LOS ANGELES – From “penis alerts” and jokes about anal sex to porn talk and allusions to masturbation, “2 Broke Girls” sounds like something you'd find late at night on HBO.
Instead, it's a hit sitcom on CBS, smack dab in the middle of prime time at 8:30pm.
The fact that the Kat Dennings/Beth Behrs-starring comedy airs on a broadcast network between the hours of 6am and 10pm, where FCC rules prohibit profane speech, has scores of upset viewers flooding the FCC's website with complaints.
Governmentattic.org published an array of comments received by the FCC about the program.
“I feel this is soft porn. No wonder our country is in the condition it is when shows like this are on the air,” stated one complaint. Another noted that they were “shocked to hear the term ‘b*tch’ used twice and so loosely in a prime-time show where children could be watching.”
“I am really disturbed by what I am seeing on national television. I tolerated it enough when it was on cable due to the fact that I chose to purchase cable… But now public television is riddled with sexual overtones and inappropriate material for children,” wrote another viewer. “I am asking that the FCC do their job and remove these types of television shows from our public broadcasting systems. I have served my country with honor and am proud to say that I am an American, but when we continuously allow these types of shows to air I am rather embarrassed and ashamed of us as a country.”
According to reports, at least 100 viewers have filed informal complaints to federal regulators about the show’s content, citing the many crude sexual epithets uttered by the characters.
“’2 Broke Girls’ is proof each week that no one at the FCC cares what is going on regarding broadcast TV. If they did, they’d put the show in a more appropriate time slot, like 3am,” Dan Gainor, VP of Business and Culture at the Media Research Center (MRC) told FOX411. “It’s a non-stop bad sex joke. In one recent episode, I counted at least 14 different sex jokes, three of them mentioning ‘vagina.’ The only thing the show is missing is nudity and a stripper pole.”
(Note to Gainor: They actually did use a stripper pole in an ad for the show during last year's Super Bowl. See Exhibit A above.)
“Many TV shows today leave little to the imagination,” observed Matthew Vadum of the Capital Research Center. “’2 Broke Girls’ seems inappropriate for prime time.”
Not everyone agrees.
"CBS has no obligation to only create child-friendly programming so your kids aren’t subjected to sexual suggestion, especially at night – and the FCC isn’t here to raise your kids," said L.A-based pop culture expert Jenn Hoffman. "Ironically, the same values-obsessed people who want the FCC to swoop with an iron first and regulate our airwaves are often the same people who want the Federal government to leave their speech, guns, heath care and churches alone. At some point you have to choose what type of country you want to live in and stick with it."
CBS declined to comment, and the FCC did not respond to a comment request, so we don't yet know if the FCC has acknowledged the complaints or been in touch with CBS. Stay tuned...
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