# Outrageous acts of Censorship **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 20, 2007, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809 "2007-05-20T11:51:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/41 "2007-05-21T08:09:12Z")
[QUOTE=AlwaysFresh] Have Americans ever watched the Sopranos without it being bleeped a million times per episode? Please, tell me there are stations that don’t censor! [/QUOTE] I’ve never seen the Sopranos, but it airs on HBO, which is not subject to FCC regulations. No bleeping. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/42 "2007-05-21T09:40:45Z")
[QUOTE=Greg Charles] In Solana Beach, CA, one of the beaches used to be called Pillbox, because its shape was vaguely reminiscent of a pillbox bunker. However, the city leaders decided that the “pill” in pillbox might encourage drug use, so they changed it to Fletcher’s Cove. [/QUOTE] They weren’t worried they’d start some archery craze? Drive-by longbow-ings? ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/43 "2007-05-21T11:26:10Z")
I had a classmate in high school that referred to the Jack Blades/Ted Nugent/Tommy Shaw/Michael Cartellone supergroup as _Darn Yankees_. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/44 "2007-05-21T12:10:50Z")
This one is old and yes, the Generalísimo is still dead, but turning the married couple in Mogambo into brother and sister to avoid the adultery (thus causing incest) is probably the most celebrated blunder by Franco’s censors. It got redubbed in the 70s. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/45 "2007-05-21T12:23:41Z")
[QUOTE=AlwaysFresh] As a Canadian, the censorship of the American TV I receive is outrageous. Up here there is no censorship, at least on the Canadian productions. I guess they figure we can turn off the TV if we don’t like the language or content. I appreciate being treated as a thinking adult and being given a choice. Many of the channels available to me are American and while I enjoy watching it for the most part, I get particularly disgusted at the blanking out of so-called offensive words in movies. Like “damn”. That censorship just ruins the movie for me so I roll my eyes and turn the channel. A friend of mine from New Jersey was visiting me last summer and was absolutely shocked at what we allow on Canadian TV compared to what she was used to. I had to laugh at her, especially when we were watching the Sopranos. Have Americans ever watched the Sopranos without it being bleeped a million times per episode? Please, tell me there are stations that don’t censor! I regularly listen to CBC radio (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), which is a respected Canadian institution and they do not censor rough language or content. They even allow the word “fuck” to be broadcast on occasion. Mind you, they’ll give a warning that the language is graphic and then head right into the story. YOU have the choice of turning it off. Damn I hate censorship! [/QUOTE] The US cable network Bravo showed the Canadian _Twitch City_. At the time, Bravo was presenting itself as daring & artistic. The show was weird & quirky–but actually somewhat sweet. However, the young urbanites did pepper their conversation with lots of four letter words. Which Bravo bleeped out. (Finally, _Twitch City_ DVD’s were released.) ---
**Author:** ![grimpixie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@grimpixie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grimpixie)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/46 "2007-05-21T12:32:53Z")
[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi] I used to work for the Saudi Navy. The navy, all the offices decorated with anchors and stuff. All the anchors had the crossbar removed. It looked too Christian, I guess. [/QUOTE] I’ve heard it told that some ultra-orthodox Jewish communities refuse to use a “plus” sign for the same reasons - replacing it with an upside down “T” ([Wikip. link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plus_sign#Alternative_plus_sign)) Grim ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/47 "2007-05-21T13:22:48Z")
DirecTV gave a free preview of LOGO channel over Mother’s Day Weekend. That’s the LGBT-themed channel. They muted out any word that referred to sex, and edited out any sex-related scene. I stumbled across the preview (hey! there’s no channel here…) and seriously thought my TV sound was going out. It made the thing incomprehensible. Also incomprehensible: have a channel about GLBT sexuality, then carefully remove any hint of sexuality from your programming. Add in service announcements about the voices of GLBT people being silenced for that extra bit of (non-Alanis) irony that’s like a kick in the jimmy. Sheesh. [QUOTE=Captain Socks] Well, we did use dice, but we didn’t call them dice. We called them “probability cubes”. [/QUOTE] Am I the only one outraged over the unfair ostracism of the probability tetrahedrons, probability dodecahedrons, probability isocohedrons, & etc.? I mean, this sort of seems like cubocentric dice-racism, doesn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/48 "2007-05-21T13:35:01Z")
