Trailers with swearing in them.

[Joe Redifer]

This last weekend I saw Top Gun Maverick, and there was a trailer for some Brad Pitt movie where he's on a train I think. Don't remember what it was called or really about. What I do remember is there were a few "Shits" and maybe even a dick joke or similar in the trailer. Is this a common thing now? It wasn't a red-band trailer.

[Mike Blakesley]

It's getting more common. The studios expect us to only play trailers that are appropriate to the feature movie, ratingswise.

If you look at the green tag at the beginning of a trailer, where it used to say "This trailer is approved for ALL AUDIENCES" has been changed lately to "APPROPRIATE AUDIENCES." Since Top Gun Maverick is a PG-13 movie they could play just about any trailer with it that isn't a red-band.

[Bobby Henderson]

I've seen some MPAA "green band" tags carry the verbiage "the following preview has been APPROVED to ACCOMPANY THIS FEATURE by the..." blah blah blah.

The MPAA (or "MPA" now) can't decide on whether they want to stick with tradition and keep using Helvetica/Helvetica Neue for the type on the green/red band tags or use Gotham.

I also really don't like how they changed the rating ID graphics in 2019. Apparently I'm not the only one who feels that way; so many movie posters are still using the designs dating back to the early 1980's. The ratings IDs became silly or even unintentionally funny when they started adding specifics for the types of objectionable content in the movie across the bottom of the rating tag. The current rating IDs are an inconsistent mess and don't do anything to improve a movie poster layout. It would be better for them to just go back to the standard ratings labels (of the previous designs) and then direct concerned parents to the MPA web site for more specifics about that particular movie. Meanwhile at home on any streaming service or premium cable channel "TV-MA" could mean anything from PG-level material all the way up to the NC-17 zone.

I think Amazon or Netflix has some Marilyn Monroe movie coming out they submitted to the MPA, knowing it would get tagged with a NC-17 rating. I think they got the show tagged with the NC-17 for actual marketing appeal. The NC-17 rating is not a commercial death sentence for home viewing like it is in cinematic release. Certain big commercial theater chains refuse to book NC-17 rated movies and some news papers and TV networks refuse to show ads for such movies. None of that matters to streaming services or even premium cable channels. Even HBO has aired NC-17 rated movies from time to time. This gap between what can be shown on TV versus what can be shown in a commercial cinema helped create the stupid situation of "R-rated" theatrical cuts and "Unrated" cuts for home viewing platforms. It's another factor putting commercial cinemas at a disadvantage to the home viewing platforms.

[Frank Angel]

What constitutes so-called "vulgar,""dirty," "disgusting," "vile' language is purely based on social custom and those customs, like what color to wear after Labor Day are constantly changing over time. In fact, the very reason for "dirty language" has always been generated because of the class system in feudal Europe where the "Royal" class used language to distinguish itself from the peasant class. Words that the commoners used became tainted and even seen as immoral; it was a way for the upper class to look down on and feel superior to everyone else. Unfortunately the use of language in that way has lingered on.

The reality is, words are just words; they convey meaning, beyond that, any social acceptability our unacceptability is something external and arbitrary. A work can only carry a definition; it is not right or wrong, good or bad, unless society for whatever reason, assigns it some additional, socio-political import and that usually is irrational. There is no intrinsic difference between the word manure and shit...intercourse and fuck...cunt and vagina, yet one is considered unacceptable and the other not , yet there are massive and powerful entities like the FCC and the MPAA not to mention the hordes of religious organizations focusing incredible amounts of time and energy to prevent one from being used over the other. It's all pretty arbitrary and when one considers this issue in the context of the ills of our society or what it deems "bad"or immoral, dirty words surely are WAY down on the scale of what we need to work on.

Over the years society seems to have been letting go of some of its distaste for some of the words it demands we be "protected" from; shit seems to have fallen below the threshold of outrage. It started with Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn and had has progressed ever since to a lessening of official outrage. Certainly when we look at the totality of things that make a society more or less "civilized," "dirty words" seem to be one of the least important things it needs to worry itself about.

[Joe Redifer]

The reality is, words are just words; they convey meaning, beyond that, any social acceptability our unacceptability is something external and arbitrary.

Correct, however I wasn't looking for philosophical debate. I had just never seen it before in a green band trailer.

[Frank Angel]

Good to see you back, Joe.

[Mike Blakesley]

The bottom line is, a green band just means it isn't a red-band trailer. Beyond that it's meaningless now.

I've seen some MPAA "green band" tags carry the verbiage "the following preview has been APPROVED to ACCOMPANY THIS FEATURE

I think that has mostly gone away in the digital cinema era. In film days, a trailer could be attached to a movie and theoretically the studio had a small bit of control over what feature it was exhibited with. Which of course makes no sense, but you know studios and their logical thinking.

