Politics & Power Quote by Drew Carey

Carey’s line lands with the casual pragmatism of a working TV guy who’s watched “standards and practices” battles up close: he’s not trying to torch the idea of ratings, he’s trying to keep them from becoming a moral bureaucracy. The opening concession - “not against ratings per se” - is strategic softening. It disarms the predictable accusation that he’s pro-trash or anti-parent, then pivots to a popular American faith: more information, fewer gatekeepers. It’s consumer logic smuggled into a culture-war arena.

The subtext is a defense of voluntary, industry-facing tools (labels, advisories, platform filters) over state-backed definitions of “appropriate.” Carey’s “step in” phrasing is doing a lot of work: it evokes meddling, paperwork, and the slow creep from guidance into enforcement. He doesn’t even dignify the idea of “guidelines” as neutral; he frames them as government telling creative work how to categorize itself, which is a short hop from telling it what to be.

Context matters here: late-90s/early-2000s television was a pressure cooker of outrage cycles, FCC anxiety, and post-Oprah-style campaigning against “indecency,” while cable and emerging digital distribution made old broadcast rules feel both overbearing and obsolete. Carey, a mainstream entertainer, isn’t arguing for transgression; he’s arguing for agility. Ratings should inform audiences, not domesticate art. His intent is to keep responsibility with viewers and parents, not to outsource taste to Washington.