Differences between Canadian and U.S. censors

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harajuku.romance

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I have watched both the american and canadain versions of canadain children cartoons like Total Drama Island and 6Teen.

I am surprised how different they were, and how much censorship there is in the american version. I know Canada is more liberal than the U.S., but I didn't know the gap was that big.

How long has this been going on? I thought in the 90's, american censorship was very loose and liberal, almost as much as Canada. I like to think if a show Total Drama Island was made in the 90's, they would hardly be any censorship in america.

I know and understand, that in anime there is a lot of censorship. I expect big culture differences in censorship between Japan and the U.S., but the same differences between Canada and the U.S.? Japan is on the other side of the world, Canada is our neighbor, and the closest thing to the U.S. Is the U.S. and the FCC that sensative?
 
The U.S., in general, has always been very conservative. The U.K. is the same but the opposite of us. We worry about sex but don't care about violence and they don't care about sex but worry about violence.

The rest of Europe, Cananda, and certain parts of Central and South America have always been more liberal. And, I guess, Japan as well.



It wasn't. They were just able to get away with innuendo a lot more. These days everything is too PC. You have Spongebob in a dress and Christian groups start complaining that it's turning our kids gay.

And violence wasn't as explicit as you recall. I think B:TAS was the only one who got away with things, but even then they were only allowed to show Batman bleed once or twice. And the first season of Power Rangers got away with A LOT but parents soon started complaining and it got toned down. The `80s were a different story in terms of violence. It was the Regan era. You could get away with G.I. Joe doing stuff in the name of America.
 
There is a joke I heard once that said, Canada makes California look like Texas.

Well Japan cartoons is known for showing more nudity than american censors are confertable with, while the canadain cartoons are censored over language. Though a lot of anime subs I have seen, language is a little more vulgar, but I am not sure if it is just some exagurations by the subbers.

I just a funny thought, is there a more vulgar version of the Care Bears up there in Canada that I don't know about? LOL
 
The World's censors > The U.S.' censors

Over here (Scandinavia) they air the Canadian version of TDI. And sometimes, ADD offensive curse words and stuff (not just to TDI, but I've seen cursings in the dub of Hey Arnold! and a bunch of other cartoons. Even Digimon). So, yeah. There're really no censors over here, and no ratings (other than "RECOMMENDED from [insert age]", which is seen as not a big thing)
 
As a Canadian I can't answer that. But it still airs up here (old care bears that is)

About the differences between our censorship policies. Alot of it I feel has to do with culture nuts have a louder voice then censorship nuts. Up here it's mostly about the CanCon % a station has.
 
In general Canadian media tends to be more liberal then the US, Canadian TV stations do show R rated movies uncut and CBC, the government run channel, shows the Tutors, a british show which has some nudity in it.

As for animation, the biggest difference is what can go in adult aimed animation. Teletoon used to show Spawn at one point and aired a British-Canadian co-production, Bromwell High, where the characters dropped the F bomb often, but they have to air at 9 or later. Teletoon also airs movies that wouldn't air on Cartoon Network, because of content and American copyright, like the South Park movie, the Beavis and Butthead movie and Arika. Also YTV, the Canadian version of Nick, shows Adult Swim anime like Bleach.

Now each society has its own taboos and cultural norms, in Canada you can't have the word "war" in the title of a kids show, Beast Wars is called Beasties in Canada and Japan doesn't seem to allow political satire. The biggest form of censorship is Canada Content rules that limits the amount of foreign programing in Canada, at one point a few years teletoon showed Undergrads everday, despite the fact it has only 13 eps, because it was canadian and somewhat popular, for a while.

I believe Teletoon got in trouble some years back when they aired a cartoon with swearing in it on the morning by mistake.

Also I believe sometimes Teletoon takes a few chances that may not be taken in America in general regarding some animation, Silverwing is more violent then most American action shows (there was no blood, but characters were killed on a regular basis) and delta State (a show starring a bunch of ironic 20 sometimes with mental powers who fight evil creatures on the mental plane, that be too quirky for American animation.)
 
I think the BIGGEST factor of censorship in the US isn't the FCC but rather the corporate types in the network themselves because, well let's be frank, you guys SUE OVER ANYTHING!!!

Americans are big sueing machines with the 'I'll sue ya!' virus!! Its even slowly creeping past the border and into our society dangit!

The fear of some sort of legal action or backlash by the public is probably more potent than FCC regulations.
 
Watching many ninties cartoons and many recent cartoons it looks to me that while standards have not gotten more or less strict what is ok to get away with and what is not ok to get away with is different. There is less of a useage of some words yet at the same time fights in Action cartoons get to show more today then they did in the ninties.

Also in TDI it seems that part of the reason it's edited is because it's popular. 6teen dispite airing earlier in the day tends to have less edits then TDI. And also it has not became the hit TDI is.
 
Funny thing is, if they aired TDI one or two hours later in the night, than they would not edit it at all, as it's language would not be a problem on the channel. Some of the words they have edited out "sucks", "hot girls", "boob job", "pervert", it is very normal to hear on Adult Swim.
 
Yet I don't think it would do as well on Adult Swim. But that's just me. Even on Cartoon Network they don't have to edit half that stuff. Outside the "Famous" edit in 6teen it's been getting away with a lot. More then TDI. comments about sex anyone.
 
The problem is the show isn't aimed at adults, its aimed at pre-teens, so it wouldn't be popular on Adult Swim, its just that Canada has different standards regarding what is suitable for kids (most eps of TDI are rated G in Canada.)
 
Well, that's to be expected. The target demo changes from 9-14 year olds to 18-34 year olds. Of course you'll see a change in standards.
 
At this point Adult Swim and CN are different networks. Trust me most Canadian cartoons aimed at adults can't get on American TV, anywhere. I can't imagine anyone wanting to show Kevin Spencer, the cartoon about an alcoholic psychopathic 15 year old, with two alcoholic welfare cheats as parents.

Sometimes Teletoon takes its lack of restricts too far and creates something vile, like Quads, the cartoon about poorly animated psychopathic cripples, sure the show had swearing and nudity, but the animation sucked and the stories were no good.
 
Odd, Nickelodeon has no problem saying any of those words during the day on some of their shows.

That's another thing with censorship, different channels have different rules. Nickelodeon seems to allow the most content in their shows out of the three main players going by this example.
 
This discussion reminds me of how "Shin Chan" is actually a kids show (abiet with controversy) in Japan, even though in America it's marketed as an adult show.
 
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