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TV Censorship, Modern-Style

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PShields79	TV Censorship, Modern-Style	Lead	[-]
Jan 14 13 12:45 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I was watching An American Werewolf in London the other day on a cable channel (SyFy, maybe?), and I noticed an odd bit of editing. Since when is the term "Mexican" considered censurable? Early in the film, in The Slaughtered Lamb, when the older bloke is finishing his joke with "The Texan yells, 'Remember the Alamo'...and throws out the Mexican!", "Mexican" was silenced (the new form of bleeping). "Mexican" is like "American" or "Swedish" or "Canadian." How is it that it is now an epithet? I don't get it. Perry Shields Member, Torrance Theatre Company
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hermanthegerm		#1	[-]
Jan 14 13 9:48 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	It isn't. They think they are walking on eggshells. Considering the complaints about some stuff, it's surprising other stuff gets left in. "There is a lot of money tied up in this film and people expect to hear a boom when something blows up, so I'll give them a boom." George Lucas as quoted by Harlan Ellison's WATCHING
Grant		#2	[-]
Jan 14 13 12:03 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	There's a subtle difference, though, in "Mexican" as an adjective and "Mexican" as a noun. So that might make TV people nervous. It's like the difference between "Jewish" and "Jew." There's a very good line about that in Burns and Schreiber's "Taxi" routine - Burns : "I see you're of the - Hebraic persuasion." Schreiber: "I'm a Jew." Burns: "Hey, I'm not one for name-calling."
PhantomXCI		#3	[-]
Jan 14 13 1:04 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The ultra-PC world in which we live has made it virtually impossible for us to state observations about race. Take the local news for instance. This past week, there were three store robberies in my community. All of them were recorded by security camera. In two of the cases, the culprits wore ski-type masks which obscured their faces. But the third culprit did nothing to hide his face and was very obviously a black male. The description we got was "Male, 6'1", approximately 25 years old". It would narrow down the list if they mentioned his race. But news programs are afraid they will be accused of racial bias if they identify someone as being black, asian, middle eastern or latino. I'd bet real money that some day they won't even commit to "male" or "female".
Gojira		#4	[-]
Jan 14 13 1:12 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	A lot of what is often described as PC strikes me more as a) sue happy nature or b) someone's job is to watch out for faux-paxs. Frequently, those "offended" are not the actual alleged target of the alleged insult.
Grant		#5	[-]
Jan 14 13 1:47 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	PhantomXCI wrote: I'd bet real money that some day they won't even commit to "male" or "female". I don't know about true crime stories, but that has happened in entertainment. For a long while you would see the word "actor" used to describe an actress (maybe not in obvious places like awards, but in a whole lot of captions and things). That was that one case in almost a thousand where even I get really bugged by "P.C." language, because "actress" just has a certain ring to it, and "actor" for a woman is just the opposite - it sticks out like a sore thumb. Luckily that one seemed to level off.
Grant		#6	[-]
Jan 14 13 1:55 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Gojira wrote: A lot of what is often described as PC strikes me more as a) sue happy nature or b) someone's job is to watch out for faux-paxs. Frequently, those "offended" are not the actual alleged target of the alleged insult. That's very true. Long before the expression political correctness, Frito-Lay took the "Frito Bandito" off the air and out of the print ads, because of how much he might be offending Mexican-Americans. Then they got a lot of letters wanting him back - largely FROM Mexican-Americans.
porta		#7	[-]
Jan 14 13 4:24 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Remember the Alamo. My horrible blog: http://igloooftheuncanny.blogspot.com/
jamesenstein31		#8	[-]
Jan 14 13 6:43 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I love how Speedy Gonzales is considered racist today. I mean, REALLY? REALLY???
Grant		#9	[-]
Jan 14 13 8:34 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've heard the same story about Speedy as the one I mentioned about the Frito Bandito - when someone tries to censor those cartoons, it's often Hispanics who want them not to!
Wich2		#10	[-]
Jan 14 13 8:40 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Grant, "actor" is now the accepted term for both genders. Believe me, it took some training for me to get the habit, but that's as it should be - when was the last time you heard of a Doctress, Writress, or Lawyeress? -Craig
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Grant		#11	[-]
Jan 14 13 9:45 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'll never let go of actresses (so to speak). Or comediennes. Or bartendresses. Even though I've only heard it once, once was enough for me to like bartendresses.
Gojira		#12	[-]
Jan 15 13 5:47 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	jamesenstein31 wrote: I love how Speedy Gonzales is considered racist today. I mean, REALLY? REALLY??? He's back on the new Looney Tunes show.
gene phillips		#13	[-]
Jan 15 13 1:48 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I watched some episodes of the 90s cartoon CONAN THE ADVENTURER. One made very loose usage of a tribe of black African cannibals from a Howard story, who went by the name of "Darfurians" (being based on a real African region). The cartoon used the Darfurians, but they were all pasty-white characters. NATURALISTIC! UNCANNY! MARVELOUS!
