{"id":793,"date":"2012-02-01T14:42:56","date_gmt":"2012-02-01T12:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=793"},"modified":"2015-04-28T01:32:28","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T23:32:28","slug":"you-cant-say-that-on-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/you-cant-say-that-on-tv\/","title":{"rendered":"You can’t say that on TV!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back when I was a newsreader<\/a> for my college radio station, I was shown one of the thickest books I’d ever seen: a binder<\/span> containing, I guess, about 500 pages. Those were all the rules an American radio station had to follow, as laid down by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). While I found the book daunting<\/span>, my contemporaries<\/span> found it amusing. They’d discovered the chapter that listed all the words no one was allowed to say on the air<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Many of the words were vulgar terms for various sex acts. Some were offensive terms for different racial or ethnic groups. You could not hear any of these words on the radio, see them on TV, nor read them in newspapers. It was, however, possible to find them in books or hear them spoken in movies.<\/p>\n

Can the US government really tell people what not to say? Yes, sometimes. First, it owns the airwaves<\/span>, which it gives radio and TV stations permission to use. Second, if you buy a book or pay to see a movie, you are voluntarily subjecting yourself<\/span> to rude language. If you have the TV on, other people or their children might hear bad language without wanting to.<\/p>\n

So two cultures developed \u2014 one in which profanity<\/span> was forbidden, the other in which it was allowed.<\/p>\n

That sounded reasonable, and it was \u2014 for a while. But times change, of course. Now we have a situation where somebody can have a Twitter account called Shit My Dad Says<\/a>, which anybody can read; but a TV show based on it has to be called $#*! My Dad Says<\/i><\/a> because the first word can’t be said on TV and newspapers don’t want to print it. If the show had instead been made for cable TV, the original title would have been allowed.<\/p>\n

Broadcast<\/span> TV networks say they’re being treated unfairly, and have asked the Supreme Court<\/a> to decide whether the two cultures of profanity can’t be combined into one.<\/p>\n

What the court won’t, and can’t, decide directly is the real underlying issue: the fact that crude<\/span> language has become commonplace. People have always used it, of course \u2014 but to convey<\/span> real anger or hatred or vulgarity. Now they use it just to show emphasis, to be clever or lazy (as in the above-mentioned title) or to add a few meaningless syllables to song lyrics.<\/p>\n

I predict that, as informal language increasingly becomes standard, swear<\/span> words will lose any effect they once had. We will encounter them as part of everyday language in official situations. Fifty years from now, we will no longer hear announcements like “We’d like to remind passengers that this is the final boarding call for United flight 163.” Instead, it’ll be “Hurry the f— up, people! Get your asses on board United flight 163!” This will sound perfectly normal, and no one will be offended.<\/p>\n

People will no doubt sing oldies, too \u2014 classic hymns of gangsta rap and heavy metal. Comedian Richard Cheese<\/a> gives us a taste of what it’ll be like.<\/p>\n