ANYTHING GOES TODAY, OR DOES IT?

Byline: ED RAMPELL

Friday's scheduled release of the latest 9-11 movie, "United 93," raises questions about what our cultural, corporate and government gatekeepers allow us to see - or not.

In these apparently anything-goes days - where, as songwriter Cole Porter once put it, "a glimpse of stocking is (no longer) looked on as something shocking" - we're bombarded with in-your-face imagery once banished from the public square.

Today, TV sitcoms burst with double entendres, and police dramas wallow in sex and violence. "Reality" TV shows, such as "Fear Factor," delight in a staple of contestants graphically eating gross grub. TV "news" and talk shows are full of salaciousness. Whereas cartoons were once the kiddies' domain, today series like "South Park" push the animation envelope. And racial and ethnic stereotypes abound.

To cite Porter, media misbehaving isn't "de-lovely." Yet there's little outrage when it's ever-so-routinely presented. Nowadays, celluloid stereotypes, vulgarity, mindless violence and bad taste are par for the course in public discourse. As Porter observed, "Anything goes."

But does it? In our seemingly freewheeling age, some things remain touchy, if not entirely taboo. With the release of "United 93," alarms sound as 9-11's horrors go to the movies, and many ask if it's too soon, disturbing or exploitative.

The coming attractions for "United 93" - the 9-11 flight on which passengers fought back against hijackers - triggered a firestorm. After shocked and awed moviegoers near ground zero complained about the unannounced trailer, a Manhattan AMC theater banned it.

Bill Maher, host of HBO's "Real Time," knows something about 9-11 and public sensitivity, as he lost his "Politically Incorrect" gig at ABC due to his unpopular 9-11 comments. "People have different opinions about the proper timing for talking about delicate subjects," says Maher. "Some say there's never the right time ... And there are those people who think the truth is not like wine - it does not get better with age. In fact, it gets more distorted with age, and we should probably get at the truth as quickly as possible."

There's a lot more that the private and government gatekeepers decide we can't see or hear in our supposedly unrestrained times. TV blurs Abu Ghraib photos. Network affiliates pull "Nightline" when Ted Koppel broadcasts pictures and names of soldiers slain in Iraq. New York Times and Washington Post Pulitzer Prize-winning exposes on NSA surveillance and CIA secret prisons inspire Bush administration crackdowns on leaks. Allegedly, a polygraph-flunking CIA officer was fired April 21 for leaking to the Post.

In March, the off-Broadway New York Theatre Workshop postponed "My Name is Rachel Corrie," about the activist bulldozed while protesting Israel's demolishing of Palestinian homes. Meanwhile, Janet Jackson's halftime nipple remains airbrushed.

What's strange is the determination over what we can and cannot experience. Why are some sensitive subjects on and others off-limits?

Maher says that "what we choose to censor is off-kilter" and complains that "the people who always talk about morals and values don't know what morals and values are. I don't know what Janet Jackson's nipple has to do with morals and values ... which have to do with concepts like tolerance, fairness, generosity and loyalty."

According to the watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, "large corporations are a more common source of censorship than governments ... The most frequent form of censorship is self-censorship." Revealing images contrary to the official narrative often end up on the cutting room floor.

Hustler Magazine's editorial director, Bruce David, asserts: "The job of the media is to keep the American people calm. It won't show them anything that threatens the ruling elite. It'll show eating bugs on `Survivor' because it doesn't threaten the system. But it won't show casualties of war and flag-draped coffins, because they look at that as a dagger at the heart of the system the corporate media protects."

From concerns for children and disclaimers about gut-wrenching content, media sensibility-sensitivity has its place. But pixels get me pixilated; we choose and pay for cable/satellite and should be treated like adults.

David insists: "The unfettered flow of information is less harmful than the controlled release of information ... It's what makes us free. There should be no censorship of any kind."

If we are to indulge in and be inundated by lasciviousness and mayhem, then at least - as another composer, John Lennon, sang - "Gimme some truth."

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Photo:

Actors playing the crew and passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 charge its hijackers in ``United 93.'' The 9-11-theme movie will be released in theaters Friday.

Jonathan Olley/Universal Studios