A friend of mine mentioned that a movie she considered taking her kids to was rated PG-13 for scenes of cigarette smoking. I laughed at her, but she insists she is correct.
You don’t know the half of it. The busybodies are campaigning to have smoking be the basis for an automatic R rating.
Nitpick: It was a two dollar ticket.
A lot of the nudity (PBS, The Simpsons, NYPD Blue) stopped cold after the Janet Jackson superbowl kerfluffle. That was soon followed by NYPD getting slapped with a $1.4 million dollar fine for displaying “full dorsal nudity, and the side of one breast.”
That fine was tossed out on appeal (warning: mildly NSFW) earlier this year, but it had a chilling effect on all the broadcast networks.
band name!
It looks like my second link is broken; here is the story in AdWeek. Small picture of Charlotte Ross’s butt, but the US Courts say it’s not indecent!
I’d agree - looked pretty decent to me.
Not long ago on ESPN Classic Canada, they showed the CBC broadcast of the final game of the 1979 Stanley Cup Finals. During a break in play, one of the announcers mentioned something about an upcoming benefit hockey game where “the proceeds will go to retarded children”.
When was the last time anyone ever showed “Amos and Andy”?
I guess in the old days you would see more Confederate flags at NASCAR race broadcasts than today although I also think they try to discourage people waving them at tracks, under the name of “it blocks other people’s view”
The Janet Jackson thing also caused all the radio stations to restart censoring the odd dirty word in songs such as Big Old Jet Airliner, Who Are You, and Money.
They just showed him smoking from a bong with Jorge Garcia last week. They inhaled and blew out smoke, too.
I’m surprised you’ve forgotten (or perhaps never saw?) the marijuana brownie episode of Glee from last season – it was the one where they were having a bake sale to raise money to get a wheelchair accessible bus.
My wife and I watched American Idol last night and were appalled by the censoring of the word shih tzu when one of the contestants was simply referring to her dog.
E! just bleeped the “Christ” when Chris Noth said “Well, get in fer chrissakes.” That’s the first time I’ve seen that.
Years ago, I used to keep a log of network censorship, and the “God” was routinely blanked out from “God damn,” leaving only the “damn.” Strange how censors’ minds (if they have any) work.
Were abortions (by major characters no less) ever really that common on network TV though?
There was an episode of Sex and the City in which several of the characters admitted to having had abortions, but they were all “historical,” in that none of them were contemporaneous with the events of the episode. Also that was a pay cable show and it was a generation ago in TV time.
Last week (I think it was last week - it was when Mike and Molly got in a fight), Molly went home and smoked a joint with her sister. What surprised me about it was that there was no Very Special Lesson where she learned The Evils of Marijuana. I mean, she’s dating a cop, for goodness sakes! And IIRC, even told him she got high. But it wasn’t the demon weed at all, and nothing bad happened to her as a result.
I immediately contrasted it my head with the Roseanne episode **Sampiro **mentioned. Yes, Dan and Roseanne and Jackie got high, from some very old stash. And they had some hilarious scenes in the bathroom. But the final Lesson came when one of the kids came home and Roseanne started getting paranoid about what would happen if one of the kids needed a blood transfusion and she couldn’t give them her blood “because it’s all full of pot!” Ultimately they decided that Pot Was Bad and they were Too Old For This.
Kind of a nice shift, actually.
Glee gets away with a LOT for a show airing at 8pm. Nerd masturbating naked in the library gets caught, then later he loses control (because of Britney Spears music) and has to masturbate at the rally in the gym too.