Watching TV last night, I came across a rap video with a Hispanic artist with quite a bit bleeped out, and that made me wonder: under what circumstances, if ever, will a network/non-pay cable channel censor obscenities in foreign languages? And I’m not talking about American vs. British English, I mean actual foreign languages. I vaguely remember hearing that Captain Picard on Star Trek used “merde” unbleeped on at least a couple of occasions, so that may be my answer, but I was hoping for a more generalized one. And what about non-obscene, but extremely explicit, terms and phrases?
In the US there are many Spanish-language radio stations which “push the boundries” regarding “obscenity.” Apparently, the FCC doesn’t have enough Spanish speaking personnel to pursue these stations. IIRC, it’s not so much a question of specific words as implications. Double entendres, etc. The FCC is still trying to figure out how to deal with this.
Depends, I’ve seen videos and movies where the Spanish words have not been bleeped out, but I’ve also seen video where they have.
etmiller, the problem also is that the curse words can vary by country and region. Which means that what is offensive for some people is not considered by others, although the others may know of the double-entendres.
I find it funny that they chose only those episodes to sue the program “No te duermas”, which as far as I know is still on the air. C’mon, that’s an adult variety show with musical guests and comedy sketches whose central point is to show videos of scantily clad women. Of course everything they say is going to have sexual innuendos!