FCC Gets Flooded with Complaints Over All the "Fucks" Dropped During the Super Bowl
God knows we are not the hardest working population America has ever had. We can’t be bothered to get off our Power Lift recliners long enough to fix our infrastructure, figure out immigration or make it so veterans stop dying waiting for care at the VA. Still, nothing will mobilize the nation faster than a few well-placed swear words going out over live network TV.
So it was inevitable that when Willie McGinest and the Super Bowl champs rained down a massive amount of sailor talk on the Lombardi Trophy in the postgame, that the FCC would get flooded with complaints. The kind of people who normally only use their email to confirm 10% off restaurant Groupon purchases and forward Money Angels (Note: these might no longer be a thing; it’s been years since I worked with any 60-year-old women), dropped everything and fired off angry, indignant missives to the feds about cleaning up these potty mouths … for the children. Some of the best:
–The African American guy carrying a silver trophy was yelling “motherfucker” at least two times. This is inappropriate for young viewers and Fox has crossed the line as well as the NFL.
–At the end of the superbowl [sic] a black teammate congratulated tom brady and told him “YOURE THE GREATEST, YOURE THE FUCKING GREATEST, YOURE THE FUCKING GREATEST!”
–I cannot believe Willie McGinest is so uncouth he cannot find a better word than motherfu##er while carrying the Lombardi trophy past players and fans. … He told fans and players to kiss it, kiss this motherfu##er, tongue kiss it. I mean really. And while staring into camera.
–[W]hen Willie McGinest was walking the trophy to the stage all of my good feelings for the show were lost! I lost count how many times the “f-bomb” was dropped not to mention the innuendos. Many children stayed up to watch this great show and they were exposed to such vulgarity. Has our culture changed so much as to expect this as a norm? Not cool!
–A majority of the team used language that repeatedly included ‘LET ME KISS THAT MOTHER FUCKER’, ‘I’ll KISS THAT BITCH’, and much more. There is no question that millions of children were subjected to this lewd and lowlife display.
–At the end of the Super Bowl game, there was a person carrying the trophy through a bunch of players and he said “Kiss that Mother Fucker” out loud and they DID NOT edit it out. It is highly offensive. I don’t know the person’s name who was carry the trophy, but he had a MIC ON. Don’t these people think!!
–Also there was a point in the 2nd half when Ryan had to call a timeout because his headset wasn’t working. The 3rd string quarterback dropped it 3 times and said something along the lines of “I can’t hear fucking shit” before the mics cut out.
Trust me when I tell you that zero part of what I’m about to say has to do with what teams were playing. I’d be saying the same exact thing if this had happened in the Broncos-Panthers Super Bowl. I just can’t wrap my brain around how in 2017, we still have massive segments of the populace who get the vapors over naughty words. In the midst of the Golden Age of Television, when the best shows of our times are “Game of Thrones” talking about Cock Merchants, Danny Trejo’s severed head blowing up a bunch of DEA agents on “Breaking Bad” and a PTSD soldier jerking it onto his wife’s chest on season one of “Homeland,” a few barely audible “motherfuckers” are enough to send these Puritans to scurrying to their AOL accounts in horror.
I’ve raised two sons in a relatively swear-free house. It doesn’t mean you don’t inevitably get a cringe-worthy moment in front of them. I could’ve lived without all the ads for dick medicine or an all new “CSI” were someone is killing hookers and raping their corpses during one o’clock Pats game. But I never asked TV to raise my kids or teach them how to talk around their mother.
Besides, what do people expect when you point a live TV feed at two groups of rage-fueled Alpha Males playing a blood sport? We want more coverage of these guys, not less. Greater access, not lesser. The mics didn’t pick up, say, Steve McNair saying “I can’t hear fucking shit” because they weren’t allowed within a mile of him. I’m sorry if some mom and dad raising their kids in a sin-free environment are subjected to the occasional f-bomb. But their delicate little paper dolls are going to get exposed to it eventually. It might as well be from Willie McGinest carrying the Lombardi.