[QUOTE=AlwaysFresh] Have Americans ever watched the Sopranos without it being bleeped a million times per episode? Please, tell me there are stations that don’t censor! [/quote] HBO. > [@](#): > > I regularly listen to CBC radio (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), which is a respected Canadian institution and they do not censor rough language or content. They even allow the word “fuck” to be broadcast on occasion. Mind you, they’ll give a warning that the language is graphic and then head right into the story. YOU have the choice of turning it off. > > Damn I hate censorship! My understanding is that you have [very strict “hate speech” laws](http://www.religioustolerance.org/hatespeech.htm) in Canada. Am I misinformed? ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/49 "2007-05-21T14:01:49Z")
[QUOTE=Bridget Burke] The US cable network Bravo showed the Canadian _Twitch City_. At the time, Bravo was presenting itself as daring & artistic. The show was weird & quirky–but actually somewhat sweet. However, the young urbanites did pepper their conversation with lots of four letter words. Which Bravo bleeped out. [/QUOTE] Back in the day, the day being the mid-1980s, Bravo was what IFC is now, an outlet for independents and imports and their content was unedited and uninterrupted. Around 1990 they started selling commercial time and started editing for content, and started sucking. Now of course they’re another repository for crap reality shows and NBC-“repurposed” shows and the suckage is largely complete. > [@Lightray](#): > > DirecTV gave a free preview of LOGO channel over Mother’s Day Weekend. That’s the LGBT-themed channel. > > They muted out any word that referred to sex, and edited out any sex-related scene. I stumbled across the preview (hey! there’s no channel here…) and seriously thought my TV sound was going out. It made the thing incomprehensible. Oh my god, you have no idea how angry I was about that. I got Logo from the start and was really looking forward to having a queer-themed channel. That excitement started flagging at the first commercial break and pretty much vanished completely at the first edit for content. It makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever that a premium cable station that (for me anyway) requires the purchase of the Showtime package and is aimed at the LGBT community should edit for content. Oddly, they don’t bleep words like “shit,” so I guess hearing shit is not as bad as seeing a bare butt. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/50 "2007-05-21T14:13:44Z")
I’m told that Europe is less uptight about sex, but more so about violence, than the US. I recall watching [“Ceremonies of Light and Dark”](http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/master/synops/055.html) with a couple of guests from the UK. After the scene where Sheridan catches up to and beats the tar out of the NightWatch goon who threw a knife at him (hitting Delenn), they were clearly stunned, and one finally asked, “Is he supposed to be unconscious or dead?” ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/51 "2007-05-21T14:17:58Z")
When _semi-charmed life_ first came out, the phrase “yadayadayadayada lift you up until you break” was always uncensored, but for some reason after a couple months at least half the time it was beeped out by a scratch. Of course, I couldn’t understand the phrase, so all the censorship did was made me curious about what it said. (“Doing crystal meth’ll lift you up until you break.” Doesn’t make much sense to censor that.) On the other hand, if you didn’t have to censor incomprehensible phrases, you could play Mr Bungle’s _Squeeze me, macaroni_ in its entirety, as it consists of the nastiest lyrics I’ve ever heard in a song and all of them are nearly completely incomprehensible. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/52 "2007-05-21T14:25:26Z")
[QUOTE=Bridget Burke] The US cable network Bravo showed the Canadian _Twitch City_. At the time, Bravo was presenting itself as daring & artistic. The show was weird & quirky–but actually somewhat sweet. However, the young urbanites did pepper their conversation with lots of four letter words. Which Bravo bleeped out. (Finally, _Twitch City_ DVD’s were released.) [/QUOTE] My favorite example of that was the first week after I moved to the US, NBC was showing a re-run of an HBO comedy special of Ben Elton (I believe… could have been Rik Mayall). Anyway, they protected my ears by beeping out all the offensive language, but obviously weren’t too up on English vernacular. One sentence I will remember for the rest of my life was essentially… “Beeeep beeep beep beep WANKER beep beep beep.” ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/53 "2007-05-21T14:40:30Z")
[QUOTE=villa] One sentence I will remember for the rest of my life was essentially… “Beeeep beeep beep beep WANKER beep beep beep.” [/QUOTE] In a reversal of this situation, I’m surprised that the W-word was not censored out of a Harry Potter movie, I forget which one, although I guess it’s been watered down to the equivalent of “sucks” in the case of describing a person. ---
**Author:** ![Monstre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Monstre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstre)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/54 "2007-05-21T18:34:20Z")
Just the other night, I was bored and flipping through some cable channels – found “The Big Lebowski” showing on one of them, so I stopped there for a while. Not only did they edit out large chunks of the movie between commercials (like the entire scene introducing “Jesus”, as well as the entire scene introducing Bunny), but this was clearly the edited-for-TV version, language-wise. In the first bowling alley scene, where the Dude has told Walter about the rug-peeing incident, the lines: “They peed on my fucking rug” was dubbed as: “They peed on my valued rug.” * * * “They peed on YOUR valued rug, dude.” “Freaking A – they peed on my value rug.” “The peed on your _valued_ rug.” Ugh. _click_ new channel. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/55 "2007-05-21T18:47:00Z")
