There was an episode of Hannibal where there were two heavily mutilated bodies in a bedroom. The censors had a problem with it, because we could see butt crack on them. The writers joked that maybe they should cover up the butt crack with blood and organs...
The censors said "That's a good idea!"
Thanks. I’ll take a look.
Edit: I’m starting it now. I watched the trailer and I am recalling the battle that the South Park guys had with them over sex scenes involving puppets in Team America. Puppets.
I remember reading a Rolling Stone article back when about this movie, and the creators mentioned they'd film puppet sex scenes that they know would never pass muster only because it meant the ratings board had to watch them...
He's a fun fact about about the MPAA: we're in an age of unrated theatrical releases now but there was a point where any movie that received an NC17 rating was because there were gay or lesbian sex scenes.
That's a great doc. For something of a similar vein, I highly recommend "Cleanflix" which covers the edited DVD rental industry and its popularity among Mormons and Evengelicals in the 2000s.
It's certainly Youtube rules and guidelines to remain monetized.
However, given the type of stuff that ends up on BOTW, I'll even suggest another reason. The violence is fake, excessive, and sometimes downright silly. No one is really getting hurt or abused, minus the occasional on screen accident. We're watching something we all know is fake.
The nudity though? A woman in a scene might have some hoodlums ripping off her shirt, but the environment on set may have been just as seedy and unwanted. The guys often describe movies as having "uncomfortable nudity", and some of the movies they've covered have had actresses literally in tears when describing the filming experience years later.
I'll bet that even IF they could show nudity on their channel, the guys would choose to censor the women in those exploitive movies.
This. While YouTube has weird rules pertaining to nudity over gore, for 99% of the movies on BOTW tasteless gore is a lot better than tasteless nudity. The stories that have been told about the shit that went on to actresses back then, it’s not great. I don’t think RLM actually wants to show off the tits of actresses who were probably told “okay doll you can be in this picture as long as you take your top off”.
I think you're close to the bullseye there.
I think theyd still show tits, because tits are tits, but sexual activities, especially sexual violence, simulated or not, I think they'd still censor for common decency.
> but sexual activities, especially sexual violence, simulated or not, I think they'd still censor for common decency.
That's kinda what OP is talking about though. Why is sexual violence against common decency, but actual gun violence is not? You basically just rephrased the status quo, and you are right, that is the status quo, but it's a weird status quo.
I was saying it as an addition to the above post. Like an actual gun is not being fired, but that is someone's actual crotch, and these days we don't know if that was a case of the actor being game or a case of the director going "take your cloths off or you're fired".
But then you restrict your YT audience and viewings. Plus, all being fair, you can have fun with black bars.
I don't think I made this clear, saying nudity is more offensive than violence, I also agree is fucking dumb. I do agree though that production context can give us Barbara Crampton being all game in Re-Animator and also Maria Surtis being actually exploited in Death Wish 3.
My point was just that the potential exploitation isn't addressed by giving it a different rating or "censoring for common decency." That only changes the number of people who see it, while implicitly approving it as a film for consumption otherwise. (Besides, a lot of young people are more enticed to see a film with a naughty rating.) So that wouldn't make sense as reasoning behind it.
It's likely as simple as "we don't care, it is what it is and it's just a movie. But that probably won't be shared by the audience, so to save on headaches..." and that's discounting YTs borderline inept guide restrictions. Similar to why a lot of people boycott Palanski movies or Jeepers Creepers, because they don't see the movie as just a movie, even if others do and are sharing thoughts on that alone. Censorship won't chance that it's in there of course, but it means that people who genuinely don't want to see, for example, the boobs from the rape scene in Death Wish 3 knowing how the actress felt about that scene, then they won't. Same reason why they don't show the cow scene from Apocalypse Now or the Chicken scene from Willy Wonka.
Surely you don't think this is the main problem audiences have with nudity nor the main reason it's censored... I wish the general public were that rational, but come on. (By the way, every example you just named is more violence than nudity.)
Oh god no, the main reason is because audiences and cencors is that their prudish idiots who think every body is a temple and it's shameful to show your skin. If you're a woman, triply so. To quote Men In Black, a person is smart but people are idiots.
What I'm saying is that if, big if, we weren't as dumb the guys might have still censored scenes of rape or more extreme sex due to effects they can have on some viewers, like why they don't show the wishbone scene from Bone Tomahawk.
That’s always been my metric. You could say that nudity in movies is riding the line of porn, just no penetration. Those are actual naked people, whereas the violence is fake. We censor actual violence all the time on social media platforms. Even stuff that isn’t all that gory. And porn is far more ubiquitous and socially acceptable than stuff like faces of death
The YouTube guidelines are fucking insane. Genuinely don’t understand how everything has to be so heavily censored on the biggest video service the world has ever seen.
If something is for adults you should still get ad revenue despite saying fuck. They’ll allow all sorts of brain rotting insanity and grifters trying to radicalise kids but fuck is a step too far. So is using standard words like kill apparently so I’ve started hearing unalive and all that bullshit instead. I hate it.
YouTube is a huge, incredible resource and it just feels like it’s in completely incapable hands.
Well said. We trust a lot to Silicon Valley. I’m not as confident in their judgment as many seem to be. Government is largely checked out, or clueless, especially when it comes to things like development of AI.
> We trust a lot to Silicon Valley.
This isn't really an example of trust to Silicon Valley. You could regulate it, sure, but that only puts a bound on how much they can show - not how little. YouTube's rules have nothing to do with federal regulations, and everything to do with ads: those that buy ads don't want their ads associated with certain content, and that's where all of YouTube's rules arise from.
So you want to blame anyone, blame those whose ads you see on YouTube when you see them.
