‘Nigger’ was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the topic, and, lo, it was covered in the OP.
Although that does bring up an odd ‘censorship’ thing.
Comedy Gold, a classic comedy cable network up here, shows Bizarre (John Byner/Bob Einstein sketch comedy from the 80s) and Kids in the Hall (Sketch comedy from the 90s, and shame on you if you didn’t know that)…often back to back.
Now, Bizarre is…well, it’s very vulgar. They had a recurring bit called The Bigots, which was a multi-ethnic family that told racist jokes about and to each other. But that’s not the bit in question. In one episode, they had a guest appearance by Red Foxx. He used the word ‘nigger’ freely. To the point it was highly uncomfortable to watch.
Then Kids in the Hall came on. No use of ‘nigger’ obviously. But…they censored every use of the word ‘fag’. They had the sketch about Kevin’s drunken father, and, of course, a Buddy Cole monologue. Both were rendered near incomprehensible by the constant audio drops.
I’m not sure when the censoring was done (it clearly wasn’t by CG - to use Bizarre as the example again, the only censoring on that was what was there before - usually scatalogical references, and the word ‘fag’, which were censored with a loud noise from the start), but…it got to the point they may as well have just removed most of the Buddy monologues entirely…
There’s some comedian whose name I can’t think of (it might be Katt Williams but the YouTube clips I pull up don’t seem quite right) but he uses the word so much that it absolutely seems like he has Tourettes. He uses it as filler practically- he’s who I think the dumbass bitch Laura Schleßinger was probably referring to because it’s literally just about every other word- it’s not like Chris Rock or Dave Chappelle who’ll use it here and there for shock value but more like he can’t not say it- repeatedly.
Anyway, the whole reason for bringing him up is that Comedy Central shows his standup anyway but bleeps the word and it’s ridiculous. It comes across like:
“BLEEPer I told the BLEEP get those BLEEP BLEEP off my car nBLEEP I’m serious nBLEEPr those nBLEEPrs gonna see a BLEEPger getting his nigBLEEP ass shot off nBLEEPr.”
It’s one of those “Why even put it on in the first place?” decisions. There are some comedians who are this bad with fuck and other vulgarities, but this particular one stands out because he must use the word a thousand times in a thirty minute stand up special.
There were some drug jokes (inevitably) in the most recent Simpsons episode, “A Midsummer’s Nice Dream,” which guest-starred Cheech and Chong. I believe, although I’d have to check Hulu to refresh my memory, that Homer had a daydream in which he and Cheech shared a joint.
Eh, I just remembered, it also showed Cheech and Chong working as weathermen at Springfield’s Channel 6 and getting high off the smoke when Chief Quimby set fire to a huge pile of pot in the vacant lot next door.
The basement ‘circle’ bit on That 70’s Show always had smoke floating around. And they way the camera was in the middle and kept turning to the next actor represented the joint being passed around. As a producer said, “The camera is just always one person behind the joint!”
As for the OP, I know this isn’t GD but what you’re talking about is the result of caving to political correctness. And it has to be stopped! I caught Blazing Saddles on cable a while ago and ever occurrence of nigger was muted. Showing it that way is worse than nothing. Most of that film was written by Richard Pryor for Christ’s sake! I defy anyone anywhere to disagree that the old woman saying, “Up yours nigger!” is not only not offensive in any way, but its one of the funniest movie lines ever!
I still hope PC-ness will eventually die off. Its genuinely insidious and in direct conflict with free speech. I like to call it The New Fascism!
Walter on Fringe does all kinds of drugs including hitting a bong on the show. I don’t think they’ve actually shown him smoking, but I can’t remember for sure. I do know we’ve seen smoke and heard him hitting it.
On the CBS sitcom Mike & Molly (which, if you haven’t seen it, is actually not bad as sitcoms go), Molly’s sister is a stoner. In the pilot episode, she talked openly about smoking pot, and at one point, IIRC, she went upstairs and a cloud of smoke came drifting from behind the wall.
I predicted that if the show became successful, they’d have to tone down the drug jokes. I was wrong. Not only is it still major character point, she has been shown actually smoking a joint on camera more than once.
I find it kind of jarring, not because I’m offended, but because I’m surprised they get away with it, and it takes me out of the show a bit.
And North by Northwest has as scene in the beginning where the bad guys force Cary Grant at gunpoint to get absolutely shitfaced, then pour him into a car and set him off down a winding mountain road. After running several other cars off the road and nearly killing himself, he’s arrested… and let go the next morning after paying off a $30 ticket, with no other repercussions.
