Today when I turned on the news there was speculation of bomb like devices found on a cargo plane. It was suspected that it was shipped from Yemen
Fear is an undeniable part of life as is vulgarity. If there was a scale that measure immorality I am sure fear would rank much higher than vulgarity. An example of this is the court of law. If you threaten to hurt someone you can be charged with a terrorist threat. In comparison a person can call someone ever bad name he can think of and be charged, at the most, with disturbing the peace.
Fear lingers on a persons mind longer than feelings of offense from obscenities. Think of the last time you were offended by obscene language. The feeling usually passes within minutes. Now compare that with the false fear of weapons of mass destruction inIraq
Fear is an undeniable part of life as is vulgarity. If there was a scale that measure immorality I am sure fear would rank much higher than vulgarity. An example of this is the court of law. If you threaten to hurt someone you can be charged with a terrorist threat. In comparison a person can call someone ever bad name he can think of and be charged, at the most, with disturbing the peace.
Fear lingers on a persons mind longer than feelings of offense from obscenities. Think of the last time you were offended by obscene language. The feeling usually passes within minutes. Now compare that with the false fear of weapons of mass destruction in
Vulgarity is part of the speech of everyday people. A storyteller can not create realistic stories that involve everyday people, and leave out the way they communicate. For instance, if a story about a teenage that has family issues describes how one day the character was so upset with his parents that he told them to “go f**k themselves”, how would you alter that without loosing the emotion and anger? It would be virtually impossible.
Art imitates life. We do not attempt to take away the right for people to say vulgar words or to do vulgar things. Why then do we want to censor vulgarity out of media?
I believe that censorship comes from a combination of religion and democracy. Religion created groundwork for what is thought of as moral. Any thing that does not meet these religious standards is censored because the amount of leverage religion has. Gay people’s right to marry is an example of this. Marriage is thought of as the union between a woman and a man in almost every religion. Gay marriage went against this religious standard, and since the majority of Californians are religious it was struck down. They did not take into account that there are gay people that have been together for years, which value their relationship as much as the next couple, and want to make it official.
Censorship of vulgarity is a denial of the truth. When we create a false sense of reality for our comfort we create an ultra-sensitive society.
I dislike censorship as much as the next person, but I believe you have the wrong idea when it comes to the censorship of vulgarity. Yes, it is true that a large part of it’s censorship has to do with the fact that “moral, religious” individuals do not want to hear cuss words all day, but I believe it goes deeper then that.
ReplyDeleteThink back to the early 1600’s. Go back to the days of kings, lords, and paupers. What was the main thing that differentiated the pauper from the king? There was many things, but the two most important in my view was education and wealth. Had the king been born in the paupers shoes and vice versa the lives they led would only have been restrained by these two differences.
When you talked to a king, or a pauper, besides their clothes, how would you know who was different? If they wore the same clothes, you could tell by their word choice. The king, having a much higher education, would speak with dignity and cleanliness. The pauper would use shorter, more abrasive words to get his point across. This is the way which it has been for centuries, and why would this not carry over onto the screen.
In order to portray a show as exceptional, they want to show it off as if it is educated, modern, and classy. Now I am sorry, but there is absolutely nothing classy about a teen that is on TV yelling obscenities at his parents, but a definitive lack of class. Everything in our society is based around class. Our sexuality, the people whom we want to mingle with, we all want to be part of a world with “class.” If the TV does not provide that world, we won’t watch. By striking obscenities from the language used, the networks are showing that they have class, and hope to be accepted by the masses.