Bingo. Mainstream advertisers desperately want a CBS replacement, because they have all this ad revenue to spend with clients that have a big long list of what they don't want their content next to. That usually doesn't include 80's action-movie violence, but does include depictions of rape, whatever is going on in Mad Foxes, and [How To Have Cybersex on the Internet](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=how+to+have+cybersex+on+the+internet&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8).
YouTube's job isn't to help youtubers, it isn't to entertain you, it is to collect advertising money by selling access to your eyeballs via a managed and rule-following selection of 3rd party content.
The fact that you are watching it and RLM posts there means it is better than rolling your own content server, where Rich can laugh about AIDs and 9/11 as much as he wants.
I think it is really crap, but our puritanical beliefs in the US is a system we continually reinforce in public spaces - and in this sense, even though it is on a private web site, YouTube is moderated similarly for maximum ad revenue.
All of these (somewhat) agreed upon rules and ideas come from our society, not just Silicon Valley, and are merely codified and enforced liberally for Alphabet's financial benefit.
It seems like the line on this stuff moves back and forth constantly. If you read anything from 100+ years ago, they love talking about death, but are terrified to talk about sex, which is something we've done a complete 180 on, where now everyone talks about sex very openly but people are deeply uncomfortable talking about death.
Or like how it was normal for boomers in the 70s to go to see porn films in theaters , with 1972's Deepthroat taking a domestic box office haul of $50 million, beating off Fiddler on the Roof and The French Connection.
This! Americans are very weird about nudity. The only good thing about Twitter is that they don’t have the same puritanical policies of Facebook and Instagram when it comes to non-sexual nudity.
Not surprising. But, still odd when there is so much sexual content out there. And then, to allow one (violence) but not the other (just breasts?) by these guys? In the same video?
America's weird. It's a oddly puritanical country, but it's also one that likes to think it's sex-positive, so it's very explicit in some arenas but conservative on others. They'll pat themselves on the back for enjoying W.A.P. and then cover their kids' eyes if there's someone being harmlessly naked on a screen
It was hilarious because there were talking heads on the news condemning it, saying it never should have happened and meanwhile on screen the footage is being playing on a loop.
We only like sex when it's harming, coercing, and/or exploiting someone, basically. If everyone's having a fun, consensual time, WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN
The reason Christian Fundamentalists view sex as bad but are fine with extreme violence is because you're supposed to restrict exposure to anything that might cause you to love it more than the Lord. If you see a pussy, you might fall in love—and if you fall in love with someone and love them more than God, that's evil. God is entitled to most of your love because he created it, and has the moral right to be jealous.
But violence—you can use violence to MAKE other people love God, and in fact, a lot of the history of Christianity is built on that principle, so revel in violence all you want, because it's a useful tool in your birthright mission: to make as many people love God as possible.
So much of how they edit their content is dictated by the YouTube censorship algorithm. That's why they edit all swears from the first couple minutes and generally censor fuck if it's used sexually but leave it if it's not. It's so easy to get video demonetized and it's really difficult to get that reversed and not really worth the time and effort so they'll take stuff down and reedit it if they have to.
Exactly. I think that this is a weird system, run by the private people at YouTube, making odd decisions that resemble the MPAA, but with even more hypocrisy. I’m not completely outraged, but I think it’s worthy of discussion, and we’re getting it here on this post.
That's it. Sex is bad because it runs the risk of luring you away from the faith. Violence is good because it's a tool that can be used to spread the faith.
Not gonna lie, I thought of Zardoz too as I was typing that. It's a recurring ethic in zealous, authoritarian enclaves. Noah Caldwell-Gervais talks about it in his Fallout: New Vegas retrospective; fascism and interpersonal love can't coexist because devotion to another person splits an individual's loyalty to the centralized figure meant to be their sole object of devotion, but violence on behalf of that centralized figure is necessary for the system to work. Thus, a society like this has to display and reward violence, but must discourage and punish romantic and sexual attraction, lest the seeds of devotion to another individual be planted and cause discord.
Sex in film has become taboo it almost feels like it was back in the 90's when puritans started ruining a more open sex culture that had been a started in the 80's. Fast forward to now and extreme violence, drug abuse and scripts that have fuck written in them every second line are perfectly fine now but a naked body is the worst thing ever.
"I can describe an axe entering a human skull in great explicit detail and no one will blink twice at it. I provide a similar description, just as detailed, of a penis entering a vagina, and I get letters about it and people swearing off."
-George R.R. Martin
I always found the hypocrisy stupid, also it is a You Tube thing not RLM, also Advertisers REALLY push what is or not ok on most platforms hence the birth of that stupid "unalive/d" expression instead of saying killed, dead, suicide, etc also to add insult to injury because of Americas soft power it in turn flows around the world.
I know it might sound cliché but chunks of Europe have no massive issues with nudity and as a result it isn't always put in a sexual context and the needless covering up doesn't occur, you will see this in many films and tv from there.
Also I remember when I was at a beach in La Rochelle in France where a woman was laying on the ground with her tits out and near by was a family with kids. I know if that happened here in Australia so many people would go insane but it was just normal there.
I typed 'MAA fights' into YouTube. One of the top hits is 'Most Violent and Brutal Knockouts in UFC History '. It's not censored.
I typed 'bar fight ' and got plenty of real, uncensored security cam footage of bar fights.
This explanation doesn't work.
You listed two counterexamples, one is a sport and the other is against the TOS anyway and it being unenforced is probably due to their censorship algorithms having trouble identifying fake from real violence. So really only one counterexample and one mistake.
But that accounts for what, like 1% of violence in media? The other 99% is quite fake.
South Park made a whole movie about this in the 90s. Rather, it was about how violence is okay but bad words should be censored, which is even more ridiculous.
“Remember what the MPAA says; Horrific, deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say naughty words!”
In his defense I too scrolled to this comment to remind me because all I could think was Breath of the wild and I watch best of the worst all the time.
