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Homophobes, Prudes & Justin Timberlake-Haters Love To Complain About SNL

Ben Yakas

Published Apr 11, 2015

Modified Apr 11, 2015

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Ben Yakas

Published Apr 11, 2015

Modified Apr 11, 2015

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Complaining about Saturday Night Live is a national pastime at this point, but nobody is better at it than the subsection of America that still files official complaints to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). And no one is more outraged by SNL than homophobes, prudes, and people who really hate Justin Timberlake. Well, that and people who don't understand parody.

The Atlantic looked at the last three year's worth of FCC complaints and the patterns are clear. When you feel you have to preemptively clarify that you aren't a prude, you've just proven you probably are a prude.

These are people who identify, in many cases, as white and Christian. Many of them said they were worried about kids hearing bad words. A few made the point of telling the FCC they weren't prudes as a way to justify or at least contextualize their overall complaints. Several were explicit about how they were "extremely offended." The words "smut" and "garbage" came up more than once. The states where the most complaints originated were Texas, California, New York, Michigan, and Colorado...

Among the objectionable material are references to masturbation and to human trafficking ("no laughing matter," someone said). One person complained generally about Miley Cyrus. Lady Gaga, too. And plenty of people were concerned with profanity. Most of the words that people found objectionable were Carlinesque. Others were more surprising.

You can see some of the funniest complaints below. All seem to fall into one of the three big subcategories (homophobes, prudes, or people who really hate Justin Timberlake). Oh, and racists. There's always racists.

"Dick In A Box": "It was the Christmas show suggesting that men should give women their penis in a box as a present. I was offended, let alone thinking that younger children would have the opportunity to see the program."
More "Dick In A Box": "It was not funny and it was beyond vulgar. The segment even includes Justin Timberlake whom was involved in the Janet Jackson superbowl stunt."
Jimmy Fallon/Justin Timberlake Christmas episode: "Last night's airing of Saturday Night Live … was the most filthy, obscene and objectionable program I believe I have ever seen in my life. For a 69-year-old, who has seen a lot on broadcast and cable TV, that is saying a lot … Overtly smutty skits and songs … I found it necessary after a very short while to tune out and switch to PBS, where our still civilized British cousins provide decent and enjoyable programming."
"Porn Stars" sketch (featuring, who else, Timberlake): "Simply put an actress portraying a porn star made a direct reference to manually stimulating a horse. The term 'Jacked off a horse' was used."
"Djesus Unchained": "It was a bad night in television," one person wrote. "Even the twenty-somethings I was with were shocked."
Jamie Foxx: "Jamie Foxx is offensive. I am sick and tired of people being racist on TV because they are non-white. If this were a white person it would have been pulled off the air."
"Wilderness Lodge": "I am offended by the gay acceptance message this skit portrays."
SNL's pro-homosexuality agenda: "And you also did nothing when they showed a pro-homosexual episode [with] multiple men making out with each other," someone from Michigan wrote. "Do you have a bias against Christianity and do you have a bias that is for promoting homosexuality?"
"Glengary Glen Christmas": "The word 'son-of-a-bitch' was used in a parody of Kris Kringle's elves ... I am offended that we are allowing our culture to devolve language that is not uplifting and only reduces the quality of communication."
Drunk Uncle: "The 'Drunk Uncle' character made several vulgar and inappropriate statements regarding breasts—[he] used several nicknames for them."

This reminds us: "Dick In A Box" is still really good.

For more FCC fun, check out 226 pages of SNL complaints from between 2008 and 2012 here [PDF]. People have been complaining about Timberlake for years!

Tagged

complaints

fcc

saturday night live

snl

television

Ben Yakas

Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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