CMDFATFA February 2005 Immediate Action Items

Citizens for Morals and Decency in Finer Arts Television Fine Arts is committed to providing guidance and political action counseling for parents and individuals concerned about the content of network and cable television media. Our list of immediate action items is a valuable tool for you to use to change the public and private airwaves to better preserve our American heritage of decency. Please consult these action items when filing a complaint with the Federal Communication Commission. At the end of this bulletin we will provide information for contacting the FCC and allowing your voice to be heard.

Scoring of programs is conducted in three different categories:

Sex
Language
Violence

The scoring is conducted on a three point color scale where green is the best, yellow is moderate, and red is bad news. Please consult the ratings legend below for further information on how we rate shows.

Ratings Legend

	This show may include excessive or frequent offensive content including but not limited to nude mannequins, improper wetting of the lips before speaking, profanity, visible undergarments, human bodily fluids in non-medical environments, flagrant misrepresentations of the Bible, police and political figures portrayed as flawed, or lack of support for troops.
	This show contains some mild to moderate objectionable themes such as incorrect Bible interpretations, academic cheating, coarse language, non-undergarment sexualized clothing (e.g. tight trousers or under wire bra), or stylized violence and mischief.
	A show the whole family can watch.

When CMDFATFA recommends a program for Immediate Action we also like to offer suggestions that concerned parents and individuals can include in their correspondence with the FCC. These suggestions will provide broadcasters with an alternative to the currently offensive content of their program. If you feel that you have better family-oriented suggestions then feel free to substitute them for ours. Please be sure to mention the specific objectionable material we have included.

IMMEDIATE ACTION:7th HeavenDescription: 7th Heaven is a drama centering on the dysfunctional Camden family as they struggle with life, love, and faith. This show has become notorious among good Americans for flagrant sexual content and foul language.

Objectionable Material:

Season 3 Episode 2: Reverend Camden experiences a crisis of faith that lasts longer than 11 seconds. While he does eventually renew his belief in the Lord it comes as a result of resolving family conflicts and not an ecstatic vision of the Lord.
Should Be Replaced With: A long conversation with a cowboy about lassos.

Season 4 Episode 5: Mary Camden spends an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom and it is implied later that she was admiring her nude figure in a mirror. The audience is left to infer that while she was "looking to see how fat she was" she might actually have been ogling her own naked body or even pleasuring herself.
Should Be Replaced With: A montage of adolescent boys building a go-kart to compete in a church-sponsored race.

Season 4 Episode 11: Mary Camden refers to her mother as "lame" and tells her later in the episode to "back off". Sassing a parent should be grounds for physical punishment; instead Mary is allowed to retreat to her room and angrily slam the door.
Should Be Replaced With: A series of loud clicks and whistles.

Season 6 Episode 3: Reverend Camden is in an automobile accident but is not hurt. Rather than immediately thanking the Lord for protecting him from injury he gets out to see if the person who struck him is also uninjured. The Lord should be thanked immediately if something good happens to you.
Should Be Replaced With: A bear catching salmon from a river.

CMDFATFA Ratings:

RATINGS
Sex	Language	Violence	Overall

IMMEDIATE ACTION:Emeril Live

Description: Foul mouthed chef Emeril Lagasse lays homespun catchphrases and culinary wisdom on an audience reminiscent of the squealing acolytes of Oprah Winfrey. Lagasse frequently resorts to foul language, threats of physical violence, and sexual innuendos.

Objectionable Material:

"Thanksgiving Episode 1999" - Lagasse touches the hand of a female audience member he is not married or related to. Men should not be able to touch women unless they are pushing them out of the way of a speeding 18-wheeler truck, and that truck is on fire and the driver of the truck is asleep and / or incapacitated and it's after 3:30 PM.
Should Be Replaced With: A helicopter rescuing someone from raging floodwaters.

"Pie Episode 2001" - While making rum apple pie Emeril pours a cooking quantity of rum into his mixing bowl. While this is questionable by itself, Emeril then goes on to pour several ounces more of rum into the bowl at the frenzied urging of the audience. Flavored spirits should only be consumed as medical anesthetic prior to limb amputation.
Should Be Replaced With: A detailed explanation of scrimshaw.

