Sunday, October 19, 2008

American Censorship OR "Just the God"

I was in the car the other day with the radio on when this song came on. I have no idea what the song is called or who made it, but from what I can tell from the little bit I listened to, the singer seems to be very upset at the actions that were taking place in a room nearby with the door open.
"Haven't you people ever heard of closing the --- damn door" the radio asked me. I wonder when it started that they censor the 'god' in the word "goddamn". This isn't meant to be a religious argument, I'm far from the image of piety, but I think it's worth thinking about. Censorship has come a long way in just the time that I can remember. I remember when I was younger you never even heard the word damn on the radio. I even remember there being some kind of controversy when the Fox network let Al Bundy say "bitch" on prime-time TV. Now bitch is everywhere, damn, ass, all of that shit. Profane terms for anatomy don't even bat an eye anymore, "so and so is a dick", "you're such a pussy". The word "tits" is almost ubiquitous on TV these days. Maybe the odd old-timer will shift in their seat a little if they hear the word "pussy", but that's about it. And as the comedian Joe Rogan pointed out, you can still stiffen a few faces by dropping a "cunt" here and there, but even that one has lost a lot of steam since the 80s. The point is it seems like it doesn't take long anymore for people to acclimate to the profane word of the day to the point where sooner or later no one cares, but some of it just doesn't make sense to me.
I remember when Eminem's first song came out when I was in high school. At one point he uses the word "asshole" in the real song, but that one appears to be just barely enough to merit censoring. This was around the time where instead of just blanking the word out, artists were preemptively releasing cleaner, radio friendly versions of their songs. But Eminem, being the sick fuck that he is, replaced "asshole" with "ball sack", and the censor people apparently found this acceptable. And the first time I heard it on the radio I was amazed. Not that I really care either way, but I find ball sack to be a bit more distasteful than asshole. Asshole almost doesn't even mean anything anymore, you hear that shit all the time, but ball-sack?
I guess the radio stations are just trying to keep out of trouble with the censor's and all that, who's job it is to basically respond to the sensibilities of the times and make sure broadcasts stay inside the lines during daylight hours. But is this really the state of things? Do the censors think to themselves, 'People may take offense to our use of the word "goddamn", so how about we take out the "god". Not the damn, not even the whole fucking word. Just the God. I'm just confused, that's all.

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