This article originally appeared onDen of Geek UK.
Remember the episode ofFriendsin which Rachel and Monica fight over the apartments last condom?
A similar stringent attitude applies to alcohol and drug references.
Also on Fox in the 90s wasMelrose Place, a glossy soap from the Aaron Spelling stable.
Representations of sex, booze and anything that could be considered politically contentious was rigorously overseen.
Although, notthatrigorously overseen, it turns out.
The committee was granted early access to scripts and thus was able to create story-specific props.
They suggest it was designed as a blueprint on how artists collaborate with commercial production from the inside.
Think of it like product placement, they say.
What kind of messages?
Then theres the hand-stitched quilt on the lap of Courtney Thorne-Smiths character, then suffering through a life-threatening pregnancy.
Known as the RU486 Quilt, its folksy pattern in fact shows the chemical structure for the Morning-After Pill.
Reillys innocuous-looking landscapes in fact depicted the sites of LA tragedies.
And the reading matter chosen by the owner of a sleazy motel?
What else but classic French post-structuralist text, Jean-Francois LyotardsLibidinal Economy?
If networks were to relax rules surrounding certain conversations on TV, there wouldnt be any need.
With thanks to Cher Krause Knights Public Art: Theory, Practise and Populism.