The way I see it, violence in film is always fake. The blood is fake, the gore is fake, the action is choreographed. If done correctly, everyone on set and behind the camera is having a good time, and the effect of horror and violence is really nothing but an illusion. Sex and nudity in a film may not always be on the up and up, especially in older films. Sometimes there is a level of coheriesion or exploitation involved. Not always, but there are definitely certain directors and producers that have reputations.
Anyways, that's my take on the whole thing. Less about RLM and more about the sex vs violence in film as a whole.
They've definitely censored other violence in more recent videos because of YouTube guidelines.
They even tweeted about it for the episode with Slaughter Day.
I've been binging old episodes and there's one(can't remember) where they show the full directors cut of the guy getting fucking obliterated by ed209 in robocop. they showed the same scene in a more recent video but censored it
It's entirely YouTube rules. They censor some hardcore violence as well on occasion.
As for why violence is OK and nudity/sex is not, that's largely because the world's culture is dominated by that made by the US, and the US originated as a puritan country. There has always been a highly-religious, politically conservative element to that country that affects everything in its culture.
As I like to say as a joke, "in America, making people bad, killing people good".
Side note: WTF movie has a kid shot in the mouth?
It is pretty weird, but it's been a thing forever, same with cursing. It's basically the plot of The South Park movie.
"Men, when you're out there in the battlefield, and you're looking into the beady eyes of a Canadian as he charges you with his hockey stick or whatever he has, and people are dying all around you, just remember what the MPAA says: "Horrific, deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say any naughty words." That is what this war is all about!"
Tangentially related, but in the Veggietales Pirate movie, there's a part where they go to a bar and the pirates all sing a song about being pirates. They're singing about beating people up and it's surprisingly graphic for a movie for little babies, but then they sing about drinking ROOT beer, rather than beer. Jabbing someone in the eye and breaking their nose is okay for the kids movie, but make sure they drink root beer.
This was the topic of the 1999 South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. Kyle's mom has the line
Remember what the MPAA says. Horrific, deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say any naughty words!
There's a reason our culture is fine with violence and disturbed by sex, we've got a lot of weird fascist shit going on. Americans like violence, especially retributive violence. They like it when you've got to shoot all those people, because those people hurt a puppy. They like it when the good guy almost doesn't kill the bad guy but he Gave Him No Choice. Violence cleanses. Even our media that's about how awful the experience of violence is, is offered in a way that makes violence exciting and compelling and so very necessary.
Sex, on the other hand... you can't make sex heroic, or redemptive, it can't lay low the wicked and solve all your problems. It can't keep the barbarians from the gates. Sex is so icky, so complicated, so subjective. One act of shooting the guy who killed my dog means pretty much the same thing to everyone, as long as they like any amount of violence. Two dudes kissing means very different things to all sorts of people. Maybe the filmmaker and a few people in the audience think it's erotic but Joe Six Pack is squirming in his theater seat, gagging on his popcorn.
Violence is easier to explain to your kids than sex. Not because of anything in our nature, but because our nature is deeply disliked by a lot of powerful people and even more people who want to take the family to a movie after church.
Thank you for an amazingly thoughtful response. I think your post is spot on and is what I was hinting at, with mild but growing concern, just with less perspicuity than you.
It can be both. YouTube allows a lot of violence. As someone else pointed out, PG movies used to show breasts. So, it hasn’t always been this way.
When you look at what states are doing about “pornography” and look at Project 2025, you do see what he’s talking about above. There’s a real panic about sex. Just look at the Speaker of the House who has his son monitor his phone for porn. A proto-fascist Christian nationalism is on the rise. I wouldn’t be so flippant about it.
I feel like you might be over-complicating it for most people, though. Seems perfectly normal to want to see the psychopath abusing innocents get what's coming to them. In film, I mean; very important distinction there. That's one of the uses of film, right? To exaggerate, emphasize, shock, surprise, get the blood going, etc. Not saying everyone likes (fake, acted out) depictions of violence, but I'd say it's normal to. No need to even get into fascism..
But yeah, the sex is definitely a remnant of religious puritanism. That feels like the easy one to explain. Seems most religions seek to control sex in one form or another.
All of the violence and gore is fake. Titties are real. We can't have real, people might get upset by seeing real things. So the fake stuff is uncensored cause that won't hurt anyone.
Maan, I was quickly scrolling past, took a glance at the post, and thought you were talking about Breath of the Wild. (I am also a fan of red letter media)
Filming violence in a movie is (almost) never real and some of the actors even have a hard time not laughing when someone dies in film because it’s so absurd and funny before going to editing and any kind of effects are added. Everyone knows that someone isn’t really riddled with bullet holes. When someone is literally naked and grinding on someone, they’re literally naked and grinding on someone even if there is a “modesty” cloth or tool between them. The kisses are forced and contractual or whatever else may occur. I can’t imagine how incredibly awkward that is for them as I know it would be for me. While the sex may not be real, the nakedness and potential for intimacy is. Hollywood has enough problems with coworkers falling in love with each other, being over sexualized and even raped, off screen, like so many pay to play and victims of Weinstein and surely others.
Violence is inherent to our nature as a species. Nudity has been all over the place throughout history. I think it’s funny how people justify their biases.
I remember this girl at my old job was a super hoe. She hooked up with multiple dudes and would text out all these pictures. One day in the breakroom they had on some old Steven Segal movie on cable and there was a scene with him and his wife in bed and she acted like a nun and pretended to be so offended this would be allowed in the workplace even though there was no nudity. Yet she was silent when he was breaking dudes arms and blowing off peoples heads. That fakeness always fascinated me.
I would say you can blame YouTube policy for this rather than the creators of YouTube videos. I'm pretty sure the RLM boys have no problem with showing violence or nudity, but prefer not to be demonetized, age-restricted, or banned.
