Now that we've thoroughly examined the problem, what can be done about it? Well, I have to say that current efforts as they stand are not getting the job done. It used to be, if anyone said a cussword on tv or wherever censorship held sway, a piercing *BLEEEP* would obliterate the entire word. Maybe take the tail end of the leading word and the tip of the following word with it! Depending on how zealous the censor was.
But that didn't last. After a while it became acceptable to bleep only the stressed syllable - but this made it perfectly obvious which curse was being uttered! It didn't stop there. These days, if the offending word is bleeped at all, you'll only get a meager picosecond blip of a bleep that doesn't so much as cover the vowel sound all the way. You end up hearing (sound magnified 5x to illustrate): "fffffuu*uuccccckkkkk!" - a tiny asterisk of a bleep that only serves as a decoration in the middle of the obscene vowel. The profanity is not the slightest bit obscured!
I think that if people were serious about bleeping curses, they'd bleep the consonants, not the vowel. Then you'd have some actual obscurantism going on: "Hey *o****-*u****! What the *e** are you doing over here? I just saw your *i*** over at Shelby's house, man, she was all *u***** *i**a* and putting her *i** and a** all up in Jerome's *a*e - and he's a *a**o*, man! That's just not right."
Another problem is these sound effects. At some point people began substituting random sound effects - gunshots, car horn blasts, animal noises - for the traditional *bleep*. This tends to undermine the seriousness of the underlying censorship. A favorite example from the early days of the trend is "The Humpty Dance" by the band Digital Underground. With words being "bleeped" by hi-hat cymbal and the trumpeting of an elephant, the line becomes: "Oh yes ladies - I'm really being sincere, 'cause in the [ tss-tss-tss ] my Humpty-nose will tickle your [ rrrRRRARHH!! ]." This sort of thing just makes using profanity seem even cooler. Besides which, the uncensored line is actually: "in the sixty-nine my Humpty-nose will tickle your rear." The number "sixty-nine" and the word "rear" are not profanities. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But by deliberately censoring non-offensive words, the song boosts its "outlaw" glamour quotient - it conveys the impression that it contains more profanity than it actually does. Such practices openly mock the very idea of censorship.
But then again, so do I, occasionally. So like I said, what can I say...it's a complex issue.
But that didn't last. After a while it became acceptable to bleep only the stressed syllable - but this made it perfectly obvious which curse was being uttered! It didn't stop there. These days, if the offending word is bleeped at all, you'll only get a meager picosecond blip of a bleep that doesn't so much as cover the vowel sound all the way. You end up hearing (sound magnified 5x to illustrate): "fffffuu*uuccccckkkkk!" - a tiny asterisk of a bleep that only serves as a decoration in the middle of the obscene vowel. The profanity is not the slightest bit obscured!
I think that if people were serious about bleeping curses, they'd bleep the consonants, not the vowel. Then you'd have some actual obscurantism going on: "Hey *o****-*u****! What the *e** are you doing over here? I just saw your *i*** over at Shelby's house, man, she was all *u***** *i**a* and putting her *i** and a** all up in Jerome's *a*e - and he's a *a**o*, man! That's just not right."
Another problem is these sound effects. At some point people began substituting random sound effects - gunshots, car horn blasts, animal noises - for the traditional *bleep*. This tends to undermine the seriousness of the underlying censorship. A favorite example from the early days of the trend is "The Humpty Dance" by the band Digital Underground. With words being "bleeped" by hi-hat cymbal and the trumpeting of an elephant, the line becomes: "Oh yes ladies - I'm really being sincere, 'cause in the [ tss-tss-tss ] my Humpty-nose will tickle your [ rrrRRRARHH!! ]." This sort of thing just makes using profanity seem even cooler. Besides which, the uncensored line is actually: "in the sixty-nine my Humpty-nose will tickle your rear." The number "sixty-nine" and the word "rear" are not profanities. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But by deliberately censoring non-offensive words, the song boosts its "outlaw" glamour quotient - it conveys the impression that it contains more profanity than it actually does. Such practices openly mock the very idea of censorship.
But then again, so do I, occasionally. So like I said, what can I say...it's a complex issue.
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