ABC says it received some 1,500 complaints after broadcasting the American Music Awards, wherein Adam Lambert kissed another man, and thrust another man’s face into his crotch. Turns out the FCC also received some! And from the looks of things, they are patently ridiculous.
This one’s titled “Truely Disguisted”:
Adam Lambert performance. It was a porno with clothes on. I was watching with my child and I cannot believe that he was allowed to do that on tv. He had men and women sticking theeir faces in his crotch and at one point rubbed a girls crotch. It was very inappropriate for prime time network television and I am truely disguisted!!
COMPLAINANT RESPECTFULLY REQUESTS THAT THE FCC ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT OF THIS COMPLAINT, AND THAT THE FCC KEEP ME INFORMED OF THE PROGRESS AND RESULTS OF YOUR INVESTIGATION INTO THIS MATTER.
Here’s “A lewd bisexual performance”:
The final act of the program was a lewd bisexual performance by Adam Lambert. During his performance he placed a males head in his genital area, rubbed his hand across a female’s genital area, and wildly kissed a male. THIS WAS CLEARLY OBSENE AND INAPPROPRIATE FOR BROADCAST TELEVISION. Please tell me that the level of acceptable content on television has not been lowered to include the perverse actions of immoral individuals.
And here’s “Some S&M sex show”:
How about we take this to the next level?
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I would like to lodge a complaint against Adam Lamberts performance on the ABC’s American Music Awards show that aired during prime time tonight. His performance was way past what should be seen on tv. Gay sex acts were simulated, along with sticking his fingers in the crotch of one of his female dancers. His whole performance belonged in some S&M sex show, not on prime time TV. I had to remove my daughter from th room it was so shocking. Enough of this, where are our morals going to.
There’s a whole bunch more on this blog and The Smoking Gun, and they make us proud to be Americans.
christopher di spirito
I bet all 1,500 of these “complaints” originated from members of the Westboro Baptist Church.
dontblamemeivotedforhillary
He seems on course to surpass the “fake gay icon: Madonna” with Gay Chutzpah! Well done, Adam. The FCC is run by Bush’s Christian dregs, anyway! Two men kissing: What a shocker! Don’t come to New York or San Francisco, ABC viewers (or those nice neighborhoods in your urban centers!) or you might see same-gender kissing freedom at work!
Bill
The sad thing about this is that those who wrote these vile disgusting complaint letters think that they have the moral high ground, while writing things way more immoral and disgusting than Adam even approached onstage. And they appear completely oblivious to that. (That part makes it a little more scary than sad.)
Indeed, heterosexuals and their immoral behavior make me more and more thankful each and every day to have had the good fortune of being born a fag.
Look at the alternative. Who would ever want to be a part of that???
No thanks.
No way. No day.
Carlton W
Go over to the Gawker. They printed out quite a few of them. One of the few times in my life I am speechless. To think these people are allowed to vote and bear arms. Canada is looking pretty good right now.
Bruce
What a bunch of garbage- These idiots must have nothing more to do but talk about Adam. We know they hate gay’s , but some of them probably sleep with their daughters – but hey, they are not gay. So many other life disturbing things going on in this world, and in our own country, can we let this goooooooo??
Carlton W
@Bill I second that.
RomanHans
1. The complaints were obviously part of an organized plot. It’s unfortunate that a thousand crazy people affiliated with ONE crazy group can generate this much insanity. And odd that apparently it’s only *Christian* groups.
2. The FCC can and should do nothing, because aside from not being pornographic, Lambert’s performance came AFTER prime time, which isn’t regulated. So, tough! Sadly, though, ABC is censoring itself just to placate the thousand brain-dead idiots.
3. A protest against ABC/Disney was organized on Facebook. On Monday, between 9 and 11, we were going to jam the phone line of the president, Anne Sweeney. (212) 456-6019. But oddly, come 9, the phone number first switched to another line, and then hung up on everybody who called without accepting messages.
Odder still, that number works fine today. Ms. Sweeney is unavailable, though, and the person who answers refuses to talk about why a male entertainer has been banished from ABC entirely because he’s gay.
