B*d language on US TV

giftgrub

I've noticed on some US shows that they'll bleep out or blank out some swear words

I'm talking about the F's and the C's and even sh** in some cases

However they seem to have no problem leaving in graphic violence

One show i saw last night blanked out sh**, but 30 seconds later a guy got beaten to death by a fella off his chops on crystal meth

Anyone else notice this?

karlog

I dont know really, i think its something to do with certain studies, which have shown that violent offenders are generally not influenced by their exposure to violent TV/games, etc. Whereas exposure to bad language on tv, would make the individual more prone to saying those words.

Or some sh*t along those lines;)

humanji

I think it's something to do with all the idiot parent groups complaining and a compromise being made that allowed things that were necessary to plot. Bad language isn't considered necessary, so can be bleeped out, but violence (as long as it isn't excessive) is allowed. That's the way I see it. I'm sure someone has a better explanation.

AlmightyCushion

I remember ass being blocked out on a tv show I was watching once. That is just stupid.

tvnutz

You can't curse on network tv in America,i.e on CBS,NBC,ABC,FOX the CW etc. You can't show nudity,even a nipple causes the biggest uproar. But yes you can show extreme violence,its quite typical on american tv and kind of sums them up. Like how you need to be 21 to drink in the US but can buy a gun at 18. Stupid really.

Cable tv networks can show a lot more,pay per view ones like HBO and Showtime can show anything they want because people are paying for the channel so it is their choice to watch whats on the channel,they know what will be in the programmes.

Green Giant

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I remember ass being blocked out on a tv show I was watching once. That is just stupid.

Yeah anytime I've watched That 70's Show on Comedy Central that harmless word was omitted. It wrecked my head listening to a character talk and their lips moving with no sound.
Case studies:
"You're a dumb___. You call this a report card?"
"Donna's showing her ___! Donna's showing her ___!"
"You kick serious musical ___"

Honestly, anyone over the age of 10 has heard every swear word in the English language (quite often from themselves). Just another example of excessive political correctness in this mad world of ours.

ixoy

It's insane - as pointed out they can show horrific murders and autopsies (CSI, Bones, etc) and violent psychos, but somehow that's more acceptable than a few swears or indeed perceived blasphemy.

South Park sent this up brilliantly a couple of years ago when the whole town went into a frenzy hearing they were going to say "sh*t" on TV as this was never done (it was a response to "NYPD Blue" doing it I believe). Of course in the episode the characters used the word (unbleeped) more times than any other TV show ever on a per-minute basis because the characters used it all the time in their real lives

AlmightyCushion

ixoy wrote: »

It's insane - as pointed out they can show horrific murders and autopsies (CSI, Bones, etc) and violent psychos, but somehow that's more acceptable than a few swears or indeed perceived blasphemy.

South Park sent this up brilliantly a couple of years ago when the whole town went into a frenzy hearing they were going to say "sh*t" on TV as this was never done (it was a response to "NYPD Blue" doing it I believe). Of course in the episode the characters used the word (unbleeped) more times than any other TV show ever on a per-minute basis because the characters used it all the time in their real lives

I loved that episode.

Guy from cop drama: "You got some shít on the side of your mouth."
Everyone in south park: "Wow, that was awesome".

Slightly off-topic, but I was listening to US radio recently and the station I was listening to (SAM 103.9, London, Kentucky) played Feel Good Inc by the Gorillaz. One of the lyrics is: "Laughing gas these hazmats, fast cats, Lining them up like ass cracks" - they blocked "ass cracks."

Still, I think 2FM blocking "gun" in Unfaithful by Rihanna took the biscuit more than anything else.

AlmightyCushion

I'm watching south park on comedy central and they bleeped out cartman calling kyle a "fúcking jew" including the jew bit.

GrahamThomas

My favourite example of ridiculous censorship on American TV:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4t6zNZ-b0A

pickarooney

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I remember ass being blocked out on a tv show I was watching once. That is just stupid.

On Southland they regularly beep the second half of 'asshole', which is extremely weird.

AlmightyCushion

GrahamThomas wrote: »

My favourite example of ridiculous censorship on American TV:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4t6zNZ-b0A

Did he say monkeyfighting instead of motherfúcking?

Our man in Havana

He says "monkey fighting snakes on this Monday to Friday plane".

Our man in Havana

tvnutz wrote: »

You can't curse on network tv in America,i.e on CBS,NBC,ABC,FOX the CW etc. You can't show nudity,even a nipple causes the biggest uproar. But yes you can show extreme violence,its quite typical on american tv and kind of sums them up. Like how you need to be 21 to drink in the US but can buy a gun at 18. Stupid really.

