Censoring programmes & films on TV.

[Flat_Eric]

I gave up watching channels like Gold, ITV3 and 4 and all that shite years ago.

I enjoy my "classic telly" (Sweeney, Minder, Lovejoy etc.), but on those channels they're invariably butchered, with entire scenes sometimes completely excised. Movies often get treated in the same shoddy way on commercial TV.

Part of it is to squeeze shows into nice neat 1-hour slots, of which fully 16 to 18 minutes is taken up with adverts. So programme material has to be trimmed to make way for these.

The rest is down to the dictates of political correctness, where dialogue and scenes deemed to be "-ist" or "-phobic" simply have to go.

All in all a complete and utter waste of time. If you want to watch old shows like that, just buy the DVD box sets and get them uncut. They can be had for a song these days.

- Eric

[thealtruist]

But sometimes the DVD's are cut as well.

[Flat_Eric]

thealtruist wrote:

> But sometimes the DVD's are cut as well.


Occasionally they are, yes.

But more often than not they're uncut. And when the are cut, the cuts tend to be less extreme and fewer.

And of course there are no annoying ad breaks every 10 minutes or so.

- Eric

[thealtruist]

I can't argue with that. They need to remember that these are products of their time. People did say "Paki" or "coloured/half caste". Cutting them won't make history go away. You can't rewrite it. Watch them, enjoy them and just remind yourself that the world was a different place then.

And, to be honest, I sometimes think for the better.

[Flat_Eric]

thealtruist wrote:

> They need to remember that these are
> products of their time. People did say "Paki" or "coloured/half
> caste". Cutting them won't make history go away. You can't
> rewrite it. Watch them, enjoy them and just remind yourself
> that the world was a different place then.
>
> And, to be honest, I sometimes think for the better.


I agree 100%.

I understand that the movie "The Dam Busters" (made in the '50s) was recently sanitised to change the name of Guy Gibson's dog from "Nigger" to something less "offensive".

The problem I have with that is that Guy Gibson's dog actually WAS called "Nigger", so by doing that they're airbrushing history. A tiny and in itself relatively insignificant piece of history sure, but 'little acorns big oak trees' and all that.

As you say - things were different back then and it's a fucking daft trying to impose present-day norms onto history.

- Eric

[thealtruist]

When the film was released in America it was changed to Trigger and that's the print that they show. PC bollocks!

[andy at handiwork]

I'm going to stick my heck out here a bit, but I wouldn't be surprised if those who make a fuss about the removal of disparaging terms from old programmes and films and blame it on so-called PC, are quite often just disappointed they cant use those terms any more themselves in polite company.

[frankthring]

Children watch TV. They also stay up later than they used to. Kids` values
and sense of morality in the UK are shabby enough. Much as I dislike
censorship I think on regular TV it should remain.

[Flat_Eric]

andy at handiwork wrote:

> I'm going to stick my heck out here a bit, but I wouldn't be
> surprised if those who make a fuss about the removal of
> disparaging terms from old programmes and films and blame it on
> so-called PC, are quite often just disappointed they cant use
> those terms any more themselves in polite company.


And I'm not surprised at you coming out with such bollocks.

- Eric

!idontbelieveit! !idontbelieveit! !idontbelieveit!

[Flat_Eric]

frankthring wrote:

>
> Children watch TV. They also stay up later than they used
> to. Kids` values
> and sense of morality in the UK are shabby enough. Much as
> I dislike
> censorship I think on regular TV it should remain.

Never mind re-runs of 'The Professionals' and 'Minder' from 30 years ago with an occasional punch-up and reference to "Pakis" and "dolly-birds".

I think that FAR more damage is done to kids' morality and values these days by all that instant-celebrity "reality" shite that promotes the I-want-it-now-and-I-want-to-be-famous culture (Kardashians, Big Brother etc.) , plus all those music channels that show non-stop, highly sexualised pop videos.

No censorship there as far as I can see, but that's where the real problem lies.

- Eric