"Glee" Spears Tribute Triggers FCC Beefs

NOVEMBER 18--Despite earning its highest ratings ever, the recent episode of “Glee” paying homage to Britney Spears drew the ire of some of the Fox program’s more prudish viewers, records show.

In complaint letters sent to the Federal Communications Commission (and obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request), a small number of “Glee” viewers lambasted the show for airing suggestive sexual content during the usually family-friendly 8 PM timeslot. The Spears episode aired on September 28.

One offended viewer from Nebraska--who emphasized they were a “very open-minded member of Generation Y”--was “VERY disturbed” by a scene during which Mr. Schuester (played by Matthew Morrison) “blatantly pretend-humped one of the girls who plays a student. That is not okay…If people think that it is okay to show that, then there is something seriously wrong with society.”

A Pekin, Illinois resident objected to a scene where “everyone seemed to be getting sexually turned on” at an extra-spirited pep rally, as well as an instance where “one of the characters was naked in the library masturbating.” According to one viewer tuning in from Oregon, the show was “over-the-top with sexual innuendoes, hyper-sexed dancing and moves” that “were not for the family hour!”

A correspondent from Weston, Florida summed up the case succinctly: “Extremely inappropriate and sexually provocative dancing, naked man, simulated orgasm.”

But “Glee” was not guilty of all the charges leveled against it.

One Allamuchy, New Jersey resident accused the show of letting one character drop the F-bomb. “Misinterpretation of this profane incident is not possible,” the writer stated flatly. “The word was not implied, connoted, or denoted. It was said and aired. Period.”

However, a closer review of the actual segment showed the would-be obscenity was in fact misinterpreted by the Jerseyite. Frustrated by Mr. Schuester’s unwillingness to let the Glee club perform Spears’s songs, one student yells, “Stop being so frickin’ uptight all the time.”

Perhaps some viewers should take the same advice. (5 pages)