Colbert (Indig)Nation

On his show last Monday night, Stephen Colbert did a joke about Donald Trump that went like this: "The only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin's cock holster." This upset some people and we quickly began seeing news items headlined, "FCC to Investigate Stephen Colbert Over Controversial Donald Trump Joke" or something similar.

Almost all the reports used the word "investigate" and that's probably the wrong word. I don't think the FCC ever uses the word "investigate" because, first of all, there's really nothing to investigate. What Colbert said is not in dispute. You can see the video of him saying it on YouTube, on the CBS website and hundreds of other places. What hitherto unknown fact or facts might an "investigation" unearth? What is unknown about what he said?

The verb the FCC uses is usually "review," as in "We shall review the matter." That means they might do nothing but might discuss whether it violates their ill-defined, often-puzzling definitions of obscenity…and if so, if there's a reason (probably a political one) to make an issue of it.

"Review" is a neutral word, whereas "investigate" suggests a crime may have been committed and someone could be heading for the slammer. Tomorrow, if you contact the FCC and complain that Jimmy Fallon giggles too much on his program, you will probably get no response at all from them but if you do, they will tell you, "We shall review the matter." Then they may or may not spend upwards of two seconds on it. That would depend on whether (a) they'd received a true avalanche of complaints about Jimmy Fallon giggling or (b) pressures were applied.

If they did their worst, they would not ban Colbert from television or bust CBS down to a public access channel. They would levy a fine which CBS would pay out of the increased profits from Colbert saying things like that about Donald Trump. I'm not sure how much the fine would be — maybe a few hundred thousand bucks. In the last few years, as I understand it, the FCC has raised the dollar amounts that they fine when they fine…but has fined only on very rare, arbitrary occasions.

There are always people who get outraged and hysterical about something they see or hear on TV or radio and they sometimes pick some pretty looney things to complain about. There probably has been at least one person who's demanded they do something about Fallon's giggling. But one of the secrets in whatever department at each network deals with such things is how unpredictable and variable complaints are.

Every Standards and Practices Person I ever dealt with in television has had stories about how they reviewed some show before broadcast and worried that they'd be deluged with complaints about the dick joke in the third act. Then not one person complained about the dick joke in the third act but several were furious about some innocuous mention of spatulas in the second act. I of course dash off a scathing letter every time anyone mentions cole slaw without reminding people of its close connection with the Antichrist.

That's one of the reasons the broadcast networks have cut way, way back on the kinds of employees we used to call Censors. Nowadays, most of the concern is about airing something that prompts a lawsuit for slander or otherwise creates legal problems. And of course, we know why being "dirty" is no longer a big concern.

With HBO and other cable channels, we're all getting used to hearing the "f" word and seeing nudity on our TV screens. Very few people are going to get that upset about seeing something on Channel 144 that routinely appears on Channel 206. If you get Basic Cable, which you have to because your kids don't want to miss Dora the Explorer, you probably get some channel where they show the occasional breast or don't bleep "bullshit." There are those who complain — often to the FCC about channels that are not under their jurisdiction. But the complaints even when properly directly are essentially toothless. No one is going to make Game of Thrones cover up the naked people. Jeff Sessions can try but it won't happen.

Which is not to say we won't see some petulant attempts to control public speech by the current administration. We should have a contest: Name something that would have enraged the kind of people who voted for Trump more than if Barack Obama's people had said that that president was considering changes in the First Amendment. Trump can make himself look even pettier than usual but he can't control speech in a world that has an Internet. He can't prevent people from calling him a terrible human being, a bad president or even a cock holster. (I'm not sure if "cock holster" is one word or two. Never heard the term before.)

As for the folks who complained that Colbert's joke was homophobic or anti-gay, I don't think that's going anywhere. Gay leaders do not seem to be too up in arms. Jim Parsons, who may well be the most popular TV star who is openly gay, was on with Colbert the next night and he was fine with it. It was, after all, from Stephen Colbert who has a pretty solid track record with that community. If Sean Hannity had said it about someone he didn't like…well, I think there would have been a few more complaints but not many.

Mainly, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being something that could cause people to die or have their lives destroyed, this is barely a 1.5. Personally — and I'll bet I'm not alone in this — these days, I'd like to save my concern for things that are a 6 or above…you know, like cancer patients not being able to get insurance or military action with North Korea. Trump may yet prove to be like Nigel Tufnel, the musician in This is Spinal Tap who has the power to make it go to 11.

In which case, we won't have time to even think about anything below an 8.