Just curious about the possible double standards – or is it changing standards? – concerning profanity over the radio. As time goes on, our society in the U.S. seems to be significantly more tolerant of profanity. Younger generations of people just aren’t readily offended by it, and I have a feeling as we hit our 70’s amd 80’s, we will still consider many “obscene” words to simply be part of daily speech. Maybe not in a classroom or in front of children, but you get the point.
Compare this to current people in their winter years, and many of them grew up in an era where any profanity, even more “mild” words like “shit,” is considered grotesque speech.
But it seems that radio has, in some ways, moved in the opposite direction. Listen to any classic rock station and you’ll hear Pink Floyd’s “Money” with the lyric: “don’t give me that do goody good bullshit…” and the Who’s “Who the fuck are you?” about 18 times a week.
But modern songs – Alannis Morissette (sp?) in “Hand in my pocket” has the word “chicken shit” bleeped out, Radiohead’s “Creep” is aired with “So very special” compared to the CD version of “so fucking special”… and the list of examples goes on. Modern songs have profanity bleeped or removed, classic rock songs play them as recorded.
I remember “Money” used to have the “do goody-good bullshit” line bleeped out when I was a kid; now it never is.
My guesses:
Things that once were obscene get respectable as they age, like Larry Flynt.
The cause of most bleeps is parents bitching to radio stations when their kids hear profanity, and kids nowadays are more likely to be listening to “today’s hits today” than classic rock.
Here in NYC, WXRK plays pretty much everything as intact as possible. I remember a few years ago when Everlast’s song came out (“Then you really might know what it’s like…” whatver the real title was), I ot used to hearing the whole song in NYC. Then I traveled to State College, PA, and heard a very different song on the radio–every drug and gun reference had been bleeped out, even though you would be hard-pressed to argue that any of the bleeped lyrics were glamorizing gunplay or drug use–quite the opposite.
I’m no expert, but I am a DJ for a college radio station, and the folks running it make sure that we know what we can and can not say on the air (and, because I didn’t want the feds knocking down my door, I have done some reading on my own.)
The FCC regulates what can and what can not be said over the air between 6am and 10pm. After 10pm, some sort of nebulous “community standards” still apply, I believe. The FCC only acts uppon complaints. If no one complaigns about a station’s content, I’m pretty sure that nothing bad will happen (I may be wrong on this point). Also, all of the FCC’s regulations are about SEX, SEX ORGANS, EXCRETION, and EXCETORY ORGANS. For example, calling someone an ass is okay, calling someone an asshole is not ok (excretory organ). In addition, I’ve been told that ‘piss’ is a no-no word as well, but I can’t imagine anyone taking that too seriously. I’m pretty sure that no station needs to censor drugs or violence, but merely do so as a service to their advertisers. Again, these nebulous “community standards” always apply, but I’m not sure what this would mean in court.
Oh yeah, the station I DJ for follows FCC regulations 24 hours a day, just to make all the rules consistent for all DJs.
I’m fairly sure that in that particular case, the band (or studio) itself released two different versions of their song: one intact and one heavily censored. I imagine that if a station objected to a single foul word in the lyrics, it would be easier to play the censored version than to censor the song manually.
“Bitch” is one of the most glaring double standards I’ve noticed lately. Meredith Brooks’ song is titled “Bitch”, and the word is in every refrain in that song. While I’m far from Eminem’s biggest fan, airplay of his song “Without Me” oftentimes features the one instance of “bitch” in the song bleeped out or removed.
I think it’s a difference in context. In the Meredith Brooks song the word isn’t used in a derogatory way, where as Eminem only uses the word in a derogatory way.
Actually, in that case, there are three versions that are semi-regularly played. The uncut album version, the minorly edited version(which is the one K-Rock usually plays, it has the full curses blanked out, but the gun and drug refernces are left alone), and a squeaky clean version that most stations play(which has all curses, gun and drug references blanked out by a bit of reverb).
