Man Jerks Off Horse and 100,000 People Have Nothing Better to Do…
About SJI hail from a political blog called "Random Thoughts" on the Ham Sandwich Network. I also write for "the Random Robot." I'm here at the invitation of Mad Mike and I post on politics in general. I am, for the most part, a Progressive and a Liberal who votes for Democratic Party candidates most of the time.
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This one’s for Mother Hen, who has yet to run afoul (pun intended) of the FCC:
Those of you who know anything about me at all outside the borders of Mad Mike’s America know that I have a pretty serious involvement in animation, comic books and motion pictures.
Seth MacFarlane’s “American Dad” is a show that should be required viewing along with The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. It is a postmodern spoof of the “Father Knows Best” sitcom archetype that chronicles the life of an ultra-Right CIA agent who lives with his wife, two kids, an alien (extraterrestrial) he is hiding, and a talking goldfish (with the implanted consciousness of a German skier). The show’s plots are predictably ridiculous when they are not direct satire of American politics, culture and critique of our nation’s reactionary establishment. It’s a very funny show.
Along with “The Boondocks” and “South Park” it is frequently among the most subversive and honest episodic shows about American life and politics. Like those other two shows, American Dad offends more people than the vast majority of programming on television and frequently challenges the staid and somewhat arbitrary rules laid down by the respective S&P offices of whatever network or channel they happen to be aired on, or rerun on.
In January, one of American Dad’s more asinine gags drew the attention of a group of people in America who always seem to be watching, making lists and redlining what they don’t find acceptable. The FCC, an unelected regulatory body of appointees that defines and enforces “decency” for our republic received more than 100,000 indecency complaints about this episode according to Variety. The FCC is now moving to fine Murdoch’s Fox $25,000 for not responding to its inquiry regarding the show’s January 3, 2010 episode, in which Stan Smith jerks off a racehorse, off camera. These 100,000 letters/emails/calls were the result of the Parents Television Council urging members to file complaints about the episode.
That 100,000 people in America have nothing better to do than to get pissed off about man-on-horse masturbation in a cartoon does not surprise me. That these activist-moralists have recourse to affect what I might see in advertising supported broadcasts is somewhat stupefying in the 21st century.
This is stupid. This is as stupid as when the FCC went after Howard Stern in the 1980s and 1990s.
My questions are:
-Why should I respect and be compelled (by the unauthorized use of my tax dollars for a regulatory commission I oppose on principle) to abide by any decision or judgment the FCC takes on behalf of 100,000 strangers?
-Who are they?
-Is Wildmon’s Parents Television Council composed of people smart enough to decide what I should see?
The FCC does nothing when news programming intentionally misleads and lies to the public by design, as in another Fox property, the Fox “News” Channel, -why should I accept their authority over something entirely subjective like “decency” when they won’t even weigh in on something objective like the actual reporting of the facts?
When Fox “News” consistently misrepresented the Tea Bagger gatherings, with incorrect video footage from other events to make the turnout appear bigger than it was, -it was the Daily Show, not the FCC who took them to task. So what purpose, aside from being the watchdog of social conservatives and fundamentalists, aside from enforcing the will of transnational telecoms and phone companies, does the FCC serve?
I’m sure more than 100,000 people in America know the answer, but they probably have other things to do than to write letters about an unelected regulatory commission going after a cartoon.
-SJ
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fourdinners
June 5, 2010 at 10:26 am
I once saw a porn film called ‘Animal Farm’ – my mate had a video. The sight of a man on a stool shagging a cow that just stood there benignly chewing the cud was a bizarre spectacle for a 15 year old I can tell you.
Interestingly – or not – Animal Farm also educated me to the fact that a pigs penis is the same shape as its tail. Perhaps that’s were the term ‘screwing’ came from?…;-)
Randal Graves
June 5, 2010 at 10:56 am
Oh come on, animated deviance is FAR more damaging than the carefully-constructed narrative of the spectacle designed to keep us off the trail of the world’s gangsters.
Though probably not as damaging as seeing a nipple on live TV.
SJ
June 6, 2010 at 10:49 am
I take it you’re referring to “Nipplegate” a couple of superbowls ago…
teeluck
June 7, 2010 at 11:24 pm
I still have not seen that nipple…woe is me
Leslie Parsley
June 5, 2010 at 11:06 am
Ignorance. Most stud horses have to be brought up to a state of readiness for his mare-in-waiting by a little massaging.
Mother Hen
June 5, 2010 at 1:14 pm
This being a big ranch state, we had a college tv program actually showing 1) how to use an artificial vagina 2) how to put it on a stallion. It will only go on an erect member, so someone has to get him “ready”
3) How to tell if a male is ready for artificial insemination (in estrus)- hint, it involves her “winking” her vulva.
ON TV folks! Like Stan on South Park, “I learned something today!”
teeluck
June 7, 2010 at 11:27 pm
What the hay!! Where do you live again? I’m coming there for a vacation…think of how much fun I will have!!
osori
June 5, 2010 at 11:43 am
I wonder how many of those 100,000 people were angry enough to complain about the wars or torture or the blockade of Gaza?
Somehow seeing cartoon masturbation of a horse as more of a moral affront than genocide seems typically American.
SJ
June 6, 2010 at 10:51 am
Exactly. There’s still tow wars going on right? A swath of the Gulf coast is once again a disaster area right?
But pleasuring a horse in a cartoon?- That’s the last straw.
-SJ
Jess
June 5, 2010 at 11:47 am
This is like the whole, blurry Stewie’s tingly parts, when he was nekkid. Seth McFarlane makes that much in about a sec and Murdoch’s Fox too. This will just have Seth do something even more outrageous on one of the episodes just to mess with people. These people constantly go after Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park) and they just up the ante the next time.
I have a gf that her parents have a horse farm and this is one of the things that the horses need, once in a while to help them “get it up” before they can commence to getting it on.
Mother Hen
June 5, 2010 at 1:11 pm
I am amazed that American Dad is even on Fox, as racy as it is. Only “Drawn Together” has made me drop my jaw lower in WTF moments. Neither are shows I will let my kids watch.
The FCC ought to police the horse apples Fox passes off as “news”. I am sure we could get together 100k signatures taking offense at Glenn Beck’s head being up his keister all the time.
Don’t even tempt me to get into posting man/horse interactions, or you might be finding a link to a Mr Hands video in the near future.
SJ
June 6, 2010 at 10:53 am
Well there was a recent episode in which Stewie convinced Brian to eat his “loaded” diaper.
I’ll wait until they actually get fined for that one.
-SJ
The Lawyer
June 5, 2010 at 1:30 pm
When I saw the title, I automatically assumed that Mother Hen had been hard at the keyboard, word-smithing. “Is Wildmon’s Parents Television Council composed of people smart enough to decide what I should see?” Ah, that’s the rub. I need to see that show.
SJ
June 6, 2010 at 10:56 am
I thought MH was going to beat me to this one (pun intended yet again) but here’s an excerpt of the scene:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/118417/american-dad-horse-chores
teeluck
June 7, 2010 at 11:33 pm
Great post SJ, Gwen told me you are in NYC, if so I am too and so is P E Nolan of menopausal stoners blog, let’s have lunch some saturday.