Dasher
What some of these poor dumb Bible Belt jackasses who complained don’t realize is that they are indirectly helping Adam’s career. Imagine how sore they would be if they ever figured that out… 😉
ianaleah
1500 complaints out of the 48,000,000 viewers. The ‘group’ complaining – has complaints filed for just about everyone in the entertainment industry, and it goes back years. Even the women of The View- including ultra conservative Elisabeth consider the hoopla over Adam’s performance laughable. Even they support him saying daytime soaps are more sexual and kids are home. Adam’s performance was in ‘safe harbor’ FCC time from 10:00pm-6:00am, but Central time zone aired in their states at 9;53 instead of 10:53 (or FCC not applicableat all !) Only in Central states will it have any say regarding the homophobic repressed complaints, since nothing Adam did in performance has not been seen countless times over several decades in the first place.Amazing that a musical performance scares adults-since our human bodies are sexually mature at age 12years, but unlike in primative cultures where teens follow mother nature’s law’s, in usa adults, actual adults, can’t even Talk about ‘s.e.x.’ Pathetic losers are gonna die without ever having lived.
lulu
those people who lodged these complaints think they are perfect. i must admit that i was taken a back when i saw adam’s performance but it was not that shocking. come on this is the modern days. give adam a break, let the man continue to show his talent, he is a good artist, let him shine.
Carlton W
@Romanhans It appears ABC got wind of the protest.
Ella
I haven’t seen the show, as I like Adam and don’t want to see him make a tit of himself on national television. This means I missed out on embarrassing but probably titillating boy-on-boy action. However, I can now get my kicks thanks to these amazingly descriptive “complaints”. Thanks FCC!
monimaria
GIVE ADAM A BREAK ALREADY!
I hope this complaint will be investigated by people with common sense and logic so that the final conclusion will be: Adam Lambert DID NOTHING MORE COMPARED TO WHAT OTHER ARTISTS HAD PREVOIUSLY DONE.
ENOUGH HATE AGAINST ADAM!
Let’s focus on his many qualities, talent, music and what he did well during last year (so many things to think about). Adam is a role model for young people in many points of view.
OPEN ALL DOORS for Adam to do what he does best: to entertain us!
Tj
The real problem here are the homophobic,illiterate jackasses who probably sleep with their relatives and breed such abject stupidity.
B
The heading on QUEERTY’s home page was “You’ve Got to Read Adam Lambert’s Ridiculous FCC Complaints.” Guys, you need to hire an editor. These were complaints about Lambert, not Lambert’s complaints.
hephaestion
One fact remains true as ever: Anti-gay people can not spell worth a darn.
kyshra
the GOD people have the problem, if they let people be gay and get all the rights we should… they think the childern will be gay.. and the world will Fucking end.
romeo
Yeah, it’s amazing how illiterate the letters are. Christian groups organize these letter writing campaigns all the time. They take their orders from Pastors or guys like Rush.
Of course, the bigger the hoopla, the bigger the win for Adam. These dickwads just never learn how fame works. LOL How do they think Rush got so famous? Because everybody liked him? LMAO !!!
staciegirlie
First order of business for Christian groups:
Get thyselves a GED or highschool diploma before worrying about what others do.
JLM
I am so tired of this issue. I agree that these letters are poorly written and seem to me like an organized effort on the side of the religious right. GET OVER IT ALREADY!! Truly I doubt they watched the show because their writing is much more graphic than Adam ever was. If they really watched it, their sensitive little minds should have been warped by the show long before Adam ever appeared.
Chuck Martens
Given all of the spelling errors that usually appear in Queerty articles, I can’t tell if the poor spelling and grammer is yours or part of the complaints! How ironic if that is part of what you meant to show.
Craig Monette
Did anyone catch Janet before that..???? I saw a whole lot of crotch grabbing and other shit..where the fuck are they on these issues? these fucking bible thumping closet dick suckers need to get their fucking pacifiers from their asses and get the fuck over it. Fuck off you bunch of bible thumping closet cases…. You will beat the rest of us to hell anyway.. calm
KyleR
Well this is nothing different or new for our legacy. You all need to remember who first founded this colony. The Puritans. They fled England because they had the same type of stick up their asses. Remember the pictures of the Puritan women? The dress up to their chins, their hair in those bonnet things, the dress to their ankles.
