There are a lot of stupid FCC complaints, but some of the stupidest are complaints about superhero and comic book TV shows. Things like a citizens crime-stopper group taking on the Flash for calling somebody a dick are too far-fetched to appear in a show with an evil mind-controlling gorilla, but that didn’t stop an Orlando based group from trying to do just that.
The first complaint is actually the most reasonable, since it is complaining about a Nazi scientist dissecting a living woman. While admittedly horrible, he visuals weren’t any worse than what would be found in a surgery scene from any medical drama. The complainer apparently had “never seen anything worse on Network TV,” giving one the impression that they’d never heard of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
From the somewhat reasonable complaint about a Nazi scientist, things get stupider. In the The Flash, there’s a scene in which the speedster picks up Felicity from Arrow and carries her at superspeed. Since his suit is designed to withstand the friction and her blouse isn’t, her blouse burns up and she’s forced to abandon it. Covering herself up, she comments that it was good she wore a bra.
That’s it. That’s the scene. For this viewer, that was apparently too suggestive because it obliquely suggested sex by acknowledging that an actress did, in fact, have breasts.
The next complainer takes on the homosexual agenda, because that never gets old.
For some reason, the Supreme Court was relevant enough to bring up in the complaint, but also irrelevant enough to disregard. The horrible homosexual agenda had forced its way onto this poor person’s TV screen, with such devious things as two women kissing on Gotham, two women kissing on Supergirl, “and Supernatural having a character who said she was “gay” but no homosexual content took place on that show.“ The viewer then suggests that if a show had two women kissing, or a character that identified as gay, then they should “label it with the porn.”
Which brings us back to The Flash, a show so cavalier with its use of profanity that a group of crime stoppers felt compelled to to take it on. What could be so dangerous? The F-Bomb? The other F-Bomb? The double F-Bomb/ No, dear reader, it was even worse, The word was dick.
After multiple re-viewings of the episode, I am prepared to confirm that the word was dick. As in jerk. There wasn’t even anything suggestive about it. Nevertheless, the word was so dangerous that it prompted three complaints - two of them from a citizen’s crime stopper group called Make Orlando Safer Today (MOST).
According to their website, MOST is “Orlando’s first and only self-funded crime prevention and reporting organization.” They apparently “empower Orlando against crime while also assisting law enforcement with information disbursement and intel gathering.”
Intel gathering like reporting when superheroes use mild curse words on TV.
A new FOIA request has been filed to see what other perilous dangers MOST is warning the FCC about. In the meantime, you can read the embedded complaints below from DC’s and Marvel’s TV shows below, or on the request page.
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Image via Wikimedia Commons
