Space Curses and the FCC

My latest media addiction is watching Battlestar Galactica episodes on my iPod. I love it in a different way than the 9-year-old me enjoyed the cheesy original series. Something that they picked up from the original series is the use of the word "frack." What's funny about the new series is that they use it as a direct replacement for the word "fuck." Whereas Dirk Benedict and Richard Hatch used to occasionally use it as a general expletive in the original series, with the new series, they're flagrantly using it as a placeholder for "fuck."

For instance, Sharon says "Motherfracker," and numerous other characters say things like "You're out of your fracking mind" and "Quit fracking around." In one scene, which I've replayed four or five times on my iPod, Helo says "frack" but it REALLY sounds like he's saying "fuck." The first time I heard it, I quickly rewound it to hear it again, to make sure I wasn't hearing things.

I'm no fan of censorship, so I'm the last guy who would make a fuss about this. But what if the PTC or one of these other citizen watchdog groups that hounds the FCC decides to say, essentially, that "frack" is close enough? I wonder what would happen.

The real question is whether someone could actually try to argue that "frack" is just a placeholder word.

The PTC website (no link due to a desire to not give them Google Juice, but try parentstv dot org) doesn't have a review for Battlestar Galactica, so I'm not sure what their stance on it might be. I suspect if they've seen the show, they're probably upset about it. After all, isn't it the meaning of the word that hurts people and not the actual word itself?

:-D