Thursday, June 28, 2007

Blue pencil alert...

I've never been much of a fan of censorship, largely because I am a rational adult who is capable of turning a TV or radio to another channel or if necessary, switching it off completely.

That said, I suppose I still support the idea of some kind of watershed so that kids don't have be subjected to unsuitable material over the tea table, but whether 9 o'clock is still an appropriate time limit, I'm not entirely sure.

I was watching "That 70s Show" tonight on Paramount and for reasons best known to themselves, they had decided to repeatedly blank out the word "ass". Poor Eric always takes a verbal battering from his Dad and is always being called "Dumbass" so there are some scenes where hardly any dialogue can be heard at all. If the language is seen to be so inappropriate for a family audience then why show it so early? Or at all?

Funnier still, was an example on the Radio 2 breakfast show the other morning where they played a censored version of Christina Aguilera's "Candyman". Now we all know that young Xtina is not exactly backward in pushing the boundaries of decency when she chooses, but I think they ruined a perfectly good song. More to the point, by replacing phrases like "cherry pop" and "panties drop" with record scratching, wolf whistles or trombone noises, they made it sound a whole lot filthier than it was with lyrics intact.

Censorship. Why can't they just leave us alone to make our own decisions the interfering bunch of c****...

1 comment:

Karate Jim said...

I guess censorship is harder these days with most children (mine NOT included!) having a TV, DVD & VCR in their bedroom. In my experience, many children are already familiar with all the swear words I can think of, so maybe it would help them to learn how to use them in context!