[Content Note: Rape culture.]
Wednesday night, Iain and I were watching a re-run of The Big Bang Theory, like ya do, and it was the episode where Howard has built a robot arm. In the opening segment, the robot hand is meant to give Sheldon the finger, but it holds up two fingers. "Peace?" says Sheldon, confused. "No, not peace," says Howard, returning to the keyboard to put in new instructions. The joke is that he meant for the robot to give Sheldon the finger, but, of course, on US network television, you can't even show a robot hand giving someone the finger.
Iain started harrumphing again about the weirdly inconsistent decency standards of US television, which drives him up one wall and down the other.
"In the same time slot, you can show people getting murdered and Law & Order: SVU can broadcast a discussion of vaginal contusions for our 'entertainment,' but fates forbid we be allowed to see a robot hand flipping the bird," he snarled.
I replied: "That pretty much sums up everything you need to know about our priorities: A primetime show can depict a woman being raped, but can't show her flipping off her rapist, because that would be obscene."
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