# TV censoring ethnic slurs from movies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 15, 2018, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672 "2018-08-15T17:58:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2018, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/41 "2018-08-17T00:17:49Z")
50 years ago it was quite common for stations showing the Marx Brothers “Duck Soup” to bleep out a line where Groucho is talking about how the Headstrongs married the Armstrongs and “that’s how darkies were born”. Which was a “huh, what is that about?” to me. It refers to a song of that title, supposedly a satire of racism, that was popular in 1931, sung by Kate Smith and later Paul Robeson from the Broadway show “George White’s Scandals” (later a movie with Jimmy Durante in blackface singing it). The wiki article on it says since 1980 syndication prints and home video releases have the line intact. > **[That's Why Darkies Were Born](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That%27s_Why_Darkies_Were_Born)** > > "That's Why Darkies Were Born" was a popular song written by Ray Henderson and Lew Brown. It originated in George White's Scandals of 1931, where white baritone Everett Marshall performed the song in blackface. > The song was most famously recorded by popular singer Kate Smith, whose rendition was a hit in 1931,\[better source needed\] and by award-winning singer, film star, scholar, and civil rights activist Paul Robeson. It was also featured in a 1931 all-star recording of a medley of songs from... ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2018, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/42 "2018-08-17T00:53:37Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > as an extreme example I knew a guy who lived in Saudi Arabia for a few years. For some odd reason they showed Three’s Company but it was so heavily edited he said you could not even follow the plot . Seems very odd that they would even show that sitcom to begin with. > > Smokey and the Bandit movie Jackie Gleason says “sumbitch” a lot but on regular cable they made it “scumbum” but you can tell someone else overdubbed it. The guy who dubbed Jackie Gleason in SatB was the same guy who did Fred Flintstone after the original voice actor died, and if you know that voice you would know he sounds nothing like Jackie Gleason. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2018, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/43 "2018-08-17T01:02:52Z")
There’s a podcast I listen to that was talking about the novel Thinner, and they made a big deal about how Stephen King was a racist for using the word “Gypsy” instead of the proper word “Roma” despite the fact that distinction only really came to the forefront of public debate in the past decade. They even went so far as to bleep the word Gypsy when they had audio clips from the movie adaption, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the next word to be censored in old works. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2018, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/44 "2018-08-17T01:32:46Z")
> [@xizor](#): > > And then there is [this gem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9TS1pRmajU) from SNL in the 70s that gets nearly every racial slur in one skit. I have seen it rerun as recently as the last 5 years, whenever Richard Pryor died. 😃 Makes it sound as if Pryor died quite a number of times, and whenever he did it, they would have another rerun. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2018, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/45 "2018-08-17T01:43:21Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > There’s a podcast I listen to that was talking about the novel Thinner, and they made a big deal about how Stephen King was a racist for using the word “Gypsy” instead of the proper word “Roma” despite the fact that distinction only really came to the forefront of public debate in the past decade. They even went so far as to bleep the word Gypsy when they had audio clips from the movie adaption, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the next word to be censored in old works. When I was a kid my grandmother used to talk about how the Gypsies would come around and demand that you give them something (such as a chicken) and would curse you if you didn’t. I always thought that this was something that really happened in her area when she was growing up. It was only in recent years I’ve noticed how many TV shows have episodes featuring Gypsies–which is probably where she got her ideas about them. (I can’t think of all the old shows had a Gypsy-based episode at the moment, but they seem to have been almost as common as an elevator birth episode. There is the Andy Griffith one with Klinger, and [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2DvPFksRrI) Car 54, for two examples. None of them are censored on TV.) ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2018, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/46 "2018-08-17T02:04:32Z")
[A list of episode titles](https://www.imdb.com/search/title?title=Gypsy&title_type=tv_episode). ---
**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:** [August 17, 2018, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/47 "2018-08-17T03:06:47Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > They always censor “shmuck” during Christmas time when I’m watching “Scrooged”. > > I always thought that was a weird one, especially given the character is calling himself that after a face turn/revelation. Shmuck is a really, REALLY bad word. If you grew up in a family of Yiddish speakers, you were FORBIDDEN ever to use it. I would have said “fuck” or “shit” as a child before I said “shmuck.” Albeit, I would have been punished for saying any of them. > [@Sloe\_Moe](#): > > In the last stage showing of West Side Story I watched (2017), they no longer pronounced it hard “Puerto Ricans”, just “PR’s.” But they also showed breast mashing and (clothed) pumping, so I’m not sure it’s an improvement. “PR” is in the original script. ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2018, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/48 "2018-08-17T14:54:37Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > 😃 > > Makes it sound as if Pryor died quite a number of times, and whenever he did it, they would have another rerun. Yeah, not the best phrased sentence, I apologize for that. Plus, I also see that Pryor has been gone since 2005, a lot longer than I originally thought :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2018, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/49 "2018-08-17T19:40:40Z")
in the 80s a new over the air station in Knoxville showed The Deer Hunter and left everything in which included a lot of bad language. I was told they did this to generate publicity. I guess it did not work because very few people watched it and nobody complained to the FCC ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2018, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/50 "2018-08-17T23:36:18Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > in the 80s a new over the air station in Knoxville showed The Deer Hunter and left everything in