That’s true, but ONLY on sitcoms aimed at white audiences. That is, on a sitcom with a largely white cast and a largely white audience, black characters are almost always much smarter and more dignified than white characters, and aren’t allowed to embarrass themselves.
On sitcoms with a largely black cast and a largely black audience, it’s different. Martin Lawrence, to use one example, was allowed to make a fool of himself constantly on his own his own show. Black people don’t mind watching and laughing at other black people, even black people engaged in foolish and stereotypical behavior. But they’re VERY sensitive about the possibility that white people might be laughing at them. And I’d wager many gay men laugh hysterically at limp-wristed, campy performers and characters in gay-oriented shows that they’d find insulting on a “straight” sitcom.
That’s understandable, of course. Catholics tell Pope jokes when they think nobody else is listening and Jews tell jokes about other Jews when they think no one else is around… but they’d be highly offended if they heard an outsider telling the same jokes.
Not only was it acceptable, a scene titled “The Rape Ballet” was a major song & dance number in the longest running Broadway musical, The Fantasticks. “Rape” was used as a light-hearted “abduction” concept, but when the movie was made just a few years ago, the entire song and scene was rewritten – and it was the only major alteration of the play.
Thankfully, the producer included an additional recording of the original lyric as an extra on the DVD, but the original recreation was only 4 cast members singing, not an elaborate production number.
The New Adventures of Old Christine had a fabulous episode where Christine sponsors a black family to get into her son’s ritzy all-white private school, then goes to their house for dinner and they use the “f-word.”
Christine: They used the f-word
Matthew: You use that word all the time. You used it four times on the way over here.
Christine: No, the other f-word.
Later. at her house
Christine: They used the f-word
Matthew: The ride home was sponsored by the letter F.
Christine: No, the other f-word.
Richard: What? Flamboyent? Flaming? France?
When PBS showed British shows, there was occasionally nudity. I remember bare breasts in a couple of episodes of Rumpole of the Bailey, which was not an “adult” program. I know that nudity still occasionally pops up in British shows – I’ve seen male buttocks in Peep Show, but I don’t know what PBS does with that kind of thing now.
Well, I guess it still happens on PBS!
It has nothing at all to do with “political correctness,” whatever you mean by that. In any group of people, some significant segment of that population will find something offensive. So long as there are channels that want to not offend that segment of the population, those channels will have to restrict depictions of something or other, whether it’s nudity or strong language or racial/ethnic epithets. This is particularly the case with the traditional networks, which depend on mass appeal. They have to worry about everyone’s sensitivities. PBS gets away with a tiny bit of nudity and language (particularly in imports), because they know that that’s what their audience is comfortable with. Only outlets like HBO and Showtime, which narrow their target audiences, will feel free to let it all hang out.
How about the censoring of Tom and Jerry to replace Mammy Two Shoes. We certainly got the original “offensive” version in the UK back in the 70s. I don’t know that they show Tom and Jerry on telly here at all anymore.
Not really a PC issue but I’ve seen places where Universal Channel (formerly Hallmark) have censored Monk of all things and that’s about as offensive as In the Night Garden*****
I want to attack the screen whenever I see someone use “political correctness” as a term for people doing anything they don’t agree with. The population who wants “family-friendly” shows without nudity or cussing or those dreadful “other” people is the antithesis of whatever vestige of meaning political correctness might have. They hate those things not because their use might demean a person or group but because it offends their delicate sensibilities or their individual bizarre interpretation of half-understood religious beliefs or “please think of the children!” or whatever non-rational glurge is fouling the sludgepots of their brains.
Political correctness is not hatred. The attitude you’re talking about is hate, from the base up. I realize this fight is lost. I still have the need to fight it, at least every once in a while.
I watched a rerun of Emergency in which someone flags down the paramedics as they are on their way back to the station from a call. They are shown a baby lying in the back seat of a locked car in a shopping center parking lot on a warm day.
They get a coat hanger and eventually get the car unlocked. Luckily, they find the car’s interior cooler than they feared, and the baby is fine. Then the child’s mother shows up, hair in curlers from the hair salon she was at, leaving her kid in the car. She begins yelling at the paramedics for breaking into her car and messing about with her baby.
And the paramedics hand the child to her, apologize profusely, and drive away.
Don’t think it would be done that way on today’s TV.