You can blame politics. You can blame Twitter. You can blame the changing nature of families or texting or the internet in general, and whatever you picked wouldn't be wrong. But what we take as "coarse" in culture and language and dress has shifted over time. Clothing that was considered scandalous when it first came out is now not just worn but considered everyday wear (bikinis, crop tops, see-thru). Words and phrases that would have would gotten your mouth washed out with soap are now not only accepted but part of mainstream conversation ("that sucks," "it pisses me off," "pain in the ass"). Depictions of violence or sex in the arts that used to be been merely hinted at are shown in iMax and 4D splendor and feted as art of the highest order ("Game of Thrones," "Aliens," "Basic Instinct").
That sliding scale has made the purveyors of mass communication and entertainment uneasy gatekeepers as they struggle to use and show possible offensive items without running afoul of their intended audiences. As the AP style guide says one approach is to "try to find a way to give the reader a sense of what was said without using the specific word or phrase." But sometimes you are left with no option. When the president says "shithole countries" in a cabinet meeting do you censor it, soften it or report it as is? In that case, you gotta go with it. The AP again: "If a profanity, obscenity, or vulgarity must be used, flag the story at the top with the following, ‘Eds: Story includes vulgarity (or graphic content, etc.).' And confine the offending language, in quotation marks, to a separate paragraph that can be deleted easily by editors who do not want to use it." The problem is increasingly one man's vulgarity is another man's figure of speech. Or as the Bible says in Jeremiah 8:12: "Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not ashamed; they did not know how to blush."
You see this notably in in movie ratings. The original code created in 1927 by president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America Will Hays was a set of rules which studios were advised to heed, or their picture wouldn't be released. The so called "Hays Code" include a long list of do's and don'ts including "No pointed profanity—by either title or lip—this includes the words God, Lord, Jesus, Christ (unless they be used reverently in connection with proper religious ceremonies), Hell, S.O.B., damn, Gawd, and every other profane and vulgar expression however it may be spelled." It took a similar approach to sex: "No licentious or suggestive nudity—in fact or in silhouette; and any lecherous or licentious notice thereof by other characters in the picture."
In 1968 Motion Picture Association of America chairman Jack Valenti replaced it with a new parent-focused rating system that is still in use in use today. The current Classification & Ratings Administration (CARA) system has been tweaked over the years to account for a changing world. The original G (General), M (Mature), R (Restricted) and X (No one under 17 admitted) were modified with M becoming PG and X became NC-17, as well as adding a fifth classification with PG-13.
Even within each of those groups the actual criteria has changed as society has changed around it. For instance, you would think that dropping an f-bomb would be cause for an automatic bump up the scale. Not anymore. Now it can be used once in a PG-13 film with no detrimental effect. Use it twice, and now you're really swearing, and up you go to R. Likewise with a single use of the word mother------. One OK, two not so much. And either expression used not as an expletive but in the context of sex is an automatic ticket to the next level.
CARA actually includes their rationale in the graphic that showcases the rating itself for each film. It might say it is rated R for "sexual content, and language and graphic nudity" or "images of terror and Intense situations of peril." But you also see explanations such as "strong violence and pervasive language" which begs the questions what is violence that is not strong, and what is language that is not spoken a lot? Or the warning that preceded "Team America: World Police," which was rated R for "graphic crude and sexual humor, violent images, and strong language — all involving puppets." You also get some editorializing by critics, such as the review for the new "Deadpool & Wolverine" which noted "Rated R for more or less everything that gets you an R rating," or the Hindi-language action thriller "Kill" which had appended to the printed review "Rated R for 52 varieties of knife wound, one weaponized bathroom fixture and several ugly sweater vests."
The thing about movies, TV shows and videogames is that you can choose to consume or not. AP style guide aside, it would seem that public discourse needs to come with a warning as well. It's not that you can't push the envelope for shock and effect, it's that the envelope needs to stay an envelope. Perhaps a new rating is in order, one that can be applied to our everyday world: call it C for civil.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford tries to keep his world family friendly. His column appears weekly via email and online http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/ and https://marcwollin.substack.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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