The Parents Television Council in the News

Prison cuts off access to TV show ‘Nip/Tuck', The Associated Press, September 4, 2004.

Officials say the FX series is too graphic for inmates

Close-ups of scalpels slicing into flesh, sexual antics and pyschotic characters have gotten the TV show "Nip/Tuck" yanked from the airwaves at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution.

The FX cable series, which chronicles the racy escapades of two Miami plastic surgeons, had won fans among inmates for its surgical gore and sexual innuendo.

"We decided it was all too much," said Doug Harder, a spokesman for the medium-security prison in Pendleton. "Way too graphic."

During one recent show, inmates gathered in one TV room kept "eyeballing," whistling and shouting catcalls to a female corrections officer, Harder said.

The officer filed a complaint with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and the prison banned the show, Harder said.

Mary Botkin, a Portland-based lobbyist for the union, said corrections officers want prisons to start giving cable TV shows more scrutiny.

"They're becoming far more violent and promiscuous," Botkin said. "Shows like this create problems when officers are supervising sex offenders or people who hurt people because they like it."

It has been about three years since the Eastern Oregon prison last pulled a show from the television schedule. That was a professional wrestling show called "WWF: Wild One."

Since the behavior problems with "Nip/Tuck" popped up only during group viewings, the ban will not apply to the 10 percent of the 1,621 inmates who have personal televisions in their cells, officials said.

Dubbed "the coolest show on TV" by TV Guide, "Nip/Tuck" has become the second highest-rated show on basic cable, with more than 4 million people tuning in weekly.

But groups including the Parents Television Council are pressuring FX to pull the show, saying it "goes preposterously over the top in an attempt not to push the envelope but to shred it."

Holly Ollis, a spokeswoman for "Nip/Tuck" producer Warner Bros. Television, said she was unaware of another prison in the country that has blacklisted the series.

"It's an unusual show, and I've heard a lot of unusual things," Ollis said. "But this is certainly a new one for me."

Although each of Oregon's prisons develops its own television-viewing guidelines for inmates, they all try to keep overtly racist, violent and sexual shows off television schedules, according to the Department of Corrections.

Eastern Oregon's inmates get to select programs through a popular vote.

Although "Nip/Tuck" is aimed at adults, prison officials didn't think it "would cause the emotional level in a room of inmates to be raised," said Randy Geer, the corrections administrator who oversees television and movie policies.

After the "Nip/Tuck" incident, prisons likely will become stricter, Geer said. A don't-show warning about the series already has gone out to other prisons.