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Matt Drudge reports that NBC, in a sudden attack of conscience, has refused to run ads for "Shut Up And Sing," the rockumentary-turned-sociopolitical-exegesis that follows the Dixie Chicks before, during and after singer Natalie Maines' infamous anti-Bush statements at a London concert in 2003. According to reports, the network stated that it "cannot accept these spots as they are disparaging to President Bush." Meanwhile, the CW may or may not have rejected the ads as well; while Drudge maintains that the fledgling network declined to run the ads, saying it does "not have appropriate programming in which to schedule this spot," Variety refuted this claim with the following statement from a CW spokesman: "That's not true. The spot was not declined. In fact, we were told they were not going to make a national spot buy on CW." Harvey Weinstein, whose production company releases the film nationwide on November 10th, made the following statement: "It's a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America. The idea that anyone should be penalized for criticizing the president is sad and profoundly un-American."
Possible M&M deficiencies aside, Harvey hit the nail on this one. NBC's upturned nose reeks of a political agenda, not to mention a heaping dose of hypocrisy. Ads for a movie about a music group scandal, suddenly unfit for airtime because the film's subjects criticize the president? Isn't this the network that's housed the unabashedly liberal "West Wing" for the past seven years? All this concern for not tarnishing Bush's image seems like a sharp departure from NBC's precedent-setting actions in the past, such as their pro-Kerry coverage of the 2004 Swift Boat scandal. Meanwhile, the network can hardly claim to steer clear of all politically-charged ads; spots run at will during shows like "Meet The Press" for such right-leaning entities as Learnaboutcoal.org, the partisanship of which is hardly a secret.
NBC's burst of moral superiority comes on the heels of Fox, CNN and NPR refusing to run ads for "Death of a President," which depicts a realistic enactment of Bush's assassination, so maybe NBC feels this is its moment to shed the outsider complex and step into the regime line behind its fellow media. Still, the two films aren't exactly comparable; while "Shut Up and Sing" treats both the Chicks and their political views with sympathy, at no point does the movie mention killing anyone (except for the death threats aimed at Maines herself as a result of her remarks - ahh the irony).
Oh, and one last thing - before NBC execs erect their statutes on the altar of advertising integrity, ETP couldn't help but notice that the network's new meta-sitcom, "30 Rock," contained a plot point in the pilot s pegged on an actual GE three-way convection oven — then followed up with a commercial for the oven during the second episode. Funny how a GE-owned network manages to plug GE goods and still tout its ethical approach to endorsement of commercial products.
— Melissa Lafsky
