Censorship and American Television

[njpaddy]

We spend well over $200 on FIOS and movie channels that we never watch. After our Christmas guests leave, we're cutting back to the lowest FIOS level, keeping 5 channels (local broadcast, TCM, several weather channels), and getting rid of the movie channel add-ons. We'll still keep AcornTV and Britbox thru Prime which account for most of our nightly viewing.

 

[DrStrange]

I'm in heaven.

As a huge fan of horror movies, I love October and the marathon of my favorite scary movies on several cable channels...but here's what I don't get:

The broadcasters (on some channels) will edit out common curse words, not necessarily the one starting with "f" but even what I would consider the much "milder" expletives. You know.

On the other hand, the bullets, explosions, stabbings, mutilations, and buckets of blood are allowed to be shown in gory detail. Zombies eviscerating their victims, or werewolves (of London) ripping the throat out of Jack, shown here (TV screenshot):

Spoiler: Gore

View attachment 1733323

I guess I just don't understand the rationale used in determining what exactly is offensive. In this case the word "sh*t" it edited out of the dialog but the above scene is perfectly OK.

So, who are the censors (FCC?...the broadcaster?) concerned about protecting, and from what? If they are worried about young children hearing a curse word, how is the above deemed acceptable?

It makes zero sense to me.

For farmers that work with animals, sh*t isn't an obscenity.
It's just a topic that comes up from time to time.

if you've ever watched The Incredible Dr. Pol,
he uses the B word all the time,
because when he says it, that's what he's talking about.