I think he was saying they were offensive*, but shouldn’t be illegal. I think trademarks get less protection than regular speech, so banning terms like that probably has legal precedent, but being concerned about the first amendment and censorship is reasonable.
When modern television runs old movies and masks out the offensive language, that is a foul disservice to history. I saw a broadcast of To Have and Have Not in which a word was dropped out of a Hoagy Carmichael performance, and I had to look up the lyrics to discover that the vile adjective was “colored”.
I prefer for people to feel comfortable being offensive, because then I know who they are – not that I just let it slide, though.
Nah, modern television’s obligations are to its modern audiences (and shareholders), not to “history”.
Now, if an archival source or modern facsimile or research scholarship purporting to accurately represent the original censors offensive language, that is a foul disservice to history.
But a modern entertainment broadcast updating the dialogue for modern sensibilities, with a disclaimer somewhere that “Some of the original content has been modified for this broadcast”? Not a problem.
Museums are beholden to accuracy. Pop culture isn’t.