Cable tv networks can show a lot more,pay per view ones like HBO and Showtime can show anything they want because people are paying for the channel so it is their choice to watch whats on the channel,they know what will be in the programmes.

Indeed. If you have the bucks for HBO and Showtime you can have 24/7 swearing and sex.

The movies are no better than network tv. They allow extreme violence (eg SAW etc) thru at the R rating which allows kids to see a film with an adult. But have a hint of nudity or excessive bad language the MPAA slap the commercially suicidal NC17 rating on the film which means that no movie distributor or cinema will carry the film.

As a result you find very little sex and loads of violence in US films. The opposite is true here where sex/nudity is treated more liberally and violence is frowned upon.

jor el

pickarooney wrote: »

On Southland they regularly beep the second half of 'asshole', which is extremely weird.

I was just thinking that myself. It ends up as ass<beep>, which is just bizarre. It makes no sense at all.

Jim

That kind of censorship is on British / Irish TV as well. I remember Die Hard getting censored alot. "Yippekayay kimusabi".

citizen_p

GrahamThomas wrote: »

My favourite example of ridiculous censorship on American TV:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4t6zNZ-b0A

lol

wtf do they actully substditute "nice" words?

Mossy Monk

Jim wrote: »

That kind of censorship is on British / Irish TV as well. I remember Die Hard getting censored alot. "Yippekayay kimusabi".

That is more British tv than Irish tv. We seem to be more liberal than our friends in the UK. I remember seeing Beverly Hills Cop go out in its unedited glory at tea time on a Saturday on RTÉ. UK television is going to the dogs though. Watch Comedy Central or E4 and words like ass are censored.

Simi

Mossy Monk wrote: »

That is more British tv than Irish tv. We seem to be more liberal than our friends in the UK. I remember seeing Beverly Hills Cop go out in its unedited glory at tea time on a Saturday on RTÉ. UK television is going to the dogs though. Watch Comedy Central or E4 and words like ass are censored.

TBH I find it varies wildly, with regard to irish/uk broadcasters. I've heard unedited versions of songs go out on the radio in the day time & censored versions played at midnight. Same with TV.

E4 are particularly ridiculous. I've seen at least a half dozen different cuts of the scrubs episode where turk has a sex dream about elliot. In one version the dream was cut completely leading to the entire episode making absolutely no sense whatsoever. The next time they showed that scene uncensored but cut short one of Dr. Cox's rants because he said bastards or something. Another time they cut the start of the sex scene but not the end of it so the episode made sense but the cut didn't as the potentially objectionable part of the scene was the latter part. Madness!!

Oh and one time they cut 17mins out of an episode of third watch. 17mins!!! out of a 44min show! :eek:

J-blk

ixoy wrote: »

South Park sent this up brilliantly a couple of years ago when the whole town went into a frenzy hearing they were going to say "sh*t" on TV as this was never done (it was a response to "NYPD Blue" doing it I believe). Of course in the episode the characters used the word (unbleeped) more times than any other TV show ever on a per-minute basis because the characters used it all the time in their real lives

On a similar note, the Family Guy episode where the FCC goes mental and starts censoring Peter in real life is very funny too. My favorite line is when the Dick van Dyke show is censored to the *bleep* van *bleep* show :

But seriously, Comedy Central is the worst over here - it really wrecks my head that they silence things instead, so you have crap like: "I'm going to kick your ___, you dumb _____!"...:mad:

Elmo

Network TV (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW) in the states is very strict with bad language. ER and NYPD Blue and even Friends broke the mould in the early 1990s with the use of such words like Bitch and Crap and Ass, and there were nude scenes in ER and NYPD Blue in the early years. The new show are all now going back to the days before either show and it isn't just because of the bad language or the lack of nudity.


The UK are also quite strick ever notice Red in That 70s Show being block when he says Ass.

Even here on boards we can't say **** without a **** load of star appearing

RTÉ and TG4 don't seem to have a policy, I don't think TV3 have one but I have notice on some shows that they have blocked Bitch, and also Coca Cola is blocked out in American Idol but that is more a UK thing since the get that feed from ITV AFAIK.

That kind of censorship is on British / Irish TV as well. I remember Die Hard getting censored alot. "Yippekayay kimusabi".

In the mid 1990s RTE scheduled and showed Die Hard at 7pm in full without warning, Liveline was busy the next day. RTE never cut movies in since the 80s, they prob showed censored film prior to that but that wasn't RTE and more likely to be the censors office cuts.

It's insane - as pointed out they can show horrific murders and autopsies (CSI, Bones, etc) and violent psychos, but somehow that's more acceptable than a few swears or indeed perceived blasphemy.

