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Censorship
Posted on Wednesday, October 10 2007 @ 07:26:18 Eastern

So I'm watching Scrubs on E4 (British TV channel), it's season 2 because E4 indulges in the annoying practice of latching on to a licence and repeating whatever seasons of the show they've got the right to play until the tape is worn out (another rant for another time). I started to notice all over again that anything that makes any vague reference to sex or drugs, includes the word 'ass', or anything more controversial than that is cut. Sometimes these cuts are quite good and make little impact to the viewers' experience and the only reason I notice is because I'm somewhat of a Scrubs aficionado, these cuts annoy me but I can live with them. What truly pisses me off however, is when the cut either makes no sense because the material edited out was so mild and benign it's patronising to think the TV companies don't want you seeing it during the day (case in point Dr Cox pointing at Julie's breasts and stating "Look, I'm just here to enjoy my meal, so unless those things dispense A-1 sauce, I'd keep movin'"... or rather not, because he just says "Look, I'm just here to enjoy my meal" before being harshly and crudely cut) or when the set up of a joke is deemed too insanitary to show when the end of the joke is mere seconds away from being executed! (Wondering about an example? Well in the same episode, in fact in the same scene, Todd enquires "which one of these waitresses you think will do me?" to which Dr Cox replies "I'd say you got an outside shot with the bus boy over there", guess which sentence is cut (hint: it's the one said by the Todd) and then see if the joke makes sense without the set up).

Damn, is the world we live in so obsessed with nanny state culture that it feels the need to censor such inflammatory words as 'ass' and such harsh innuendo as pointing to breasts and implying they dispense condiments? Do the powers of the television corporations think we're so unstable, so immature, so incapable of dealing with anything relating to sex that they must cut any material regarding a guy 'doing' someone? Do they forget that we're exposed to violence endorsed by the President of the god damn United States of America on almost a daily basis (recently downgraded from a multi-daily basis after 9/11 and the start of the war on Iraq)? Do they not realise reality is so much cruder than fiction? Yes, violence is fine but clement references to an act as natural as sex? LOCK IT DOWN!!