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To Bleep, Or Not To Bleep...

M

mad_hatter

I've recently decided to try my hand at claymation. You can see my first effort in THIS THREAD.

I have ideas for a full series of comedy/horror parodies. The style of humor would be similar to something like Robot Chicken, or South Park. What I'm trying to decide is whether I should add bleeps over the expletives I've written into a the sketches. When shown on TV, all swearing is bleeped out of Robot Chicken and South Park (except on the odd occasion). However, once they reach DVD, the bleeps are removed.

Is there any school of thought as to what's best when these sketches are to live on YouTube? Do people find the bleeps distracting. Or annoying perhaps? Personally, I find that they can add to the humor. I've written one sketch that's full of swearing; the constant bleeping would be part of the joke. With out the bleeping, it'd just become a barrage of cursing. But I'd also like to keep it consistent; if the f word's bleeped out on one instance, it'd have to be bleeped out in all.

Anybody have any thoughts they'd care to share?
 
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Censorship is regional, words that the BBC censors are not necessarily the same words that BBC Northern Ireland censors or what American broadcast bleeps out. Which is ALSO not the same thing that American cable beeps out depending on the time of day and the phases of the moon (REA the South Park "ShIt" episode where the word was spoken uncensored 162 times). I'd leave it pristine and let the end consumer edit as they wish. But there's nothing that says you can't write the script and 'bleep' out certain words intentionally as part of the story. That's not censorship, that's part of YOUR creative endeavor.
 
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Of course, I understand that there is no censorship on the internet. I’m not looking for an answer as to what I’m allowed to do; I know that can do whatever I want. I’m just not sure what I want to do.

The South Park example is a good one (the episode was entitled “It Hits The Fan”). The fact that they were allowed to use the word “shit”, uncensored, numerous times implies that they could use that particular word, uncensored, as much as they like. So why would they bleep it in every other instance? Of course, if they weren’t bleeping out all the other “shits”, there wouldn’t be any kind of a joke in the idea that, all of a sudden, it’s an acceptable word to use.

I guess the real question I’m looking for an answer to is this: if you were to watch an episode of South Park on TV, does the censorship somehow detract from you enjoyment of the program? And do you find any comedic value in the bleeping?


Maxsdad said:
I'd leave it pristine and let the end consumer edit as they wish...
Click to expand...

The trouble with that is, it’s not even possible. The only way they could avoid my unedited swearing would be to simply not watch, and, obviously, that’s the opposite of what I’m aiming for.
 
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In the film "Angels In The Outfield" (1951) the manager would curse often and fluently. Films of that era could not allow any foul language. On set Paul Douglas would let loose with with language that even had hardcore entertainment types blushing. In post they reversed the audio of his expletive laced tirades and then layered a few together. The intensity was there, but the words unrecognizable, even if you reversed the audio.
 
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Perhaps work out who your audience is. If that audience would feel ok with swears, then leave them in. Otherwise don't write them into the script or bleep it out if you want to keep the same expression without the language.

Bleeps do get a bit distracting, so you could always cut the audio when the swear occurs. Or, if it's supposed to be funny take a page out of EpicMealTime's book and pick unrelated sounds or background sound effects to cover the swear.
 
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