Censored Title

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
"And now, the [beep] Van [beep] show, starring [beep] Van [beep]!"
—Intro for The Dick Van Dyke Show within the Family Guy episode "PTV"

Sometimes creators take Refuge in Vulgarity, and the Moral Guardians just cannot let anyone say that word. Not here where everyone can see it.

So what to do? The creator can't just change everything. The movie is done, all the dialogue has been recorded, or the song is in the mixing process. At this point, there's just one thing you can do: censor the title. Don't advertise using the word "shit"—say "crap" or "stuff", depending on how you mean the word. Use acronyms or anything else to cover up the real title. Sure, the work itself is still as offensive as it was before, you just need to pay a little more attention to realize that.

This trope is when the title of a work is censored so that it can be advertised. As noted above, there can be various reasons for this, either creator decides to use the title or executives or distributors refuse to use the uncensored title.

Note that this only applies to the title being censored while the rest of the work isn't changed.

Not to be confused with Bowdlerization, as the work only seems less offensive on the surface. Related to Gosh Dang It to Heck and Sound Effect Bleep. Sometimes used when the creator is trying for an Intentionally Awkward Title and the executives say no.

Examples of Censored Title include:

Comic Books

Film

  • The second Austin Powers film was advertised as The Spy Who... on most poster sites, leaving off the "Shagged Me" from the end of the title.
    • Averted (possibly inverted depending on your point of view) by the Norwegians, who called it The Spy Who Spermed Me.
  • Zack and Miri Make a Porno was often listed as simply Zack And Miri, and one poster didn't have the title at all, just reading "Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks made a movie so outrageous that we can't even tell you the title."
  • Occurred with the DVDs of Knocked Up, in which the "ed Up" part was covered by a huge, orange sticker listing the price at a Wal-Mart.
  • The Pope Must Die, in which Robbie Coltrane plays a chubby priest accidentally raised to the papacy (who faces an assasination plot as a result). In some markets, retitled The Pope Must Diet.
  • TV ads for Inglourious Basterds (at least in the UK before the Watershed) just called it Inglourious.
    • Some of them, mysteriously, showed the full title onscreen while the voiceover announced the censored version. Maybe the rules about written swearwords are different...or possibly because it's spelled differently.
  • Meet the Fockers had parts of the last word replaced by asterisks in some published reviews.
  • Gregg Araki's early independent movie Totally F*** ed Up.
  • S.F.W., a movie from The Nineties featuring Stephen Dorff and Reese Witherspoon, is normally known by its acronym. The full title is So Fucking What.
  • Some posters for the movie Kick-Ass called the movie "Kick-A* $"
    • Or "Kick-Butt"
    • This is also done on the packaging for the action figures of the film, presumably so they can be sold in mainstream retail stores like Toys 'R' Us. The "Ass" part of the title is obscured either by a picture of the character, or a spray paint-like effect.
  • Fucking Åmål was released under various alternate titles, in the USA as Show Me Love.
  • The James Bond film Octopussy has occasionally been advertised as Octocat.
  • The Ken Russell film Whore, aka If You're Afraid to Say It... Just See It in video release.
  • "Uncle F** ka" is the title of one of the songs on the soundtrack of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.
  • The 2010 B-movie spoof Bitch Slap is carried at some stores as just Slap (with a sticker covering the offending word).
  • The movie Young People Fucking is usually referred to as YPF.
  • The documentary "Who The #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?" is referred to as such on the case and title card, but when the title quote is said in the film, it is not censored.
  • To avoid complaints (and the restriction of ads to nighttime), the title of A Couple of Dicks was changed to Cop Out.
  • What the Bleep Do We Know, one of those Documentary of Lies.
  • In the U.S. most newspaper ads for the 1987 British film Sammy And Rosie Get Laid often had the last two words deleted in, as did their film listings.

Literature

Live-Action TV

  • Penn & Teller: Bullshit! - the DVDs say "Bullsh*t", or sometimes just "BS".
    • When Penn had his own (FCC-regulated broadcast) radio show, he would often discuss the show, which he would refer to as "Bulls..." [beat] [beat] "...HIT!"
    • Furthermore, whenever the show is listed on-screen, it appears as "Bulls...", or "Bull!", or "BS!" or even just "Penn & Teller", depending on the provider.
  • The TV adaptation of the Twitter feed "Shit My Dad Says" was called Shit My Dad Says, using Symbol Swearing characters. It is usually referred to out loud as "Bleep My Dad Says.
    • Which caused a lot of problems for people trying to program their DV Rs for it (while that can't be blamed for its cancellation after one season, it certainly didn't help).
  • Pre-watershed trailers for The Secret Diary Of A Call Girl simply referred to it as "Secret Diary".
  • Don't Trust The B— In Apt. 23: Commercials for the show have "B—" pronounced as just the letter b. It was originally pitched with the word bitch in it.
  • GCB was based on the book Good Christian Bitches and was changed to Good Christian Belles before becoming GCB.