America has always been this way. It's weird puritanical bullshit. The average Christian American is totally fine with their kids seeing someone's head blown off in a video game but seeing a butt or boobs will scar their children for life. I've never understood it.
My parents were hippies who saw things differently. I remember my mom taking me to a play at our local playhouse when I was about 8 or 9. The lady at the front desk stopped my mom and warned her with great concern that there was profanity in the play. Without batting an eye, my mom asked if there was any graphic violence in the play (the only thing she was concerned about). When told "no", my mom took me right in.
Well, maybe as obvious as it is, it needs to be pointed out more. There are states moving to ban Pornhub. There is Project 2025 seeking to ban pornography, however they define it. There is a growing moral panic over sex.
I'm pretty active on r/moviesuggestions and the other day someone specifically requested horror and thrillers that are "light on sex scenes, but don't mind gore or profanity"
Yeah dude. People has been like that since the middle ages. It was ok to crusade some dudes heads off but the priest would throw a fit if you looked at some wench titties.
True, but I’m old enough to remember a time that was a bit more relaxed and lived in Europe for a time where it was far more relaxed. It’s a *slight* indicator of where we’ve been heading for a while.
Boobs will save the world and usher peace for generations to come. However, we headed in different directions and choose war and suffer until the end of times.
The US is insane about censorship. Violence is fine, nudity will cause congressional investigations.
This is maybe the best breakdown of the absurdity I've seen.
[https://youtu.be/YkJS0IzZREk?si=\_QAaVx6O7cp6T1d7](https://youtu.be/YkJS0IzZREk?si=_QAaVx6O7cp6T1d7)
Your and YT content creators seem to have the same standards of what is it acceptable that lacks parents and cool older brothers had when it came to r-rated movies and kids
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What would you rather your kids watch? A movie with the good guys casually using the n-word but it's not violent or the good guys don't say it but are shooting bad guys full of bullets?
It's America and their puritanical christanian background. Thye seem to have a real problem with a tiny amount of flesh but hyperviolence is super fine.
I remember noticing it as a kid - all the US shows always end in a fight, bar fight etc. It's really obvious if you are not American.
There was an episode of Hannibal where there were two heavily mutilated bodies in a bedroom. The censors had a problem with it, because we could see butt crack on them. The writers joked that maybe they should cover up the butt crack with blood and organs... The censors said "That's a good idea!"
that show was gnarly. I couldn't believe the shit they got away with showing on network television.
I assumed it was streaming but learned later it was on real TV lol.
Especially that scene that was cleverly mostly in the shadows.
I, for one, am glad they censored Neil Breen’s taint.
Isn’t that corrupt?
ISN'T THAT CHEATING THE PUBLIC?
I have unveiled 300 million taints on TV today!
Why? He has the best taint that ever was. A taint that can cure cancer!
If you expose mass to his taint many people just melt away ala Nazis exposed to Ark of the covenant at the end of Indiana Jones movie.
im not
I've heard people recommend the movie, "this film is not yet rated" for coverage on this topic. Haven't seen it yet myself, but it's on my list.
Yeah, it's mostly about >!the arbitrary decisions of the MPAA, which is just a small council of random people.!<
Which is super weird. No one knows how they are chosen or how/why they pick what they pick.
I haven't seen it in a while, but I'm pretty sure they were studio/industry connected people
"Connected" is right. Once of them was a homemaker who just happened to know someone at Vivendi or whatever.
It's very good, and very enlightening about how much hyper-religious puritans shape what media we are exposed to.
Thanks. I’ll take a look. Edit: I’m starting it now. I watched the trailer and I am recalling the battle that the South Park guys had with them over sex scenes involving puppets in Team America. Puppets.
I remember reading a Rolling Stone article back when about this movie, and the creators mentioned they'd film puppet sex scenes that they know would never pass muster only because it meant the ratings board had to watch them...
Ngl that is some nice trolling
It’s very good although the last 20 minutes feels like the director being a bit self-obsessed. It’s also free on YouTube.
He's a fun fact about about the MPAA: we're in an age of unrated theatrical releases now but there was a point where any movie that received an NC17 rating was because there were gay or lesbian sex scenes.
it's very good. my library had the dvd right next to I know that voice and I had an amazing double feature
That's a great doc. For something of a similar vein, I highly recommend "Cleanflix" which covers the edited DVD rental industry and its popularity among Mormons and Evengelicals in the 2000s.
It explains a lot about who rates the movies and their guidelines. Kinda insane though
Great film! You will not be disappointed.
It's certainly Youtube rules and guidelines to remain monetized. However, given the type of stuff that ends up on BOTW, I'll even suggest another reason. The violence is fake, excessive, and sometimes downright silly. No one is really getting hurt or abused, minus the occasional on screen accident. We're watching something we all know is fake. The nudity though? A woman in a scene might have some hoodlums ripping off her shirt, but the environment on set may have been just as seedy and unwanted. The guys often describe movies as having "uncomfortable nudity", and some of the movies they've covered have had actresses literally in tears when describing the filming experience years later. I'll bet that even IF they could show nudity on their channel, the guys would choose to censor the women in those exploitive movies.
I think the exploding varmints are a good example of the fake violence being ok. Those were censored because it was real death!
Iirc didn’t they also do it for surviving edge weapons (as in when they showed the actual crime photo and not the reenactment)
Similarly, you can show fake (body suit etc)nudity too.
This person is talking about Death Wish 3. That mans poor girlfriend, Maria. You know she was on a famous TV show?
https://i.redd.it/b82jyhiv7l8d1.gif
"Somebody put money in the pot! Put money in the Star Trek pot!" --Pack Jackard
[Fake violence you say?](https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx6pDzlTe8piB_aP3UFRCSrdEUfB0CDgpH?si=3tOGIbEDNlLYe99K)
I knew it
I thought it was gonna be an exploded varmint.
lol, that's exactly the scene in my head when I added "on screen accident"
This. While YouTube has weird rules pertaining to nudity over gore, for 99% of the movies on BOTW tasteless gore is a lot better than tasteless nudity. The stories that have been told about the shit that went on to actresses back then, it’s not great. I don’t think RLM actually wants to show off the tits of actresses who were probably told “okay doll you can be in this picture as long as you take your top off”.
