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10 Times the F-Word Snuck Through the Censors
10. Nicole Richie Has Some Words on Cleanliness
“Have you ever tried to get cow (crap) out of a Prada purse? It’s not so (flippin’)
simple.” Thus was the sage advice dispensed by the wise voice of a generation, Nicole
Richie. The innocuous quote was spoken live to the masses at the 2003 Billboard Music
Awards. Unscripted and apparently in reference to the first season of her reality show The
Simple Life, the Fox Network was taken to task for allowing the quote to get out over
the air. After a 10 year court case the Supreme Court ruled against the FCC, citing the quote
as an “Incident of Alleged Indecency.”
Wait, Nicole Richie’s words at the Supreme Court? Yeah, chew on that for a second.
9. Hunter S. Thompson Makes a Point
One of the biggest rock stars of the 1970s didn’t play a lick of music. Hunter S. Thompson’s
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was first published as a two part series in the pages of Rolling
Stone and later released as a novel in 1972. In it, Thompson had some choice words on journalism
as a profession:
“Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for (slackers) and
misfits—a false doorway to the backside of life.”
Often cited as a textbook example of gonzo journalism, Thompson wove a tapestry of extreme
drug use, blurred lines of reality and off-road racing into an American classic. Influential
to authors and musicians alike, the book was made into a movie of the same name starring
Johnny Depp in 1998. In Thompson’s work the profanity is sporadic to maximize its
effect — when re-read today, the graphic drug use seems much more shocking than the
swearing.
8. The Osbournes Are a Loving Family
The self-proclaimed Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne got his start with Black Sabbath.
Then, after attaining success never before scored by a hard rock band, Ozzy left (or
was kicked out, depending on your source) and became a solo artist. Ozzy’s drug fueled
antics sustained him through the ’80s as he cranked out six multi-platinum albums in
11 years.
But rap and grunge crowded into the picture, pushing classic rock dinosaurs out. As fads
came and went, someone at MTV came up with the bright idea to follow Ozzy and his family
around and edit the footage for a reality show. The only problem was that the family
dropped f-bombs like verbal B-17s — the first season of the show contained hundreds
of bleeps in practically every other sentence. Despite this fact, or perhaps thanks to it,
the first season became the most viewed series on MTV. The show ended up being a well-played
marketing strategy to (relatively) clean up the family’s image for public consumption.
And it worked — Ozzy re-united with Black Sabbath and continues to record today, while
Sharon went on to be a co-host on America’s Got Talent. As for the kids, well… Kelly
sucks the air out of any show she appears on, while Jack does alright as a Hollywood
gadfly.
7. Wayne Rooney Scores
On an early Saturday morning in 2011 I was watching soccer on ESPN2 and saw Wayne Rooney
put on a scoring clinic, leading Manchester United to a 4-2 victory over West Ham with
a hat trick. I watch a lot of sports here in America, but I wasn’t well versed on
the regulations of spewing profanity in the Queen’s English over in Great Britain. As
I watched Rooney celebrate one of his goals, jubilation written all over his face, he ran
to the nearest camera and started to scream the f-word in joy. A lot. I remember thinking
to myself, “I guess the standards are a little different in England. Someone at ESPN
is going to get fired for not censoring that.”
What I later learned was that the standards there are similar to the standards here, and
Wayne Rooney found himself on the wrong end of a two game suspension. The incident made
international news, in part because Rooney had been in a different kind of f-word scandal
involving prostitution the year before.
6. Trent Reznor Wants to (Make Love) To You Like an Animal
“Closer” is Nine Inch Nails’ most popular song, creeping up to #41 on the Hot 100 Charts.
That the song made the charts at all is a credit to songwriter Trent Reznor. He dropped
one of the most offensive words in the language into the middle of the refrain, radio stations
dropped the vocals for a split second, and viola, an instant classic. Not to be outdone
by censors, Reznor then partnered with director Mark Romanek, took one of the most controversial
singles ever to make the charts, and made one of the most controversial videos ever
to promote it.
10 years after the fact, VH1 Classic named the video as the winner of its Greatest Video
of All Time poll. You’ll still hear the heavily edited version of the song on the
radio today, although with an extra five seconds you can find unedited versions of the song
and the video readily available on the internet.
