Tits, Ass, and Idiocy

Only by the greatest stretch of one’s imagination is this crime-fiction related, but I’m going to make note of it here anyway, because it shows how stupid some Americans can be (and I say that as a native-born American). According to TV Squad, the Parents Television Council (PTC), a conservative nonprofit organization that says it’s dedicated to “restor[ing] television to its roots as an independent and socially responsible entertainment medium,” has its panties in a monumental twist over an offhand remark uttered during NBC-TV’s recent Emmy Awards telecast by actress Helen Mirren, who is probably still best known for her role in the police procedural series Prime Suspect. (See how cleverly I justify writing about these shenanigans in The Rap Sheet?)

What “ignited their anger ...,” TV Squad explains, “was a comment by winner Helen Mirren as she accepted her Emmy for Best Actress in HBO’s Elizabeth I. You may recall, Helen worried about taking a tumble on her way up to the stage. She mentioned falling ‘tits over ass,’ a common British phrase. Calista Flockhart later presented with Mirren and said the phrase again in playful banter. NBC did air the show on a delay, but chose not to censor the comment. The PTC released this statement: ‘It is utterly irresponsible and atrocious for NBC to air this vulgar language during the safe harbor time when millions of children were in the viewing audience.’” Oh, pllleeeaaassseee! At a time in history when atrocities are being committed in the name of justice, when a beautiful American city remains in ruins because of White House inaction and incompetence, and when thousands of young men and women are dying in Iraq because of poor planning and subsequent denial, does anybody take seriously the notion that saying “tits over ass” on prime-time television is the most serious offense in the world?

It reminds me of something Mark Billingham (Buried, Lifeless) told The New Zealand Herald last year. He recalled how American readers will occasionally “tell me I’m going to go to hell because my characters swear too much. It’s weird. They’ll happily read about murder and all manner of perversion and evil, and yet if you swear at the same time, that’s unacceptable, and I find that very strange.” You’re not alone, Mark.