Seven dirty words: Difference between revisions
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==Background== |
==Background== |
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During one of [[Lenny Bruce]]'s performances, he said he was arrested for saying nine words: ass, balls, |
During one of [[Lenny Bruce]]'s performances, he said he was arrested for saying nine words: ass, fart, balls, cock, cunt, fuck, whore, piss, shit, tits.<ref>[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070302/ The Lenny Bruce Performance Film]</ref> The latter seven became Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words". |
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In 1972, George Carlin released an album of [[stand-up comedy]] entitled ''[[Class Clown]]''. One track on the album was "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", a monologue in which he identified these words, expressing amazement that these particular words could not be used, regardless of context. He was arrested for disturbing the peace when he performed the routine at a show at [[Summerfest]] in [[Milwaukee]]. |
In 1972, George Carlin released an album of [[stand-up comedy]] entitled ''[[Class Clown]]''. One track on the album was "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", a monologue in which he identified these words, expressing amazement that these particular words could not be used, regardless of context. He was arrested for disturbing the peace when he performed the routine at a show at [[Summerfest]] in [[Milwaukee]]. |
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* [[Whore]] |
* [[Whore]] |
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* [[Tits]] |
* [[Tits]] |
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<!-- NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN OBJECTIVE LIST OF DIRTY WORDS, IT IS AN ARTICLE ABOUT A ROUTINE BY THE COMEDIAN GEORGE CARLIN. PLEASE DO NOT ADD WORDS TO THE LIST BECAUSE YOU FEEL THEY BELONG, THAT IS NOT THE PURPOSE OF THIS LIST OR THIS ARTICLE. The ORIGINAL seven words are 1. Shit 2. Piss 3. Fuck 4. Cunt 5. |
<!-- NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN OBJECTIVE LIST OF DIRTY WORDS, IT IS AN ARTICLE ABOUT A ROUTINE BY THE COMEDIAN GEORGE CARLIN. PLEASE DO NOT ADD WORDS TO THE LIST BECAUSE YOU FEEL THEY BELONG, THAT IS NOT THE PURPOSE OF THIS LIST OR THIS ARTICLE. The ORIGINAL seven words are 1. Shit 2. Piss 3. Fuck 4. Cunt 5. Cock 6. Whore 7. Tits. This is the ORIGINAL seven in the ORIGINAL order. They are referenced in the rest of the article in this order. --> |
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In his comedy special Carlin commented that at one point, a man asked him to remove ''motherfucker'' because, as a derivative of ''fuck'', it constituted a duplication.<ref name="Again">{{cite video |
In his comedy special Carlin commented that at one point, a man asked him to remove ''motherfucker'' because, as a derivative of ''fuck'', it constituted a duplication.<ref name="Again">{{cite video |
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| people = Carlin, George |
| people = Carlin, George |
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Revision as of 13:57, 3 September 2011
The seven dirty words (or "Filthy Words")[1] are seven English-language words that American comedian George Carlin first listed in 1972 in his monologue "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television". The words are: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cock, whore, and tits. At the time, the words were considered highly inappropriate and unsuitable for broadcast on the public airwaves in the United States, whether radio or television. As such, they were avoided in scripted material, and bleep-censored in the rare cases in which they were used; broadcast standards differ in different parts of the world, then and now, although most of the words on Carlin's original list remain taboo on American broadcast television as of 2011. The list was not an official enumeration of forbidden words, but rather was compiled by Carlin. Nonetheless, a radio broadcast featuring these words led to a Supreme Court decision that helped establish the extent to which the federal government could regulate speech on broadcast television and radio in the United States.
Background
During one of Lenny Bruce's performances, he said he was arrested for saying nine words: ass, fart, balls, cock, cunt, fuck, whore, piss, shit, tits.[2] The latter seven became Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words".
In 1972, George Carlin released an album of stand-up comedy entitled Class Clown. One track on the album was "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", a monologue in which he identified these words, expressing amazement that these particular words could not be used, regardless of context. He was arrested for disturbing the peace when he performed the routine at a show at Summerfest in Milwaukee.
