![censoring bleep censoring bleep](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VxFTHVeV9dc/maxresdefault.jpg)
Censoring Macklemore's slur dilutes the pro-gay message of the song, a purist would argue.īut musical artists would say the same about their curse words, too. It's similar to the problems some media outlets have had in both banning the Washington "Redskins" and still addressing the name controversy. The best explanation is that CBS and the Grammys wanted to let the song - that is, the entire song - speak for itself. That's what makes the allowance of Macklemore's "faggots" line stand out, as CBS certainly knew the slur was coming up in the song, and still let the word echo through the mic. #done - Nathan Bakken January 27, 2014īased on the active censorship through the night, we can rule out lazy censors.
![censoring bleep censoring bleep](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Yin1HkHxwmM/maxresdefault.jpg)
But it's okay cause Macklemore ended homophobia. You bleep out "Hell" and "Shit" but not "F*ggot". People certainly notice the strange discrepancy. Jay-Z didn't escape the zealous censors either, as his entire first line – " Hold up, that D'ussé is th e shit" - was entirely silenced. (A point for another day.)īeyoncé, too, had a few lines of her and Jay-Z's " Drunk in Love" performance censored for the relatively tame "shit." The line in Beyoncé's bridge, "We woke up in the kitchen saying 'How the hell did this shit happen, Oh baby," turned into "We woke up in the kitchen saying –––––– happen, Oh baby." Later in the song, the CBS censors silenced that line again when Beyoncé repeats it (at 2:45 in the video). CBS was active during Lamar's performance, also silencing out s everal instances of "fuck" and the God part of goddamn.
![censoring bleep censoring bleep](https://i1.sndcdn.com/avatars-000124052463-uqyuaq-t500x500.jpg)
Still, that part of his "m.A.A.d city" performance was silenced out earlier in the night. When Kendrick Lamar rapped about "my niggas," it's not an offensive term to him or his friends, it's a term of affection. It's not as if the CBS censors were asleep at the wheel. "Same Love" is a song directly addressing the gay slur, as the next line specifically calls it a "word rooted in hate." And Macklemore says the word as a quote of awful name-calling on Youtube comments.īut context rarely matters in terms of censorship, which makes the CBS decision particularly strange.