Sunday, October 06, 2013

Tagging

I finally got around to watching Donald Glover's standup special Weirdo.  It wasn't bad, but because it was on Comedy Central they had to bleep out all the swearing.  Not hearing these words doesn't kill the humor, but it didn't help.

Worse, there was one bit in particular which the censorship rendered nigh incomprehensible.  I was able to figure it out in context, but I'm guessing for a lot of viewers it was pretty much pointless.

Glover has a lot of bits about kids--in fact, it's the majority of his show--and much of that is about how horrible children are.  The routine I'm referring to has a nanny from Trinidad who loses her patience with one African-American child who sasses her.  She (I believe) calls him a "niglet."

I question if racial references should be bleeped at all, but this word is a new one.  How did they know we shouldn't be allowed to hear it?  In any case, if we can't hear it, there's no joke.  What's the point?

I'm reminded of a bit Emo Philips did on broadcast TV many years ago.  He talked about having sex with a woman who "was shaking from the hair on her head to the [bleep] on her toe." What could he have said that was so nasty?  I figured out the word was "tag." Either let him say it or cut it out entirely.

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