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Violence and censorship
Posted By: Finchplucker, on host 136.152.26.115
Date: Tuesday, March 7, 2000, at 16:25:08

I know that most of you forum regulars don't much
care for rap as an art form or musical genre, but
it is really quite prominent in America, for you
non-US guys. Radio, being as public as it is, is
censored for language content, as it should be.
The f-word, the s-word, and other like obscenities
are blanked or beeped out. But lately, like in
the past few months, I've been noticing certain
other words being blanked out:
"Sawed off shotgun, hand on the pump..." THe
shotgun part was blanked out.

"....With a can full of gas and a hand full of
matches...." The edited version was this "With a
__________ and a ______________....."

Okay. With Columbine and Arkansas and other such
incidents still weighing heavily on our minds, I
can understand the attempt to decrease violence in
society. But my question is, is this butchering
of songs on the radio really going to do it? I
suppose a more broad question would be What should
we as a society target as a main problem in terms
of causing violence? Because I haven't gotten any
messages about drugs or violence from the rap I
listen to, even though some of it is really
hardcore and talks only about drugs and killing.
So basically I wonder if this radio editing is
really the right way to go.

Also, another ironic thing, is that the songs on
the radio are edited versions, so the DJ doesn't
have to edit them each by hand every time they are
played. The funny thing is that if a station
plays Gin and Guice, from 1993, the standards for
editing were much different and more leneant, so
you can hear "bad" words in those songs but not
the newer ones.

Finchplucker

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