..wouldn't, apparently, be noticed if it were in the hand of a naked woman in the middle of a busy shopping mall.
On the other hand...
There's fuck.
C'mon baby, light my fire.
The Parents Television Council has called out “Good Morning America” for allowing Tom Hanks to blurt out the "f-word" on live television Friday morning.
“Once again, a morning news show has allowed the harshest profanity to be broadcast into every living room and breakfast table in the country," PTC director of public policy Dan Isett said in a statement. "This is just another in a long, sad string of similar instances where all of the major network morning shows have permitted this inappropriate and offensive content. These cannot and must not be dismissed as ‘mistakes,’ and it’s time for the networks to step up, take responsibility for what they broadcast, and ensure that this never happens again.”
Hanks' gaffe came during the show's 8 a.m. hour in a segment with Elizabeth Vargas. She asked Hanks to pretend he was in character for his upcoming film "Cloud Atlas." Hanks delivered a line in a foreign accent that contained the word "f**k."
Both Hanks and Vargas profusely apologized to the audience, with Hanks joking that the next time he came on the show, he would likely be subject to a seven second delay.
ABC later released a statement on the matter: "This morning Tom Hanks accidentally used an expletive during a live interview on 'GMA' with Elizabeth Vargas. They both immediately apologized on air, and the show was corrected for the all subsequent feeds."
A long time ago, in a book written and published before his passing, comedian Allan Sherman (of "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" fame) wrote a thoughtful and insightful essay about the power of that word and the damage that it seemed capable of inflicting on the psyche of the common man/woman.
Interestingly enough, in that essay, he typed the word repeatedly, with no spaces between, on a single page over and over and over and over and....
...until the page was full.
The purpose, intended and, as it turns out, accomplished, was to show that if we were exposed enough, we would discover that it was, after all, just a word.
And words, regardless of the conventional wisdom, don't have any power at all.
With the exception of the power that we permit them to have.
The power, as it were, is in the attitude with which that word is delivered.
Make no mistake here.
This piece is not an apology for Tom Hanks, nor is it a blanket endorsement for the use of the dreaded "f word".
But I sincerely don't think than any reasonable person is going to join the villagers carrying torches crowd and show up outside Hanks' castle, demanding he come out with his hands held high and his potty mouth tightly shut.
He was asked to get into character.
He got into character.
And then he fucked up.
After which, obviously embarrassed and immediately remorseful, he began the first of what has now turned into a flood of apologies that could probably have floated the Ark.
As far as the corruption of young minds that the Parents Television Council seems always to fear is just one more fucking word from realization, may I offer this?
I have grown kids. And grandkids.
And I don't endorse or encourage the use of "foul" language with any of them.
But in a culture filled with "Family Guy"s and Honey Boo Boo's and prime time sitcoms featuring Miley Cyrus asking Ashton Kutcher might he mind her "popping out the girls" as she sunbathes with a bikini top, I'm pretty sure the kids of today and tomorrow won't have their futures acid splashed by one embarrasing slip by a real family guy.
(P.S....even I laughted when Miley referred to her boobs as, respectively, Kim and Khloe....not only cleverly topical, but applicable.....after all, if there ever were a couple of boobs....)
So, here's my final word on the word.
What power it has is what power we give it.
And Tom Hanks is still a pretty nice family guy.
Oh...and Parents Television Council?
Go after Kathie Lee Gifford.
She drops puppies.
And, while you're at it...
...lighten the fuck up.
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