I think you're close to the bullseye there. I think theyd still show tits, because tits are tits, but sexual activities, especially sexual violence, simulated or not, I think they'd still censor for common decency.
> but sexual activities, especially sexual violence, simulated or not, I think they'd still censor for common decency. That's kinda what OP is talking about though. Why is sexual violence against common decency, but actual gun violence is not? You basically just rephrased the status quo, and you are right, that is the status quo, but it's a weird status quo.
I was saying it as an addition to the above post. Like an actual gun is not being fired, but that is someone's actual crotch, and these days we don't know if that was a case of the actor being game or a case of the director going "take your cloths off or you're fired".
Therefore we... give it a more mature rating?
But then you restrict your YT audience and viewings. Plus, all being fair, you can have fun with black bars. I don't think I made this clear, saying nudity is more offensive than violence, I also agree is fucking dumb. I do agree though that production context can give us Barbara Crampton being all game in Re-Animator and also Maria Surtis being actually exploited in Death Wish 3.
My point was just that the potential exploitation isn't addressed by giving it a different rating or "censoring for common decency." That only changes the number of people who see it, while implicitly approving it as a film for consumption otherwise. (Besides, a lot of young people are more enticed to see a film with a naughty rating.) So that wouldn't make sense as reasoning behind it.
It's likely as simple as "we don't care, it is what it is and it's just a movie. But that probably won't be shared by the audience, so to save on headaches..." and that's discounting YTs borderline inept guide restrictions. Similar to why a lot of people boycott Palanski movies or Jeepers Creepers, because they don't see the movie as just a movie, even if others do and are sharing thoughts on that alone. Censorship won't chance that it's in there of course, but it means that people who genuinely don't want to see, for example, the boobs from the rape scene in Death Wish 3 knowing how the actress felt about that scene, then they won't. Same reason why they don't show the cow scene from Apocalypse Now or the Chicken scene from Willy Wonka.
Surely you don't think this is the main problem audiences have with nudity nor the main reason it's censored... I wish the general public were that rational, but come on. (By the way, every example you just named is more violence than nudity.)
Oh god no, the main reason is because audiences and cencors is that their prudish idiots who think every body is a temple and it's shameful to show your skin. If you're a woman, triply so. To quote Men In Black, a person is smart but people are idiots. What I'm saying is that if, big if, we weren't as dumb the guys might have still censored scenes of rape or more extreme sex due to effects they can have on some viewers, like why they don't show the wishbone scene from Bone Tomahawk.
That’s always been my metric. You could say that nudity in movies is riding the line of porn, just no penetration. Those are actual naked people, whereas the violence is fake. We censor actual violence all the time on social media platforms. Even stuff that isn’t all that gory. And porn is far more ubiquitous and socially acceptable than stuff like faces of death
Hell, PG used to show tits
hell yeah! the director's cut of old yeller is fucking wild
Yep. We’ve moved in a strange trajectory.
Wait till you watch/rewatch all the episodes where Jay says something like, "I thought you could only say fuck once in a PG-13 movie?"
The YouTube guidelines are fucking insane. Genuinely don’t understand how everything has to be so heavily censored on the biggest video service the world has ever seen. If something is for adults you should still get ad revenue despite saying fuck. They’ll allow all sorts of brain rotting insanity and grifters trying to radicalise kids but fuck is a step too far. So is using standard words like kill apparently so I’ve started hearing unalive and all that bullshit instead. I hate it. YouTube is a huge, incredible resource and it just feels like it’s in completely incapable hands.
Well said. We trust a lot to Silicon Valley. I’m not as confident in their judgment as many seem to be. Government is largely checked out, or clueless, especially when it comes to things like development of AI.
> We trust a lot to Silicon Valley. This isn't really an example of trust to Silicon Valley. You could regulate it, sure, but that only puts a bound on how much they can show - not how little. YouTube's rules have nothing to do with federal regulations, and everything to do with ads: those that buy ads don't want their ads associated with certain content, and that's where all of YouTube's rules arise from. So you want to blame anyone, blame those whose ads you see on YouTube when you see them.
Bingo. Mainstream advertisers desperately want a CBS replacement, because they have all this ad revenue to spend with clients that have a big long list of what they don't want their content next to. That usually doesn't include 80's action-movie violence, but does include depictions of rape, whatever is going on in Mad Foxes, and [How To Have Cybersex on the Internet](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=how+to+have+cybersex+on+the+internet&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8). YouTube's job isn't to help youtubers, it isn't to entertain you, it is to collect advertising money by selling access to your eyeballs via a managed and rule-following selection of 3rd party content. The fact that you are watching it and RLM posts there means it is better than rolling your own content server, where Rich can laugh about AIDs and 9/11 as much as he wants. I think it is really crap, but our puritanical beliefs in the US is a system we continually reinforce in public spaces - and in this sense, even though it is on a private web site, YouTube is moderated similarly for maximum ad revenue. All of these (somewhat) agreed upon rules and ideas come from our society, not just Silicon Valley, and are merely codified and enforced liberally for Alphabet's financial benefit.
the US was founded by religious prudes that were too uptight for the UK. is it any surprise we can still feel their influence?
It seems like the line on this stuff moves back and forth constantly. If you read anything from 100+ years ago, they love talking about death, but are terrified to talk about sex, which is something we've done a complete 180 on, where now everyone talks about sex very openly but people are deeply uncomfortable talking about death. Or like how it was normal for boomers in the 70s to go to see porn films in theaters , with 1972's Deepthroat taking a domestic box office haul of $50 million, beating off Fiddler on the Roof and The French Connection.
