Article. Great read and well worth the time to read it. Posting tidbits. Links are uncensored and in the case of the Lenny Bruce bit, have racial slurs.
Other examples listed in the article:
George Carlin / 7 Words You Can't Say On Television
Lenny Bruce bit censored.
Madonna smoking a cigar and saying fuck 13 times on David Letterman show.
The Enlightenment sages who wrote the First Amendment into the US Constitution in 1791 created the most secure legal foundation for a real democracy in history thus far. By refusing to grant government the power to shut anyone up, no matter how obnoxious, the authors of the Bill of Rights ensured that even if the worst, most corrupt idiots managed to grab power they wouldnt be able to silence their political enemies (in stark contrast to the divine right of kings, who dealt with the opposition by throwing it into a dungeon.) Its just 45 words: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Because of the ironclad protection of the First Amendment, it has proved very difficult for government to control what we can read, listen to or see. A few curbs have been put up, though, notably by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the regulations of which largely determine what kind of material is bleeped out of radio and television broadcasts.
One night in 1921, Petrova, then engaged at a Newark theater, went to the local radio station WJZ to perform. The Great War had just ended, during the course of which the government had forbidden the use of private radio equipment. After the armistice the Navy tried to retain monopoly control of radio, but Congress put a stop to their power grab. Wartime restrictions were lifted, but the pioneers of broadcasting such as those at WJZ were mindful of potential government interference, and Petrova had a reputation as a firebrand. She disarmed her hosts by announcing that she would be performing her own versions of Mother Goose rhymes, and then proceeded to read the following:
"There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, She had so many children because she didnt know what to do."
The 1873 Comstock laws, which banned the distribution of obscene materials, including information about contraception, were still in force; Petrova had, arguably, kind of broken the law.
One would suppose that radio audiences must be completely paralyzed, Petrova observed dryly, and therefore unable to turn off the switches of their own sets the instant their ears were shocked by what they heard.
The tug-of-war in the courts, in Congress and in the media over restrictions on free speech in broadcasting has altered very little since then. Justice William Brennan was still making Petrovas argument in his dissent in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (1978), the Supreme Court case involving George Carlins Filthy Words routine: Whatever the minimal discomfort suffered by a listener who inadvertently tunes into a program he finds offensive during the brief interval before he can simply extend his arm and switch stations or flick the off button, it is surely worth the candle to preserve the broadcasters right to send, and the right of those interested to receive, a message entitled to full First Amendment protection.
Decades later, Stephen King repeated the sentiment in a 2002 interview: If [Howard Stern] is saying stuff that you dont like, if it offends you, you got a hand, you reach out, take hold of the knob, turn it off. Hes gone, goodbye You dont need a politician in your living room to say youve got to put a Band-Aid over that guys mouth.
Societys relationship with the dark side of its own nature is complex and contentious; its a struggle that is always clearly visible in our comedy. Stand-up comedy in particular is intimately concerned with crossing the line in order to confront us with the truth about ourselves. Lenny Bruce might be the best practitioner of this kind of stand-up; he was like a firehose for the collective id, like the role played today by Kanye West, Lewis Black, or Lady Gaga. Bruces personal life was very troubled, but it was also his consummate skill in shocking the establishment that led him to be repeatedly harassed, arrested, and jailed.
This routine is 50 years old, but it still is very moving, still has the power to create discomfort, even anxiety. Its hard to say how much grief Lenny Bruce would have been given for writing and performing it today one imagines he would have faced a lot of criticism from both extremes of the political spectrum but it would be possible to watch on cable now, and on the internet, at least for the moment. Still, this performance couldnt appear on ordinary television, at least not without so many bleeps as to render it entirely incomprehensible.
Shortly after it became a familiar convention, the bleep became the subject of comedy in its own right. This kind of humor has a long pedigree. Theres Elderly Man River, a lovely bit from Stan Frebergs 1957 radio show in which a persnickety censor, Mr. Tweedly of the Citizens Radio Committee, noisily and self-righteously bowdlerized a performance of the song Old Man River.
