Tales from the Water Cooler: My theory about TV censorship
Some things (like Blurred Lines) deserve to be censored. But leave TV alone
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Your support makes all the difference.Censorship can kiss my ****. Being told what I can or cannot watch makes me say very bad words. Why should entertainment be sieved above my head, with only family-friendly stuff getting through to me? Take The Big Bang Theory, a US sitcom often hacked to bits by E4.
Punchlines considered too bawdy are blanked, but the audience’s laughter remains, so you feel as if you have walked into a room just after someone told a belter of a gag. I suspect the only reason TBBT is cut is down to money. The show is meant to be post-watershed, but E4 paid so much for the rights that it must schedule it at all times of the day to boost its advertising income and recoup its outlay. But tell me this: if you broadcast the show at 11am and the kids are back at school, who exactly are you protecting by removing its adult material? Cats?
But I guess sometimes there is a place for a little nannying. I’m delighted Edinburgh University student union has outlawed the Robin Thicke song Blurred Lines from being played on campus.
Knowing the kind of braying hoorays who populate that institution, any bylaw which forbids Tilly Foxworth-Nonce from doing a Miley Cyrus and grinding her behind into the nearest crotch on the dancefloor is worth celebrating. Just leave our sitcoms alone. You *******s.
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