Slightly off topic media-wise, but I was somewhat surprised to see this on CNN.com (just a click from the home page)…
“You have no idea what you do to people with this shit,” Christian Brando said. “Think about it. It gets close. You lucky, you know. I mean, not on my behalf, but you’re lucky somebody ain’t out there to put a bullet in your head!”
Just want to note that none of the language discussed in this thread is “profanity.” In fact, it might be unconstitutional to ban profane language from the airwaves.
I thought for a second that I was horribly misinformed about something, but having looked up “profanity” in a dictionary, now I’m just confused. What are you talking about, acsenray?
“Profanity” is language that treats something sacred with abuse, irreverance or contempt. In other words, it’s language that refers to religious beliefs. “Damn it” is a profanity. It’s not prohibited on the airwaves.
The kind of language we’re talking about is known in constitutional law as “indecency.” Indecent language is constitutionally protected language that may nonetheless be restricted under certain circumstances, specifically by the Federal Communications Commission when uttered on the public airwaves.
Of course, “obscene” language is not protected by the Constitution, but, then, under the law, practically nothing is obscene.
“Profanity” is language that treats something sacred with abuse, irreverance or contempt. In other words, it’s language that refers to religious beliefs. “Damn it” is a profanity. It’s not prohibited on the airwaves.
The kind of language we’re talking about is known in constitutional law as “indecency.” Indecent language is constitutionally protected language that may nonetheless be restricted under certain circumstances, specifically by the Federal Communications Commission when uttered on the public airwaves.
Of course, “obscene” language is not protected by the Constitution, but, then, under the law, practically nothing is obscene.
There was a DJ here that once went off for a couple minutes (uncensored) about people calling the station to complain that he says “God damn” on the air. His points were this:
If you hate me that much, change the station.
Why am I being disrespectful to God? I’m asking for his help. I’m saying, “God, please damn this Limp Bizkit song to hell, never to return. I hate them but I have to keep playing it.” I think God should use his power to do that.
We dealt with this subject in Cafe Society not too long ago.
Contray to popular belief, the FCC does not often censor radio broadcasts. They generally do not step in unless they receive listener complaints.
In my experience, you will not hear song lyrics “bleeped” or otherwise censored on the radio unless:
The record company releases a cleaned-up “radio edit” of the song to the stations.
AND
The station decides to play this instead of the unedited album cut.
Condition #1 will be met in any case where the record company fears that the unedited song may be too controversial. They can be very conservative about this. Condition #2 depends on a number of factors, including the opinions of the station management, their target demographic, and whether or not they already have a CD with the unedited version of the song on it. If they don’t, they are likely to go with the promotional release even if the unedited song is no more obscene than other songs they already play unedited.
In short, this has little to do with the government or the religious right. Mostly it’s just business.
Thank you, ascenray! I’ve been trying to get that distinction recognized myself. Along the same lines, “using indecent speech” is not necessarily the same as “cursing” or “swearing” (both of which are usually profane).
Cursing or swearing can be indecencies if they refer to sexual or excretory functions or organs. “Fuck” and “shit” are indecent. “Damn,” “hell,” “Christ,” and “god” (used as exclamations) are profane.
Yeah, thanks acsenray, that makes sense. I guess I’m wondering, now, if Constitutional Law would have any sort of bearing on this. If a private station wanted to censor profanity, they’d just do it without consulting what the government is allowed to censor, right?
My understanding is that the only way the feds will step in is if someone files a formal complaint about language on the air. There is not much that can be done, perhaps a fine. The stations clean things up a little to avoid the hassle. You hear more on classic rock/hard rock stations than, say, top 40 because the rednecks riding around listening to megadeth or Zep are less likely to complain than soccer moms rocking out to the local easy listening station. They also try to alienate the smallest group possible.
For the record: You do not have to be a redneck to listen to Megadeth or Led Zepplin. This was hyperbole meant to make a point. I don’t want to start a flame war over this.
TimS
I thought for a second that I was horribly misinformed about something, but having looked up “profanity” in a dictionary, now I’m just confused. What are you talking about, acsenray?