“As a writer, you’re always reaching for a more potent way to call somebody a jerk,” Dan Harmon, the creator of “Community,” said about the word “douche.” “This is a word that has evolved in the last couple of years ”” a thing that sounds like a thing you can’t say.”
It is not simply that the language is becoming more raw on broadcast networks but that the language, violence and sex that formerly was restricted to the 10 p.m. hour has migrated to earlier time slots.
Recent research by Barbara K. Kaye of the University of Tennessee and Barry S. Sapolsky of Florida State University found that in 2005 television viewers were more likely to hear offensive language during the 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. hours than at 10 p.m. Technically, there has not been a “family hour” since 1976, when the United States Supreme Court struck down the imposition of such a policy by the Federal Communications Commission. But broadcast networks observed the practice long after that.
I remember recently watching a movie on cable TV – not a usual habit, but it happens from time to time. They “bleep” the terribly offensive language, leaving the “softer” offensive stuff in. I almost laughed out loud when they left in someone using the Lord’s name in vain (the one with damn in it), but “bleeped” a common three-letter word for a woman’s breast. Amazing.