Saturday Night Live (SNL) 2017-2018 Season Thread

I am watching a Global Toronto TV feed on TELUS Satellite. It wasn't bleeped.

 

But it's OK for Colin Jost and Michael Che to say $hithole.

‘SNL’ Host Sam Rockwell Drops F-Bomb Before Weekend Update Does S-Hole

 

You don't watch Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, do you?

 

I know who she is. She's hilarious. Not sure if we get her show in Canada. Might be on the Comedy Network.

My older brother just messaged me. NBC Spokane bleeped Rockwell, Jost and Che.

Interesting about Jost and Che, as I was watching Brian William's program on MSNBC Friday night. The word $hithole was on the bottom of the screen in the caption a couple of times.

Here's the history of swearing on SNL, from the above article.

Rockwell, of course, wasn’t the first to cross that barrier on SNL. That honor goes to Paul Shaffer (1980). And of course Charles Rocket (’81) and Jenny Slate (’09) all but sealed their short-run fates with the word. Norm MacDonald did it in ’97, Samuel L. Jackson in 2012 and, most recently, Kristen Stewart last year.

And that’s not including the musical acts.

 

She's on TBS here. "S**t" and "***hole" don't get bleeped on her program, but any variation on "f***" or "c**t" does.

Now, that is basic cable, not broadcast, so the standard might be looser there.

(It should be noted that, of George Carlin's "Seven Words That You Can Never Say On Televsion", we are pretty much down to four, depending on the situation.)

It was pretty much a lock that they would bleep Rockwell for the West Coast feed. Jost and Che could have gone either way. I guess they wanted to err on the side of caution.

 

I think we should follow the example of Britain and allow almost anything to go on late night television.
Personally, I’m wondering why NBC will allow “****hole” uncensored (twice) during Saturday Night Live, but not Late Night with Seth Meyers (which typically airs in a time slot about 15 minutes later than “Weekend Update”).

 

“****hole” was bleeped for the entire west side of the country during the live airing of the show, but not for the 11:30 encore. I just got done watching it on KHQ (Spokane), and while Rockwell’s f-bomb was bleeped, Jost and Che’s shared expletive remained uncensored.

 

I consider the male version of c**t, d**k, to be in the same class, but I think it gets more of pass. And B***h is used gratuitously by SNL in an offensive way... for broadcast TV, imo.

But..... according to Congress and the courts, after 10pm local time, it really doesn't matter what you say with regard to profanity or indecency on broadcast TV, as long as it's not "Obscene."

From the FCC web page Obscenity, Indecency & Profanity

Regarding the safe harbor period, Congress and the courts have instructed the Commission only to enforce the indecency standard between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., local time. - when children are more likely to be in the audience. As a consequence, the Commission does not take action on indecent material aired between 10 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. In this way, constitutionally-protected free speech rights of adults are balanced with the need to protect children from harmful content.

Being in the CT zone, SNL begins after 10pm.

Profane content includes "grossly offensive" language that is considered a public nuisance.

Indecent content portrays sexual or excretory organs or activities in a way that does not meet the three-prong test for obscenity.

Obscene content does not have protection by the First Amendment. For content to be ruled obscene, it must meet a three-pronged test established by the Supreme Court: It must appeal to an average person's prurient interest; depict or describe sexual conduct in a "patently offensive" way; and, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

Broadcasting obscene content is prohibited by law at all times of the day. Indecent and profane content are prohibited on broadcast TV and radio between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience.

Obscene, Indecent and Profane Broadcasts

So probably no fine if the earlier time zones were bleeped. Even though it was profane.

So, technically, the local nightly newscasts that begin after 10pm, could have segments that do not bleep any 4 letter words, and they would not ever receive any sanction or fine from the FCC.
Wonder why they don't leave quotes un-bleeped during their after 10pm broadcasts???

 

I think "dick" is much closer to "pu$$y" than to "See You Next Tuesday". "Dick" isn't really viewed as offensive, and "pu$$y" is also viewed as pretty mild, but "See You Next Tuesday" is a big one - you're gonna get a way more negative reaction from a woman if you say you say that one vs. "pu$$y".

In the US, that is - "See You Next Tuesday" is viewed much differently in the UK...

 

So true.

It took me a few listens to Monty Python bits before I realized that "pissed" meant "drunk" in the UK. In the US, it only means violently angry.

 

Troye Sivan will be next week’s musical guest.

 

She is. We do. It is. On before The Daily Show on Wednesdays. If you catch one of the overnight re-broadcasts, it's uncensored.

Nice to see you can have 47 different crime procedurals on showing all sorts of carnage and gore morning, noon and night but if someone drops an F-bomb or quotes the President on U.S. TV, the pearl-clutching starts in earnest.

D.D.

 

By far my favorite episode of the season..even the post weekend update sketches were great.

 

Kind of off topic but, I had a girlfriend that thought “c*nt” was totally acceptable and she never hesitated using it in mixed company. But to her, “p*ssy” was an absolute no-no and if I ever said it in front of her she would freak out. It took me a while to convince her most people viewed those two words opposite of how she viewed them. It’s all perspective.

 

And "fanny" has different meanings in both places, too!

 

Yeah, definitely. I wonder why she had the terms "backwards" like that?

My last girlfriend reacted negatively to "pu$$y" when used as a derogatory term - ie, "stop acting like a pu$$y" - as she thought this was negative toward women, I tried to explain to her that it's really crueler to women than "don't be a dick" is to men, but she was stuck in her opinion...

 

Over time, R Rated violence, blood, & gore is now not considered obscene or profane...but during the hours that children are likely to watch, all questionable words are bleeped.

I quit watching altogether the AMC channel, on cable, because it was just too weird to watch The Godfather, with all the R rated violence left in, but every curse word bleeped or substituted over with another word...

 

It's been said that, in "Shawn Of The Dead", they changed the line, when they see a 'zombie' for the first time, "She's so DRUNK!", instead of, "She's so PISSED!", so American audiences would get it.

 

There are two reasons broadcast shows rarely utilize the safe harbor. One, sponsor backlash. Sponsors may not want their product associated with certain material, or may be afraid of customer boycotts. Two, if something is on after 10 in EST, it may not be in CST or PST. That's why SNL kinda shouldn't have allowed "s-hole" last night, even though in the past, they always could've said that. The live coast-to-coast airing complicates things.

 

Tom Cruise would not be a big Get for SNL?
That’s funnier than most anything on the show.

 

You're right.... but I was replying to someone who thought Cruise didn't really match the desired demographic anymore... not as much as he did 25-30 years ago.

 

Thank you for clarifying that. I see it's the Sponsors that stations could lose by airing cuss words in shows like Newscasts...

 

My Facebook feed lit up after Cecily Strong name-dropped our hometown community theater in the Chantix sketch. We're both Village Players alumni.

 

Not a bad episode but the funniest thing was Troye Sivan.

D.D.

 

Ratings going down,down down... gee I wonder why. Aside from the fact the show is seldom funny. Or clever. Or anything other than inane.