So I'm trying to figure something out here. I'm sure most of you know the old sitcom Malcolm in the Middle that now shows reruns on Teen Nick. It's completely uncensored, except for one episode -- a Halloween episode. Lois is getting after Hal for something and says something about how he said someone's doorbell sounded gay, and "gay" was muted out. However, in two other episodes, "gay" was said and was not muted out. One was an episode devoted to the whole gay thing where this girl told Malcolm that Reese was gay and told Reese that Malcolm was gay. In the other episode Malcolm said, "If we were gay lovers, I wouldn't mind this, but it's not true." (I believe that's the exact quote.) This was in response to a photo they saw on the computer screen of their faces being put on a pornography thing. So I don't get it. Why did the Halloween episode have the word muted out, but the other episodes didn't?
When did the Halloween episode air? And how was it censored? Like, in a way that he clearly said the word but nothing came out?
I would suspect it's part of the way the word is used in the scene it's muted out of. It's a bit offensive in this context really. Which is why it's muted out. The other two instances aren't offensive. The guy's quote could have been easily said: 'We're not in a relationship.' or at least that's how it came across to me. A person's sexuality should never be used in a derogatory fashion. When we do that, we degrade part of a person's identity. If you want to say that something is stupid. Just say that it's stupid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Malcolm_in_the_Middle_episodes Season 6 - Episode 4 Season 7 - Episode 2 Season 7 - Episode 4
That is weird.... I was wondering if it was earlier than the other two episodes or something. Huh . EDIT: I suppose one difference is gay is being used in a derogatory nature in the Halloween episode
I completely agree, but at the same time, it's still obvious what she was saying even when it's muted out, especially if you have closed captioning turned on because it shows the word. The show's original channel was Fox, so my guess is that it wasn't muted on there, hence the closed captioning showing it.[DOUBLEPOST=1396811409][/DOUBLEPOST] There was one other Halloween episode back in season two (November 8, 2000), but that didn't have any use of the word. Yeah, that's what Laurence just said.
Was the time different for the episodes? Here if a show is aired before a certain time some words are always muted out, usually swears but I guess things that are meant to sound derogatory like calling something gay as if being gay was a bad thing could be censored aswell.
On Teen Nick, there are two back-to-back episodes every other week from what I've seen. One from 1:00 AM to 1:30 AM and one from 1:30 AM to 2:00 AM Pacific. Although the channel is actually on Eastern time, so that would be 4:00 AM to 4:30 AM and 4:30 AM to 5:00 AM for them.
I' m confused why they' d mute any word out. Yeah, it was arguably derogatory in one case, so ? What' s the next step, mute the words "girly", "effeminate" and "not manly" ? Mute "black sheep" because that' s racist ? Besides, muting it doesn' t prevent people to get it anyway, it' s as ridiculously useless and hypocritical as those ****ing lil stars. It alters the style, not the substance. Ironically that' s why they had a problem with the way the word gay was used here to begin with, it was used to bash the style rather than describe the substance. What the hell is fundamentally wrong with the word **** in and of itself exactly ? I' m all for raising awareness about those issues but pretending they were never there is not the way to go, that' s just political correctness gone overboard. A TV show isn' t a nanny, a teacher or a parent. Using the word gay in that fashion is a symptom, not the disease. Muting words around won' t change nor supress our gender roles stereotypes anytime soon.
I'd say it's because of this^ In the other episodes you mentioned it doesn't appear to be used offensively and thus was not muted out. I don't understand why 'gay' is used in such a manner, far from it's original definition and the sexuality it is commonly associated with, but I suppose that's the world today. I don't like labels anyway but I still don't understand why 'gay' would ever be used offensively. I also find it sad that Google's definition has this listed under the word 'gay': -Nights
