The horror: PBS had "Fuck" in its program

[question everything]

Yesterday's installment of "The War" was called FUBAR, and, as the program started, the narrator said how new terms were used by the soldiers: snafu and fubar, and, yes, he "spelled" them.

I have to admit, I was not aware of the meaning of snafu, always have taken it as meaning "blunder."

Now, will Congress vote to condemn PBS and Ken Burns and the whole WWII be far behind? What about cutting fundings for PBS?

:sarcasm:

(just in case someone takes my "horrified" post at face value..)

[grasswire]

1. yes, we had a little fun with this in the lounge Sunday night (eom)

[monktonman]

2. So snafu means what exactly?

Hung over. dont want to think.
hurts too much

[rurallib]

3. Situation Normal - All Fucked Up.

[endarkenment]

4. fubar is when snafu goes bad.

[hootinholler]

17. I thought FUBAR was SNAFU with a plan. n/t

[opihimoimoi]

23. FUCKED UP BEYOND ALL REPAIR...or, Any Recognition

This is what them GOOPers are doing to our Nation/World.....

[endarkenment]

27. Yes but we are beyond all that.

What we have these days is a Total Goat Fuck, which is one stage of disaster beyond a Mongolian Cluster Fuck.

[opihimoimoi]

29. A Mongolian Cluster fuck is when their Trebuchets failed and the load of CRAP

intended for the enemy falls back on THEMSLVES....stinking up the place...LOL

[hootinholler]

35. Navy trained, eh?

I've only heard Goat Fuck as a Naval term.

-Hoot

[endarkenment]

42. Only my late father.

But he would never have used that term in front of us.

[TwilightGardener]

5. I love that PBS let it stand--that's the reality of war--the language of GI's isn't pretty!

I'm sure individual PBS stations may have had some trouble with it, though--I read that some wanted to censor the language. Nebraska's PBS had no trouble running it, thankfully.

[Blue_In_AK]

7. Ours bleeped it, but you could still read his lips. :-)

[question everything]

9. I wondered how it played in the red states

One of the better stories on the now departed Studio 60, was about reporting on our troops in Iraq, "warts and all" including the language that soldiers use, and how the network was in trouble with the FCC.

[spanone]

13. bleeped it here too. you can show dead people, but no cursing please

fubar

[catbyte]

16. Ours was weird...

In Grand Rapids, MI, they showed it twice last night. When it came on at 8:00 p.m., it was bleeped out; when it came on at 10:30 p.m., it wasn't bleeped. I guess the 8:00ers never heard the word before :-)

[Arkansas Granny]

12. They ran the language on Arkansas PBS also.

[Orsino]

34. A language with only ten verbs.

And four of them are "fuck."

[catmandu57]

6. Before they were neutered

PBS used to be quite adult not afraid if adult language or even nudity.

[Captain Hilts]

15. 'Neutered'? nt

[Hand]

8. My favorite is BOHICA!

Bend Over, Here It Comes Again! Most euphonious. :rofl:

[SacredCow]

11. I had a dog with that name....

I adopted her from a Navy family that couldn't take her to their new location....

[hootinholler]

18. If I ever invent a new liquor that will be its name.

Coffee and BOHICA please.

-Hoot

[11 Bravo]

26. Hell, I posted before reading your's! Yep, BOHICA pretty much says it all.

[depakid]

10. WW II is exempt

Recently, one of the channels had "Saving Private Ryan" on- uncut.

Among other things, one of the characters says "shit."

Frankly, the whole censorship of "indecency" business is embarrassing. People abroad just shake their heads at ridiculous things like this.

[Captain Hilts]

14. Many of the senior generals never swore. Marshall, Eichelberger, etc.

FDR wouldn't have said 'shit' if he had a mouthful.

There was a class element to swearing back then.

[question everything]

19. Yesterday story also reported

on the extra caution that returned troops had to exercise in watching their language once they came home, to talk slowly and to think before they spoke.

And this is also why so many shocked when the Watergate tapes were released. As someone commented to me: that a President will talk like that?

