Censoring on West coast apparently?

This has allready been mentioned before, that apparently the west coast feed was censored when the counselor says the word bullshit (which has me POed to the highest degree). I was just wondering if when they get to this episode on the home video series, if it is going to be bleeped or not? Is it comedy central on the west that censored this? or is it the local cable system (being COX down here)? I would be devastated if such a harmless word (well to me at least) like bullshit would be bleeped in the videos when in other places during its original airing it was not. Any thoughts on this?

Also the Midnight airing was not censored in Minneapolis. Cable companies suck!

Jedi wrote in message ...

feed

to

Must be your local cable company. I'm in the Pacific time zone, but it wasn't bleeped.

<<snip>>

I wonder if the cable companies received "warning calls" from people with satellite dishes?

In Arizona, it wasn't bleeped, it was blanked, like independent broadcast stations used to air PG movies in the 80's.

There's an ironic phenomenon showing up here with this whole "bleeping" controversy. People are getting offended because they _don't_ hear certain words on TV.

See, cable companies adhere to broadcast standards for language, not for legal reasons, but to please the sponsors. If the viewer is so grossly offended as he would theoretically be upon hearing one of these evil, evil words, the sponsors will abandon the show, fearing boycotts and the like.

So, when a station deems it useful to depict the expression of a thought using one of the forbidden words, whether on Jerry Springer or Cops or South Park, they employ a shallow, but apparently effective solution. They eliminate that single word. Sometimes not even the entire word, they leave the consonants at either end of the word, so the word is still obvious.

I'm surprised how well this works. Even when just the vowel is bleeped, the word becomes completely neutralized. We all know that Stan called Cartman a pigfucker in episode 105. And if we had heard it unaltered, unobstructed, there would be riots in the streets, I suppose. The sponsors would all have their headquarters burned to the ground by angry protesting mobs, and Congressional hearings would be held to decide whether the FCC should take control over cable content. But, thanks to that magic half-second tone, it's as if Stan had just made another fat joke at Cartman's expense. The meaning is still there; it's obvious that Stan accused Cartman of molesting Fluffy. The harshness is there, if indeed it ever was; he could have been harsher with a clean word, really. The connotation also remains; Cartman still took offense and Stan still meant to offend.

It is as if the danger came not from the meaning, nor the harshness, nor the connotation of the word "fuck", but of the mere sound. As if it were a magical incantation. An utterance which, when broadcast without going through a cable descrambler, would cause fire and flood and famine and plague. It causes despair and depression in some, rage and delirium in others, and those who let it pass are forever cursed, and sometimes fined. Yet, one bleep and all of its powers are drained.

But now, we have people posting in alt.tv.southpark who cry bloody murder whenever a word _IS_ bleeped. That half-second gap in the audio is, to them, an act of betrayal by whoever put it there. In their opinion, if they're staying up late enough to see the show, they are responsible enough to hear those words being spoken without ruining their vocabulary, as would happen if a six-year-old had heard it. And they don't appreciate being treated like six-year-olds, who generally aren't even awake when the show is being aired.

Their argument might have more merit than that of bleep advocates. Four-letter words are really meant to be shocking, and it's allright in America to shock the audience using any other means, except for frontal nudity. That being the case, an interruption in the audio, just to block out a syllable of the ever-important dialogue, is a blemish on the soundtrack, an aesthetic imperfection that, to South Park viewers, doesn't need to be there. It's no different than if the screen filled with static for a little while.

By now, most of us don't mind the bleep, and sometimes barely notice it. It's been around for so long, after all, and if you use your imagination it can sound like the vowel it replaced. It does get annoying when two people are talking over each other, and the bleep cancels both of them out. That usually only happens on daytime talk shows where some trashy people are arguing about who's more trashy, so you usually don't miss much. Normally, it's like the little pixellation that appears over naked people. You don't really need to see it, you know what you're supposed to see and in your mind, you see it just fine.

