I have never worked as a censor for TV and radio, but I can assure you that there is only one line in the job description of a censor: "It is your job to block out the least offensive half of the most offensive material." To better understand this slightly cryptic and largely nonsensical goal, let us examine audio censorship first, then visual.
When censoring dialogue, it is rarely the goal of the censor to make what is being said unclear. If it was, they'd block out the
offensive material in its entirety, not just half of it. Take the phrase "God damn" for example: God is the part that gets censored.
Society is doing its best to become increasingly secular, but God still isn't the part of that phrase that should be offensive. Besides,
who else would be damning things besides God? "Asshole" is another great example, as "hole" is the part that gets censored. If holes
were really that offensive, Animal Planet would have to cancel Meerkat Manor because the entire screen would be one big blur. Even with
single words, like "fuck", the censors leave half of it intact, and just softened the U. Who the f-ck is that supposed to trick? The English language
is based off of consonant sounds, not vowel sounds, so softening or beeping JUST the letter U isn't going to do anything. There is only one
instance ever that I can recall where censors wanted to make dialogue unrecognizable, and that's the Panic at the Disco song "I Write Sins, Not Tragedies".
In that song, the entire word "whore" is omitted. It wouldn't be a big deal, except that one word is the main, or rather only, plot point of the
entire song. After that there's just a chorus that repeats several thousand times.
As for video censorship, I have only one example. Be warned that this example is really gross, which is why the censors got involved. The other day the TV
happened to be on the Best Damn Sports Show Period; it is unknown whether this title is a censored version of Best God Damn Sports Show Period or not.
The episode was a countdown of the top 50 outrageous sports clips. The show was your standard run of sports clips showcasing people getting into fights
and accidentally hurting themselves, but one of the clips in the top 10 was from a dog show. The fact that dog shows don't even resemble
a sport is a topic for another day. In the clip, a dog walked out to be judged, and started shitting. Violently. It was one of the most vile
things I've ever seen, and I had a perfect view because they showed the clip like 3 times. The interesting part, however, is that as gross and
offensive as this was, the censors felt that projectile feces were perfectly fine to show on TV. The even more interesting part is that the
pile of shit on the ground was deemed too offensive and thus blurred. I can't even explain how confused and disgusted I was.
I don't expect this little entry to change any censors fucked up views on reality, but I'll leave you all with one question: if that dog's owner
had rubbed the dog's nose in it's business, would they have censored the dog's face after?
This blog has been approved by the FC C...somehow.
© 2008 by Dr. Jeebus