On his next album, 1973's Occupation: Foole, Carlin performed a similar routine titled "Filthy Words," dealing with the same list and many of the same themes. Pacifica station WBAI-FM broadcast this version of the routine uncensored on October 30 that year. A man named Jon Douglas, who was driving in the car with his son, heard the early-afternoon broadcast and complained to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that the material was inappropriate for the time of day.[3]
Following the lodging of the complaint, the FCC proceeded to ask 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." WBAI appealed this decision, which was overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The FCC in turn appealed to the Supreme Court, which in 1978 ruled in favor of the FCC in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation.[4]
This decision formally established indecency regulation in American broadcasting. In follow-up rulings, the Supreme Court established the safe-harbor provision that grants broadcasters the right to broadcast indecent (but not obscene) material between the hours of 10 pm and 6 am, when it is presumed many children will be asleep.[5][6] The FCC has never maintained a specific list of words prohibited from the airwaves during the time period from 6 am to 10 pm, but it has alleged that its own internal guidelines are sufficient to determine what it considers obscene.[citation needed] The seven dirty words had been assumed to be likely to elicit indecency-related action by the FCC if uttered on a TV or radio broadcast, and thus the broadcast networks generally censor themselves with regard to many of the seven dirty words. The FCC regulations regarding "fleeting" use of expletives were ruled unconstitutionally vague by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York on July 13, 2010, as they violated the First Amendment due to their possible effects regarding free speech. [7][8][9]
The words
The original seven words are:
In his comedy special Carlin commented that at one point, a man asked him to remove motherfucker because, as a derivative of fuck, it constituted a duplication.[10] He later added it back, claiming the bit's rhythm does not work without it.[10] Carlin did not believe that tits should be on the list because it sounds like a nickname or a snack ("New Nabisco Tits! ...corn tits, cheese tits, tater tits").
In his 1983 Carnegie Hall comedy special, Carlin expanded the list, reading over 200 dirty words from an over-sized scroll.
Later use of the words
Some of the words on Carlin's original list have since been used to some degree on broadcast television in the United States. The word tits was uttered on the first episode of The Trials of Rosie O'Neill in 1990, sparking some controversy. It has been also uttered more recently in the popular Jimmy Kimmel video "I'm Fucking Ben Affleck," in which Ben Affleck utters "Hey, Sarah, he's got bigger tits", which originally aired on the After Oscar special of the ABC show Jimmy Kimmel Live after the 80th Annual Academy Awards, all without incident. The word "piss" (usually used in the context of the phrase "pissed off") has been commonplace since the 1980s. The word shit was heard on rare occasions in the 1990s, for the first time in an episode of Chicago Hope spoken by Mark Harmon, and later in the season eight episode of ER in which Dr. Mark Greene dies. The word "shit" was also spoken in several episodes of NYPD Blue. CBS currently airs the show "Shit My Dad Says" based on a Twitter feed but they spell it "$#*!" and pronounce it as "bleep".
Producers have often implied the word fuck, although usually obscuring the word with a background sound effect or a beeping sound. One of Carlin's later additions to the list, fart, is also used frequently. Turd is regularly used on broadcast TV, though in performance Carlin explained that you can say it, "but who wants to?"
On March 10, 2002, CBS aired "9/11", a prime-time special featuring first responders during the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It contained a number of utterances of the word "fuck."[11] One notable early use of this word on American television occurred a few years after Carlin made his list, when the documentary Scared Straight!, which included numerous utterances of the word and its derivatives, was broadcast uncensored.
The FCC has often looked at the context of the use of a word when judging whether it is objectionable. This has at times led to controversy, such as when a bureau of the FCC deemed the utterance of the word fucking (as an intensifier) in January 2003 at the live Golden Globe Awards broadcast by Bono, the front man of the band U2, not indecent under its criteria since they said that under the context of its use it was not intended to describe or depict sexual and excretory activities and organs.[12] The full FCC, however, later reversed the decision in early 2004, though a fine against Bono has not been levied. In December 2003 Congressman Doug Ose, citing the incident, introduced legislation in the US House of Representatives that would have explicitly deemed six of the words profane (tits was excluded but asshole added).[13][14]
In a similar incident on October 31, 2008, Philadelphia Phillies second baseman Chase Utley took the stage at Citizens Bank Park during the team's World Series celebration and said "World champions. World fucking champions!" Utley's epithet was aired live on almost every television station in the Philadelphia television market. The FCC took no action.
