The Edgy Ceiling (Discussion of Racy Content)

What I find interesting is how much less censorship is deployed on the original UK versions of some of cable's more popular shows. They can swear, show nudity, have lots more gore and violence, and all kinds of stuff--and yet, it never seem gratuitous. (Well, not the stuff I've seen anyway. I'm sure tasteless stuff is out there.)

IMO, the "problem" with edgy television isn't that it exists or that it's getting more prevalent especially in this country. It's that there's still a huge flailing of "think of the children!" in the reactions to it. The taboos are what make it squicky, not the content.

TV/Cable networks have been pushing the envelope for quite a while. It's become de rigeur to go for the shock value, but to me, if the script/storyline is interesting then the show is worth watching.

If it deals with something like necrophilia or an equally disgusting concept (in my eyes) then I wouldn't watch it no matter how well the show is written.

Anybody here old enough to remember "the Family Hour"?

Rhoda Nightingale said:

What I find interesting is how much less censorship is deployed on the original UK versions of some of cable's more popular shows. They can swear, show nudity, have lots more gore and violence, and all kinds of stuff--and yet, it never seem gratuitous. (Well, not the stuff I've seen anyway. I'm sure tasteless stuff is out there.)

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It's there. There was an episode in the last season of Silent Witness that featured very strong sexual violence and got the BBC a bunch of complaints for going too far (news story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21585824). Basically, the scene had a man anally raped to death with a rusty pipe. He was in a toilet cubicle, so there was nothing shown, but the sound effects alone were nightmarish (if you choose to read the bits I've put in white text, well, you can't say I didn't warn you).

As long as it's after the watershed (9pm), then yes, we don't really care so much about swearing - if at all - and nudity and gore aren't so much of an issue either, but certainly there's a similar phenomenon of testing where the line is drawn.

Where are all these 'edgy' shows? I honestly haven't seen a single show on network TV that struck me as remotely edgy since Third Watch went off the air ten years ago. My dad and I were actually talking about this the other day, how modern TV seems pathetically edgeless compared to shows that were popular in the 1990s. Of course, we were mostly talking about dramas, because that's about all we watch. Besides, South Park perfected edgy comedy a long time ago. I still remember their episode about child molesters, which must've aired sometime in the early '00s, because it actually offended *me* to some degree, and I'm damn close to unoffendable (except by bad writing, which means I get offended by modern TV a lot, lol).

Now, HBO and BBC are another story. They have some awesome, edgy shows, though after reading what onesecondglance wrong in white, I think I'll be skipping Silent Witness. Dear gods, that sounds awful. I mean, if it were done well I could see a scene like that having a certain artistic value, but I'd at least want a warning.

It seems apparent that tv is running out of taboos to discuss before the FCC snaps on them good due to overall slipping ratings. If the current trend continues, TV will turn into yesterday's fashion.

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TV is nowhere near out of taboos. Also, some things will always get a reaction, even when they've been done and shown before. It's been a very long time since Lolita and Flowers in the Attic were published, but writing about pedophilia and incest still gets a reaction.