The gap, however, where nothing is heard at all, is more noticeable and feels cheaper. TV stations in the 80's who couldn't afford edited versions of movies often have to resort to this, as did tape-delayed broadcasts of live shows. It's also a bit jarring, since it sounds as if the audio just cuts out briefly.

The worst of them all, though, is the edit. Watch "The Jerk" or "Blazing Saddles" next time it's on TBS for an example of this. When someone in the real movie swears, they edit in a word from elsewhere in the movie, sometimes even if the acoustics or the tone doesn't fit the scene. It sticks out like a sore thumb, often interfering with the creative aspect of the show.

Do you remember when Forrest Gump was on ABC? Not much swearing in it, so most of the editing wouldn't be too obvious. But, the scene where the "Shit Happens" bumper sticker is explained? Well, now it explains the " it Happens" bumper sticker. Yes, they whited-out the first two letters of the bumper sticker, too. They should have just bleeped all the "shit"s out, and perhaps obscured the word on the bumper sticker with either pixellation, or by using CGI to make the sticker appear torn. To the adult viewer, that would have lost nothing, and to the child viewer, they would have learned nothing. If you're going to ruin that scene, get rid of it altogether; it doesn't make sense anymore and it has little to do with the plot, anyway. I don't even want to talk about movies like Pulp Fiction, when they get broadcast... and for some reason, they do.

Incidentally, you can't say the F-word on broadcast TV, but you CAN say the N-word until the cows come home. And even some white people find the N-word more discomforting than the F-word. Note how I even moved to letter-word notation to avoid even typing it. But that doesn't mean I'll boycott a show or product just because that word rears its ugly head at some point. Incidentally, in movies like The Jerk and Blazing Saddles, that word is now gapped out, too.

Sometimes, people would rather hear swearing than cheap, obvious editing. At a certain point, viewers become offended that the network, government, etc. feel the need to shelter them so. And it takes a worldwide forum such as alt.tv.southpark to make people realize that they're not alone in this attitude. Otherwise, I fear many would be convinced that the only people who felt the way they did were their friends, or people at school, or in their area.

Perhaps public discussions such as this will ignite some sort of change in American television. Perhaps someday we will catch up with the rest of the world, where nudity is permissible at certain hours of the day, and we're not afraid of words. For all I know, the motivation for change will come from the fact that the Europeans are all laughing at us and our puritan practices.

In article , [email] (Nick S Bensema) wrote:

Actually, I think the worst is "Smokey and the Bandit". I don't think there's a single scene with Jackie Gleason where he doesn't swear. But they apparently had someone else dub in replacement words for the TV version, and he has a noticeably different voice. It completely takes the edge off the character, and ruins the entire movie. Instead of laughing at the jokes, you laugh at how stupid the movie sounds.

Barry Margolin ([email]) wrote:

I think that was Mel Blanc of Bugs Bunny fame supplying the dubs for Jackie Gleason's character in that movie. And yes it did make a stupid movie even stupider. I guess there was nothing else on.

On a related note, my TV has a built in caption decoder, and on some shows where the swears are bleeped out of the audio, the swearwords are printed on the screen in clear text. Who's protecting the sensitive minds of the deaf viewers, I'd like to know.

In article , Barry Margolin ([email]) danced around the maypole saying something about...

ummmmmmm,

you are saying........

the movie isn't stupid anyway?! ;)

In article ,

WHen a movie is stupid, you don't make it stupider by dubbing over Jackie Gleason with Fred Flintstone.

If you're operating on the basis that the movie is stupid, perhaps your approach should be to edit it so the movie is more intelligent.

No, no. The worst editing/dubbing was in Planet of the Apes as shown on the Disney Channel. During the climatic ending scene we have Charlton Heston saying that classic line "They did it. They actually did it. Murders! You Blew it up! DARN!