In Ireland the BCI ran a study that suggested that the top most offencive thing in Ireland was racist remarks, followed by Violence, both sex and bad language were at the bottom of the list.

HBO and Showtime both are more relaxed but that isn't to say the best drama comes from bad language and sex, sometimes its the way writers, directors and producers get around the bans on such issues that makes them brilliant.

cruizer101

The funniest is when they actually blur the mouth of the person speaking when they curse. Does they think we are going to lip read and shout it out, we know what they are saying anyway.

They also seem to blur out people giving the finger.

Duckjob

I remember the heavily edited version of RoboCop that used to get played early evening on UTV a couple of years back:

You're gonna be a bad mother-crusher

Listen Pal, your client's a crumbbag, you're a crumbbag, and crumbbags see the judge first thing on monday morning

Once, I even called him "AirHead"

RoboCop: "Come quietly or there will be.... trouble"
Gang Member: Ahhhh, Forget you!"

etc.

Funnily enough, RTE always seemed to show the original version.

Jip

J-blk wrote:

But seriously, Comedy Central is the worst over here - it really wrecks my head that they silence things instead, so you have crap like: "I'm going to kick your ___, you dumb _____!"...:mad:

I assumed that this was the case because they show episodes early in the morning or afternoon, so rather than keeping two cuts of something they just have the censored one which they can then show at all times.

J-blk

Jip wrote: »

I assumed that this was the case because they show episodes early in the morning or afternoon, so rather than keeping two cuts of something they just have the censored one which they can then show at all times.

Yes, that's probably why they do it but my point is that it is ______ annoying! I actually prefer the bleep over these random silences in sentences...

Rovi

cruizer101 wrote: »

The funniest is when they actually blur the mouth of the person speaking when they curse. Does they think we are going to lip read and shout it out, we know what they are saying anyway.

They also seem to blur out people giving the finger.

Jimmy Hill (I think) was on the Late Late decades ago, and Gaybo was asking him about his time on Match Of The Day. Jimmy said that they often used to get letters from deaf people, complaining about the language the footballers used during the matches.

Our man in Havana

The same reason the tabloids have an army of lip readers on retainer to lip read the BB contestants when C4 mutes the audio.

iguana

Simi wrote: »

E4 are particularly ridiculous. I've seen at least a half dozen different cuts of the scrubs episode where turk has a sex dream about elliot. In one version the dream was cut completely leading to the entire episode making absolutely no sense whatsoever. The next time they showed that scene uncensored but cut short one of Dr. Cox's rants because he said bastards or something. Another time they cut the start of the sex scene but not the end of it so the episode made sense but the cut didn't as the potentially objectionable part of the scene was the latter part. Madness!!

Oh and one time they cut 17mins out of an episode of third watch. 17mins!!! out of a 44min show! :eek:

Yeah they are showing Veronica Mars at the moment in the mornings and from what I can tell some kids were mean to Veronica at Shelley Pomeroy's party.

amacachi

Bad language is one thing, anyone seen Gay Bar by Electric 6 on TV over the last few years? Some channels have the lyrics as "Let's start a *whip*, start a *whip**whip*", replacing "war" and "nuclear war". Just found it on youtube actually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTN6Du3MCgI

about 35 seconds in. Some channels also blur some of the implements seen later in the video.

chamlis

Yeah regular channels here will censor the strangest words, and I'm sure it's because most shows are repeated at least once a day, like someone said it doesn't make sense to have a morning and an evening edit of a show. There doesn't seem to be any watershed as such as a result.

They'll censor ass but not bitch, then censor the hole part of asshole but not ass.
Never even any boobies either.

Wertz

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I'm watching south park on comedy central and they bleeped out cartman calling kyle a "fúcking jew" including the jew bit.

Yup was just looking through the thread and about to post that...but IIRC they bleeped out "f*cking" and then just blanked "jew"; no bleep, just a mute.
So they bleep swearwords where anyone, child or adult can usually make out the swearing and the context...but if it's something like n*gger or jew they try to remove the context competely.
This was post watershed too, BTW...

Mossy Monk

Who needs Comedy Central for South Park when www.southparkstudios.com exists.

MOH

Most bizarre one I saw was sometime in the year after princess diana died, there's an epsiode of the Simpson's where Mr Burns is playing in Maggie's sandpit, a photographer pops his head over the fence and takes a picture, Burns shakes his fist and shouts 'Damn paparazzi' - Sky blanked the word paparazzi!

Oh. Jimmy Kimmel does the fantastic unnecessary censorship on his show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc6w4SzIUN0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltGmjMBrLjs

The Black Oil

Their aversion to it seems silly, bizarre and over the top.