Censoring music / tv series, etc...

[Bralo20]

While watching tv series or even movies from the US or Canada I've noticed more then once that a lot of "brands" are being removed, taped over, digitally removed or blurred, etc... What's the reason for this?

 

Back in the "old days" it was rather common to remove things like airline titles from planes etc... But while watching a tv serie I never (or at least very rarely) saw brands of cars, trucks, etc... removed... Now while watching the new tv serie "Rookie Blue" made in Canada I've noticed that every brand of car is removed or covered by black tape, the patrol cars, Ford Crown Vic's are driving arround with a taped over Ford logo, I've seen Toyota's in the serie with the logo's being taped over, etc... You can also see it in other series with laptops, computerscreens even cell phones...

 

What's the story behind this? Sometimes it's done like you wouldn't notice but sometimes, like in "Rookie Blue" for example it's done in a way that it's getting irritating when you start to notice it...

 

None of the tv series, tv shows, movies, etc... made in our country have this, it's kind of strange/weird to see this

 

What's the point for example to tape over the Ford logo of a (Crown Vic) police car? It's so well known that even a 5 year old child knows that it is a Ford?

Edited September 11, 2010 at 11:36 AM by Bralo20

[Celinechick]

This is really wierd Maybe now they need permission from the companys and they're too lazy, haha.

[Bralo20]

Let's start a discussion (again) about censoring on the mainstream media, certainly since there seems to quite a big difference between the USA (and in extention also Canada) and Europe and probably also other parts of the world

 

 

Watched the latest GLEE episode and I wonder what's the issue with the Cee Lo Green song? This song is known here (in the EU that is) as "f*** you!" but in Glee it was featured as "forget you"... After some digging on the internet it appears that there is a special US version from this song called "forget you". The "original" song is played here day in, day out on the radio and it's quite a catchy song, at least in the original version, in the US version it doesn't fit right...

 

Now, this is certainly no the first time I notice something like this, in several tv-series, even in series that can be seen as series for a more adult public (like the different mystery/crime series during the years), it came to my attention that some of them are clearly censored either for what Americans like to call "bad words" but also for general brands of cars, trucks, eletronics, airliners, etc, etc... The only exception to this seems to be the rather "high end" shows like the CSI triology for instance...

 

What is the issue with that lately? It seams that it's getting from bad to worse... I remember back in the old days that there was quite some censoring but during the next years it slowely vanished untill the recent years when more and more censoring is taken place...

 

One shoul watch the first episode of the new tv-series called "Detroit 187" for instance, while the show itself is quite good the first episode is tragic as hell, there's been constantly beeping sounds in the episode which is very anoying and then I don't even got started on reality shows yet... Some shows (For instance something that crosses my mind: Hell's Kitchen) are half beeping half talking...

 

And watching tv series is also "fun" if you have an eye for detail, cars with taped over brands (for Christ sake, everyone knows who makes a Crown Vic, no need to tape over the Ford Logo or the logo's on laptop's, tv's, coffeemachines, and much much more). Maybe I'm the only one who is annoyed by this but I doubt it, once you see it for the first time you'll end up looking for things that aren't right and in the end you'll have spend most of your time searching for issues instead of enjoying the show...

 

 

Anyway, just my 2 cents, don't know what everyone else thinks about this

 

 

Edit: even this board is being censored

Edited November 17, 2010 at 02:29 PM by Bralo20

[Krys]

IMO, the brands are taped over because the show is not advertising for said brands. Those brands you see in movies are probably paid to be put there, hence some of them are not bleeped out. I see a lot of this happening not only on North American shows but also in Korean tv series.

[Alex_Incognito]

Krys is absolutely right.

 

As far as music and video censoring----that's just a part of American culture. It is strange indeed. We don't want our children to see a bare breast on television or to hear "f you"---but we're fine with the violence on our televisions. It makes no sense, but people are very passionate about it here.

[Bralo20]

IMO, the brands are taped over because the show is not advertising for said brands. Those brands you see in movies are probably paid to be put there, hence some of them are not bleeped out. I see a lot of this happening not only on North American shows but also in Korean tv series.