Dave

darn? hehhehehehehe :) i always thought that hestons acting in that movie was a bit over done at the end

David Serchay wrote:

[email] (Nick S Bensema) writes:

Bleeping can sometimes be used with great comedic effect though. I think of that one ep of SP where Stan (?) gets really pissed off at the aliens and starts ranting. "You guys like to ****** ****** **** and ****** and ****** etc". Obviously you will never hear what was written beneath the bleep on TV and it was made that way intentionally. I found the long stream of bleeps to be quite hilarious.

Hmm, since I seem to have gotten in the habit of posting my unfunny but nonetheless delightfully left-of-center observations, I'll throw this one in:

In article , [email] (Nick S Bensema) wrote:

[BTW, Nick, have you kissed any large rocks in Ireland recently? Your recent output: *like buttah*]

This image of The Europeans laughing at us from afar has always bothered me; it's as if the thresholds of appropriateness themselves weren't subject to cultural distance. I'm not going to pretend like my own personal Nazi-like attitudes towards casual sex and whatnot don't influence my willingness to let the absence of nudity on US television slide, but I prefer to see the sensibilities of the Americans and the Continentals simply in terms of difference; it's not a matter of better or worse, just difference. And by no means am I saying I'm not just as much a television nudity enthusiast as the next guy; I just don't think it's a healthy basis- if ever there were- for an American Inferiority Complex, and I'm certainly not going to get all huffy and indignant if the public and/or the networks decide never again to air any sort of nudity- even the most fleeting nipplage- on network television at any time of the day. For me it's not really a matter of principle that way. And how come people are always on about the Puritans? It's like every other culture is deserving of continued vitality and our unconditional respect except for that of the Puritans. Oh, sure, it would be a travesty if we paved Bali over with McDonalds or if we wrenched the sitar from the clutches of every sitarist in India and replaced it instead with a Casio RapMaster or if we brashly tried to foist our Western model of language on the Nootkas and consequently uprooted all their ties to their own culture and thought, but for some reason it's OK to speak and wish only ill of the Puritans just because studies in universities like these have shown that people who don't get a sufficiently substantial amount nookie tend to drum their fingers on the desk annoyingly. I just don't think it's healthy that we're constantly evaluating ourselves against The Europeans and that we will never feel validated until we become as an extension of Europe... which of course won't ever happen because if cultural distance could be measured quantitatively, the space between us and them wouldn't be an inch narrower than the Atlantic Ocean. We're like the rebellious lastborn, leery of the elders, constantly flouting all advices, and always trying to demonstrate our worth on our own terms, even if it's somebody else's terms on our own terms. We're never going to be happy, so we should just accept the humiliation of our existance, try and think about what it means to be America, and move on from there. I mean, if we're going to be perceived as such an uprooting cultural force anyway, we may as well have some sense of our own identity.

Thank you for allowing me this rant.

I heard it was Harry Corden (the second Fred Flintsto voice) that supplied the Gleason (nice) dialogue for the Smokey & the Bandit movies.

Dude, on 22 May 1998 18:43:01 -0700, Nick S Bensema was all like:

...

I actually prefer the blank in most cases, especially when it's just the middle of the word, like "mother er". I find the beep to be harsh and distracting, and generally find that blanking out the middle syllable of a swear word adds humor at some sort of subconscious level over the beep, as well as just saying the whole word. I don't know why (I guess that's why it's subconscious), I just do. Maybe it's like seeing someone in lingerie as compared to seeing them naked. The lingerie tends to add something to it, even though you know damn well what's there.

The exception, though, is long strings of swear words like someone else mentions later in the thread where Stan goes off on the aliens. Blanking that out would ruin the whole thing. In cases like that, the bleep is much better, especially when there are fragments of non-swear words in the middle. My favorite scene in _Happy Gilmore_ (yes, I like it) is when they're in the PGA director's office and Happy's on TV swearing at the golf ball. All you hear is <bleep> <bleep> <bleep> with an occasional "son of a" and the like thrown in. Then at the end of a several second tirade of just <bleep>s, you hear Adam Sandler scream "PIECE OF MONKEY <bleep>". Juvenile, yes, but damn funny.

