Maps
Matthew Petti | From the December 2024 issue
Is the film Night of the Living Dead too racy for daytime television? What about double entendres about "spotted dick" pudding? Or a travel documentary about Paris featuring burlesque dancers and a museum with nude paintings? These were just some of the federal obscenity complaints that made Hot Spring County, Arkansas, the most prudish place in America.
The most infamous job of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is to punish obscenity on the airwaves, and it's always relied on public feedback to do so. In the 1970s, a complaint about George Carlin's "seven dirty words you can't say on television" routine led to a Supreme........