"WARNING: The following program is a realish documentary, and may contain language which is vulgar, offensive, or grammatically awkward. Such language has been censored whenever possible, but for the sake of higher ratings, we may have let a few gratuitous and especially titillating instances slide."
Interesting tropes about blanking out things not meant for corrupting sensitive eyes or ears. This index is not about the Content Policy of TV Tropes itself.
Compare These Tropes Should Watch Their Language.
— Duckman, "American Dicks" opening.
Perps responsible: General discussion: Visual techniques:
- Digital Bikini: Sometimes used in conjunction with a Shower Scene, Bathtub Scene, or a Hot Springs Episode of an anime that has been edited when aired in America, mostly used now to cover up nudity and revealing clothing on live-action movies that have been toned down for pre-watershed TV.
- Gag Censor: any visual censorship technique Played for Laughs.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: sometimes
- Censor Shadow
- Censor Steam: also a Bathing Trope
- Censor Suds: also a Bathing Trope
- Conveniently Interrupted Document
- Godiva Hair
- Magic Pants
- Magic Skirt
- Modesty Bedsheet
- Modesty Towel: also a Bathing Trope
- Scenery Censor
- Stop Motion Lighting
- Thong of Shielding
- And Some Other Stuff
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: usually
- Black Blood
- Black Screen of Death
- Bloodless Carnage
- Change the Uncomfortable Subject: when a joke gets out of hand or a description gets too risque or explicit.
- Censor Box: can immediately become a gag censor if Played for Laughs
- Censored for Comedy: if done intentionally or on a show or film known for always topping itself when it comes to Getting Crap Past the Radar
- Discretion Shot: Comes in sexy, vomit, gory, and kissing.
- Hit Flash
- Lens Flare Censor
- Made of Bologna
- Pixellation
- Product Displacement
- Relax-o-Vision
- Speech-Bubble Censoring
- Stop Motion Lighting
- Bleep Dammit
- Censored Title
- Censorship by Spelling: Can also be used as a Comedy Trope if what's being spelled is an Informed Obscenity or if the person can't spell or comprehend what's being spelled.
- Cluster Bleep Bomb
- Country Matters
- Curse Cut Short: Is often used used as a Comedy Trope
- Never Say "Die": Used a lot in American-edited anime and a lot of kids' action shows in the 1970s to the 1990s. These days, a lot of action cartoons in America are trying to be grittier and more realistic by mentioning death [or heavily implying it].
- Pardon My Klingon
- Precision F-Strike
- Symbol Swearing: used primarily in American comic book stories or literature.
- T-Word Euphemism
- Witch with a Capital B
- Adjustable Censorship
- Bowdlerise: Has some elements in common with:
- Edited for Syndication: Sometimes used to remove content, but mostly used to cut scenes for more commercials or to cut out scenes that are either too long or are superfluous to the plot note .
- Too Soon: Bowdlerization due to Funny Aneurysm or Harsher in Hindsight moments of the "life imitates art" variety.
- Clumsy Copyright Censorship: Removing or covering up product placement and/or copyrighted music or footage from reruns, reairings, and when put on different media (i.e. DVD and online streaming).
- Missing Episode and Banned Episode (though censorship isn't the only reason a TV show episode is pulled. Other reasons include: Troubled Production issues, writers' or actors' strikes, budget cuts, Creator Backlash, Creator Breakdown, or the usual 'the show got canceled early and a lot of the planned episodes were never finished').
- Banned in China: Also has elements in common with Missing Episode and Banned Episode, as some international versions of American TV shows have been banned due to Values Dissonance.
- Translation with an Agenda: The translators of a work in a different language deliberately misinterpret the work to bring its message more in line with their own values.
- But Not Too Evil
- Content Warnings: Mostly played straight; mostly Played for Laughs, depending on context
- Cut-and-Paste Translation: Often the result of heavy censorship and/or localization.
- Defying the Censors: Sometimes you have to stand up to those who want to silence you, but when that doesn't work, there's always these...
- Getting Crap Past the Radar: Defying the Censors on an underhanded level. Leads to Crosses the Line Twice or Refuge in Audacity if done with explicit content or if done in excess.
- Censor Decoy: Invoking Getting Crap Past the Radar by playing into the censors' fears of finding explicit material in implicit content with a simple bait and switch (i.e., a writer or director has a scene featuring violent torture and a scene where someone uses the word "fuck". Most American censors will ask the writer or director to get rid of the "fuck" scene and keep in the violent torture. Of course, the opposite can happen, and sometimes, both scenes will be cut).
- Dub Text: Another form of Getting Crap Past the Radar (particularly in American-dubbed anime series), whether done due to incompetence, ignorance of suggestive dialogue, or to blatantly thumb their noses at censorship by being underhandedly obscene.
- Dropped Abridged On It
- Family-Friendly Firearms: Used in a majority of American-edited anime and kids' shows.
- Finger on Lips: Used mostly in music videos and music performances.
- Frothy Mugs of Water: Used a lot in American-edited anime for kids.
- Fun with Autocensors: Mostly seen on Internet forums.
- Get Back in the Closet
- Hide Your Lesbians
- Informed Obscenity
- Live but Delayed
- Music Is Politics
- Narrative Profanity Filter: Mostly used in written media, but can also be used on television shows or movies if a narrator is used or if the TV show or movie loves breaking the fourth wall.
- Nipple and Dimed: The censorship of female nipples. Male nipples rarely face such scrutiny (unless you want to satirize the sexual inequality of this trope by either gender-flipping it or censoring male nipples along with female nipples in the name of true gender equality).
- Nobody Can Die
- No Smoking: Seen in American-edited anime series and a lot of recent edits to old TV shows and cartoons that allowed cigarettes to be smoked or seen — unless it's a Very Special Episode about the dangers of tobacco use.
- No Swastikas
- Political Correctness Gone Mad: Is considered a problem by many who believe that today's media is too tame.
- Politically Correct History
- Radio Friendliness
- Scunthorpe Problem and The Problem with Pen Island: Mostly seen on Internet forums.
- Seven Dirty Words
- Sleeping Single: Also a Comedy Trope used in conjunction with Exiled to the Couch or if a work parodies the allegedly "squeaky clean" 1950s sitcoms in which married couples were shown sleeping in separate beds due to TV rules at the time that didn't allow couples in the same bed together.
- Sound Effect Bleep: Can be used as a Comedy Trope if the sounds used to cover up the profanity are appropriate to what's being censored note
- Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: Can be a Comedy Trope or used for non-censorship reasons, such as trying to avoid a lame and/or predictable rhyme scheme — i.e., subverting the old "Roses are red, Violets are blue" poem.
- Think of the Censors: When characters in a fictional work know or realize that their words and/or actions are subject to being censored if actually said or done. Also a form of Breaking the Fourth Wall.
- Think of the Children!: The call to arms for many a Moral Guardian or Media Watchdog group.
- Unacceptable Targets
- Book Burning
- Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears
- Culture Police: Used in fictional works — both comedic and dramatic — to show or satirize what can happen when being politically correct gets out of hand.
- Pre-Approved Sermon
