The American Mind

Last night, Sally Field won an Emmy then gave a speech that included an anti-war statement. Fox cut her off.

When questioned Field said, “I think probably shouldn’t have said the God in front of the … I would have liked to have said more bleeped-out words.”

Here’s an E! reporter Joal Ryan’s version from backstage:

Field cracks! Just a teeny, tiny bit. “I think I probably shouldn’t have said the ‘god’ in front of the ‘damned.’ ” On the other hand, she adds, she’s surprised she didn’t say more words that sent the censors looking for the mute button.

Crooks and Liars screamed “Sally Field Censored by FOX.” I didn’t watch any of it. Football-watching was my thing. From watching the clip Field’s forgotten speech much have drove the director crazy. She stumbled and stammered. Background music began playing to push her to finish. Then she said, “God damned!” and got cut off.

If other winners were cut off when speaking about the war I’ll take the censorship claim seriously. Until then a reasonable explanation is Owen Robinson’s “But if you watch the clip, you’ll see that they cut her off when she said G-Damn, which is a word that is often censored from broadcasts.” Ever since the Janet Jackson Super Bowl episode networks are squeamish about broadcasting live anything remotely controversial. If I were Fox I would have let Field embarrass herself completely.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse accuses Crooks and Liars of doctoring Field’s on-stage quote. She also thinks Sally stammered on purpose to get cut off. I doubt that, but if she did want to back Fox into a corner what she did was a good way to do it. It’s red meat for the Left-wing choir.

UPDATE II: As I suspected it wasn’t a concerted effort to prevent anti-war speech to fly out of the awards. Tom Shales of the Washington Post reports “comic actor Ray Romano and actress Katherine Heigl were both cut off when they apparently used four-letter words in remarks. The performers suddenly vanished for a few seconds and were replaced by static shots from elsewhere in Los Angeles’s Shrine Auditorium, where the telecast originated. The program was on time-delay, which gives networks the opportunity to edit live shows.”