Political correctness

[Cal]

Sorry to raise this thread from it's long death, but I just heard the most pathetic thing EVER.

You all know the famous song "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues and Kirsty McColl? Well, it has been banned in the USA due to the word "Faggot" in it. I'm sorry, but that song has been played over there for 20 years with no problems!!! I can't stand people who take PC too far. People today are too focused on this. I mean, Rap-music today has some of THE most offensive lines, yet they never do anything about that. The N word (never will I say it or type it!) is constantly used in these songs, yet NOTHING is done about it.

I don't mean to sound like a picky fart about this, but are they just selective when it comes down to this?

How freakin' picky can you get? It really annoys me!

[Jess]

^^ Radio 1 have also edited the track to remove the word 'faggot' - loads of people have said they're gonna boycott it until the situation is reversed. I mean, c'mon, what makes the powers that be think that it's suddenly offensive after all these years?

[Barbara]

There are a lot of songs which are edited to remove a word. I don't see the point of editing songs which have been playing for years. Americans are really weird when it comes to stuff like that.

But like Cal said, I don't get why they never do anything about rap music which usually contains a lot of offensive words.

[Lesley Bee]

Somethings are just taken too far, i mean they have played this song for years and years and now suddenly the lyrics are offensive I also read recently that Santa's are not allowed to say HO HO HO anymore because its commonly used in another country for something entirely different. What next, sometimes things are taken way to far.

[carmelle]

Somethings are just taken too far, i mean they have played this song for years and years and now suddenly the lyrics are offensive I also read recently that Santa's are not allowed to say HO HO HO anymore because its commonly used in another country for something entirely different. What next, sometimes things are taken way to far.

PC has gone too far. I read about that Santa thing as well. Now they have to say HA HA HA instead. It's ridiculous...HO is what Santa says. The other word is spelt differently and even said differently to a certain extent...and those who know what the words mean know that Santa isn't being offensive... (unless it's a dodgy Santa )

When I'm out and about, if I hear Santa say HA HA HA... God help him!!!

I can see HA HA HA being stopped as well... what if someone things that Santa is laughing AT them?...

[emmasi]

This edit pisses me off everytime I hear it. Pink "Leave me alone (I'm lonely)":

No you can't hop into my shower

All I ask for is one ***kin' hour

Right... now, that's how the lyrics SHOULD appear in all-ages broadcasting, with the generic bleep, yes? This is how it happens on my local radio station:

No you can't hop into my shower

All I ask for is make me wanna kiss you

................................................. WHAT!? What the HELL is that supposed to mean!? I don't get why they can't just bleep the swear like they do with every other song and move on... Why butcher a song by moving lyrics around so it makes no sense?? All I can think is that the allusion to an hour-long shower is offensive to Australian water restrictions... and if that really is the case, then God help us all.

On the topic of song edits, I had to laugh when the chorus of "Beautiful Girls" was changed from "you'll have me suicidal" to "you'll have me in denial"... moslty because I was actually concerned about the suicidal line myself . But I KNEW I was being oversensitive about it - it's just an expression. They've changed it back now, so that's a win for sanity.

"Let's get retarded"... now, that is a tricky one. Normally I would say I'm again' it, but the first line of the song is "In this context, there's no disrespect," so I'm therefore confident that they've taken the potential to be offensive into account, and that is NOT what they want the song to be about. I assume they're using the word in the literal sense:

retard: slow something down: to slow or delay the progress of something

retarded: underdeveloped: not fully developed . eg: the retarded growth of the plant

Then it gets changed to "Let's get it started" ... no great lost, the song still works, but it irrates me that people are forced to listen to these lyrics when the party is ALREADY started... it's redundant. (There's me being pedantic again...)

Now, I'd let this go for a long time, gotten over it I suppose, but then I heard that a Nintendo game designed to EDUCATE children about LANGUAGE and SPELLING, got into trouble for having the word "retard" in their dictionary. Well, excuse me worried mothers of the world, but I'll refer you back to the literal meanings - not some awful colloquial adoption of it to put other people down - and suggest that you pick up a dictionary once in a while yourself, and have the good sense to tell your children how language should be used appropriately so they don't become the mean little monsters you apparently assume them to be.