which included a lot of bad language. I was told they did this to generate publicity. I guess it did not work because very few people watched it and nobody complained to the FCC That’s because The Deer Hunter sucks. You heard me, it sucks. It starts with a wedding scene that lasts as long as a real wedding, reception and all. Then it’s slogging through jungles, getting captured, and then the famed Russian Roulette sequence. If the movie had ended there, I would’ve tagged it as merely a meh war picture. But then it tries to persuade the audience that someone can play Russian Roulette for years as a steady job. What cokehead writer came up with that one? You don’t need to be a statistian to know that’s pure bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2018, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/51 "2018-08-18T11:04:36Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > That’s because The Deer Hunter sucks. > > You heard me, it sucks. It starts with a wedding scene that lasts as long as a real wedding, reception and all. Then it’s slogging through jungles, getting captured, and then the famed Russian Roulette sequence. If the movie had ended there, I would’ve tagged it as merely a meh war picture. But then it tries to persuade the audience that someone can play Russian Roulette for years as a steady job. What cokehead writer came up with that one? > You don’t need to be a statistian to know that’s pure bullshit. If you know what the hell you’re doing (and with the help of a crooked “referee”) you can reliably spin a revolver cylinder so it lands at a certain position every single time. Simple physics since the weight of a loaded chamber does change how it lands compared to a fully empty one. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2018, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/52 "2018-08-18T12:37:57Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > If you know what the hell you’re doing (and with the help of a crooked “referee”) you can reliably spin a revolver cylinder so it lands at a certain position every single time. Simple physics since the weight of a loaded chamber does change how it lands compared to a fully empty one. If he was doing this for years, word would get around that it was a fix. How dumb are those South Asians anyway, betting on the equivalent of the WWF? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2018, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/53 "2018-08-18T14:38:38Z")
The movies are not being aired in their historical context or as part of a study. They’re being aired as entertainment. And I would argue that those slurs lessen the entertainment value immensely for a significant group of people. To me, as long as the uncensored version exists and is available, I have no problem with this sort of thing. And I am glad we’re moving on to the actual bad words, rather than these words that are only crude. Bigotry is far worse and far more harmful than words about bodily functions. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2018, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/54 "2018-08-18T15:28:57Z")
yes and he died from Russian Roulette when his friend showed up to help him , amazing coincidence. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2018, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/55 "2018-08-18T16:17:15Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > The movies are not being aired in their historical context or as part of a study. They’re being aired as entertainment. Exactly. And entertainment it wasn’t. Not at that level of stupidity. Plus, at the time of its release, The Deer Hunter was being touted as some great work of art about the Vietnam War when it was just pretentious bullshit. Worse, it helped give Cimino the pull to make the even more pretentious Heaven’s Gate. ---
**Author:** ![chaika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chaika/32/405_2.png) [@chaika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaika)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2018, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/56 "2018-08-19T16:00:38Z")
I was watching an episode of Gilmore Girls recently, shown on some network seems to have a Christian ideology. Why they were broadcasting GG, I have no idea. It’s hardly a program designed for the “family values” crowd. Anyway, they censored the word “heck” but not the word “hell.” I must say, that amused me. Before the word “bitch” was allowed on network TV, the censors sometimes used to replace “son of a bitch” with “son of a buck.” An expression that no one in the real world would ever use. ---
**Author:** ![LLCoolL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/llcooll/32/3596_2.png) [@LLCoolL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LLCoolL)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2018, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/57 "2018-08-21T01:34:16Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > Oh PUH-lease!!! With every TV character breaking Commandments in plain sight on every program with the killings and the adultery and the coveting and whatnot, taking the Lord’s Name in vain is something we just CANNOT allow? Really? Angry housewives can be set off by the strangest things. During the Watergate era, when the content of some of Nixon’s tapes came to light, my mother was mostly upset that he was swearing a lot. Never mind that Nixon was… ya know … SUBVERTING THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![LLCoolL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/llcooll/32/3596_2.png) [@LLCoolL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LLCoolL)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2018, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/58 "2018-08-21T01:42:43Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > There’s a podcast I listen to that was talking about the novel Thinner, and they made a big deal about how Stephen King was a racist for using the word “Gypsy” instead of the proper word “Roma” despite the fact that distinction only really came to the forefront of public debate in the past decade. They even went so far as to bleep the word Gypsy when they had audio clips from the movie adaption, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the next word to be censored in old works. I guess the flamenco band Gipsy Kings is gonna have to find a new name. Same with the film “The King of the Gypsies”. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2018, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/59 "2018-08-21T03:36:45Z")
Never mind the Cher song \*Roma, Tramps and Thieves. \* ---
**Author:** ![LLCoolL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/llcooll/32/3596_2.png) [@LLCoolL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LLCoolL)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2018, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672/60 "2018-08-21T08:12:40Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Never mind the Cher song \*Roma, Tramps and Thieves. \* At least it’s the correct number of syllables. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-censoring-ethnic-slurs-from-movies/819672.md?page=2)