When 7 Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Television Become OK…
It was 30 years ago when the FCC ruled that you could in fact, NOT say George Carlin’s 7 Dirty Words. Now it seems that the US Supreme Court Court will again hear a case to determine what is and isn’t acceptable.
Looking over the magic list, some of them don’t have the shock value that the others do anymore. Mind you, I’m no prude, either. But, does that mean that we need to loosen what we consider to be “decent” or acceptable to air on prime time. I understand this case is more about those impromptu blurtings that celebrities and various award winning folk are wont to do. But… my concern is that as we as a society become desensitized to profanity whether it be profane speech or profane subject matter, if we continuously lower our standards to reflect it, we’ll wind up in a bad state. We could conceivably end up with “Skinamax” (or worse) movies in prime time. Think that’s unrealistic? Picture primetime when we were kids (for me, that was the mid-to-late 1970s). Flash forward to today… Family Guy, on Primetime…with more than a subtle reference to a sex act I don’t want to explain to my child…ever.
I wonder where the last line that separates decency from indecency is drawn.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
What the french, toast? I’ve never been one for censorship, but honestly, they do need to really tone down a lot of things on tv. I think I recall a movie on some cable channel saying “asshole” during prime time. Not sure if I want that heard by my kids. Now anyone who knows me knows I swear like a sailor (i was one after all) but around children, I’ll resort to using terms like “Stinky McStinkface” or “Lint Licker”. I just hope they don’t allow full on nudity on tv. While I’m not one to complain about it, I’d have to wonder if it’s something for kids to see.
March 26th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I can’t even tell you how much more noticeable it is since we nixed TV at our house. Now when we watch movies we used to watch all the time I find myself cringing. It’s amazing how perfectly subtle and slow the desensitizing is.
Hugs,
Holly