Darren Aronofsky’s Middle Finger A ‘Digit Of Interest’ In FCC’s Golden Globes Indecency Inquest

A three-hour delay meant some of those colourful, Prosecco-fuelled Golden Globes moments of celebrity spontaneity—such as Darren Aronofsky lovingly serving Mickey Rourke some Pi during Rourke’s acceptance speech—were blacked out for US audiences completely.

Much of the country did manage to witness the offending digit-extension (above), however. That in turn elicited 18 separate complaints to the FCC from outraged Americans—citizens not all that different from you or us, save for their distaste for Aronosfky’s obscene (but artistically assured) hand gesture. From the LAT:

“We received 18 complaints about the Golden Globes telecast,” FCC spokeswoman Edie Herman wrote in an e-mail to The Times, “and the commission is reviewing the matter.”

An NBC spokeswoman confirmed that it aired the Aronofsky gesture on the live telecast. “On the West Coast, it went to black for two seconds,” the spokeswoman e-mailed. “Beyond that, we have no further comment.”

We’re in a very different climate from the post-NippleGate days, when the FCC could strike terror in the hearts of network-heads by affixing ludicrous penalty sums to exposed parts (somewhere in the vicinity of $250k per mammilla) of Janet Jackson’s anatomy. Of course, that would be overturned four years later, and it’s going to take something a lot worse than a middle finger to shock more than 18 Americans these days—especially when the airwaves have run amok with vulgarities like Rosie Live!.

• Breaking: FCC reviewing NBC’s Golden Globes telecast [LAT]