I do want to chime in briefly on this topic, as the outcome of this case would directly affect my work environment. While I am not a television script-writer, I do work in the entertainment business, and I have been in many brain-storming sessions. When you're shooting things off the top of your head, sometimes things can get out of hand, especially when you are trying to capture that "something" that is fun or funny. When I worked for Acclaim, there was a game they were working on they were sure was going to be the next big thing in gaming. It was called BMX XXX. They wanted to create a whole line of XXX products. I was asked to come up ideas for a XXX version of the game I was working on, a professional wrestling game. Let's just say some of the ideas that came out of that meeting I would not have been comfortable saying in front of my mother.
Not to point fingers at anyone on this board, this is a general statement. But it has been my experience that the majority of those people who favor censorship do so when it conveniently reinforces their own particular views. In this example, the writing on Friends. You don't like it, then it doesn't bother you if it's censored. The problem with this is obviously, what happens when the government is trying to censor something we don't want censored? Expressing our personal views on religion in a public setting is a good example of a personal freedom we wouldn't want taken away from us.
In the example of this brainstorming room on Friends, I think it's clear that if her accusations are legitimate, the fact that someone is exposing themselves to her is clearly inappropriate behavior. Unless you're in the adult entertainment industry, that's not something you should have to deal with when you go to work. But to extend that to say, because I am an entertainment writer, I have less social worth than a doctor or humanitarian, and therefore I have less right to express my thoughts or ideas, I don't agree with that.
*SPOILER ALERT FOR THE GAME FAR CRY*
When I worked on Far Cry, I helped flesh out a little bit of the story. We had a cast of characters, including one guy who starts as your friend and double-crosses you later in the game. He happened to be a black man, which in-and-of-itself was no big deal. But when the game came out, all of a sudden we're reading criticisms that he was the ONLY main character that was black, we're a company based in Germany, so of course our facist mindsets cast the black guy as the villain. On the surface, that accusation was ridiculous. But what if the laws were such that someone felt we had offended someone in some way?
*END SPOILERS*
I'm just saying, regardless of whether or not the specific brainstorming sessions involved by the script-writers for Friends were inappropriate or not, I don't like the precedent it would set if from now on, a group of writers writing a show for an adult audience, involving risque situations and humor, if these writers have to weigh in every single thought they have before blurting it out under the deadlines and conditions they have to work in. Because that makes brainstorming A LOT more difficult, and I don't want that kind of restriction on me, especially when I am getting paid to be creative and it can directly affect my paycheck.
Basically, I don't expect to never be offended by what other people say, as long as I still have to right to say whatever is on my mind.