And still the world is spinning out of control.

I watched Futurama the other day in it's new 6.30 timeslot on channel ten. I ask you, what is the point of airing that show at all if you can't let Bender say the word "ass"? Seriously, did the people who made that decision have a molecule of a braincell between them?

I watched "War Is the H-Word" the other night... the entire premise of the climax to that episode it is that Bender can't say ass, or he'll blow himself up (because there's a word activated bomb inside him - long story). The scene where the trigger was revealed went like this:

"The top ten words that Bender always says:

Number 10: Chump

Number 9: Chumpette

Number 8: Pimpmobile

Number 7: Yours

Number 6: Up

Number 5: Bite

Number 4: My

Number 3: Shiny

Number 2: Dafodill

And the number one word that Bender always says - the word that, if uttered - will blow up the entire planet....."

...And then they cut to the next scene

It was one of the most bizarre edits I've ever seen. I can't imagine how confusing and frustrating it would have been for people who'd never seen the episode before... They didn't even let Zap say "sexlexia"... and yet they DID let Bender say "Up yours chump!" ?

Censors are the most random individuals on the planet. Next to religious and parental zealots... I say this because I recently read an article declaring Harry Potter as the Anti-Christ, and could we "PLEEEEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!!!" and refuse to let them have any part of it... *shudder.*

EDIT: It occurs to me that I should link that article. Beware, it is scary, if not hilarious:

http://www.exposingsatanism.org/harrypotter2.htm

[Cal]

That's ridiculous.

Oh, and about the HP thing, what planet are they living on?!

[Formerly Known as FKAJ]

Leave Me Alone I'm Lonely - totally agree about that one, it makes no sense. I'd preferred they just muted the word somehow rather than mix new lyrics in, although sometimes that's not much better: my copy of "Flaunt it" by TV Rock has "ass" removed every time, and it's really obvious. Another bad example is two of James Blunt's songs: In "Wisemen," "all the stuff that they could find" and in "You're Beautiful," "I was flying high." I could forgive the censors for deleting profanity from radio edits, but that's not the best way to do it.

I've only ever heard "Let's get it Started" but I agree that it doesn't make a lot of sense, especially the "There's no disrespect". Incidentally, "Let's Get Retarded" is a term used in the US that means to go crazy on the dance floor, so since they don't literally mean retarded, then I guess they thought they had to change it to avoid offence. Understandable, since deleting a word, the way they did with "Flaunt it" doesn't work when that word is part of the title.

Beautiful Girl - Again I've only heard the radio edit with "in denial" but that one doesn't make much sense. But I hate the song anyway: he sounds like a Ferengi.

War is the H-Word - I missed that part but I cant believe they cut away. You could argue that regular viewers would predict what the word was, but then no one would have predicted that his second favourite word would be daffodil. The "sexlexia" cut was almost as bad - if he could say "sexy learning disability" then he could say "sexlexia. Maybe their logic was that it would be offensive to dyslexics.

[emmasi]

I almost forgot one of my most despised edits - Fall Out Boy "This ain't a scene" etc.. When I first heard it, and everytime I heard it thereafter on the radio, it went "This ain't a scene, it's a.............. damn arms race!" and I HATED that pause! It sounded so wrong, and grated on me so badly that I denounced the band on the spot!!! ... Then my friend's little sister played me the CD, and I head that the actual lyric is "This ain't a scene, it's a god damn arms race." ... That's right kids, the word "God" was bleeped from Australian radio. For a minute I thought I was in the American Bible Belt... I wanted to hide under a sturdy chair or something before the townsfolk came after me with holy water and pitchforks.

[Dan F]

Thankfully, after Radio 1 stated that it was their final decision about The Pogues lyric, they changed their minds yesterday evening following masses of complaints including those from the Pogues themselves and Kirsy MacColl's mother.

Indeed it does seem a bit silly to have Radio 1 Newsbeat reporting on the story which obviously mentions the word 'faggot' being removed.....erm.....hello?

I've read that they mentioned the word more times on Newsbeat yesterday than they would have had they played the flipping song!

Imbeciles

Anyways, one up to the Non-PC brigade!