You know, I didn't even realize that's how they did it. Based on how poorly it usually comes off, I thought they got someone who could do a passable imitation of the actor to do a voice-over, or had the actor just read off some non swear words at the end of the shoot to edit in for TV.

...

I've noticed a lot less of that in the past couple of years, though. It was pretty commonplace for a while, but I tend to notice it when it slips through now, because it doesn't happen real often.

I bought a CD at Wal-Mart (don't ask) one time, not realizing that they sold edited versions. Being that it was a Wu-Tang Clan album, it was chopped all to hell and back, and there were three songs that were on the original version that weren't even on the copy I bought (although I didn't know that fact at the time). Songs like "Shame On A Nigga" became "Shame On A N'uh" (a what?), and "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nothin' To Fuck Wit'" became "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nothin' to F' Wit'". I was so pissed off that I went back and fought through about three levels of management before they'd give me my money back. What you said above was basically my argument--I was a grown adult, and didn't want Wal-Mart, the government, or anyone else telling me what I could or couldn't listen to.

I will say this, though, which ties in to the whole lingerie/nudity thing I mentioned above. "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nothin' To F' Wit'" is actually better than the uncensored version, because every time they say "fuck" in the original version, they replace it with "fuck" backwards in the edited version. It's really a pretty cool effect.

I wouldn't count on it, at least not any time soon. Politicians today are so caught up in legislating morality for everyone besides themselves it's depressing. Although I have heard that _Penthouse_ has started showing penetration now; maybe people are lightening up after all.

[email] (jason m. laughman) banged away at the keys in alt.religion.kibology on 28 May 1998 00:32:28 GMT and came up with:

Or like City-tv has done sometimes, blank it out as "m fucker." :)

You can here, on the news at least, if it's in context.

-Tim

In article , "Jedi" writes:

CC's west coast feed is an EXACT replica of the east coast feed. It is taped on BETA SP and played back 3 hours later. There is no extra editing/censoring, etc.

I get CC on satellite, and I wondered if the West Coast feed would be bleeped, but I didn't stay up to see (or even run a tape) if it was. I probably will run a tape on Saturday to see if they cut it then.

I wonder how much leeway cable companies have to censor stuff like that, and the reports of the audio going silent at that point definitely sound like something done at the cable end, which leads me to wonder - do the cable companies run stuff like this on a delay? Fortunately, I've been cable-free for over 7 years now, but still I wonder...

Yea, this is the impression that I'm getting now. It was my damn cable provider, HOW DARE THEY hehe.. oh well.

Alan Tignanelli wrote in message ...

The east coast feed was down for some reason (possibly this whole G4 satellite thing, the dish people aren't even sure) so I had to watch the west coast feed, and it was bleeped. This seems odd to me, since I always though the feeds were identical.

On Fri, 22 May 1998 00:17:23 GMT, "Jedi" wrote:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ "NO FIRE! ONLY a naughty little monkey." ~
~                                          ~
~  Chris Wuchte                            ~
~  [email]                 ~
~  ICQ: 7430370                            ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chris wrote in message ...

I watched the east coast feed (F3-21) It was fine and unbleeped. The west feed is on G1-1 it was also fine all the G4 feeds seem to be on T5 now.......check your dish. -Dave remove nospam to reply

Then it had to be the cable providers over here if CC did not do the censoring. Because the reason I brought this west coast thing up is because I have been reading lots of messages from people that DID hear the word un-censored and someone mentioned that the west coast was apparently bleeped, anywayz, don't much matter, I'll wait the ep comes out on video.

taped on

On Thu, 21 May 1998 22:58:51 GMT, "Jedi" wrote:

<snip>

If the previous video releases are any indication, the bleep will probably be included in the new videos (as they did with "Kyle's mom is a dirty Jew").

