Honestly, I thought there was something wrong with my TV. When the sound cut out in the middle of Ray Romano’s rant on what life has been like since his show went off the air, I instantly grabbed my TV remote and starting pressing the volume button. The volume numbers increased, but still no sound. It took me a good minute to figure out that the comedian had been censored.
Whoever was in charge of pressing the bleep button at last night’s Emmy Awards sure got a workout. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he or she is nursing a swollen finger this morning.
In addition to Romano’s quip about his former “Everybody Loves Raymond” wife, Patricia Heaton, now sleeping with her new “Back to You” co-star Kelsey Grammer (he apparently used a stronger word than “sleeping,”) censors also muted actress Katherine Heigl, who mouthed an expletive after winning for her role on “Grey’s Anatomy.” The difference between the two incidents was that with Romano they completely blacked him out. In the middle of his on stage diatribe they cut to a shot of a crystal chandelier and stayed on it until the actor cleaned up his act. With Heigl, they showed a shot of her utter disbelief and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what expletive she uttered upon hearing her name announced as the winner.
But, it was fan favorite Sally Field who really kept censors on their toes. (I have a feeling the people at FOX are still seething this morning.) If you missed it, Field won for lead actress in a dramatic series for her role on ABC’s “Brothers and Sisters.” She made her way on stage and was doing fine, but halfway through her speech she lost her train of thought and then screamed at the audience to stop applauding so she could finish her comments. As it turned out, those comments morphed into an anti-war rant and once again the bleep button went into overdrive.
“And, let’s face it, if the mothers ruled the war, there would be no (expletive) wars in the first place,” Field said in her speech, though I really couldn’t understand what she was saying because FOX cut away for much of her comments.
“I said g–damn,” Field later told reporters backstage. “I wanted to say something about the mothers whose sons aren’t coming home. I can’t imagine. I can’t imagine.”
So, basically she had good intentions, but with all the censoring, people at home were once again left scrambling for their remotes… though at that point in the show I finally got that the silence had nothing to do with my TV set.
Despite being bleeped, the actress maintained that she “didn’t have a political agenda” and went on to tell reporters back stage: “Oh well. I’ve been there before. Well, good. I don’t care. I have no comment other than, oh well. I said what I wanted to say. I wanted to pay homage to the mothers of the world, and let their work be seen and valued.”
She then ended with this: “I would have liked to have said more bleeped-out words.”
Okay, be honest, did you run for your remote when the show went silent?
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