Bleep censor

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A bleep censor (or "bleeping") is the replacement of profanity or classified information with a beep sound (usually a  1000 Hz tone (help·info)), in television or radio^[1]. It is mainly used in the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Japan.^{[citation needed]}

History of the bleep

Bleeping has been used for many years as a means of censoring TV programmes to remove content not suitable for "family" or "daytime" viewing and personal information for privacy. The bleep censor is a software module, manually operated by a broadcast technician. A bleep is sometimes accompanied by a digital blurring of the speaker's mouth or covered with a picture like a black rectangle, in cases where the removed speech may still be easily understood by lip-reading.

On closed caption subtitling, bleeped words are usually represented by the phrase "(bleep)", sometimes the phrase "[expletive]", sometimes hyphens (e.g. f--k), and occasionally asterisks (e.g. ****), remaining faithful to the audio track. Where open captions are used (generally in instances where the speaker is not easily understood), a blank is used where the word is bleeped. Occasionally, bleeping is not reflected in the captions, allowing the unedited dialogue to be seen.

Bleeping is normally only used in unscripted programs - documentaries, radio features, panel games etc. - since scripted drama and comedy are designed to suit the time of broadcast. In the case of comedies, most bleeping may be for humorous purposes.

When films are edited for daytime TV, broadcasters usually prefer not to bleep swearing, but cut out the segment containing it, replace the speech with different words, or cover it with silence or a sound effect. (See also In film.) In the first example, the film may (unintentionally) become nonsensical or confusing if the removed portion contains an element important to the plot.

The bleep is sometimes used for privacy reasons, concealing for example names and addresses.

Bleeping is commonly used in English- and Japanese-language broadcasting, but rarely used in some other languages (such as Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Polish), displaying the varying attitudes between countries; some are more liberal towards swearing, less inclined to use strong profanities in front of a camera in the first place, or unwilling to censor.

In film

Bleeping in the final cut of a film is extremely rare (alternatives abound anyway), unless it was intended by the director (as in a fantasy 1960s sitcom scene in Natural Born Killers, or for plot purposes in "Kill Bill"). At least one swear word was (intentionally) bleeped out of Talladega Nights, Ocean's Twelve, Accepted, Happy Gilmore, Disaster Movie, The Cat in the Hat, Meet the Spartans, Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me, and during the credits of Wild Hogs. There was also an instance of bleeped language in The Spy Next Door (during the bloopers) and Iron Man 2 (in the Tony Stark lawsuit TV broadcast at the beginning of the film)

The 1971 film Cold Turkey used bleeps in two scenes to cover one character's use of "fuck" in order for the film to gain a MPAA rating of "GP" (now known as PG), instead of an "R" rating. The "f" and the "k" were left audible, but this film is now PG-13 and may have the word uncensored now, because the movie was before the PG-13 rating was used.

In some films in Indian languages, stronger swear words are censored out to keep the film at a BBFC certification of "12A" or lower, as cinemagoing is regarded as a family experience by the Indian community. In "Madea's Big Happy Family" On "The Maury Povich Show", Madea bleeps continuously.

Humor

The bleep has been used as a source of humor.

In the South Park episode "It Hits the Fan", the word fag was bleeped whenever a heterosexual character says it, but not a homosexual or bisexual character (see reappropriation).

In the Arrested Development episode "Bringing Up Buster," a character on a tirade is bleeped for several consecutive seconds, one word is uttered unbleeped, and then the bleeping continues for several more seconds. Other characters become progressively more horrified as the bleeping goes on.

In the episode "Sailor Mouth" of SpongeBob SquarePants, a large number of implied swear words are bleeped out with various ocean-themed sound effects, such as dolphin chirps. Though when Old Man Jenkins drives by on his Jalopy and honks his horn the characters think someone swore. Similarly, Mythbusters uses a wide range of sound effects to censor language or "top secret" material.

American comedian Jimmy Kimmel uses bleeping, as well as pixelization, in the weekly segment of his self-titled show called "This Week in Unnecessary Censorship," a parody of the FCC's censorship rules. In the segment, clips of television footage are bleeped and/or pixelated to suggest much more risqué content than was actually aired. An example of this would be an instance in which someone saying "thank you" would be bleeped to obscure the first four letters of the word "thank," humorously implying that the speaker had said "fuck you" instead.

Other videos have been made in the style of "Unnecessary Censorship" by bleeping out words in other media, in locations where they would suggest risque content. Examples include "The Count Censored" and "SpongeBob Censored."

In the episode of Arthur, "Bleep", D.W. hears a swear which is bleeped out, and starts using it, going as far as to say it to her mother when spying on a neighbor.

In the episode of The Pink Panther Classic Cartoon Collection, "Pink Panzer", A cuckoo clock sound is used as a bleep.

In the show Metalocalypse, the squeal of a "pinched harmonic" is used as a bleep. On one occasion where Nathan Explosion said multiple swear words in succession, a variety of squeals were used.

The bleep censor is not always used to mask televised profanity, but sometimes subjects deemed taboo, either in reality or as part of a scripted program. On an episode of the television series WWF Superstars of Wrestling that aired in early 1988, color commentator Jesse "the Body" Ventura attempted several times to bring up a subject declared taboo by World Wrestling Federation president Jack Tunney, and was censored each time; Ventura eventually grew so frustrated that he left the broadcast booth toward the end of the show. (The subject in question was the outcome of the February 5, 1988, WWF Heavyweight Championship match between Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan. As the WWF Superstars of Wrestling episode to be aired the weekend of February 6 was produced prior to the airing of The Main Event (where Andre's title win was booked to take place), the side angle concerning Tunney's "gag order" and Ventura being censored was contrived.)

