# How Much Could US Television Get Away With (If It Wanted To)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 9, 2020, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137 "2020-09-09T04:42:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2020, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137/61 "2020-09-10T01:14:31Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I suspect you’d say in both these cases that people _shouldn’t_ feel this way—it’s just nudity—but, face facts, people do feel this way. They feel this way because it doesn’t happen. If it did happen they’d get used to it and it wouldn’t be a big deal. > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > That’s your opinion, but I suspect it’s very much a minority one. Yes. I’m well aware of that. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2020, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137/62 "2020-09-10T01:30:47Z")
Where would you have set the famous _Psycho_ scene? ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2020, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137/63 "2020-09-10T01:44:55Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > Back in the 1990s, _Chicago Hope_ on CBS showed bare female breasts, in a medical context. I remember that! It was a woman being prepped for a prophylactic mastectomy! I was never sure if I imagined it, because it got censored in rerun. They showed photos of breasts in the same ep. in some of the lead-up to the surgery, in particular, a doctor advising the woman’s husband to look at before/after/after reconstruction pics in a book again and again until they didn’t bother him anymore. The final scenes were the woman being prepped, then her lying on the table. They cut to her from the shoulders up only in syndication, and showed only the doctors in the last scene, so I wondered if maybe I’d imagined that they’d showed her breasts. But yeah, speaking of PBS, there was full frontal female nudity all over it in the 1970s, although, no language that you couldn’t hear on broadcast TV. I remember the first time I heard “shit” on TV. It was on _Rizzoli & Isles_, so probably about 5 years ago, on an original-for-TNT show. So, not broadcast TV, but not a pay channel either. However, the first time _Children of a Lesser god_ aired on broadcast TV, they aired Deaf people saying in ASL “Shove that up your ass,” “You’re an asshole,” and “Get fucked.” This was around 1989. I don’t know if the case was that ASL was somehow not taken seriously; people thought not enough viewers would know what those words in ASL meant; or the censors didn’t know them. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2020, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137/64 "2020-09-10T01:52:41Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > Incidentally, I saw something on basic cable within the past 6 months or so (some prestige wanna-be show, like on the level of NOS4A2) that pushed nudity further than I’d seen before. I spent way too long trying to figure out what NOS4A2 was an acronym for before googling it. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2020, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137/65 "2020-09-10T02:17:56Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I remember the first time I heard “shit” on TV. It was on _Rizzoli & Isles_ , so probably about 5 years ago, on an original-for-TNT show. So, not broadcast TV, but not a pay channel either. Suits, which was on USA Network, seemed to _delight_ in using the word shit. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2020, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137/66 "2020-09-10T02:56:21Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Where would you have set the famous _Psycho_ scene? That was 1960, a whole different era. I can’t really speak to that. But she could easily have been in the kitchen, or asleep in bed, or walking the dog. It’s a famous scene, and yes it would have felt different in a different place, but if it had been set somewhere else, nobody would afterward be suggesting “it should have been in the shower instead”. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2020, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137/67 "2020-09-10T04:00:06Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > But she could easily have been in the kitchen, or asleep in bed, or walking the dog. I’m guessing you haven’t seen the movie. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2020, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137/68 "2020-09-10T08:35:50Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Going to watch a Naked show where there’s no Naked is weird. I have some sad news for you about Jamie Oliver… ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2020, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137/69 "2020-09-10T09:40:47Z")
When I was younger and hornier that really was a disappointment. See also Cronenberg’s _Naked Lunch_. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2020, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137/70 "2020-09-10T09:56:03Z")
Quentin Crisp must also have been a letdown. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2020, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137/71 "2020-09-10T13:23:58Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > > [@EllisDee](#): > > > > The reason the don’t is because edgier material drives away both advertisers and viewers in droves. > > That’s the part I find weird. I’m not a prude by any stretch of the imagination. Not by any stretch. But I was baby sitting my 12 year old niece just this week, and she wanted to watch an episode of Hannibal, which is on Netflix but started out on network TV. Not knowing what was allowed or not, but knowing it started on NBC(?) I said what the hell. Within minutes this dialog started: Male to Female: “He likes you. How do you taste, Dr. Bloom? Sweet, I bet. I bet you got a taste of him, too. Spitters are quitters, and you don’t strike me as a quitter.” WTF! As you can imagine, my sweet as pie niece looked me dead in the eye and asked me what that meant. I was floored. I had no idea network TV would go there. (With the added bonus she’d probably ask my sister what it meant. I’ll probably never see my niece again 🙂 ) My point? I can see that if I had younger kids, I’d like a place I could go that wasn’t quite Veggietales and not quite soft core porn. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2020, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137/72 "2020-09-11T03:46:14Z")
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Lifetime Medical Television, which was continuing educations for health care professionals, didn’t censor anything, nudity-wise. If they were going to show female breasts or any genitalia, they would always give a disclaimer first. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2020, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137/73 "2020-09-11T03:47:47Z")
What did you tell your niece? (Pssst - be grateful she didn’t get it!) ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2020, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137/74 "2020-09-11T13:47:02Z")
I told her it was an adult thing she didn’t need to worry about, and they changed the subject. I’m sure it stuck in her head that I didn’t tell her and it was something of interest. But I didn’t want to lie, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her. As for my sister. She’s not happy with her brother! ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137/75 "2020-09-11T15:00:40Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > As you can imagine, my sweet as pie niece looked me dead in the eye and asked me what that meant. I was floored. I had no idea network TV would go there. That reminds me of when I was a pre-teen kid watching the sketch show **Bizarre** (the Canadian CTV version, not the US Showtime version) with my parents. They had a (tasteless) sketch about a gay news channel (the Channel For All Gays) and they mentioned the San Francisco 69ers. I kept pestering my parents what the joke was, but they tried to brush me off. I just wouldn’t give up though, so finally my mom explained it to me in no uncertain terms. That shut me up in a hurry. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-could-us-television-get-away-with-if-it-wanted-to/920137.md?page=3)