The writers of Arrested Development are masters of this comic technique, repeatedly pushing the envelope. They snuck the word fucking past prime time television censors by putting half the wordat the beginning of the show, and half at the end.
But it was with the aid of censor bleeping that Arrested Development reached the summit of its satiric genius. The shows creator, Mitch Hurwitz, told Neda Ulaby of NPR, We realized, you know, its more fun to not know exactly what it is that were saying It becomes kind of a puzzle for people. And I think its about, you know, letting your imagination do the work.
A more recondite instance of the comedic meta-bleep came in the inaugural episode of that deceptively moronic Comedy Central sitcom, Workaholics. Its a layered, nuanced comment on the different kinds of mediation and restraints between performer and audience: technical, editorial, societal, legal. In one scene, our slacker heroes discuss the dubbed profanities in a cable broadcast of Die Hard.
Adam: Yo, Kyle, whats up?
Kyle: Its almost the ending, bro. Its Die Hard.
Adam: Did they just say, clucking?
Blake: Yeah it must be on cable, so they switch the swear words out?
Adam: Oh Carl Winslow, Id forgot about him!
Karl: Ssshhhh!
Anders: Did you know Reginald VelJohnson wasnt actually originally cast
Karl: Shut the cluck up.
[Anders snatches Kyles snacks away, Kyle says fuck and it is bleeped out.]
The fantastic confusion produced by South Parks depictions of Mohammed resulted in the collision of the meta-bleep with the real thing in Episode 201. In this episode, the people of South Park have to trade Mohammed to Tom Cruise and his gang of angry celebrities in exchange for their dropping a class action suit, but nobody has reckoned with the Ginger Separatist Movement, and it just gets crazier from there.
There could be no doubting the real danger in making critical portraits of Islam after Dutch director Theo Van Gogh was gunned down by a radical Islamist in Amsterdam in 2004 for having made a documentary film censuring the treatment of Islamic women. So, shortly after the airing of South Park Episode 200, when a group called Revolution Muslim threatened violence against the show's creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, in a blog post claiming that the two would probably end up like Theo Van Gogh for their comic portrayal of Mohammed, Comedy Central wasnt prepared to take any chances. The studio added its own real censor bleeps to the comic ones written in by Parker, and additionally bleeped out three long speeches in their entirety. To this day the uncensored version of Episode 201 is not available to stream or buy.
The Supreme Court has revisited FCC restrictions governing radio and broadcast television a number of times (federal laws dont govern cable television, which is regulated locally). The federal laws guide Obscenity, Indecency, and Profanity (the FCC provides a handy fact sheet outlining the differences).
In order to be considered obscenity, the material in question must pass a three-pronged test: first, it has to appeal to the prurient interest, or be be liable to turn the average person on sexually; secondly, it must describe sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and finally, the material taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. The last is how both Ulysses and Lolita slide out of being considered obscene.
Indecency, as defined by the FCC, is a much broader category, and can be anything that offensively describes sexual or excretory organs or activities. So, pooping, farting, mentioning of the peen. And profanity is just offensive language, expletives and the like.
When Cher received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Billboard Music Awards in 2002, Aerosmiths Steven Tyler introduced her, shouting gleefully, Shes got 19 patents on her ass! And when she took the stage, she said:
"Ive worked really hard, Ive had great people to work with and oh, you know what? Ive also had critics for the last 40 years saying I was on my way out every year, alright? So, fuck em. I still have a job, and they dont."
This moment, among other similar ones, was described in the Supreme Court filings in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. (2012). They werent worried about Steven Tylers assless pants comment, only about the single word, fuck, that Cher had nonchalantly dropped.
Other examples listed in the article:
George Carlin / 7 Words You Can't Say On Television
Lenny Bruce bit censored.
Madonna smoking a cigar and saying fuck 13 times on David Letterman show.