Atomic Mystery Monster		#14	[-]
Jan 16 13 9:20 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Grant wrote: That's very true. Long before the expression political correctness, Frito-Lay took the "Frito Bandito" off the air and out of the print ads, because of how much he might be offending Mexican-Americans. Then they got a lot of letters wanting him back - largely FROM Mexican-Americans. A lot of people forget that Frito-Lay softened the character so that he merely tried to trick people them into giving him Fritos rather than flat-out robbing them prior to his eventual retirment. I also remember hearing that his design was fiddled with so that he was better-groomed and no longer had a gold tooth. This is similar to how Speedy Gonzales was originally depicted with shabby clothing, greasy hair, and a gold tooth until Warner Brothers received enough complaints on the matter. Of course, unlike the Bandito, Speedy never had to deal with criticisms of repurposing a traditional Mexican song ("Cielito Lindo") into an advertisement for snack foods... Gravedigger's Local 16 - "What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?" 6'+ (Six Foot Plus) - Musical madness (and more) from the GdL16 gang.
scotpens		#15	[-]
Jan 16 13 9:49 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	gene phillips wrote: I watched some episodes of the 90s cartoon CONAN THE ADVENTURER. One made very loose usage of a tribe of black African cannibals from a Howard story, who went by the name of "Darfurians" (being based on a real African region). The cartoon used the Darfurians, but they were all pasty-white characters. That's similar to what happened to the Oompa-Loompas in Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In the novel, they were a transplanted tribe of African Pygmies. The 1971 movie with Gene Wilder transformed them into orange-skinned, white-haired dwarfs. In Tim Burton's 2005 version, the little buggers are short-statured and dark-skinned, but of indeterminate race and/or nationality. That reminds me of one of the chapters in either Mary Poppins or the sequel Mary Poppins Comes Back, which I read many years ago. In one of their adventures, Mary and the children are whisked away to -- well, someplace where the people are black, look and dress like African natives, but talk in American plantation dialect! I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that chapter has disappeared or been edited in current editions of the book. And then there's the story "Way in the Middle of the Air" which was originally included in Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles . . .
gene phillips		#16	[-]
Jan 16 13 10:18 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	There are even a few possible examples from Classic Hollywood. The remake of THIEF OF BAGDAD elaborates a very minor sequence from the silent THIEF into a mammoth adventure in which the main hero (Sabu) has to bypass an assortment of menaces to plunder a giant idol-- including savages who look somewhat like Australian aborgines but are colored green. A couple of adaptations of FLASH GORDON-- an obscure DC Comics revival and a forgettable SCI-FI Channel series-- both elided the idea of Ming and Aura looking like Earth Orientals. NATURALISTIC! UNCANNY! MARVELOUS!
Dr Acula		#17	[-]
Jan 17 13 9:57 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The thing I've noticed is that with old films, tv stations are now not just bluring out nudity when the scenes can't be cut from the film, but also bluring out cleavage and "body parts whose outlines can be seen through clothing"... it seems really weird to me! My God, what's Bond doing?... I think he's attempting re-entry, sir. http://www.eccentric-cinema.com/ Cole's Comics: All About Jack Cole http://colescomics.blogspot.com/
Spoiler II		#18	[-]
Jan 18 13 3:34 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Aside from the Frito Bandito, other junk food icons that got sent to PC Penal Correction and got the Ludovico technique were Cookie Crisp's Cookie Crook who went from a cookie stealing theif to being excised altogether while the police man trying to bring him to justice was also banished and both of their spots were taken over by the Crook's masked dog,who somehow transformed later into a wolf! Punchy,the scrappy mascot for Hawaiian Punch,has been toned down for the last few decades since his heyday where he used to blast unsuspecting bystanders in the face without warning. Just from this cheerful family photo,Captain Crook is a thing of the past, the Hamburglar went from a disturbing looking old gray haired mugger to being a cartoony young kid and the Mad professor became simply...Professor. I guess crime doesn't pay!
Rakshasa		#19	[-]
Jan 18 13 9:16 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	PShields79 wrote: Early in the film, in The Slaughtered Lamb, when the older bloke is finishing his joke with "The Texan yells, 'Remember the Alamo'...and throws out the Mexican!", "Mexican" was silenced (the new form of bleeping). I'll be "that guy" and point out that the actual tag to the punchline in the film is "...and chucks out the Mexican!". Links To All The Classic Monster Stills I've Posted: http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/30758
Reegs		#20	[-]
Jan 18 13 10:51 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Spoiler II wrote: Aside from the Frito Bandito, other junk food icons that got sent to PC Penal Correction and got the Ludovico technique were Cookie Crisp's Cookie Crook who went from a cookie stealing theif to being excised altogether while the police man trying to bring him to justice was also banished and both of their spots were taken over by the Crook's masked dog,who somehow transformed later into a wolf! Punchy,the scrappy mascot for Hawaiian Punch,has been toned down for the last few decades since his heyday where he used to blast unsuspecting bystanders in the face without warning. Just from this cheerful family photo,Captain Crook is a thing of the past, the Hamburglar went from a disturbing looking old gray haired mugger to being a cartoony young kid and the Mad professor became simply...Professor. I guess crime doesn't pay! And Funny Face drinks lost Chinese Cherry and Injun Orange. A couple weeks ago Hallmark Channel had a Jessie Stone marathon and bleeped out all of the mild "profanity" - iirc even the hells and damns. Last Edited By: Reegs Jan 18 13 10:55 AM. Edited 1 times.
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TV Censorship, Modern-Style

TV Censorship, Modern-Style