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.
— The opening of the "
American Dicks" episode of
Duckman
WARNING: This comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).
— Disclaimer from the webcomic
xkcd
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.
Perps responsible:
General discussion:
Visual cover-up techniques:
Tropes about censorship:
- Adjustable Censorship
- And Some Other Stuff
- Black Blood
- Black Screen of Death
- Bleep Dammit
- Bloodless Carnage
- Book Burning
- Bowdlerise: Has some elements in common with:
- Edited for Syndication: Sometimes used to remove content (as seen with a lot of cable shows that have been syndicated to free TV, like Daria, Sex and the City, The Sopranos, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia), but mostly used to shave off any scenes that run too long (as seen with The Simpsons primetime reruns) or — in the case of the Saturday Night Live 60-minute reruns that used to air on Comedy Central and E!, but now air on NBC, VH-1, and VH-1 Classic — to cut out material considered too boring or not funny.
- Too Soon (Bowdlerization due to Funny Aneurysm or Harsher in Hindsight moments of the "life imitates art" variety)
- Missing Episode and Banned Episode: when a TV show episode has to be pulled due to censorship (including anything considered "Too Soon" on the heels of a tragedy) or ligitation issues, though Missing Episode also includes episodes that never aired due to Executive Meddling (read: the show got canceled and the powers that be decide not to air any remaining episodes — or at least wait until the inevitable request for a DVD release), the episode being so bad that no one wants to see it, and/or a writers' strike.
- But Not Too Evil
- 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)
- Clumsy Copyright Censorship (often used when TV shows or movies are rerun or put on DVD and legal or licensing issues prevent a lot of songs or Product Placement from being shown uncensored [cf. Daria when it rerun on The-N and Logo and when it finally came to DVD])
- Cluster Bleep Bomb
- Content Warnings: Mostly played straight; mostly Played for Laughs, depending on context
- Country Matters
- 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)
- Curse Cut Short (can used as a Comedy Trope)
- Defying The Censors: Sometimes you have to stand up to those who would silence you, but when that doesn't work, there's always these...
- Discretion Shot: Comes in sexy, vomit, and gory
- 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
- Narrative Profanity Filter (mostly used in written media, but can also be used on television shows if a narrator is used)
- 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])
- Nipple and Dimed
- 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
- Pardon My Klingon
- Precision F-Strike
- Product Displacement
- Relax-o-Vision
- 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 done in excess or if what's being bleeped isn't offensive at all)
- Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion (can be a Comedy Trope or used for non-censorship reasons, such as trying to avoid a lame and predictable rhyme scheme — i.e., subverting the old "Roses are red, Violets are blue" poem)
- Symbol Swearing (used primarily in American comic book stories or literature)
- T-Word Euphemism
- 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.
- This Trope is [BLEEP] (can also be used as a Comedy Trope if done in excess or if what's being bleeped isn't offensive at all)
- Thong of Shielding
- Unacceptable Targets
- Witch with a Capital B
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