Saturday, October 21, 2006

Who Backed Down: Madonna Or NBC?

Conflicting media reports here: The NY Daily News makes it sound like Madonna agreed to trim and basically neuter a segment of her concert special for NBC, removing the section where she pleads for the world to help the hungry and people with AIDS. Why does NBC want this cut? Because she's seen hanging in front of a disco-ball cross while singing "Live To Tell." On the other hand, this BBC story makes it sound like NBC overruled Madonna in making the cuts, backed up by a quote from one of her representatives. Now priv8pete mocked my typical anti-censorship rants by cutting and pasting a previous post and inserting "NBC" and "Madonna" for whatever the previous parties were. Hey, it's just our Constitution, priv8pete, didn't mean to get so uptight about it:) But seriously, folks, if Madonna agreed to the changes in this instance after enduring death threats and the possiibility of jail time, I'm not going to second-guess her. But if NBC overruled her and did the cut on its own, I have no sympathy. Because I'm anti-censorship? No, because I'm anti-stupidity. The last Madonna concert that DIDN'T contain at least one controversial segment was...uh...NEVER. How could NBC not have anticipated this possibility and either decided not to air the special or have an agreement in place to deal with this very problem. What, were they surprised a part of Madonna's concert created a firestorm? Nope, that's why they wanted to air it in the first place: Madonna always gets attention.

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