First Contact Censorship?

[R. Star]

I was watching First Contact on SyFy today, well had it running in the background anyways. I get they're going to censor a bit of the cursing, blow up the damn ship, to hell with the Phoenix, things like that.

Well what did surprise me is they bleeped out Cocharane's "Sweet Jesus!" when the Enterprise started following the Phoenix.

I mean... come on. Is our society becoming so "politically correct" that we can't even -mention- something mildly religious in public now? Really that's just sad.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I just finished their broadcast of TVH and they left in all of Spock's "hells" in his conversation with Gillian about the whales. Of course bleeping those would ruin the joke. FC just started to I'll listen for the edits.

 

[Kevin W.]

It's not surprising. Professor Farnsworth's "Sweet Zombie Jesus!" gets edited out as well.

 

[Christopher]

Well what did surprise me is they bleeped out Cocharane's "Sweet Jesus!" when the Enterprise started following the Phoenix.

I mean... come on. Is our society becoming so "politically correct" that we can't even -mention- something mildly religious in public now? Really that's just sad.

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. After all, that would be using the Lord's name in vain, which violates the Third Commandment. It's also using the name disrespectfully, as a swear word, which is hardly properly religious.

And it's hardly a new trend. From a 1927 set of movie censorship guidelines:

Resolved, That those things which are included in the following list shall not appear in pictures produced by the members of this Association, irrespective of the mann[er] in which they are treated.

1. Pointed profanity-by either title or lip-this includes the words "God," "Lord," "Jesus," Christ" (unless they be used reverently in connection with proper religious ceremonies), "hell," "damn," "Gawd," and every other profane and vulgar expression however it may be spelled;

Ditto the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930: "The name of Jesus Christ should never be used except in reverence."

 

[Dale Sams]

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.

 

[boobatuba]

Pointing out restrictions in using the name "Jesus" in film-making guides from over 80 years ago is really stretching the point.

The movie is made. The references are there. What we are talking about here is SyFy's reason for editing them selectively. This is nothing new for the company that now owns SyFy. Google "SyFy censorship" for a plethora of examples. You should see what they've done to the lesbian relationship in "Lost Girl."

 

[BriGuy]

I find it incredibly funny that the reference in the movie was removed to prevent offending, and in doing so someone took offense.

Wow.

 

[Dale Sams]

I think it's funny that my first exposure to Monty Python was on....PBS.

 

[BillJ]

It's still there on both the Blu-ray and DVD versions of the film. I don't waste time with SyFy.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

This is why it would be a good idea to have a constitutional article guaranteeing free speech.

 

[Deckerd]

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.

Not anywhere else except the USA.

 

[Pingfah]

Pointing out restrictions in using the name "Jesus" in film-making guides from over 80 years ago is really stretching the point.

The movie is made. The references are there. What we are talking about here is SyFy's reason for editing them selectively. This is nothing new for the company that now owns SyFy. Google "SyFy censorship" for a plethora of examples. You should see what they've done to the lesbian relationship in "Lost Girl."

Christopher is right to correct the OP though, SyFy's reasoning in this case is nothing to do with avoiding the mention of religion, but rather avoiding offending the sensibilities of the sort of Christian who might get upset by blasphemy. I'm sure they didn't have those particular guidelines in mind when they did it, but in this case they did it for the same reason the guidelines were written.

This is why it would be a good idea to have a constitutional article guaranteeing free speech.

Not sure what point you are trying to make? I am sure you are aware that the USA has a constitution that makes such a provision, but it cannot force a private TV company to broadcast material they don't want to, and nor should it.

 

[Relayer1]

Resolved, That those things which are included in the following list shall not appear in pictures produced by the members of this Association, irrespective of the mann[er] in which they are treated.

1. Pointed profanity-by either title or lip-this includes the words "God," "Lord," "Jesus," Christ" (unless they be used reverently in connection with proper religious ceremonies), "hell," "damn," "Gawd," and every other profane and vulgar expression however it may be spelled;

But what if the 'offending' phrase isn't actually being incorrectly used ? Maybe the character is genuinely imploring the deity of their choice to damn someone ?

 

[iguana_tonante]

Well what did surprise me is they bleeped out Cocharane's "Sweet Jesus!" when the Enterprise started following the Phoenix.

I mean... come on. Is our society becoming so "politically correct" that we can't even -mention- something mildly religious in public now? Really that's just sad.

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. After all, that would be using the Lord's name in vain, which violates the Third Commandment. It's also using the name disrespectfully, as a swear word, which is hardly properly religious.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to mention.

But good on R.Star for blaming it on "political correctness", which of course is just a buzzword that means "those godless liberals". Swing and a miss, buddy.

 

[Balrog]

That's nothing. The Family Channel took out the word "terrorists" during the scene Marty writes Doc a letter in Back to the Future.

 

[Christopher]

Resolved, That those things which are included in the following list shall not appear in pictures produced by the members of this Association, irrespective of the mann[er] in which they are treated.

1. Pointed profanity-by either title or lip-this includes the words "God," "Lord," "Jesus," Christ" (unless they be used reverently in connection with proper religious ceremonies), "hell," "damn," "Gawd," and every other profane and vulgar expression however it may be spelled;

But what if the 'offending' phrase isn't actually being incorrectly used ? Maybe the character is genuinely imploring the deity of their choice to damn someone ?

It would depend on the context, I suppose. If it were a priest delivering a sermon about how God would damn sinners, then it might be allowed.

This is similar to how the original Star Trek handled "hell" and "damn." They were able to use "Hell" as a reference to the underworld on several occasions: "I'll chase you to the very fires of Hell!" in "The Alternative Factor," "It is better to rule in Hell than serve in heaven" in "Space Seed," and "They say there's no devil, but there is. Right out of Hell, I saw it!" in "The Doomsday Machine." They were even able to use "Hell for leather, right out of history" in "Spectre of the Gun," because it was a descriptive phrase, not an expletive. But they had to fight the network censors to be allowed to have Kirk say "Let's get the hell out of here" at the end of "City on the Edge of Forever." (Chakoteya's transcript of "A Piece of the Action" claims that Krako says "How the hell'd I get here" after being beamed aboard the Enterprise, but it sounds to me like "Ho-how di--how'd I get here?") By the same token, they were able to use "damn" literally as a verb -- "The evidence... was damning" in "Court-martial" and "I can't damn him for his loyalty" in "Journey to Babel" -- but never as an expletive or curse. Context is key.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I was watching an episode of The Untouchables last night from 1959. At the end of the episode, Nehemiah Persoff is on the floor yelling at Robert Stack (Eliot Ness), "You have no damn heart! You have no damn heart!" All I could think was "wow, how did that stay in there?" I guess if the high body count of the series was okay at the time, then so was this…

 

[Greg Cox]

Heck, even Disney could get away with "hell" if it was used literally. The theme song for "The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh," which originally aired on Disney's prime-time anthology series back in 1963, featured a lyric about how the Scarecrow "rides from the gates of Hell!"

And that was considered a "family" show.

 

[JarodRussell]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c9xjodL1Gk[/yt]

 

[Squiggy]

I was watching First Contact on SyFy today, well had it running in the background anyways. I get they're going to censor a bit of the cursing, blow up the damn ship, to hell with the Phoenix, things like that.

Well what did surprise me is they bleeped out Cocharane's "Sweet Jesus!" when the Enterprise started following the Phoenix.

I mean... come on. Is our society becoming so "politically correct" that we can't even -mention- something mildly religious in public now? Really that's just sad.

It was most likely edited for TV when it came out 17 years ago and hasn't been updated sense.