Questionable Censorship and other Sunday Sundries

I spent most of yesterday hanging around the house reading The Help.  Everyone who highly recommended it was absolutely right.  I can't stop reading...well, obviously I can because I wouldn't be typing this right now, but you know what I mean.  At 6:00ish, I decided it was time to cook some dinner (actually breakfast and lunch, too) and get lunches together for the week.  After that, I settled in for a night of bad television because there's nothing on and I don't have cable.  But do you know what was on?  For the second night in a row? POINT BREAK!!!  I think you remember (or if you don't, I'm telling you now) how much I love me some Point Break.   As you may also know, its 20th anniversary was this July.  In several articles about this film, it has been mentioned that the F bomb is dropped 115 or so times.  That's a lot for two hour movie...that just goes on and on. 

Since it was on network TV, I expected a lot of censorship.  What I didn't expect was the kind of censorship.  Nudity? That's a given.  The shot of the ex-President mooning the security cameras was blurred, as were several other shots, like the naked gals at Warchild and Bunker's house.  All the F bombs, of course.  The word "shit" was out, even "bullshit."  That whole scene in which Johnny and Tyler wake up on the beach and he's late for the raid was cut...because he says "shit" about 20 times.  Oddly, the line in which Johnny asks, "you not into kinky shit, are you Pappas?" was also cut. I think they could have just dropped the word shit, but whatevs.  

But what wasn't out?  Goddamn, and Jesus Christ.  Apparently, shit is a dirty word (George Carlin told us so) but taking the Lord's name is vain is A-Ok!  And on top of the 115 F bombs, cussing the Lord's name was their second favorite expletive.  I guess the censors don't care about good ol' Christian values.  I don't necessarily have an issue with that kind of cussing, mind you, but in the absence of all the other bad words, it stuck out and was kind of uncomfortable.  Even with all the cutting, it still managed to be 2 1/2 hours of network television time.

In other news, it was Metal Detector day on the comics page.  And I guess the ol' metal plate in head joke is still hilarious.