Censorship

For locals only.


I’ve been watching more Japanese TV lately, and I’m noticing something that’s not there:

*bleeps*

You know, when somebody swears and the network censors *bleep* stuff out. Now, not speaking much Japanese, I can’t say if they’re being selective in what they say in Japanese, but they really don’t seem to care about English much.

A lot of western movies are broadcast bilingually. Handy for those of us who don’t speak Japanese. Hit a button on the remote and the audio changes languages. Neat!I was watching “A Perfect Murder” last night (hey, it was on and in English) and the lack of censorship struck me as odd. I mean, when are you ever going to hear the phrase, “Steve, does this mean I keep fucking your wife?” on regular broadcast TV in the US?

Probably never.

But you can swear in other languages. One example that comes to mind is the series Firefly. Broadcast in the US and everybody spoke English – except when they swore.

Then they spoke Chinese.

Great way to get around the censors, whose only concerns are with what the majority of the audience can understand. I’ll have to watch more Japanese TV and see if the same is true here – lots of Japanese dialogue but swearing in English.Granted, it won’t help my Japanese slang vocabulary grow, but it should provide some amusement.

^.^