Toilpainter
I’m pretty sure the FCC gets more complaints each day regarding the content of FOX NEWS than Adam’s AMA performance. If liberals and progressives wielded the political power a few small minded Christian fundamentalists do FOX NEWS would have been forced to change their programming years ago. But, we don’t…too bad.
By the way I found Eminem’s AMA performance offensive…Oh, that’s right, he bashes gays, so, I guess it’s okay?
Go Adam!.
Lukas P.
Deliciously racy descriptions by the fine folks in the heartland, eh?
So, can anyone tell me what a “bisexual performance” is or why these easily offended people let their kids stay up past 9 p.m.? If they were upset that Adam “wildly kissed a male” would they have been OK with a less passionate snog? How do they know what S/M is—is that taught in church these days?
Why can’t they spell words that are typically learned in FOURTH freaking grade?
Boggles the mind.
bunkie
Why doesn’t ABC/FCC release the number of complaints they received from the people who threatened to BOYCOTT ABC and their sponsors for blacklisting ADAM. I am one of the MANY who have DELETED ABC from their TV remotes and I will only watch if ADAM appears or ABC issues a PUBLIC APOLOGY to ADAM for their intolerable and homophobic CENSORING of this fine young talented man. Not ABC/FCC/LIBERTY COUNSEL or any other organization is going to DICTATE to me who or what I CAN or CANNOT watch in the privacy of my own home. This is still a FREE country … too much innocent blood has been shed to ensure that FREEDOM … CENSORSHIP in any form will NOT be TOLERATED … at least NOT by me!!
Mike
This one’s actually kind of clever:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0107101lambert25.html
swarm
#27 @Mike, right? I was LMAO at that one just now. Amazing that another idiot complained about his lesbian lifestyle. wut?
I don’t know who filed FOIAs but someone will/should have the entire file. This could go on for months and years and GLAAD should be the ones following this. yeah, right. The file must include all correspondence that is not inter/inter agency or deliberative. Meaning casual discussion or hypotheses.
The FCC will have to address them by time zone, since the community standards argument only applies to CST. They should disallow those that are not CST. Some of the complaintants didn’t even disclose their time zones.
Of course they could disallow every one that mentions children since there’s a TV14+ rating on that show. So if they want to, they can really pare them down to many fewer.
Someone here should file a FOIA. It’s not expensive you only pay the cost of copies.
You gay men better start procreating post haste judging from the caliber of intellect that we see in this unscientific sample size of America. Jeeze.
swarm
typo inter/inter s/b inter/intra
swarm
Wait. How much should we laugh at ABC? See that photo Queerty has up? That’s the one I’ve always said proves the entire act was staged and disclosed. Perhaps Adam drew the dancers face a few inches closer than in rehearsal but regardless, the dancer obvsly knew the routine or does he always dance with his mouth wide open like that? rofl.
Bianca
Some of those hateful complaints are a HOOT! Full of spelling mistakes and contradictions and whatnot.
I had a good laugh. I bet the RCC people did too.
dontblamemeivotedforhillary
Westboro Baptist Church doesn’t spell-check. Ka-ching, Adam Lambert’s “For Your Entertainment” just went platinum!
Lukas P.
My 84 year old foreign grandmother studied just 4-5 years of English and has never spent more than a couple weeks in an English-speaking country. Still, she spells English without any errors. She makes some small grammatical goofs, but her letters make complete sense, unlike the posted complaints we saw above. She only attended seven years of schooling but still reads a book a week.
Those letters are funny, yep, but the low level of US education they reveal scares the hell out of me.
“All you need to know is how to read the Bible” is probably posted in all the home schoolers’ homes.
Attmay
Homophobia and intelligence are mutually exclusive. And these breeders prove it.
How I wish we could go back to the days when we sterilized the feeble-minded.
romeo
@Don’tblameme: Are you serious?! Did it go platinum. 😀 ? (or were you just making a point?)