5. MC5 Wants (Young Music Lovers) to Kick Out the Jams
During the heyday of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley, a scrappy young
band from Detroit was setting stages ablaze with a type of rock music not quite seen anywhere
else in the world. MC5 would be the frontrunners of the punk music scene that would arrive
a decade later, and on their 1969 debut album Kick Out the Jams the title track starts with
Rob Tyner screaming out, “Kick Out the Jams, (Expletive Deleted)!”
The phrase became part of the rock lexicon and sparked half a dozen covers a generation
later by those influenced by MC5’s signature tune. Even though MC5’s last studio album
was released in 1971 the band continued to tour off and on for 40 years, interchanging
members as they died off. The Motor City 5’s ultimate legacy may have more to do with drug-related
deaths and arrests than hits.
4. Bono Comments on the Golden Globes
Before his career as a philanthropist, Bono was the lead singer of the ground-breaking
U2. U2 released some of the most important albums of the ’80s, including The Joshua
Tree and Rattle and Hum, but they started to lose a little steam as the new millennium
approached. When you’re meeting with foreign dignitaries and attending World Economic Forums,
it can be hard to focus on your day job.
But during the 2003 Golden Globe Awards, Bono channeled his inner rock star and described
the ceremony as “really, really, (freakin’) brilliant!” Broadcast live, the comment
sparked a national debate because the FCC “refused to fine NBC because the network
did not receive advance notice of the consequences of broadcasting such profanity and the profanity
in question was not used in its literal *** meaning.” Translation: If you’re a great
guy, you can use the f-word as an adjective.
3. CeeLo Green Says “(Forget) You”
CeeLo Green is a genius. I don’t care what kind of problems he’s had in his personal
life — he’s an accomplished actor, songwriter, rapper, producer and a judge on The Voice.
But despite scoring a #1 hit with his duo act Gnarls Barkley, his most impressive feat
would have to be being nominated for a Song of the Year Grammy with his catchy single
“(Forget) You.” Except he doesn’t say “forget” on the original, just the radio
edit. The song was so good that it didn’t matter what the title was — both versions
were hits, with the explicit version of the single being downloaded over five million
times.
2. George Carlin Knows Seven Dirty Words
Way back in 1972 George Carlin came out with a comedy sketch called the Seven Dirty Words.
Found on Carlin’s comedy album Class Clown, the words are loosely taken from the eight
words Lenny Bruce prophetically predicted would land him in jail in the early ’60s
if they were spoken aloud. The seven words are… ha, you can’t trick me, but one is
the f-word and a second is a derivative. The skit caused a 40 year battle with the Federal
Communications Commission that tried to stake out where the line is in the United States
between obscenity and comedy. The Supreme Court would later attempt to sort through
these lines in order to map out standards for radio and television, which are still
a bit blurry today.
1. Memorable Phrases Die Hard
In 1988, 20th Century Fox released a 25 million dollar action movie starring Bruce Willis
that went on to gross over $140 million worldwide. Despite being one of the stars on the critically
acclaimed dramedy Moonlighting, Die Hard launched Willis’ career as a $20 million dollar-a-film
movie star. The movie also launched the career of Alan Rickman and a slew of sequels that
gave Fox over a billion dollars in ticket sales. All of this was built on the tagline
at the end of the first movie when Bruce Willis reaches for his gun and utters the immortal
words “Yippee ki yay, (expletive).”
Lots of action films have clever quips, but this one went on to be nominated as one of
the American Film Institute’s Top 100 Quotes in Movie History. It’s so ingrained in the
public consciousness that when A Good Day to Die Hard came out 25 years later the tagline
was “Yippee Ki Yay, Mother Russia.”
As a staple of basic cable programming for a generation, Die Hard 2 ran into controversy
when fans complained about the absurd TV edit, which changed the iconic phrase to “Yippee
ki yay, Mr. Falcon.” It didn’t fit into the plot, or with any with any characters’
names, or really with anything at all. Master Father? Mrs. Feather? Moron Fathead? I’m
just stringing some random words together in the hopes of getting a Hollywood voice-over
job.