On The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, when Ferguson swears, his mouth is covered with a flag of a particular nation, such as France, and is bleeped with a phrase from that country, such as "Ooh-la-la!" or "Tutsi-Fruitsy!"

In the British puppet-based sitcom Mongrels all of Vince's swearing is bleeped. Almost all of his lines contain at least one swear word which is bleeped.

On the U.S.-based TV channel Comedy Central the word "Holocaust" is bleeped out when it is mentioned by a comedian, so as not to offend anyone who may have affected by or are sensitive to the material.

In a Baby Looney Tunes episode, Baby Daffy says a bad word (or two which he heard from a garbage man) in anger which is censored with a rubber duck sound.

In an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures entitled "To Bleep or Not to Bleep" Fowlmouth says swear words that are bleeped out throughout the episode when he is angered. Lots of times he cursed for no reason. Buster Bunny gets him out of swearing first with a robot, but that does not work. Then when he realized Fowlmouth does not swear around little kids, he helped him by placing a kid next to him if he was about to swear. Like this bleep, bleep, bleep, and bleepybleeperson!

In the episode "Wizard Swears" from Potter Puppet Pals, Professor Albus Dumbledore says a swear to Harry, Hermione, and Ron that has a lot of censored bleeps they must never repeat to anyone called "The Elder Swear".

On television

Bleeping is commonly used on television programs that use profane words that are forbidden to television networks. Adult comedies such as The Office, Seinfeld, Family Guy, American Dad!, The Cleveland Show, The Simpsons, Futurama, Drawn Together, and especially South Park and Robot Chicken use this process to block strong curses that cannot be used on television in the United States, and mainly to air it outside the watershed, or safe harbor. The 2008 series The Middleman, which aired on the ABC Family network, nonetheless included the occasional profanity in dialogue, which was bleeped for humorous purposes (with a black bar or a fuzzy image superimposed over the speaker's mouth). Very rarely, the bleep will be light enough to hear the swear word over it.

During a playing of Scenes From a Hat from the 100th episode of the U.S. version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, one notable scene was "Statements that will get bleeped by the censor." For each word to be bleeped out that was used by Wayne Brady, Greg Proops, and Colin Mochrie (in that order), a black bar was placed over their mouths with the word "CENSORED" in white text.

Regulations

Advertising in the United Kingdom

Television and radio commercials are not allowed to use bleeps to obscure swearing under BACC/CAP guidelines. However, this does not apply to programme trailers or cinema advertisements and "fuck" is beeped out of two cinema advertisements for Johnny Vaughan's Capital FM show and the cinema advertisement for Family Guy season 5 DVD. An advert for Esure insurance released in October 2007 uses the censor bleep, as well as a black star placed over the speaker's mouth, to conceal the name of a competitor company the speaker said she used to use. The Comedy Central advert for South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut had a version of 'Kyle's mom is a big fat bitch' where vulgarities were bleeped out, though the movie itself did not have censorship, and was given a 15 rating.

A Barnardo's ad, released in summer 2007, has two versions: one where a boy can be heard saying "fuck off" four times which is restricted to "18" rated cinema screenings, and one where a censor bleep sound obscures the profanity which is still restricted to "15" and "18" rated films. Neither is permitted on UK television.

Trailers for programs containing swearing are usually bleeped until well after the watershed, and it is very rare for any trailer to use the most severe swearwords uncensored.

The UK version of the Adventureland Red Band trailer (the version shown in cinemas) which showed before Funny People and Drag Me to Hell when it was out in UK cinemas had the profanities bleeped out in order to have a 15 certificate.

United States

The Federal Communications Commission has the right to regulate indecent broadcasts. However, the FCC does not actively monitor television broadcasts for indecency violations, nor does it keep a record of television broadcasts. It relies exclusively on documented indecency complaints from television viewers.

The FCC is allowed to enforce indecency laws during 6 a.m. – 10 p.m. local time^[2]. In addition, for network broadcasts, offensive material seen during watershed in one time zone may be subject to fines and prosecution for stations in earlier time zones: for instance, a program with offensive content broadcast at 10 p.m. Eastern Time/Pacific Time may fall out of watershed at 9 p.m. Central Time/Mountain. Many stations have been fined because of this detail.^{[citation needed]} For example, Comedy Central only airs uncensored after 1a.m. so in Eastern Time, Central Time, Mountain Time, and Pacific Time all have it past 10 p.m.^{[citation needed]}

Cable and satellite channels are subject to regulations on what the FCC considers "obscenity," but are exempt from the FCC's "indecency" and "profanity" regulations, though many police themselves using the same FCC guidelines.^{[citation needed]}

New Zealand

The OFLCNZ Enforce what can and cannot be said on television in New Zealand and order television networks to apply the bleep censor. There has been an outcry about this particularly over the OFLC double standards to its application. For example the word "fuck" is generally edited out but the word "shit" is not.

References

1. ^ http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bleep
2. ^ http://www.fcc.gov/guides/obscenity-indecency-and-profanity

See also

• Self-censorship
• Profanity
• Radio edit
• Sanitization (classified information) a.k.a. redaction
• Pixelization
• Tape delay (broadcasting)
• Minced oath
• Bowdlerization
• Family Viewing Hour
• The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet, an American talk show that, in 2008, gained notoriety for using a variation of the Bleep censor dubbed a "Bleep photo".
• Beep (song), which features intentional bleeps
• Touchin On My, similar to Beep.