Well it's a dirty shame if you ask me :-(

If this was twenty years ago, and networks were still using 35mm prints to show thieir programs on, chances are they would've got the engineer to take a permanant marker to blot out the soundtrack were the "bullshit" line was. Perhaps even editing the entire scene altogther. You better be prou that it's not the past hah!

who fuckin cares anyway the bleep is funny the word is funny

Your not getting my point. I have nothing against bleeping when it is put there DURING production by M & T for comedic effect. Its funnier in my opinion. What I don't agree with is when it is done during broadcast by channel, network or cable system censors. THAT'S what pisses me off. "BullShit" was not meant to be bleeped when the ep was made.

One more thing, it wasn't even done tastefully or funny as when you time the "tone" bleep so you can kinda hear the word, it was a flat out muting of the whole transmition, music, background and all for that one second. Deffinetly not cool.

Jedi wrote in message ...

I think it was done by CC. I have DSS and at the 10/9 showing the show was normal. with the bull shit, the 12 showing, or 1 here, was DEFINITELY muted.. I don't think DSS did it, so it had to be someone before there doing it.. I would ASSUME it was Comedy Central doing it. Hell DSS shows porn, I don't think they'd draw a line on "bullshit".

Justin

In article , "Jedi" wrote:

Justin (YES, I finally made a sig file.. )

http://www.icok.net/~mcgillj

pages for Millennium, The X-Files, me and of course LOTS of, under production, pre-production movies.. Like Freddy vs Jason, X-Files: Blackwood, Lethal Weapon 4, Batman 5, Indiana Jones 4, et al.

I live in Virginia and I missed the 10:00 pm showing so taped the 1:00 am showing which is the west coast showing. He said Bull then there was no bleep just silence. It was cut out.

Jedi wrote:

On Fri, 22 May 1998 18:27:33 -0400, R Walker wrote:

It wasn't censored in Indiana, he said it straight out: "BULLSHIT"

Glad I taped it, the next time they show it it will probably be silenced. Grrrrrrr damn censorship!!!!!

Aislinn

I caught the last 2/3 of this episode when premiered (9 p.m. CST), and heard the full "bullshit" line. Since I wanted to tape it for a friend at work (who doesn't get Comedy Central), I caught it again when it repeated at midnight CST. On that airing, it was blanked out.

I have a DSS dish and subscribe to Comedy Central through DirecTV. Because DirecTV is a national carrier of TV programming, they would have no reason to censor a half-second of a TV show to conform to community standards (as some people here have accused their local cable company of doing). I also doubt that any carrier of more than a half-dozen TV channels would have the staff to monitor programming that closely.

That's why I think the culprit here was Comedy Central. They apparantly let it slip through on the premiere, the censored it on later showings. The typical reason for this backpedaling would be if the network received an overwhelming amount of complaints from offended viewers. But that doesn't work here -- if you're a fan of SP, chances are you're not offended by harsh language (in fact, you think it's pretty damn funny).

My theory is that some higher-up at Comedy Central didn't see (or hear about) this episode until the night aired, freaked-out and ordered some poor engineer back to the office to "correct" the episode that night.

-- Dorraj "So this article is not going to end the way I thought it would ... and looking back at the lead I see that it didn't even start that way either. As for the middle, I can barely remember it." -- Hunter S. Thompson

Jedi wrote:

Censoring swear words is the worst kind of censorship.  I hate it immensely.
Why is there censorship on South Park anyway?  If you're mature enough to
handle the show's content, than you're damn mature enough to handle the
language, censored or not.
    I don't why people think it's FUNNY when they censor, because the
uncensored word sounds funnier.
    By the way, I live in Virginia (like that other guy) and I have satellite
cable; when I saw the episode it WAS NOT censored.  I loved it!  "Bullshit!"
That was hilarious!  If ANYONE knows where I can purchase uncensored episodes
or download uncensored sound, movies, etc. on my computer, PLEASE, for the love
of God, tell me...   [email]