"Thanksgiving Episode 2001" - Laggasse drops the point of a fillet knife on his index fingers. While no blood is visible he wraps his finger in a towel for several minutes. Children watching might believe that cutting their index fingers with knives is a "cool" thing to do.
Should Be Replaced With: An elderly black man playing the harmonica or kazoo.

"Halloween Cooktacular 2002" - Lagasse refers to ghouls (occult minions) and ghosts (other than the Holy Ghost) and dresses himself up as "Frakenstein's Monster" (a creature from a violent horror film made up of DEAD BODY PARTS!). In a grotesque display Lagasse prepares "brains", "guts", and "eyeballs" from various edible materials. There is so much offensive material in this episode that it defies cataloging, but in the end Lagasse torments children by forcing them to eat the simulated human organs he has prepared.
Should Be Replaced With: A laser light show depicting patriotic symbols set to the music of Huey Lewis and the News.

CMDFATFA Ratings:

RATINGS
Sex	Language	Violence	Overall

IMMEDIATE ACTION:Joan of Arcadia

Description: Joan of Arcadia is a faith-centered show that takes place in the small town of Arcadia. Joan sees visions of God and is given missions to carry out for the Lord. These depictions of God are invariably offensive, although given the shows near pornographic content they are something to keep in mind rather than the key fault of this dangerous program.

Objectionable Material:

Season 1 Episode 2: Joan's father is shown from the neck up in the shower and it is implied by his motions that he pleasures himself and releases his seed into Joan's shampoo bottle. He is then seen placing a video camera in a duct that has a clear view of the shower. When Joan enters the bathroom as he is leaving he winks. Later in the episode we see Joan drinking shampoo.
Should Be Replaced With: A yelling man in a sports car escaping the blast wave of an atomic bomb explosion.

Season 1 Episode 4: Joan's wheelchair bound brother is used as a drug mule by Columbians claiming to work for a Satanic cult. In one sequence the Columbians graphically feed baseball-sized balloons full of drugs into the brother's rectum. When asked if it hurts he quips that he "can't feel anything down there anyway". Later in the episode Joan slits the throats of the Columbians with a straight razor and blinds the drug lord with a hot iron in the shape of a crucifix.
Should Be Replaced With: Looping footage of children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Season 1 Episode 7: Joan briefly dates a black man and complains that his "horse cock" causes her "pussy" to hemorrhage. In one scene Joan stares out the window of her house at a horse with an erection for several minutes and begins to fantasize about performing oral sex on a centaur version of her negro boyfriend. The episode ends with her boyfriend convincing her to have sex with a drug dealer for crack cocaine, which he then smokes and dies from an overdose. The drug dealer forces Joan to methodically dismember her boyfriend's corpse and dissolve it in bleach.
Should Be Replaced With: A 47-minute oscillating high frequency tone and images of monkeys eating cakes.

Season 1 Episode 9: After being gang-raped by sailors Joan struggles with herself over whether or not to abort the rape baby. At the episode's climax her father tells her that he won't let her have a baby that's not his and pummels her in the stomach for over three minutes. Joan is taken to the emergency room and the doctors discover that what she assumed to be a fetus was actually a benign tumor growing in her womb. Her father demands to see it and when doctors refuse to let him take it home he holds Joan at knife-point and eats the tumor insisting that he "wants a part of her inside" of him.
Should Be Replaced With: A woman in a 1920s bathing dress smashing plates with a hammer.

CMDFATFA Ratings:

RATINGS
Sex	Language	Violence	Overall

To sum things up for you 7th Heaven, Emeril Live, and Joan of Arcadia are the three Action Items for this month. You may contact the FCC with complaints about offensive material in these programs by emailing fccinfo@fcc.gov

When you send your email the FCC advises you to include the following information:

Your name, address and the telephone number

A telephone number where you can be reached during the business day

Specific information about your complaint, including the names of all companies involved with your complaint

Names and telephone numbers of the company representatives that you contacted, the dates that you spoke with these representatives, and any other information that would help process your complaint.

What type of resolution are you seeking?

For the last of those items please keep in mind that CMDFATFA seeks immediate cancellation of the program, fines to discourage repetition of content, and/or editing and restructuring to make the content more compatible with the values of mainstream America.

With your help we can continue to put America back on track to the sweet apex of our cultural enlightenment; the 1950s!

– Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons (@sexyfacts4u)