell attacked Donald Trump for granting some beauty pageant winner a "second chance" after it was revealed that she [the beauty queen] behaved like a primate, she [Rosie] did so by mocking the hypocrisy behind his supposed magnanimity. (He, in returned, mocked her weight and sexual orientation). Did anyone ever seriously question his right, as the owner of the pageant, to capriciously relinquish the crown had he so desired? Of course not.
What I'm suggesting is that these attitudes about speech, expression, ideas, ownership and the rights of property reflect our values as a society; and those values are royally fucked up. I can easily imagine a society where corporations simply relegate their interest in media to demographics, markets, audience size, and other actuarial calculations. It's not hard to do. In such a society Proctor & Gamble would have pulled their advertising from Don Imus' show after his viewership declined – not before. This is not our society. We depend on corporations to punish people who say naughty things, just as we depend upon them keep our children innocent and our hearts numb.
You know what I think should have happened after Don Imus called those basketball players nappy-headed hos? Leslie Moonves should have fired Katie Couric. If votefortheworst.com can use Sanjaya Malakar to expose a grisly truth about entertainment and democracy, surely CBS could've done likewise for the sake of the Bill of Rights.
ADDENDUM: Speaking of censorship, the longstanding (often self-imposed) prohibition against showing the consequences of war in Iraq might be relaxing a bit. Earlier today on NPR there was an excellent interview with the filmmakers behind the upcoming HBO documentary, Baghdad ER. While the graphic nature of this film necessitates that it be relegated to a premium cable channel, apparently it’s okay to show stuff like this on Fox.
Oh, before I forget... Here’s a little something for Arlo.
