Which words can people say and not say on TV? People had noticed that DAMN was censored on Noggin but that YOU SUCK was not. Just some observations:
1) When THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW (an excellent satire of TV late night shows, and what goes on behind them) was on HBO they used curse words quite alot. Now that its on BRAVO in reruns
they DO censor the f-word but they DO NOT censer the sh-word
ITs really striking in a sentence that uses both.
2) Dave Barry pointed out that the ONLY place where Toilet Paper is called `bathroom tissue' is on TV adds. There is NO conservative or PC group that would object to it being called `Toilet paper' So this is NOT a pressure group thing OR a spinless network exec.
bill gasarch
P.S. I used the word `f-word' and `sh-word' in case this group one day gets censored. On the other hand, in the future, perhaps ``f-word'' itself will be a curse word since everyone knows what it means anyway.
On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 17:06:43 +0000 (UTC), [email] (William Gasarch) wrote:
'Damn' was aired in several episodes on Noggin the past few weeks. They're inconsistent -- sometimes they cut it out, sometimes they don't.
As for your main question, usually on network TV and 'mainstream' cable networks (like USA, TNN, and Sci-Fi, not including the cable movie channels like HBO and Cinemax), they tend to avoid words like 'damn', 'hell', 'ass', and 'crap', but don't usually censor them if they're an integral part of the show. It's okay to use 'medical' terms for parts of the human body (penis, testicles, vagina, breasts, et cetera), but usually they censor slang terms like 'dick', 'nuts', 'pussy', and 'tits'. Almost always the words 'fuck', 'shit', and other 'hardcore' curses (cunt, motherfucker, cocksucker, etc, as well as particularly inflammatory racial slurs) are censored, and if any of them are allowed in one particular show that show will have a 'Viewer discretion advised' disclaimer (with shows like 'NYPD Blue', where they show occasional partial nudity and tend to use more strong language than most network shows).
On channels and programmes aimed specifically at children, usually even mild curses are censored. On premium cable channels like HBO, Showtime, Encore, and such, there is usually no censorship of any kind.
Oddly enough, 'bitch' alone seems to be treated as almost a hardcore curse, but 'son of a bitch' is usually treated as a mild oath along the lines of 'damn' or 'hell' and thus allowed uncensored.
I hope very much that an unmoderated group is never 'censored'. In fact, there is almost never an instance of censorship of any kind that didn't grate on my nerves and piss me the fuck off. If anyone ever told me 'what you're about to say is going to be censored', I'd probably say nothing but one profanity after another for the next 20 minutes just to make it impossible.
That would assume that attitudes about 'bad words' are based on reason instead of fear and hypocrisy. Everyone already knows exactly what's being referenced when someone says 'darn', 'son of a gun', 'piece of shilverware', or whatever other kind of incredibly stupid-sounding bowdlerised term they come up with, but that's okay because it's not the meaning of the words that's considered 'bad', it's their pure empty phonological expression. In other words, they're not censoring what the words *mean*, just the totally incidental and meaningless patterns of sound our tongues and lips produce when we speak those words, and the arbitrary arrangement of letters that represents those sounds. If you can find a different pattern of sounds or letters to represent the concept that's not 'on the list', that's just fine. It's got nothing to do with swearing as a function of language, just with 'being proper and following the rules'.
It's nothing but prudish, reactionary, Victorian supermoralistic arrogance and bullshit. No civilised society would allow censorship of any kind except self-applied.
Could someone help me out? I think I'm stuck to my soapbox. Damn it.
About the Noggin censoring. It seems like they only remove "Damn" from Daria wherever it can be done easily. For example if Jake uses the word Damn 2 times in a sentence and removing it ruins the sentence, they seem to leave that alone. But Daria just saying "Damn" alone seems to be censored. It really makes no sense.
As for other channels. TECHNICALLY I believe, cable networks such as TNN, USA, TNT, etc, etc, are allowed to say some more harsh curse words, but most choose not to. Special pay channels like HBO and Pay Per View seem to have little to no restriction on curse words. Off air networks such as ABC and CBS, I think are about the same level of restriction as a cable network, but they tend to use curse words more, I believe because they show newer shows which have more curse words anyway. Generally, the censoring is not due to any kind of government censorship, but is done totally by the wishes of the network. Noggin targets younger kids, they'll do more cuts, even if we don't think those cuts make sense, they make sense to lawyer types and to certain groups and stuff. MTV targets older kids/young adults so when they played Daria they allowed more.
This is probably a little incorrect but should be fairly accurate.
[email] (William Gasarch) wrote in message news:...
I'm not too harsh about Noggin's cuts. But that's mostly because I'm ecstatic to see the episodes that I tend to overlook things.
The only things I've found most intrusive: - The lack of Jake's customary "Dammit" at the start of every sentence. - The bisexual artist in IIFY being completely cut out. Um. Degrassi has prominent gay stories and characters. Why can't a single Daria movie? - In Through a Lens Darkly, the pause where Daria shoul've said "I've got one [finger] for you". - After Tom kisses Daria, and he says I like it too, and Daria goes "That's not funny!". I saw the original episode when it first aired, but didn't remember the "Dammit dammit dammit" when I later saw it on Noggin. So it just didn't make sense without it.
The most offensive thing, I think, is the total cutting out of several episodes. My Night at Daria is especially tame, especially considering a recent Degrassi episode.
Is the series more offensive because where it came from (MTV), or just because it's animated?
Damn.
Erich
"William Gasarch" wrote in message news:b3qpb3$ppt$[email]...
In "Legends of the Mall" they cut the 1950's episode to pieces. They couldn't even say "G.D. idiot" or the line about no one mistaking the Boy Scouts for "reds"