When Norm Macdonald hosted Saturday Night Live on October 23, 1999, during a Celebrity Jeopardy! segment, Macdonald, portraying Burt Reynolds, read "A petit" as "ape tit". This was written in the script.
The FCC does not directly target the networks — only stations carrying a network's programming are licensed. Since most of the networks own some of the stations that carry their programming, these stations can be fined as a way of indirectly fining the network.
In 1998, the members of the Federal Communications Bar Association, which included staff from the FCC, formed an Ultimate Frisbee team which they named "Seven Dirty Words" or 7DW. This team continues to play in the Washington Area Frisbee Club.[15]
In the 2011 NASCAR Coca-Cola 600, crew chief Chad Knaus screamed after his driver's engine blew up, " You've got to be fucking kidding me, you fucking cunt!" uncensored. The FOX Sports announcers immediately apologized for Knaus's language.
Pay television
The FCC obscenity guidelines have never been applied to non-broadcast media such as cable television or satellite radio. It is widely held that the FCC's authorizing legislation (particularly the Communications Act of 1934 and the Telecommunications Act of 1996) does not enable the FCC to regulate content on subscription-based services, which include cable television, satellite television, and pay-per-view television. Whether the FCC or the Department of Justice could be empowered by the Congress to restrict indecent content on cable television without such legislation violating the Constitution has never been settled by a court of law. Since cable television must be subscribed to in order to receive it legally, it has long been thought that the ability of subscribers who object to the content being delivered to cancel their subscription creates an incentive for the cable operators to self-regulate (unlike broadcast television, cable television is not legally considered to be "pervasive", nor does it depend on a scarce, government-allocated electromagnetic spectrum; as such, neither of the arguments buttressing the case for broadcast regulation particularly apply to cable television).
Self-regulation by many basic cable networks is undertaken by Standards & Practices (S&P) departments that self-censor their programming because of the pressure put on them by advertisers — also meaning that any basic cable network willing to ignore such pressure could use any of the Seven Dirty Words.
In recent years, all of the words on Carlin's list have come into commonplace usage in many made-for-cable series and film productions, such as Deadwood, The Sopranos, Weeds, Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me, Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, Skins, Dead Like Me, South Park and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia to name a few examples.
See also
References
- ^ Doug Linder. "Filthy Words by George Carlin". Law.umkc.edu. Retrieved 2011-08-01.
- ^ The Lenny Bruce Performance Film
- ^ Boca Man Forever Linked To George Carlin. WPEC, June 23, 2008.
- ^ First Amendment Library entry on the case[dead link]
- ^ "Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say on TV" – script
- ^ "Seven words you can never say on television"... but which are said on the Internet. A lot. - A survey on the prevalence of the Seven Words in political blogs[dead link]
- ^ Puzzanghera, Jim. ""FCC indecency rule struck down by appeals court," Los Angeles Times, July 13, 2010". Sltrib.com. Retrieved 2011-08-01.
- ^ "FCC indecency rule struck down by appeals court - Los Angeles Times". Latimes.com. 2010-07-14. Retrieved 2011-08-01.
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ a b Carlin, George. On Location: George Carlin at Phoenix (DVD). HBO Home Video.
- ^ Swearing firefighters provoke 9/11 'profanity' rumpus.
- ^ Urban Legends Reference Pages: FCC vs. F-Word.
- ^ [2] 108th CONGRESS, 1st Session, H. R. 3687
- ^ [3] INTRODUCTION OF THE CLEAN AIRWAVES ACT.
- ^ FCBA Newsletter, p. 8 (June 2003) Referencing the long standing team.
External links