 

I "know" that that is indeed the reason but it's quite strange if you don't be used to it. Here in the EU I can't remember any series (and I watch quite some Flemish, Dutch and English series) that had brands taped over. Near every series here does have sponsors, that's correct, for instance we do have a crime series that is running allready for more then 7 years now and one of the main sponsors is Toyota so the main character drives with either a Lexus or a Toyota in the series but besides that other characters are happily driving arround with Mercedes, Ford, Volvo, BMW, etc... without that those brands are sponsoring the series. Same for the computers they are using, they are using Dell computers (which is a sponsor) but the Mac's or the HP's that appear in the series have their logo's right were they belong. Even the coffee is being sposored by Douwe Egberts but neverless you'll see brands like Kimbo or even Lavazza appear in the series.

 

I always thought that tv series were been made to match to a certain degree to real life (ok, we don't solve murders in 42 minutes of time, but you get my drift), however I can't say that I have ever found anything taped over, removed or replaced in real life I actually think that I still need to find the first car with his brand taped over

 

Nearly every series or movie is kind of product placement with the James Bond movies the biggest examples of being one large product placement movie, who doesn't remember the Aston Martin's, the Martini drink, Ericsson phones, the Omega watches or a couple of years ago a brief mariage with the BMW group with the lovely BMW Z8 featured... But even with the main sponsors you'll still see plenty of other brands without being removed, blacked out, blurred, taped over or whatever...

 

 

Maybe I'm the only one that has a problem with it but unfortunately I do have a great eye for detail and even the smallest issue catches my eye

Edited November 17, 2010 at 06:18 PM by Bralo20

[Bralo20]

Krys is absolutely right.

 

As far as music and video censoring----that's just a part of American culture. It is strange indeed. We don't want our children to see a bare breast on television or to hear "f you"---but we're fine with the violence on our televisions. It makes no sense, but people are very passionate about it here.

 

Yup, yet another thing that is quite different, here in the EU you'll see sometimes plenty of nudity, even in commercials (shampoo/shower/etc...) and that's indeed something that you don't see on American TV? Violence on the other hand is indeed something that you see enough on tv (and not only in the USA)

 

Quite strange if you start to think about it a bit more :-)

[Krys]

I "know" that that is indeed the reason but it's quite strange if you don't be used to it. Here in the EU I can't remember any series (and I watch quite some Flemish, Dutch and English series) that had brands taped over. Near every series here does have sponsors, that's correct, for instance we do have a crime series that is running allready for more then 7 years now and one of the main sponsors is Toyota so the main character drives with either a Lexus or a Toyota in the series but besides that other characters are happily driving arround with Mercedes, Ford, Volvo, BMW, etc... without that those brands are sponsoring the series. Same for the computers they are using, they are using Dell computers (which is a sponsor) but the Mac's or the HP's that appear in the series have their logo's right were they belong. Even the coffee is being sposored by Douwe Egberts but neverless you'll see brands like Kimbo or even Lavazza appear in the series.

 

I always thought that tv series were been made to match to a certain degree to real life (ok, we don't solve murders in 42 minutes of time, but you get my drift), however I can't say that I have ever found anything taped over, removed or replaced in real life I actually think that I still need to find the first car with his brand taped over

 

Nearly every series or movie is kind of product placement with the James Bond movies the biggest examples of being one large product placement movie, who doesn't remember the Aston Martin's, the Martini drink, Ericsson phones, the Omega watches or a couple of years ago a brief mariage with the BMW group with the lovely BMW Z8 featured... But even with the main sponsors you'll still see plenty of other brands without being removed, blacked out, blurred, taped over or whatever...

 

 

Maybe I'm the only one that has a problem with it but unfortunately I do have a great eye for detail and even the smallest issue catches my eye

 

I see where you're coming from but sometimes it could be like "why should I advertise their brands when they can pay me to put it in there?" you know? Plus, some of these tv series are aired with ads in between the 40 something minute episode. If you watched Modern Family, did you notice that they bleeped out all the Apple logos on the computers they use but when it comes to the iPad, they didnt censor it? That was a special "iPad" episode cuz all you hear Phil Dunphy going about is the iPad.

 

I've already seen a car with all its logos missing

 

In movies, the logos are not bleeped out because it would cost a lot of money just to CGI it out. Imagine you have a few thousand different things spread across thousands of shots and each has to be edited out. One example would be Mercedez-Benz didn't like their cars being in the slums in Slumdog Millionaire and they had to CGI the logos out.