I kinda wish they would go back to the olden days of putting the rating AFTER the trailer. I remember as a kid watching a trailer for some movie and then seeing the old "M - Mature audiences" tag at the end, and thinking "well, can't see that one." There was always a sense of suspense seeing a trailer for the first time and wondering what the rating would be (and hoping for a "G" or a "GP.")

[Frank Cox]

The first one I remember seeing (that shocked me at the time) was a trailer for the original Casper movie. One of the other ghosts looks under a table and says to Casper, "What the hell are you doing down there?"

I've (obviously) never forgotten that since it seemed so unnecessary in a kids movie...

The Nope feature that I've got has a trailer for Oppenheimer at the start. It's the first time I've had a digital movie with an attached trailer.

[Randy Stankey]

Wasn't it the "Casper" movie/trailer where one of the ghosts gets caught in a vacuum cleaner and, just before getting pulled in, exclaims, "This SUCKS!" ?

When I was a kid "suck" was a swear word. You could get whacked for saying it in front of your parents. Nowadays, it's common. Most kids don't even understand what "suck" actually refers to.

Personally, I don't care much about swearing. I grew up in a bar where coarse language was normalized. However, I still believe in maintaining a certain decorum in public. It doesn't matter what people say in the privacy of their own homes or among friends but, when you're having dinner with your boss and his wife, you don't go 'round saying, "Pass the fuckin' salt!"

Penn and Teller are one of my favorite acts on TV but one thing I don't like is Penn Jilette's tendency to say, "G** D***" so often.
While I can't claim that I've never said those words, I still don't like it when somebody practically shouts it on television. It's more of a "manners" issue for me.

Modern social norms change all the time and it seems like most people, these days, don't care about swearing so much but, still, in movies and television, I think it better to tone it down.

If people could come up with a common understanding on what "profanity" is and stick to that, I think we could all be a lot happier.

Couldn't we just draw the line at the "Carlin Words?"

[Bobby Henderson]

George Carlin's bit Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television is a classic. It's still funny as hell, even if some of the old rules are outdated. I like listening to the old routine from the 70's; Carlin was more laid back and less angry like he was in the 90's.

In recent years I've heard "shit" and "piss" at least a few times on broadcast network channels and far more often on basic cable channels. "Tits" is even passable, although people now tend to use words like "titties" or "boobs" for that. The two C-words, F-word and MF are still mostly off limits. Of course there are lots of modern terms that would piss-off the censors.

In general, profanity and violence are a lot more acceptable in movies and TV shows than nudity. At least that is the case in the United States. Even depictions of sex that have no visible naughty parts exposed have a lot of limits. Same goes for any sexually suggestive material.

[Joe Redifer]

Which over-the-air broadcasts have you heard "shit" from? I've heard most others from the likes of Saturday Night Live, but they are always more mild than "shit". I've heard "asshole", "balls" and maybe "tits". But not shit. I consider "fuck" and "motherfucker" the same thing. I never understood why Carlin (or whoever) classified them as two different words. If you can't say "fuck" then it only takes 2 brain cells to figure out that you also can't say "motherfucker". That's like being able to say shitstorm but not shit.

[Frank Angel]

Brilliant comedian, the late, great George Carlin, on a word that although we outwardly malign it as unacceptable, its many, many uses proves how universally it is used: https://youtu.be/xZkb4TPI-Lo

[Joe Redifer]

I've had a WAV file with that routine on my computer since the mid-90s. Love it. However it doesn't sound like Carlin's voice at all. I'm not sure where it came from. This Youtube version even has the graininess of my 22Khz 8-bit mono WAV file. I've never heard a better quality version.

[Bobby Henderson]

I still have a 2-disc CD I bought a long time ago, George Carlin: Classic Gold. The two discs have the contents of three albums, FM & AM, Class Clown and Operation Foole. Great stuff. Like the rest of my CD collection I made WAV rips of the discs to store on an external hard disc and 320kb/s MP3 files to load onto a smart phone or USB memory stick to play in my pickup truck. My truck has a stock CD player, but it's nice to not have to haul around stacks of CDs in a glove box anymore.

When our local Hastings Books, Music & Video store was liquidating its inventory I snagged a 3-disc box set of Lenny Bruce stand-up performances. Obviously the material is great, but it's interesting for all the cultural differences of America 60-plus years ago. It's also interesting just how daring Lenny Bruce was for that era. The material doesn't seem all that controversial for today's standards, but Lenny Bruce had some serious balls performing it back then. It's one of the reasons why he rates at or very near the top of any list of greatest comedians of all time.

[Randy Stankey]

I consider "fuck" and "motherfucker" the same thing. I never understood why Carlin (or whoever) classified them as two different words.

The exact reason:
(Starting @ 6:40)

This video was played in the bar so often that I could practically recite it, line by line.
I can't tell you how many VHS tapes got worn out from it.