If you were watching Saturday Night Live this weekend, you likely heard the inadvertent blurting of the f-bomb by one of the new cast members, Jenny Slate. I was watching, and I found myself not enraged but actually thrilled to have heard the word (though Ms. Slate looked like she was about to have a heart attack when she realized what she'd done.)
Growing up in America, I've always been a little bit bothered by this inconsistency of ours. We pride ourselves in our documents and in our culture for our tolerance, our freedom, our willingness to provide a safe environment for the open expression of ideas – unless you happen to say something that might be construed as offensive.
I remember the first thing that really shocked me when I went on a trip to Canada in my childhood is that the words to one of my favorite songs wasn't bleeped out on the radio, there. It made me wonder, you know? It's not as though Canada is falling apart at the seams because they allow 'naughty' words over their airwaves, and Canadians don't seem to grow up with any fouler of a mouth than we're accustomed to.
The mere fact that we allow organizations to impose such dire consequences for the use of language over public airwaves... that is what I find to be appalling. The FCC really shouldn't even exist in a country that prides itself on preventing censorship from occurring. I see absolutely no point in any of it, and I feel like it hurts our credibility not only in the eyes of our own citizens (it certainly did in mine) but also on a world scale. We really start to look like blustering hypocrites when we can't even stand by our own supposed idealogy.
So, bring it on, already. If we say we're for these lofty ideas like Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press, Freedom of Expression – than we need to stop being whiny puritans about the whole thing, take our hands off of our eyes and ears and actually put our money where our mouths are.
Show the nudity. Show the gore. Quit it with the ridiculous amounts of bleeping and redubbing, and slapping 'violators' with fines or the threat of termination.
That's what our country is about, isn't it?
We're not supposed to give a shit.
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I agree...but i think the main reason for censorship is for younger kids. Parents don't want their kids listening to musci with cuss words in it and have them thinking its ok to use it...given they will use the language as soon as they get to highschool...but for now they going to be sheltered I suppose? which still doesnt even make sense because I grew up with a father who cursed up a storm...so with music and my parents it was in my destiny to have a foul mouth lolol.
ReplyDeleteI think that censorship is much needed, especially when it comes to young viewers. I would agree with censoring younger kids shows, I know that SNL is on late and I think that wasting time to censor SNL is dumb. I think that cursing can be hilarious when used right, especially in comedy. I think that they should keep censoring things that need to be censored, but if the rating of the show is mature for example, censoring the material is stupid because the show is originally targeted towards the older audience.
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