Seven dirty words
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
The Seven dirty words are seven words that were prohibited from use on broadcast media in the United States, including both over-the-air television and radio stations. The original list of seven, popularized by American comedian George Carlin, is:
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History
There was an earlier version where "prick" was in place of cunt ( you can prick your finger, but you can't finger your prick.) This was in place by 1969 at the latest. In 1973, comedian George Carlin recorded a monologue called "Filthy Words," (Carlin's monologue word for word (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=438&invol=726#751)) which was subsequently broadcast by Pacifica radio station WBAI-FM on October 30 of the same year. A man complained to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) because his son had heard the broadcast.
The FCC asked Pacifica for a response, then issued a declaratory order upholding the complaint. No specific sanctions were included in the order, but WBAI was put on notice that "in the event subsequent complaints are received, the Commission will then decide whether it should utilize any of the available sanctions it has been granted by Congress."
Pacifica appealed against this decision, which was overturned by the Court of Appeals. The FCC in turn appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the FCC, see: FCC v. Pacifica Foundation 438 U.S. 726 (1978).
This decision formally established indecency regulation in American broadcasting. In follow-up rulings, the FCC clarified that the words might be acceptable under certain circumstances, particularly at times when children would not be expected to be in the audience.
Expansion
Carlin later expanded the list to include the following words:
Since then Carlin's expansion of the list has included hundreds of words and phrases, including "beating the bishop," "yodeling in the gully," and the ever popular "Mongolian Cluster Fuck."
Current
In the 2000s, tits and piss are generally no longer prohibited from broadcast over public airwaves in the United States, with shit often allowed as well.
It is important to note that FCC regulations only apply to broadcast stations (which are licensed), not the networks themselves (which are not).
Content on cable television networks is not currently regulated by the FCC; although the issue has not been settled by a court of law, it is widely held that the FCC's authorizing legislation (particularly the Communications Act and the Telecommunications Act of 1996) do not enable to the FCC to regulate content on subscription-based services, which include cable television, satellite television, and pay-per-view.
The prevailing theory enabling this lack of regulation is that subscribers who object to the content being delivered, may cancel their subscription: thus creating a market-based mechanism for the cable operators to self-regulate.
However, as of the mid-2000s, Conservatives in the United States, particularly those of the Christian Right, have begun to call for FCC regulation of subscription-based content. The arguments for regulation include that in more rural areas of the United States, it may be impossible to receive more than a bare minimum of broadcast television stations "over the air", and that for Americans in these areas, not having a cable or satellite subscription is tantamount to having no television at all. These arguments have been made (among others) by Randy Short of the American Family Association.
- (See also 'The Connection', National Public Radio, 2005-04-12 (http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2005/04/20050412_a_main.asp))
Self-regulation by many cable networks is undertaken by Standards & Practices departments which censor their programming, regardless, because of the pressure put on them by advertisers. Once that obstacle is dealt with, the seven dirty words are fair game: see most FX original series and Comedy Central's airing of the South Park episode "It Hits The Fan" (during which shit is uttered 162 times in one half hour; a counter is provided at the bottom of the screen) and the R-rated film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999). These shows all air later at night, usually after 9:00 pm. The band Blink 182 has a song called Family Reunion in which the words "shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker motherfucker tits fart turd and twat" are repeated 4 times, followed by "I fucked your mom." The ten words are from Carlin's ten-word version of the list.
In any case, in the United States, the safe harbor provision of the "Pacifica" decision grants broadcasters the right to broadcast indecent (but not obscene) material during the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 06:00 a.m., when children are thought not to be awake.
The differentiation between indecent and obscene material is a particularly difficult one, and a contentious First Amendment issue that has not fully been settled. Similarly, the level of offense (if any) generated by a profane word or phrase depends on region, context, and audience.
The head of the FCC is appointed by the President of the United States. In recent years, the impact of letter-writing campaigns engineered by special interest groups have drawn attention to this position. In some cases, where thousands of complaints have been received by the FCC, it has been disclosed that the majority of them (sometimes greater than 90%) have originated from members of a single special interest group.
In early 2004, Monty Python comic Eric Idle recorded the FCC Song; a deliberately controversial and explicit song in reaction to being fined by the FCC for saying "fuck" on a Clear Channel radio station.