In any case GO ADAM !!!
romeo
Don’t worry, Lukas, those letters are only representative of the dregs. The country as a whole is in somewhat better shape. Problem is the dregs have the vote too. LOL
If there were IQ tests to get the vote, we’d be 2/3s of the electorate instead of our current 30 percent. LMAO !
romeo
Swarm: Some of us are trying to organize an investigation of the American religious fanatics that helped set up the “death to gays” law in Uganda (and trying in other countries as well). Your so acute and good at stuff like that. Do you have any ideas how to get dirt on these guys — sue-able stuff. I have a particular animus toward the Exodus gang.
Lukas P.
@Romeo (35 & 36). Thanks for the reassurance about the dregs! I also like the idea of investigating groups such as Exodus et al. Unlike the LGBT groups, they’re hard to penetrate (no pun intended!). Most of the ultra-conservative websites on my bloggroll (ones I visit don’t allow comments, for instance, or they moderate all posts. Worse, you have to “join” many of them, and that often involves a fee just to read the “good stuff.” That’s just an example of how tightly they control discussions and access.
I’m somewhat appalled that the bigger gay press conglomerate or “Gay Inc.” doesn’t get some investigative reporters—and a couple kickass lawyers—to infiltrate the inner sanctum of the most egregious (sp?) offenders and see what they’re doing/saying. They have the resources to do that. And, to publish it where it’ll be noticed.
Just my two Euros and nine cents on the matter!
romeo
Lukas, I’m in total agreement with you. The gay press isn’t used to taking anything very seriously, unfortunately. But we’re at a critical juncture now and we need to start acting a lot more like the mainstream media as far as investigative journalism. The kind that hurts and get results. I think Rachel Maddow accomplished a lot in just a few of her shows. We need to follow her lead. We do have some good journalists, but they need more resources and support.
Elizabeth
It’s clear that the only people reading this website are biased when they simply dismiss people’s complaints as homophobic. The fact is, Adam’s performance upset a lot of viewers, not because he’s gay, but because of the nature of his performance. You might be fine with watching a guy’s face be thrust into Adam’s crotch, but most people are not. This doesn’t mean that it’s just Adam’s performance that was inappropriate- other performers are similarly inappropriate when they make out with others on stage or get them to simulate sexual acts on stage. The fact is, if it’s public television available to all viewers, networks need to be careful about what they show. Simulated oral sex scenes don’t belong on shows that children may be watching, or even that adults may be watching. We should have some decency and be respectful to people. Just because we’re defending people with similar views to ours doesn’t mean we should disregard those who have different views. That way, we turn into the very people we criticize.
romeo
@ Elizabeth #39: gays will stop doing it when straights stop doing it, as they did that night during the “family” hours. Elizabeth, your post is not well thought out, and is way out of date on this subject. But note, conservative, anti-gay sites do not allow comments or they edit them. We allow anybody to comment, even when their comments are childishly annoying.
And yes we should disregard the views of our enemies. They will be our enemies no matter what we do. So grow up, Elizabeth, and introduce yourself to the real world, where straight performers push people’s faces into their crotches a lot more than we do. Presumably you’re on the hunt for all those performers, too?
jazlynn
ABC has more than one show that has at least one gay couple in its line up. I think the complaints were valid. His singing sucked and he needed a gimmick to make his performance memorable way to exploit the gay community ADAM… I suggest some of you pick up the book The Tragedy of Todays Gays its an enlightening read.
romeo
Jazlynn: get over it. He had a lousy sound system and too much choreography which limited the impact of the performance. The crotch shot wouldn’t have raised any eyebrow if the technicals had worked better that night. His singing does not suck, BTW. He had too much to contend with that night, and his voice paid the price. But I’ve seen him live, and he fucking floors an audience. So give it a rest.
jazlynn
I didn’t say his singing sucks. I said it sucked at that particular time. I think adam L is talented however like some talented people his uses a gimmick in this case…his sexuality…actually that’s most cases.
