Lord Sluggo wrote:Was Transformer's the first major cartoon to actually have major characters die? It seemed like there was another cartoon where some died.
Artmaul wrote:What's happening in television in terms of explicit material is a two-tiered model (think of intersecting graph lines) where violence and graphic images are becoming more and more acceptable and prolific, while sexual situations, nudity, and coarse language, are being puritanized out. Watching television in the 60s and 70s, one would have thought the trends would have been reversed
I'm wondering exactly which shows from the 60's-80's that you and Fatboy are referring to. Broadcast TV in those days never did have graphic sexual situations, nudity or coarse language, so it's not like anything's been lost.
Broadcast TV isn't embracing mediocre and unchallenging crap because of the religious right, but because it's given up.
Artmaul wrote:So to say that it has "given up" makes no sense at all.
If there's an opportunity to attract a wider audience through nudity and foul language, the executives would jump at it in a second.
It has given up in the sense that writers and producers looking for more creative freedom are looking outside broadcast TV, and networks are responding by scheduling more crap.
Would Howard Stern be as popular as he is if the FCC wasn't fining him every couple of months?
Fatboy Roberts wrote:Dude, not to pull cards or nothing, but me and Art WORK for entertainment companies
There was a LOT of language stuff going on (you could freely say goddamnit, bitch, sonofabitch, bastard, and those words were peppered quite often through the dramas and soaps at all times of the day. Try getting a "Goddammit" on the air now.)
I just don't see how you can say the right wingers AREN'T influencing what's going out over our airwaves right now when you step back and look at it, see where these shows COULD have gone in the early to mid nineties, and where they're being forced to stop at right now. I mean--Fox blurred out a cartoon ass in 2005 on Family Guy. You think that's not due to the influence of the moral majority and worry about the FCC staring at them? You think they're not trying to avoid all those problems at the pre-production stage?
Yet Fox brought Family Guy BACK to network TV because it was so popular. You say the ass was blurred out because they're nervous; I say it was blurred out because including the "uncensored" scene in the DVD box set will help it to sell better. Either way it made immediate news and brought more attention to the show, which I'm not convinced was an accident.
Fatboy Roberts wrote:Anyway, examples of on-air "Goddammits" Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon's Crest, Knots Landing, In the Heat of the Night, c'mon man, almost every night time soap or drama had utterances of "Goddamn." Hell, I'm thinking I remember David Addison on "Moonlighting" popping it off a couple times. I'm pretty sure it came up a couple times on Roseanne, as well, off the top of my head. Plus most movies that were broadcast didn't have that word bleeped or re-dubbed until the late 90's.
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