On Italian broadcast TV all Dick Wolf series (including Law & Order, FBI, and Chicago PD) get a red dot on the side of the screen, indicating the presence of adult material/violence. Shows depicting nudity, however, tend get a green dot (indicating family fare)… although frontal nudity occasionally garners a yellow dot (meaning that adult supervision is advised).
In the U.S., all Dick Wolf series are considered family fare… despite the violence inherent in all of his shows. Nudity on broadcast TV is still a no-go, and at times the equivalent of the yellow dot is given to shows that have cursing or profane language. And this is pretty much the norm for modern American broadcast television.
The Wall Street Journal commissioned research company Enjoy to scan 60,000 films and TV shows from 1985 to 2023 to record the number of bad words used on those movies and TV shows. The usage of the F-word, for example, went from 511 in 1985 to 22,177 in 2023. The use of the S-word went from 484 in 1985 to 10,864 last year.
Apparently, writers think that cussing is sexier than nudity, and that with the current edgy social climate, cussing is the only way to exercise some freedom of expression (as VideoAge indicated as early as June 2021). Plus, screenwriters justify their newfound licenses to curse on the fact that 83 percent of U.S. consumers have streaming subscription services where foul language is allowed, and that, when a show get aired on broadcast TV (after first appearing on a streaming service), they have to go through a sanitation process. For example, when Yellowstone went from Paramount+ streaming service to the CBS TV network some 24 F-words and 14 S-words were removed, in addition to the nudity.
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