Hans
The silver lining, however, is that all of these complaints do mention the Lambert’s grabbing of the female dancer’s crotch too. I’m not saying that the whole thing doesn’t smack of homophobia, but it’s at least slightly reassuring that they don’t consider a sexually suggestive “straight” performance fine but a gay one inappropriate.
romeo
Trust me, Hans, if you look at the situation that night, it was the gay “thang” that brought out the homophobes. In all these complaints there is no mention of what Janet Jackson or Eminem did. They only went after the gay guy.
This is old news. The FCC is not going to do anything about this because it would put them in the position of having to justify homophobia. Straights have been a lot more obscene on broadcast channels. Shit, the Fox channels would have been taken off the air years ago. LOL The fact is, most Americans would love the freedom to see the stuff Europeans have on their broadcase channels, but everybody lets a few conservative malcontent loudmouths intimidate them. I sense a change in all that, though.
Wen
@27 Mike, the mention by this complainer it was broadcast at 11 pm? What are these kids doing up at such a time during a schoolweek?
swarm
#39,41,43 Girls, you are months behind on this story so coming here with your insights is a waste. You don’t have a clue about the actual issues. This is about FCC standards not about Adam’s “singing sucking” (LMAO), or any other “opinions” outside of the legal definition or lack of regarding “community standards”.
And the fact that you cite “shows children may be watching” is tedious. We all know the program carried a TV 14+ RATING. Didn’t you even read the posts here let alone on the other threads?
There are four quasi legal issues potentially on the table.
1. Performing outside of the safe harbor zone that stops at 10:00pm. After 10 pm there are NO rules on obscenity. CST caught his act without censoring therefore, a potential violation.
2. Community Standards. The FCC will have to decide on community standards of behavior and believe me they don’t want to go there.
3. The Liberty Counsel Complaint that states:
H O M O S E X U A L I T Y is obscene. This is not a current Community Standards constraint. In particular they even cite “homosexual open mouth kissing” (rofl) which currently is an acceptable community standard on tv so if this were in a court, that part of the complaint would be stricken if someone filed a proper motion. This isn’t exactly like real legal court procedures though, and no “rules of court” apply as far as I know.
4. GLAAD negatively impacting the entire matter and worse, missing the boat on the most significant LGBT event in entertainment history.
So go read the other many blog/threads here before pretending your comments are relevant. We’re far away from “opinion” and Adam’s motivation is totally irrelevant. We’re focusing on the legal questions and missed opportunities.
And there’s also the issue of ABC’s blackball, after allegedly being party to and having prior knowledge of the show’s contents.
Don’t jump on a blog/topic that you’re unfamiliar with and respond without research about the blog/topic please.
Jazzlyn so you’re saying that you deserve FCC complaints if your performance is not what the audience considers 100% perfectly vocally? KEWL that’s what some of the FCC letters said, too. Did you write one of them??
swarm
@Romeo Happy New Year bb! My answer won’t post it’s probably too long. I’m going to wait a bit and if it doesn’t show up I’ll change it.
Wicked Glitter
BWAHAHAHA!, I just went over to ‘The Gawker’,and read their story ‘Won’t Somebody Please Think of the F-king Children?’ HAHAHAHA! Oops, I just spat out my Peanut Butter Captain Crunch all over the computer screen! I was laughing so hard I started crying, seriously, tears were running down my face! There was one complaint that stated, and I quote “and this is not the first time he did this oral sex simulation. If you check YouTube he did it with Kris Allen in their tour and nobody cared!” BWAHAHAHA! OMG! Lucky Kris, no wonder Kris’s shirt was always in disarray when he came out of the pit with Adam. This guy even goes looking for more ‘simulation’ on youtube! I thought inbreeding was against the law, but after reading some of those comments apparently the practice is still thriving is some parts of the country.
swarm
Wait…Wicked Glitter ha ha the guy probably saw the fan fic on youtube with the manips of Kris & Adam from ONTD_AI. Poor guys there’s so much fan fic out there nobody will know what’s real or fake. That’s too funny, searching out more stim.. My guess is the complaintant is a Gokey fan.
I’m pretty sure the FCC is all “there’s so much cray around Lambert we’re not touchin this one”.
jazlynn
O