“Thou art an artless, crook-pated, fawning, mewling, elf-skinned puttock,”said Shakespear,may have not been offensive to anyone now. However, in the 18th century, this was considered to be profanity. Times have changed, and profanity has evolved into becoming more and more explicit.
It has become more common and used in more media. With the acceptance of profanity is making it harder for parents to regulate their rules to their children when profanity it is on the titles of TV shows.
Movies and TV shows such as “Kick-Ass” and “Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23” have set a new bar for the new look on profanity. If we are starting to use profanities in our titles, what we are to expect in the future may be more of a scare than of right now.
The Federal Communications Commission regulates the U.S. airwaves. The regulations have changed from back in the day during the time where swearing was prohibited on television. The use of profanity or obscenities had severe consequences, such as fines and even termination of the shows.
Songs are rhythms that get stuck into people’s brain. The idea of it is to be catchy and to stick so they will remember it and continue to like the artists. The song “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe,“ by Kendrick Lamar is one of them. This is a top song that gets played on the radio. There are edited versions for the radio. However, announcing a song’s title if it contains profanity seemed to be a struggle.
With television its trying to push shows limits, there are many fines in reaction to it. According to the Washington Post, on April 7, 2003, the News Corp/Fox network was fined $1,183,000 for the show “Married By America,” which digitally obscured nudity. Fox and the show were charged for strippers who were cream covered even though the image was digitally obscured so it wasn’t clearly seen. Fox refused to pay the fine and it was appealed for $91,000. It stated it was unfair because the regulations were not consistent.
Society has evolved and television has adapted to that. Throughout history trends will change, dialect and slang will continue to differentiate and sex and profanity will seem to look normal. This is just giving children reasons to use profanity and see situations they are not ready to see, especially, with the lack of maturity and understanding. If the FCC continues to let profanity and obscenities become more compliance, it will corrupt the minds of the youth and will corrupt society in general. It’s important to have guidelines and limitations for everything so that the future generations of children won’t be corrupted.