Was the word "rape" basically taboo on TV during the fifties?

Cafe Society
1

Last night I was trolling around for something to watch on TV, just to kill an hour or so, and came across “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” on (I think it was) Hulu. I’d heard about the show, but never seen it, but why not give it a try?

This, btw, was apparently the earlier series, half hour episodes, that started airing around 1955. There’s another series with a similar name that came later, and was hour long, though that might have been one story or several, like the much later Night Gallery series.

Sorry, wandered off track. Anyway, Hulu has five seasons of the show, and there are up to 39! episodes in a season (those were the days!), so if I like it, I’ll have entertainment fodder for a long time.

And I always enjoy spotting actors who were just beginning to work that became famous later on, and I’ll bet this is the type of anthology show that will be full of them.

And, again, I’m off topic. Sorry!

The first episode involves a young married couple, and the wife has just recovered from some sort of nervous breakdown and is now supposed to relax and take it easy as she recovers. They’ve moved to California and are living in a trailer, while husband starts work as an engineer at some airplane assembly plant.

Spoiler alert: I’m going to completely give away the plot here. The episode is nearly 60 years old, but maybe someone still cares. If so, abandon this thread NOW!

Anyway, hubby goes off to work, and comes home to find his wife lying on the floor, nearly catatonic. He tells a neighbor that she’s been beaten (although I saw no signs of makeup bruises or even her hairdo being rumpled) and asks her to get a doctor. Next scene, there’s police who are basically saying that with the wife not able to tell them anything beyond it was a man in a gray suit with dark hair, and no other witnesses or evidence, they’re pretty much hopeless on finding the man.

Next scene, it’s maybe the next day and the man is talking to his wife, who is somewhat better, but still rather foggy and out of it. She says she’d looked up from checking on a cake she was baking to find a strange man in the doorway, a saleman she said, and he’d asked her for money, and she told him to leave, and then (she pauses for a second) she said he killed me. She says that a couple times. Hubby is enraged.

Later they go for a drive, and she spots a man on the sidewalk, a man in a gray suit with a briefcase/sample case and says “That’s him! That’s the man.”

Hubby parks the car, follows the man into a hotel, and proceeds to kill him in his room without anyone noticing. Then he goes back to the car and suggests to his wife that they continue to drive, maybe to the next town, maybe have lunch or something, and she replies with vague 'that would be nice" type replies, as she’s been giving all along since the attack.

And, of course, no sooner do they get to the next town then she spots another man on a sidewalk. “That’s him! That’s the man!” End of story.

With an outro by Hitchcock saying of course the husband was caught/tried/convicted/sentenced, because crime never pays, not even on TV.

Okay, which brings me to the point. Obviously the wife had NOT been killed, because they were talking to her, but no one seemed to find it at all strange that she said that. No one ever disputes it, says she’s clearly disturbed/confused/at least temporarily wacko.

To me, it seems the pause in “Then he … killed me” and the husband’s reaction, was supposed to tell the viewers (at least the adult ones?) that they were meant to interpret that as her having been raped.

Although, again, there were no signs of her clothes being disheveled or ripped or whatever.

So, was that an accepted euphemism for a woman to say at that time, killed rather than raped? Or maybe just they didn’t use the word rape on TV shows then?

I’ve never heard of any such convention before, but maybe?

2

From what I’ve seen from old westerns is that the women were violated (euphemism for rape), usually by savage injuns. And is was OK to ride out and kill them. I think that this attitude about rape reflected the cultural understanding at the time, it wasn’t called rape and it was OK to kill someone over it because they were just godless savages. Usually portrayed as seedy characters (drifters, people of color, foreigners), not decent church going white folk. So just kill them.

3

What I can add is the October 16, 1977 episode of All in the Family in which a man attempts to rape Edith Bunker. I haven’t re-watched it, but IIRC the word “rape” was used.

The episodes, the 161st and 162nd of the series, were the first on an American sitcom that portrayed an attempted rape.

4

They didn’t use the word “breasts” on TV back then. Even for chickens. Remember, there were censors back then with a lot more power than they had today, and there was the FCC checking up. These were the times where married couples on TV had twin beds.

I saw that episode also, twice. When the Alfred Hitchcock show was revived they used it for the first episode of the new series, somewhat expanded. I don’t remember if they used the word “rape” in the new version, but there was no making sure the bad guy got his just desserts.

I’ve been working my way through the first season also. Some of them are very good, and I also like seeing future stars - sometimes in two roles like Gene Barry.

5

They had to fight just to show Lucille Ball pregnant on I Love Lucy and still couldn’t actually say the word pregnant. Every script need to be vetted by a priest, minister, and rabbi.

6

First, there was the “one foot on the floor” rule for any scene with a bed in it, right? Then the “twin beds separated by a bedside table with a big lamp on it” for married couples.

7

That’s a new one on me.

That, I can certainly believe. Because children could be watching, and they wanted to avoid parents’ having to answer “Mommy, what’s ‘rape’?”

In the Olden Days it was fairly common for adult subject matter to be alluded to in ways that adults would understand what was meant but children (and people with extremely delicate sensibilities) could remain oblivious.

8

It seems like the word “hell” was probably taboo as well, just based on an old Twilight Zone I saw. A career criminal gets shot while committing a robbery and ends up somewhere that initially appears to be heaven, but the twist at the end is that it’s actually hell. Except they don’t say “hell”, they call it “the other place”. With the way they seemed to be avoiding saying it, I have to assume “hell” was a word they weren’t allowed to say back then.

