First Contact Censorship?

[Lance]

It is interesting that things which were once considered perfectly fine for television -- I assume most if not all of this very mild cursing made it through fine on original tv broadcasts? -- is now very 'touch and go'. Does that say something about today's society? Is there maybe a more puritan streak in modern popular culture than there was ten, twenty, thirty years ago? It seems ironic to me, because some of the stuff I see in things like modern music videos would have been completely unbroadcastable back in the day.

[Maurice]

Dale Sams wrote:

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It was only a couple of years ago that I noticed "faggot" was bleeped out of 'Money for Nothing'...even though Dire Straits are being completly ironic.

Replace that f word with the n word and see how "ironic" it is. To a lot of people that f word is just as offensive. It was a poor choice on Dire Straits part to use it in the first place.

[trevanian]

Maurice wrote:

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Replace that f word with the n word and see how "ironic" it is. To a lot of people that f word is just as offensive. It was a poor choice on Dire Straits part to use it in the first place.

I'm terrible at hearing/comprehending lyrics, but I always assumed that f word was them using it as the british slang for cigarette, not a slur at homosexuals.

Of course, I'm also the guy who for decades thought Billy Idol was singing 'howzabout a date?' when it was 'eyes without a face.'

EYES WITHOUT A FACE! That sounds like a heavy metal song, but the Idol piece is almost ballad like.

[Nerys Myk]

trevanian wrote:

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I'm terrible at hearing/comprehending lyrics, but I always assumed that f word was them using it as the british slang for cigarette, not a slur at homosexuals.

Of course, I'm also the guy who for decades thought Billy Idol was singing 'howzabout a date?' when it was 'eyes without a face.'

EYES WITHOUT A FACE! That sounds like a heavy metal song, but the Idol piece is almost ballad like.

The context says otherwise. The character in the song is whining about how easy the life a musician must be compared to a real job.

I remember first hearing the song "Lips Like Sugar" by Echo and the Bunnymen thinking they were singing "lips like chickens".

[Christopher]

Lance wrote:

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It is interesting that things which were once considered perfectly fine for television -- I assume most if not all of this very mild cursing made it through fine on original tv broadcasts? -- is now very 'touch and go'. Does that say something about today's society? Is there maybe a more puritan streak in modern popular culture than there was ten, twenty, thirty years ago?

Huh? What are you talking about? It's the other way around. I was just mentioning above how in the '60s you couldn't even use "damn" as a profanity on TV. Today you hear tons of curse words that would never have been allowed on commercial TV in the '60s or '70s. I've just recently been watching reruns of The Rockford Files, and they always have characters break off after saying "son of a--." You couldn't say "bitch" on TV back then. But last night on Castle, I heard it used four times in about ten seconds. Heck, on basic cable channels like USA and Syfy, shows aired at 10 PM are even free to use the S-word (last night I heard it a couple of times on Lost Girl, though it was bleeped on Continuum two hours earlier), which wouldn't have been the case just a few years ago -- heck, even two years ago. The most recent season of Covert Affairs on USA had characters using the S-word several times per episode, but I don't recall them ever using it at all in the first two seasons.

So TV has gotten progressively less puritan about curse words over the decades. I think that the influence of pay cable, where there are no restrictions on profanity or other content, is further eroding the censorship limits on free cable and broadcast TV, as shows there have to get more adult and edgy to compete. Also there's just the shift in societal attitudes -- words that are taboo or shocking to one generation eventually lose their shock value and become commonplace and harmless to a later generation.

Most of what's been discussed in this thread has been the bleeping of language in feature films shown on TV or in popular songs on certain broadcast stations. Those cases where a word originally used in the clear on a TV show was bleeped in a rerun -- like Futurama's "Sweet Zombie Jesus" or the S-word in Continuum -- have been the result of a show made for one market (certain network, certain time slot, certain country) being aired in a different one that had stricter standards. But as with my Continuum/Lost Girl example above, the same network can have different censorship guidelines at different times of day.

[Peach Wookiee]

SyFy seems to censor very unnecessarily. In fact, there was an anime that aired on that channel that cut out a rather humorous scene that wasn't cut on AZN TV. I don't know if it was because it dealt with SyFy's fear of showing a minor (16 years old) getting schnookered, but it does seem rather unnecessary.

The same goes for the censoring mentioned by the OP.

[Garrovick]

TV these days is downright hedonistic compared to what it was a few decades ago. Most of the stuff on the air these days wouldn't stand a Tribble's chance on Qo'Nos of making it to the air 30 years ago.

[Dale Sams]

Maurice wrote:

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Replace that f word with the n word and see how "ironic" it is. To a lot of people that f word is just as offensive. It was a poor choice on Dire Straits part to use it in the first place.

The character in the song is a real person overheard by the song writer one day....are song writers not allowed take on the character of an ignoramus now?

[JarodRussell]

I had a conversation with some German friends, and they hate to be called the "N word", too, as it is incredibly offensive. Should it be censored because of that?

[Robert Maxwell]

JarodRussell wrote:

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I had a conversation with some German friends, and they hate to be called the "N word", too, as it is incredibly offensive. Should it be censored because of that?

Could we all maybe talk about the same kind of censorship here?

It's not a government censoring any of this stuff, but private companies. So, what they censor is entirely up to them.

[Pingfah]

Maurice wrote:

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Replace that f word with the n word and see how "ironic" it is. To a lot of people that f word is just as offensive. It was a poor choice on Dire Straits part to use it in the first place.

It would still be ironic (for want of a better descriptor, satirical would probably be better), its status as irony is not dependent upon other people understanding it as such. It was a poor choice only insomuch as plenty of people mistake it for bigotry on the part of Knopfler, when it is quite the opposite. But that sort of blowback is something artists have to deal with all the time, unfortunately the world is full of stupid people who care more about the words themselves than why and how they are used, and prefer to react hysterically rather than stop and consider what they are reacting to. As an artist, Knopfler is more than entitled not to give a shit about those people.

Roger Taylor of Queen had a similar problem with media outlets refusing to play or stock his anti-fascist song "Nazis", because he called it, wait for it, "Nazis". The horror.

[NewHorizon]

Christopher wrote:

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Actually you've got it backward. Bleeping out oaths like that and "G*ddamn" is done to protect the sensibilities of Christians who would find them blasphemous.

Sensibilities of extremely over sensitive Christians it seems. I'm Christian but I am not 'offended' by such things being laced throughout entertainment.

[gastrof]

If this was running SyFy U.S. I don't understand it.

The show ran originally on U.S. TV and I recall no censoring.

[Shawnster]

gastrof wrote:

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If this was running SyFy U.S. I don't understand it.

The show ran originally on U.S. TV and I recall no censoring.

He's referring to the movie "First Contact," not an episode from a TV series.

[Carcazoid]

Broadcast media got a little jumpy after the Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction" incident several years ago. The FCC threatened to fine not only the network, but every affiliate that aired that halftime show. Cooler heads prevailed but that's when network censors tightened things up, including song lyrics.