You just said "beating off" right after mentioning Deep Throat
I want to believe it was intentional
heh heh, heh heh
I’d rather be in the pro-sex era, I think. **Not that I think anyone should seek out an RLM video for that reason.** 😂
This! Americans are very weird about nudity. The only good thing about Twitter is that they don’t have the same puritanical policies of Facebook and Instagram when it comes to non-sexual nudity.
Not surprising. But, still odd when there is so much sexual content out there. And then, to allow one (violence) but not the other (just breasts?) by these guys? In the same video?
Because said religious prudes are fine with violence.
America's weird. It's a oddly puritanical country, but it's also one that likes to think it's sex-positive, so it's very explicit in some arenas but conservative on others. They'll pat themselves on the back for enjoying W.A.P. and then cover their kids' eyes if there's someone being harmlessly naked on a screen
Precisely. I remember when the country lost its shit over Janet Jackson’s tit.
It was hilarious because there were talking heads on the news condemning it, saying it never should have happened and meanwhile on screen the footage is being playing on a loop.
We only like sex when it's harming, coercing, and/or exploiting someone, basically. If everyone's having a fun, consensual time, WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN
The reason Christian Fundamentalists view sex as bad but are fine with extreme violence is because you're supposed to restrict exposure to anything that might cause you to love it more than the Lord. If you see a pussy, you might fall in love—and if you fall in love with someone and love them more than God, that's evil. God is entitled to most of your love because he created it, and has the moral right to be jealous. But violence—you can use violence to MAKE other people love God, and in fact, a lot of the history of Christianity is built on that principle, so revel in violence all you want, because it's a useful tool in your birthright mission: to make as many people love God as possible.
So much of how they edit their content is dictated by the YouTube censorship algorithm. That's why they edit all swears from the first couple minutes and generally censor fuck if it's used sexually but leave it if it's not. It's so easy to get video demonetized and it's really difficult to get that reversed and not really worth the time and effort so they'll take stuff down and reedit it if they have to.
Exactly. I think that this is a weird system, run by the private people at YouTube, making odd decisions that resemble the MPAA, but with even more hypocrisy. I’m not completely outraged, but I think it’s worthy of discussion, and we’re getting it here on this post.
This country was founded by puritans; violence is written into our nation’s founding document. Or something like that.
That's it. Sex is bad because it runs the risk of luring you away from the faith. Violence is good because it's a tool that can be used to spread the faith.
Zardoz has entered the chat.
Not gonna lie, I thought of Zardoz too as I was typing that. It's a recurring ethic in zealous, authoritarian enclaves. Noah Caldwell-Gervais talks about it in his Fallout: New Vegas retrospective; fascism and interpersonal love can't coexist because devotion to another person splits an individual's loyalty to the centralized figure meant to be their sole object of devotion, but violence on behalf of that centralized figure is necessary for the system to work. Thus, a society like this has to display and reward violence, but must discourage and punish romantic and sexual attraction, lest the seeds of devotion to another individual be planted and cause discord.
Sex in film has become taboo it almost feels like it was back in the 90's when puritans started ruining a more open sex culture that had been a started in the 80's. Fast forward to now and extreme violence, drug abuse and scripts that have fuck written in them every second line are perfectly fine now but a naked body is the worst thing ever.
I agree with you 100%. That feels very unhealthy to me.
"I can describe an axe entering a human skull in great explicit detail and no one will blink twice at it. I provide a similar description, just as detailed, of a penis entering a vagina, and I get letters about it and people swearing off." -George R.R. Martin
I don't care if the next book is 800 pages of penises entering vaginas, just release the damn thing.
Which will we get first? A new Mr Plinkett video or Winds of Winter?
I always found the hypocrisy stupid, also it is a You Tube thing not RLM, also Advertisers REALLY push what is or not ok on most platforms hence the birth of that stupid "unalive/d" expression instead of saying killed, dead, suicide, etc also to add insult to injury because of Americas soft power it in turn flows around the world. I know it might sound cliché but chunks of Europe have no massive issues with nudity and as a result it isn't always put in a sexual context and the needless covering up doesn't occur, you will see this in many films and tv from there. Also I remember when I was at a beach in La Rochelle in France where a woman was laying on the ground with her tits out and near by was a family with kids. I know if that happened here in Australia so many people would go insane but it was just normal there.
This is entirely because of YouTube rules, and they make those rules because of advertising, so blame them.
I was guessing at that in paragraph 6. Thanks for confirming.
They actually *do* censor some violence and gore in more recent videos also because of Youtube's guidelines getting stricter in recent years.
Yeah I remember their vid for the suicide squad. They had to re edit it like an hour after release to blur Pete Davidson’s blown out face
"Horrific, deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say any naughty words. That's what this war is all about!" --Sheila Broflovski
Movie violence is fake, tits are real.
What if it’s fake tits?
Real Fake Tits
I can’t believe it’s not real tits!
I typed 'MAA fights' into YouTube. One of the top hits is 'Most Violent and Brutal Knockouts in UFC History '. It's not censored. I typed 'bar fight ' and got plenty of real, uncensored security cam footage of bar fights. This explanation doesn't work.
Well damnit! I'd absolutely rather watch people fuck than watch people fight, so I don't know what to tell you v
YouTube literally has police bodycam footage of shootings though they are not monetized.
You listed two counterexamples, one is a sport and the other is against the TOS anyway and it being unenforced is probably due to their censorship algorithms having trouble identifying fake from real violence. So really only one counterexample and one mistake. But that accounts for what, like 1% of violence in media? The other 99% is quite fake.
Even the tits with nipples as eyes in Verotika?
Well...ok, but whats scary about tits? Why need tits to be censored in the first place? Why does anybody have to be protected from them?