9

There was quite a difference between the 50’s and the late 70’s.

My memory of what was on TV in the 50’s is pretty hazy; but I don’t think rape would have been referred to as such. That was when married couples were shown in separate beds in their bedrooms, space between the beds and full sets of pajamas. Or at least presumably full sets, because the bedclothes would be up to their chests.

I don’t remember “killed” as a specific euphemism; though I was young enough in the 50’s that, it being in the 50’s, I don’t think I knew the word “rape”. I would assume she was speaking metaphorically – that he’d killed her sense of self. I think “assaulted” or “attacked” or “interfered with” would have been more likely to have been used as a euphemism for rape.

10

“Rape” wasn’t just banned on TV shows, it was pretty much banned in news stories, too. I distinctly remember in the early 60s hearing a news story that used the term “criminal assault” and the suspect was accused of trying to “criminally assault” the victim. I had to ask my parents what the difference was between criminal assault and ordinary assault.

11

This is the other place!

12

If a dozen people wrote in to complain about anything - a word, a scene, an actor’s skin color (southern tv stations would simply refuse to carry episodes with black actors, or else the screen would conveniently go black on a variety show) - the suits at the networks went into tizzies. They rushed into the studios to tell the staff never to do anything like that again ever.

They could enforce it. Only four networks existed, serviced by only a few production companies. If you weren’t liked you didn’t work.

The ultimate example is Red Channels, the book of names that came out of the right-wing magazine Counterattack, which had already started publishing names. Admitted communists, suspected communists, and some mere leftists were included. Virtually all lost their jobs, just by inclusion. (Clever wording made the suing the list unenforceable in courts.) No proof needed. One of the authors of Red Channels was attached to a major production company in the early 1950s, meaning that they hired and fired actors, writers, and staff. No one stood up to them. Lives and careers were ruined.

Mentions of sex or innuendo or religion or dirty words or political attacks or a huge variety of other things you wouldn’t want your youngest children to hear created a low bar under which all television had to pass. Some managed. Creative drama used analogies and unspoken implications to get across their points. By the end of the 50s, though, these too were almost all gone, replaced by westerns and quiz shows.

This was the “vast wasteland” Newton Minnow complained about in 1961. The greatest communication media yet devised reduced to the lowest common denominator or below.

13

I know we’re talking about the 50s, but the word and concept “rape” was used before All In the Family. They had more than one episode of Adam-12 around 1970 that dealt with it, and used the word. (they also used “mauler”, but the crime was rape.) They also busted what was obviously a child rapist, but they were a slight bit more circumspect in the dialog. It was still obvious, though.

14

I spent my childhood laughing at attempted rape every time a Popeye cartoon came on. When I was 11, I watched a TV movie comedy about Paul Sorvino being raped by a woman (played by the actress who played Isis on Saturday morning kid’s TV). Rape as a concept wasn’t taboo; just the word and explicitly showing the act. Not actually calling rape “rape” minimized the horror of the crime.

15

I remember an episode of the old “Hawaii Five-O,” and they used the term “criminally assaulted.”

16

I don’t recall hearing the word “killed” as a euphemism for “raped” on television. I don’t think it was widely used if it was. It would make for a lot of confusion plotwise.

I do remember an episode of Gunsmoke where Miss Kitty was kidnapped and then brought back to Dodge City and shot. Doc Adams told Matt Dillon haltingly, “They…used her, Matt.” It was clear what that meant.

I do believe Kitty was raped twice on that show, on different episodes. One episode was called “Manon”. On that episode, Manon’s supposed to be an invincible gunfighter. Kitty tells Manon that Matt Dillon is better at sex than he is. This rattles Manon so much that Matt wins the gunfight.

17

No, actually “Edith’s 50th Birthday” wasn’t even the first attempted rape on that show. There was an episode about an attempted rape of Gloria in an earlier season. It’s even referred to on the show about Edith’s ordeal.

Unless you mean a portrayal of an actual attempted rape. Gloria’s ordeal happened off-screen.

18

The Searchers 1956 is one of John Wayne’s most intense roles.

His God-daughter was kidnapped by Indians. Wayne almost goes crazy pursuing them for years. It wasn’t to save her. He felt it was more merciful to kill her. Rather than have her be defiled by her captures.

I’m pretty sure Rape or violation was never actually said. It was unmistakably implied.

The woman did have indian children when she was found. Confirming what occurred without ever saying she was raped.

19

I’m remember an old episode of the Twilight zone where Satan was tempting a minister.
He had everyone call him Mr. Scratch.
I was younger and asked my Daddy about that. He told me it was another name for the devil.
Even then I wondered why they just didn’t just say Satan or the Devil.

20

That reminds me of a rerun of Dennis the Menace I saw as a kid. Dennis learned about deviled eggs for the first time, and is apparently confused because he thought “devil” was a bad word. His mom says something like it’s ok if you’re talking about eggs. So Dennis starts saying “deviled egg” all the time, because he thinks he can get away with saying a supposedly bad word as long as he says “egg” after it.

Even as a kid I thought that seemed really stupid. So apparently “Devil” was a bad word, at least on TV back then, unless you’re talking about deviled eggs. And I imagine devil’s food cake was probably ok as well.