[QUOTE=Otto] Oh my god, you have no idea how angry I was about that. I got Logo from the start and was really looking forward to having a queer-themed channel. That excitement started flagging at the first commercial break and pretty much vanished completely at the first edit for content. It makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever that a premium cable station that (for me anyway) requires the purchase of the Showtime package and is aimed at the LGBT community should edit for content. [/QUOTE] It must just be a requirement of your local cable company. Here in Tucson, on Comcast, LOGO is a regular non-premium digital channel which is available to all subscribers at no extra cost. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/56 "2007-05-21T19:22:09Z")
In The People vs Larry Flint, Flint is leading a rally against censorship. He talks about how if you take a picture of a mutilated body (like in a war), you could get an award, but if you take a picture of a naked body, you get arrested. He punctuated his message by showing alternating photos of both types, and asked which was really more obscene. When that movie was played on commercial TV, guess which images were blurred out? ---
**Author:** ![AlwaysFresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@AlwaysFresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlwaysFresh)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/57 "2007-05-21T19:25:12Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] HBO. My understanding is that you have [very strict “hate speech” laws](http://www.religioustolerance.org/hatespeech.htm) in Canada. Am I misinformed? [/QUOTE] This is true. Someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe that this law was partly in response to a particular prof (at the U of Western Ontario??) who was teaching that the holocaust never happened, and he was spreading “hate” publicly in his lectures (=hate propaganda which is against the law). Free speech is also treated differently here in Canada. See Liberal’s excellent link for very simple but easy to understand terms. Because I’m Canadian I think I see free speech from a different perspective; I believe it’s highly overrated but it’s something Americans seem to value above all else. It’s not that I can’t say what I want in this country, I don’t feel like I’m under the thumb of the government to watch what I say, but I have to be responsible for words I utter publicly. Sorry for the mini-hijack but I was responding to Liberal’s question. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/58 "2007-05-21T19:29:10Z")
[QUOTE=cochrane] It must just be a requirement of your local cable company. Here in Tucson, on Comcast, LOGO is a regular non-premium digital channel which is available to all subscribers at no extra cost. [/QUOTE] That wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest. Fucking Charter. I dumped all of my premium channels except the Showtime package a couple of years ago because they were too damn expensive. I wanted to dump Showtime too but they said if I did I couldn’t keep Logo. They’re all owned by Viacom. I keep losing interest in crappy Logo, then just when I’m ready to cancel it either Logo or Showtime tosses up one good series and I end up keeping it. They’re the crack dealers of cable TV. ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/59 "2007-05-21T20:29:38Z")
[QUOTE=cochrane] It must just be a requirement of your local cable company. Here in Tucson, on Comcast, LOGO is a regular non-premium digital channel which is available to all subscribers at no extra cost. [/QUOTE] F/X is a regular non-premium channel, and I can turn on _Nip/Tuck_ with better than 50% chance of seeing a woman’s boobs or a man’s butt – or both – within a couple of minutes. And neither that, nor _The Shield_ nor _Rescue Me_ seem much edited for language. So it can’t be as simple as premium vs. non-premium. The two things I endured LOGO to watch had two different edit-outs going on. _Queer as Folk_ I’d never seen, but felt kind of like watching those _Sex in the City_ rebroadcasts – all the parts for which someone would watch the show had been edited out for content, leaving only annoying cliche plotlines and rather poor acting. The other one was part of a movie about male hustlers, and the _dialog_ was cut to ribbons. I couldn’t figure out why Hustler Kid was angry at Hustler’s Brother, because ----- other ---- had ---- completely -------! Absolutely maddening to watch; I was shouting at the TV like I was going deaf ("he did _what_?!? priest, _what_ priest?!?) ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2007, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809/60 "2007-05-21T20:34:33Z")
I’ve only seen LA Confidential on TV and I’m pretty sure it was censored, but in one instance it works because it captured the 40s-50s feel better. “I’ll give you $100 if you [do] this guy”. “Okay, I’ll [do] him.” Now, I’m pretty sure that line wasn’t originally like that 🙂 But it sounds better than what I assume is the original. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outrageous-acts-of-censorship/404809.md?page=4)