Friday, July 21, 2006

Censorship takes a different form.


From IMDB

In Thursday's edition, we reported on a new PBS policy that requires not only that language that could result in an FCC fine be bleeped, but that if the words can be recognized "from the speaker's mouth, the lips must be pixelated." We headlined the item, "Now Censorship for Deaf People." We subsequently received the following email from Marlee Matlin, Hollywood's most celebrated deaf actress (winner of the 1987 Best Actress Oscar for Children of a Lesser God): "All I can say is I've been reading the lips of bleeped-out words, angry baseball players, and stoned-out rock stars on awards shows for years and it's been HILARIOUS. Everyone is always asking me what the
bleeped-out parts are saying. Just say no to pixelization! Hehe."

This is incredible. We can show people killing one another day in and day out, but apparently words are the real problem. Here's an idea. George Carlin said it best. "Let's take violent movies and when they say 'kill', let's replace it with 'fuck'. So, in the cowboy movies, it'll be, 'We're gonna fuck ya, Zeke. But we're gonna fuck ya slow"
Or how about this? if it's a 'bad word', why don't they just spell it? That should guarantee most kids and even some adults wouldn't understand it.

2 comments:

Alexander Wolfe said...

Okay, now who decides what can and can't be recognized? I'm pretty sure poeple know what "fuck" looks like when someone's saying it, but how about "kiss my mamma's juicy cunt"? How many people have to be able to recognize that before you pixelate? This a slippery slop we're staring down here...

adam said...

Btw, kiss my mamma's juicy cunt!