I wouldn't say Americans are like that. It's leftover TV laws from way back. The thing is if someone wanted to change it you're going to get the same super polarized opinions of anything else. You'd have one group that wants to allow and encourage anything and everything so they can put tranny porn on kids shows. Then the other group would want to require long pants and dresses. So, the rest of us just say "fuck it leave it alone." That's beside the fact with what all else is going on that we'd have any desire to spend energy worrying about broadcast TV laws of all things.
There aren't any TV laws about butts. It's totally NBC and advertisers. Maybe they went overboard worrying about complaints to the FCC, but I think it was totally unreasonable even then. The show must already have been TV-MA.
Indecent content portrays sexual or excretory organs or activities in a way that is patently offensive but does not meet the three-prong test for obscenity.
I don't think it's nearly that far of a stretch to put a butt in the excretory organ category.
Ugh... I did look up the case law after reading your comment, and according to the FCC you are correct - their definition does include butts.
The Commission has consistently interpreted the term "sexual or excretory organs" in its own definition of indecency as including the buttocks, which, though not physiologically necessary to procreation or excretion, are widely associated with sexual arousal and closely associated by most people with excretory activities. Thus, the Commission has in many cases treated naked buttocks as coming within the scope of its indecency definition, even though it has not always concluded that particular depictions or descriptions were patently offensive and thus actionably indecent.
Moreover, if we interpreted these terms in the narrow physiological sense advocated by ABC and the ABC Affiliates, the airwaves could be filled with naked buttocks and breasts during daytime and prime time hours because they would be outside the scope of indecency regulation (at least if no sexual or excretory activities were shown or discussed).
I wouldn't say Americans are like that. It's leftover TV laws from way back. The thing is if someone wanted to change it you're going to get the same super polarized opinions of anything else. You'd have one group that wants to allow and encourage anything and everything so they can put tranny porn on kids shows. Then the other group would want to require long pants and dresses. So, the rest of us just say "fuck it leave it alone." That's beside the fact with what all else is going on that we'd have any desire to spend energy worrying about broadcast TV laws of all things.
its been quite long since era before 2008 ended
There aren't any TV laws about butts. It's totally NBC and advertisers. Maybe they went overboard worrying about complaints to the FCC, but I think it was totally unreasonable even then. The show must already have been TV-MA.I haven't dug into case law, specific statutes, how it's interpreted or whatever, but this FCC page sure seems to state it's against the law.
https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/obscene-indecent-and-profane-broadcasts
I don't think it's nearly that far of a stretch to put a butt in the excretory organ category.
Ugh... I did look up the case law after reading your comment, and according to the FCC you are correct - their definition does include butts.
My favorite part of the document is this.
Won't somebody please think of the children?
But I could swear I've seen naked butts on broadcast TV since the rating system was implemented.