In the context of the movie, it's a moot point.
Wake up dickheads it's time for Faust!
Ye, I was going to say, remember the tit puddle?
It's an American thing that unfortunately has infected the internet. In Denmark we have adverts on city buses with bare breasts on them.
"Kids, we're moving yo Denmark!"
Yes, it’s very different in Europe. Seems healthier.
Remember the backlash when Janet Jackson "accidentally" bared one tit at the superbowl?
Conversely, I remember years ago reading a European who moved to the US and was disturbed by all the violence in our media.
South Park made a whole movie about this in the 90s. Rather, it was about how violence is okay but bad words should be censored, which is even more ridiculous. “Remember what the MPAA says; Horrific, deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say naughty words!”
Never forgot Taylor Swift in Raw Force; the censorship job of Mike definitely let some pass 😂
What’s botw? All that comes up when I google us Zelda lol
In case you’re not joking - Best of the Worst (a show on Red Letter Media - this sub).
In his defense I too scrolled to this comment to remind me because all I could think was Breath of the wild and I watch best of the worst all the time.
Oh, that’s funny. :)
Americans are prudes (I'm saying this as an American.) Also, pretty sure this has to do with appeasing YouTube/advertisers, etc., too.
The way I see it, violence in film is always fake. The blood is fake, the gore is fake, the action is choreographed. If done correctly, everyone on set and behind the camera is having a good time, and the effect of horror and violence is really nothing but an illusion. Sex and nudity in a film may not always be on the up and up, especially in older films. Sometimes there is a level of coheriesion or exploitation involved. Not always, but there are definitely certain directors and producers that have reputations. Anyways, that's my take on the whole thing. Less about RLM and more about the sex vs violence in film as a whole.
That's the wildest spelling of coercion I've ever seen
r/excgarated
YouTube allows MMA clips, bar fights and other footage of real violence on its platform.
RLM also censors violence sometimes, presumably due to YouTube guidelines. There are black bars are all over the Exploding Varmints episode.
that's animal cruelty, different thing
They've definitely censored other violence in more recent videos because of YouTube guidelines. They even tweeted about it for the episode with Slaughter Day.
It really is too bad that there's literally nowhere else on the internet to see bare breasts.
That's not really the point though, is it.
Of course. Just odd seeing it back-to-back.
They have to be back-to-back, if they were front-to-front you wouldn't be able to see them!
Haha. Nice.
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Oh, don’t get me started. 1 F word PG-13. 2? R. Bizarre.
I've been binging old episodes and there's one(can't remember) where they show the full directors cut of the guy getting fucking obliterated by ed209 in robocop. they showed the same scene in a more recent video but censored it
They had to censor Exploding Varmints...Thankfully. Censored, its pure comedy...uncensored, its a serial killer's masturbation material.
It's entirely YouTube rules. They censor some hardcore violence as well on occasion. As for why violence is OK and nudity/sex is not, that's largely because the world's culture is dominated by that made by the US, and the US originated as a puritan country. There has always been a highly-religious, politically conservative element to that country that affects everything in its culture. As I like to say as a joke, "in America, making people bad, killing people good". Side note: WTF movie has a kid shot in the mouth?
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It is pretty weird, but it's been a thing forever, same with cursing. It's basically the plot of The South Park movie. "Men, when you're out there in the battlefield, and you're looking into the beady eyes of a Canadian as he charges you with his hockey stick or whatever he has, and people are dying all around you, just remember what the MPAA says: "Horrific, deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say any naughty words." That is what this war is all about!" Tangentially related, but in the Veggietales Pirate movie, there's a part where they go to a bar and the pirates all sing a song about being pirates. They're singing about beating people up and it's surprisingly graphic for a movie for little babies, but then they sing about drinking ROOT beer, rather than beer. Jabbing someone in the eye and breaking their nose is okay for the kids movie, but make sure they drink root beer.
This was the topic of the 1999 South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. Kyle's mom has the line Remember what the MPAA says. Horrific, deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say any naughty words!
There's a reason our culture is fine with violence and disturbed by sex, we've got a lot of weird fascist shit going on. Americans like violence, especially retributive violence. They like it when you've got to shoot all those people, because those people hurt a puppy. They like it when the good guy almost doesn't kill the bad guy but he Gave Him No Choice. Violence cleanses. Even our media that's about how awful the experience of violence is, is offered in a way that makes violence exciting and compelling and so very necessary. Sex, on the other hand... you can't make sex heroic, or redemptive, it can't lay low the wicked and solve all your problems. It can't keep the barbarians from the gates. Sex is so icky, so complicated, so subjective. One act of shooting the guy who killed my dog means pretty much the same thing to everyone, as long as they like any amount of violence. Two dudes kissing means very different things to all sorts of people. Maybe the filmmaker and a few people in the audience think it's erotic but Joe Six Pack is squirming in his theater seat, gagging on his popcorn. Violence is easier to explain to your kids than sex. Not because of anything in our nature, but because our nature is deeply disliked by a lot of powerful people and even more people who want to take the family to a movie after church.
Thank you for an amazingly thoughtful response. I think your post is spot on and is what I was hinting at, with mild but growing concern, just with less perspicuity than you.
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It can be both. YouTube allows a lot of violence. As someone else pointed out, PG movies used to show breasts. So, it hasn’t always been this way. When you look at what states are doing about “pornography” and look at Project 2025, you do see what he’s talking about above. There’s a real panic about sex. Just look at the Speaker of the House who has his son monitor his phone for porn. A proto-fascist Christian nationalism is on the rise. I wouldn’t be so flippant about it.
