Originally Posted By Mr X For example, that vulgar verb that always gets yours truly in trouble didn't appear in a single English dictionary from 1795-1965. Obviously I can't link to a source (without the offensive word being included, I mean), but it's easy enough to google. Talk about Orwellian. Any kids during that time period that decided to look it up would learn from the good folks at Dictionary.paper that the word DIDN'T EVEN EXIST. I'm sure you can find similar instances of "non-word" regarding all the naughty examples until rather recently.
Originally Posted By Mr X **"The Penguin Dictionary" broke the taboo in the latter year. Houghton Mifflin followed, in 1969, with "The American Heritage Dictionary," but it also published a "Clean Green" edition without the word, to assure itself access to the lucrative public high school market.**
Originally Posted By DAR There was talk that we are Puritanical when it comes to sex and I'll admit that I am but only it certain situations. I only like to see good looking people having it.
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<Although the Legion of Decency did have a "B" rating, I've never seen anything to suggest that was the origin of the term "B movie". Everything I've ever seen on the subject has indicated that "B movie" originated as the term that the studios used to refer to movies that were intended to play as the 2nd film in a double feature.>> I think the two were actually independent of each other. Just meant to say the old Legion of Decency definition has faded away with time. But in its day it was a label studios avoided like the plague, especially back in the 30's and 40's. Getting a 'B' label from the Legion would result in poor box office sales.
Originally Posted By gadzuux The really fun ones were the "C" movies - CONDEMNED - for being "morally offensive" by the wonderfully named "Legion of Decency". Here's a link to the list, and you'll notice some cinematic classics that were deemed too hot for catholics - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_condemned_by_the_Legion_of_Decency" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L..._Decency</a> Some highlights - - The Seven Year Itch - Some Like It Hot - Psycho - From Russia With Love - Torn Curtain -
Originally Posted By gadzuux (rats) - Rosemary's Baby - The Good The Bad and The Ugly - Rocky Horror Picture Show - Outlaw Josie Wales - The Omen - Carrie and even ... - Grease (!) which is practically a kid's movie -
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< Talk about Orwellian. Any kids during that time period that decided to look it up would learn from the good folks at Dictionary.paper that the word DIDN'T EVEN EXIST. >>> Instead, they could learn about approved words that were double-plus-good.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< An interesting tidbit: The much beloved and today considered very wholesome "Miracle on 34th St." was slapped with the B rating when it was released. Why, you might ask? Because the dashing young lawyer is courting the divorced mother. >>> TV standards were much the same. Remember how on I Love Lucy, Lucy and Ricky had separate beds, even though they were married? And, how when Lucy was expecting Little Ricky, they carefully avoided the use of the term "pregnant?" I can understand if it were "teen pregnancy" or even "unwed pregnancy," but for just the word pregnant to be sensitive enough in the 50's that it couldn't be used on broadcast television is something else. Advance to the 70's. The Mary Tyler Moore show was controversial because it showed a divorced woman having a career, and occasionally dating. Oh the humanity!
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones Man, when I was 14 I wore out my right hand reading the dictionary.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo But I bet they would never dream of banning the bible despite some of the content: (Ezekiel 23:20-21) ...And she kept lusting in the style of concubines belonging to those whose fleshly member is as the fleshly member of male asses and whose genital organ is as the genital organ of male horses. Proverbs chapter 29 (TEV) 3 It is a foolish waste to spend money on prostitutes. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. For your love is better than wine. - Song of Songs 1:2 1 Samuel 18:25-27 (King James Version) 25And Saul said, Thus shall ye say to David, The king desireth not any dowry, but an hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be avenged of the king's enemies. But Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines. 26And when his servants told David these words, it pleased David well to be the king's son in law: and the days were not expired. 27Wherefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale to the king, that he might be the king's son in law. And Saul gave him Michal his daughter to wife.
Originally Posted By Mr F Yesterday on TV, I saw a Woman get stabbed in the throat with a sword. So WHY is it okay to show a woman being murdered on TV, yet you can't show nudity or "Swear Words" or even sex. Nudity and Swearing aren't going to physically hurt anyone, yet murder will. There's obviously something wrong with the "Decency" standards in America.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo I know, it's bonkers. I was reading up on one of the resorts we are vacationing at this year, and on trip advisor, some of the Americans were horrified at the fact the beach has a nudity permitted area. I was astonished. They are just bodies. It just seems so out of whack. Do I want my kids seeing hard core, no way, but a little nudity is fine.
Originally Posted By BlueDevilSF >>Grease (!) which is practically a kid's movie<< Oh gosh, I don't know, Gadz. Some of the lyrics in "Greased Lightning" got it banned from my YMCA. One of the instructors was told to stop using it in the water exercise class I went to.
Originally Posted By Mr X Idiots ban stuff for all kinds of idiotic reasons. When I was in 1st grade, we had a school pageant and one of the songs was the Dylan classic "Blowin' in the wind". For whatever reason, the teacher or principal or whoever decided the lyrics were "inappropriate", so "the answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind" became "the answer, my friend, is living in all men". Even at age six I thought "wha?", "this seems wrong to me!". But I took their word for it. I kinda wish I didn't. If I were a parent in the audience of such a travesty today, I'd certainly have some choice words for the self-important fool who would deign to alter the words of a poet like that (and for WHAT? cause they thought it wasn't positive enough!? WHO DAT!!??). I would ask them if they'd willingly spray paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa, for starters.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Hmmmmm, I have told the story before. I went to a week of detentions rather than acknowledge there is a god. I said I did not know and therefore it was my right as a human and an american to question rather than accept. I was 8 years old. Wish I pushed her further....
Originally Posted By Mr X <---stands and applauds! (I got in trouble in Sunday School once for pointing out that "God" spelled backwards was "dog". I was 4 at the time...but BOY was the nun pissed!)
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Lol - I got kicked out of a Southern Bible school on vacation once (all the kids in the town disappeared, I wanted to be with them). I asked a lot of difficult questions, about redemption and baptism, and why could a nazi redeam themselves but an innocent non christian could not? My mom was requested to kindly not bring me back again because it got all these Texan kids asking difficult questions because of that hipy kid from San Francisco. I was 10.