[hatrack]

20. Sadly, they neglected my personal favorite, TARFU

Maybe someday, it'll get its historic due!!

[11 Bravo]

25. I've always been partial to BOHICA

[hatrack]

28. Also a long-neglected classic!

:toast:

[question everything]

41. OK, what's TARFU? (nt)

[hatrack]

43. :"Things Are REALLY Fucked Up!"

:toast:

[AnneD]

21. It was unedited....

here in Houston, where our unoffical motto is 'mess with me and I'll kick your ass.' Toddlers, petite looking belles, and blue haired grannies can kick ass as well as any Harley riding biker. That is another reason you know Bush isn't Texan...he can flip bird but he can't kick ass.;)

[Manifestor_of_Light]

22. Don't forget Patton's famous speech in the movie.

George C. Scott saying "We'll go thru the Hun like shit through a goose."


:rofl:

[Quantess]

24. I forget what fubar stands for

Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition?

[opihimoimoi]

30. YUP

[Forkboy]

31. Surprisingly, here in liberal Mass, the words were bleeped out.

:shrug:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

32. GIs swear!!!??!!!

Golly whiz.

In my 4 years wasting my time and the taxpayer's money, I can only recall a few...well, maybe more than a few..not more than every other word, most of the time. Well, sometimes between syllables.

That was in between referring to our beloved marine corps as "The Crotch" or "The Suck".

And, that favorite saying, "Eat the apple, and fuck the Corps."

[porphyrian]

33. What does fuck mean?

My virgin sensibilities are simultaneously offended and, strangely, titillated by it.

[hootinholler]

36. Fornication and Unatural Carnal Knowlege

Is what I've heard. Probably an urban legend.

-Hoot

[depakid]

38. The Wiki entry is interesting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuck

[hatrack]

39. I'd always understood it was a good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon verb . . .

See also "ficken" in German.

[depakid]

40. On Battlestar Galactica it's "frack."

though I've yet to hear anyone use it in the "to Frack" sense.

[Canuckistanian]

37. In upstate NY, they used the full monty

I was shocked. It was 8:00.

But for what they were about to show, children shouldn't have been NEAR a TV.

[GumboYaYa]

44. PBS was super cautious with cursing in our film.

They made us bleep anything close and the film suffered because of it.

[Zywiec]

45. Oh my God, think of the children who will be scarred

after hearing that word. Time to boycott PBS!!

:sarcasm:

[melm00se]

46. Context

Context is the key to indecency.

As to "Saving Private Ryan":

The Federal Communications Commission acknowledged that the ABC affiliates that aired Saving Private Ryan on Veterans Day did not violate the government's decency standards because the language used in the film is not indecent, given the context in which it was presented.
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/03/10/123340.php

from the FCC Website (http://www.fcc.gov/eb/oip/FAQ.html):

Obscene speech is not protected by the First Amendment and broadcasters are prohibited, by statute and regulation, from airing obscene programming at any time. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, to be obscene, material must meet a three-prong test: (1) an average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest (i.e., material having a tendency to excite lustful thoughts); (2) the material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and (3) the material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. The Supreme Court has indicated that this test is designed to cover hard-core pornography.

Material is indecent if, in context, it depicts or describes sexual or excretory organs or activities in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium. In each case, the FCC must determine whether the material describes or depicts sexual or excretory organs or activities and, if so, whether the material is “patently offensive.”

What makes material “profane?” “Profane language” includes those words that are so highly offensive that their mere utterance in the context presented may, in legal terms, amount to a “nuisance.” In its Golden Globe Awards Order the FCC warned broadcasters that, depending on the context, it would consider the “F-Word” and those words (or variants thereof) that are as highly offensive as the “F-Word” to be “profane language” that cannot be broadcast between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.

saying that FUBAR or SNAFU contains the work "fuck" when used in an historical context may not meet the FCC definition of obscene, indecent or profane.

That does not preclude someone like the PTC from filing a complaint with the FCC (it is their right to do so) but the review and appeal process will allow a more considered and careful review.