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What the ....
©Associated Press NEW YORK -- Time to wash the speakers out with soap: Sunday marked a milestone in televised swearing. Several profanities were included in the riveting footage of CBS' 9-11 documentary about the World Trade Center collapse. The swearing was the most in memory for a single network show broadcast in prime time. And ESPN's first original movie, A Season on the Brink, contained frequent swear words from actor Brian Dennehy portraying basketball coach Bobby Knight. That's highly unusual for a basic cable network that has avoided profanity. Both decisions were debated at length within the respective networks, which ultimately said they opted for realism. The developments were notable even for a TV landscape that has grown coarser over the last few years. There was less than one use of rough -- not even necessarily profane -- language per prime-time hour on all broadcast networks during the 1989-90 season. By 1999-2000, there were nearly five per hour, a study by the Parents Television Council says. During four weeks of viewing in 1989, council researchers counted 108 uses of "hell" and "damn." By 1999, there were 518, the group said. The language on 9-11 was much tougher than that. Firefighters are shown staring at the fireball after the first plane flew into the World Trade Center and repeatedly saying, "Holy (expletive)." Firefighters used vivid language to express their anger at the attack. Profanity is uttered throughout the footage captured by the two French filmmakers who were making a documentary on firefighters. "What you see is quite limited," said Susan Zirinsky, 9-11's executive producer. The program's host, Robert De Niro, warned viewers at the outset to expect rough language. "This was uncharted territory," Zirinsky said. "The language was rough, but the circumstances were rough." Brent Bozell, president of the Parents Television Council, said he couldn't object to the language. He compared it with the TV premiere of Schindler's List, which is about the Holocaust. Bozell said he had his twin 14-year-old sons watch the movie with him despite the violence and full-frontal nudity because he believed it was very important. Alan Wurtzel, the head of broadcast standards for NBC, says that what used to be hard-and-fast rules for network standards departments aren't anymore. "There are some things I hear on other networks that I'm really surprised at," he said, "and I hear from my colleagues that there are things on our network that they are surprised at." The success of HBO's Sex and the City and The Sopranos has increased the cultural pressure on network executives to air rougher material, Wurtzel said. ESPN was faced with its language decision when a rough cut of the movie was completed about a month ago. ESPN convened focus groups of network viewers, with most preferring the profane version, said Mark Shapiro, an ESPN senior vice president. "You couldn't produce a movie on Bobby Knight and use phrases like 'aw, shucks' and 'golly gee,' " Shapiro said. "It just wouldn't be believable." Bozell finds that justification pretty weak. "When was the last time you heard people see a movie and say, 'If there was more cussing, it would be more realistic,' " he said. ESPN decided to simultaneously offer a version with the swear words bleeped out on ESPN2, its less visible companion network. Don't expect the bad language to become a trend at ESPN, Shapiro said: "Profanity has never been a fixture in the past, and it won't be a fixture in the future."
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