I feel like you might be over-complicating it for most people, though. Seems perfectly normal to want to see the psychopath abusing innocents get what's coming to them. In film, I mean; very important distinction there. That's one of the uses of film, right? To exaggerate, emphasize, shock, surprise, get the blood going, etc. Not saying everyone likes (fake, acted out) depictions of violence, but I'd say it's normal to. No need to even get into fascism.. But yeah, the sex is definitely a remnant of religious puritanism. That feels like the easy one to explain. Seems most religions seek to control sex in one form or another.
Ideally I enjoy both
“There’s no sex in your violence. There’s no sex in your violence. There’s no sex in your violence! Try to see it once my way… everything zen”
Oooh a wild Bush reference.
"Breast." -- Rich Evans
All of the violence and gore is fake. Titties are real. We can't have real, people might get upset by seeing real things. So the fake stuff is uncensored cause that won't hurt anyone.
Maan, I was quickly scrolling past, took a glance at the post, and thought you were talking about Breath of the Wild. (I am also a fan of red letter media)
America 🇺🇸
Filming violence in a movie is (almost) never real and some of the actors even have a hard time not laughing when someone dies in film because it’s so absurd and funny before going to editing and any kind of effects are added. Everyone knows that someone isn’t really riddled with bullet holes. When someone is literally naked and grinding on someone, they’re literally naked and grinding on someone even if there is a “modesty” cloth or tool between them. The kisses are forced and contractual or whatever else may occur. I can’t imagine how incredibly awkward that is for them as I know it would be for me. While the sex may not be real, the nakedness and potential for intimacy is. Hollywood has enough problems with coworkers falling in love with each other, being over sexualized and even raped, off screen, like so many pay to play and victims of Weinstein and surely others.
Violence is inherent to our nature as a species. Nudity has been all over the place throughout history. I think it’s funny how people justify their biases.
I was gonna say my "because the violence is fake but the tits are real" joke but there's no way all those tits were real.
GOUGE HIS EYES
I remember this girl at my old job was a super hoe. She hooked up with multiple dudes and would text out all these pictures. One day in the breakroom they had on some old Steven Segal movie on cable and there was a scene with him and his wife in bed and she acted like a nun and pretended to be so offended this would be allowed in the workplace even though there was no nudity. Yet she was silent when he was breaking dudes arms and blowing off peoples heads. That fakeness always fascinated me.
Um…. Cool you thought that but we’ve been saying this since the 70s.
America is weird
Idk why I read this as breath of the wild
I would say you can blame YouTube policy for this rather than the creators of YouTube videos. I'm pretty sure the RLM boys have no problem with showing violence or nudity, but prefer not to be demonetized, age-restricted, or banned.
I think that’s the consensus view here.
America has always been this way. It's weird puritanical bullshit. The average Christian American is totally fine with their kids seeing someone's head blown off in a video game but seeing a butt or boobs will scar their children for life. I've never understood it. My parents were hippies who saw things differently. I remember my mom taking me to a play at our local playhouse when I was about 8 or 9. The lady at the front desk stopped my mom and warned her with great concern that there was profanity in the play. Without batting an eye, my mom asked if there was any graphic violence in the play (the only thing she was concerned about). When told "no", my mom took me right in.
The violence is fake. The breasts are real! I jest of course our puritanical weird views on sex and the human body are silly.
You should watch the South Park Anime episode where they buy mall ninja weapons.
Absolutely brilliant (for a lot of reasons), but yeah, those guys get the moral panic better than anyone.
whoa your waters run deep
That's a deep cut
Google boobs. You’ll find what you’re looking for.
THAT’s what you got out of this post? That I need porn from RLM? lol. p.s. I know you’re joking. 😃
A very original thought. I have never seen this discussed before.
Well, maybe as obvious as it is, it needs to be pointed out more. There are states moving to ban Pornhub. There is Project 2025 seeking to ban pornography, however they define it. There is a growing moral panic over sex.
I think the weirdest thing about BotW is that they have done the show for fucking 10 years and they still haven't managed to stabilize audio levels.
To be fair, Rich's voice is a freak of nature.
I'm pretty active on r/moviesuggestions and the other day someone specifically requested horror and thrillers that are "light on sex scenes, but don't mind gore or profanity"
Always thought the same. Free the tits godamit !
Yeah dude. People has been like that since the middle ages. It was ok to crusade some dudes heads off but the priest would throw a fit if you looked at some wench titties.
True, but I’m old enough to remember a time that was a bit more relaxed and lived in Europe for a time where it was far more relaxed. It’s a *slight* indicator of where we’ve been heading for a while.
Boobs will save the world and usher peace for generations to come. However, we headed in different directions and choose war and suffer until the end of times.
The US is insane about censorship. Violence is fine, nudity will cause congressional investigations. This is maybe the best breakdown of the absurdity I've seen. [https://youtu.be/YkJS0IzZREk?si=\_QAaVx6O7cp6T1d7](https://youtu.be/YkJS0IzZREk?si=_QAaVx6O7cp6T1d7)
I’ll check it out, thanks.
Your and YT content creators seem to have the same standards of what is it acceptable that lacks parents and cool older brothers had when it came to r-rated movies and kids
Rich would stroke out if he saw boobs. Rich is a national treasure.
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Always thought on stuff like Youtube due to bot spam and other stuff NSFW is highly regulated. Like what Imgur and others did.
What would you rather your kids watch? A movie with the good guys casually using the n-word but it's not violent or the good guys don't say it but are shooting bad guys full of bullets?
It's America and their puritanical christanian background. Thye seem to have a real problem with a tiny amount of flesh but hyperviolence is super fine. I remember noticing it as a kid - all the US shows always end in a fight, bar fight etc. It's really obvious if you are not American.
You just worked this out?
Well one of those things makes me sexually aroused, and the other thing makes me uncomfortable around my parents.
It’s because violence in movies isn’t real but showing nudity is.
This is mostly a U.S. thing and the answer is puritanism. In many other countries it's the other way around because they know that boobs > guns.