Music

  • "Stuff is Messed Up" by The Offspring—the chorus uses the phrase "Shit is fucked up", but the band made the title different so it could be printed on the CD case.
  • "Waif Me" is an alternate title for "Rape Me" by Nirvana, changed so that the album In Utero could be sold in Wal-Mart and other stores with CD censorship policies.
    • To clarify, "Waif Me" is just an alternate title... on the track listing on the back of the CD case. The liner notes in the CD booklet still refer to "Rape Me," and in the song itself, Cobain sings "Rape me." The only reason the band agreed to such a title change (as well as a change to the back cover) was that when Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic were growing up, the only place to buy records in their home town was Wal-Mart and they empathized with kids in similar situations.
  • "Randy Scouse Git" by The Monkees was aptly called "Alternate Title" when the song was released in the United Kingdom. Micky Dolenz, who wrote the song, heard the phrase on the TV show, 'Til Death Do Us Part, and hadn't realized that "Randy Scouse Git" in Britain, is slang for "Horny Idiot from Liverpool." (It doesn't appear in the lyrics either way.)
  • "Star Me Kitten" by R.E.M. In the actual song the F-word is used.
  • The song "I'm in Miami, Bitch" by LMFAO is called "I'm in Miami, Trick" (and also censored in the same way in the song, in versions which are censored).
  • On Warren Zevon's album Life'll Kill Ya the song "My Shit's Fucked Up" was left off the song list on the outer casing.
  • Rap group N.W.A. (the full name, "Niggaz With Attitude", not generally being printed on the albums or posters). Likewise their 1991 album, whose title "Niggaz4life" was printed reversed (mirror-image) on the album—the album is often referred to as "Efil4zaggin".
  • The Liz Phair song titled "H.W.C." (abbreviation for "hot white cum", the phrase used in the song).
  • "Star Star" by The Rolling Stones was originally "Starfucker" but changed at the insistence of the record label. The chorus is still a huge Cluster F-Bomb though, and the band always refer to the song as "Starfucker".
    • Wait, record label...Rolling Stones Records?
      • Atlantic Records distributed the label's releases. Ahmet Ertegün actually wanted them to also change the lyrics... to remove mentions of Steve McQueen, John Wayne and Ali McGraw, since he was afraid they would sue.
  • Similarly, Nine Inch Nails' "Starfuckers, Inc." became "Starsuckers, Inc." for the single.
  • The Ween song "L.M.L.Y.P." (Let Me Lick Your Pussy).
  • The Seether song "FMLYHM" (Fuck Me Like You Hate Me.)
  • Beck's debut album, Mellow Gold, featured two songs with strong language in the titles. On the censored version of the album, the songs in question are listed as "%*!@?# With My Head (Mountain Dew Rock)" and "&*$^?#%*@!#" and even the version with the parental advisory censors them to "F _ _ _ in' With My Head (Mountain Dew Rock)" and "Mutherf _ _ er."
  • Prince's "Sexy MotherFucker"
  • The Canadian rock group Barenaked Ladies is occasionally referred to as simply BNL in places where Moral Guardians might complain. Emphasis on the "occasionally"—they once hosted a WB Saturday morning cartoon block with their normal name (with characters such as the Animaniacs commenting on how they're all fully-clothed men), but they've been censored on the Disney Channel and elsewhere.
    • They ran into this piecemeal in different areas - "The Ballad of Gordon" was a PSA they did early in their career that aired on Fox Kids, but the title card saying the name of the band wasn't run in all markets. "Weird Al" Yankovic revealed in interviews that he had a considerable fight with CBS to call the band by their full name when they were on The Weird Al Show, and there was concern they'd be censored piecemeal as well.
  • The Britney Spears song "If You Seek Amy" (which actually is a remake of an old song called "If You See Kay," which also met with controversy over what it implied) is often changed in radio edits (both in title and in the lyrics; see the music section of the Bowdlerization page) to "If You See Amy" or just "Amy"
  • On the album "The Beavis and Butt-Head Experience", Jackyl's song "Mental Masturbation" was renamed as "Mental *@%#!" on the back of the CD.
  • The Bloodhound Gang album Hooray for Boobies was sold in some stores as simply Hooray.
  • In some markets, MTV credits Blink-182's Take Off Your Pants and Jacket as "Take Off Your Jacket and Pants" during their music videos.
  • The Korn song "K@#0%!", probably since no printable title could be drawn from the lyrics.
  • The Black Eyed Peas song "Don't Phunk With My Heart" is replaced with "Don't Mess With My Heart" on some radio stations because "phunk" sounds too much like "fuck".
    • Or in some cases, dropping the word altogether and replacing it with a drumbeat. In some areas with multiple radio stations, this was especially obvious, because one station would play the edited "Don't Mess With My Heart", another would play the uncensored "Don't Phunk With My Heart", and a third would play "Don't _____ With My Heart", which just sounded really stupid when the edited version was obviously available.
  • While Squarepusher's "My Red Hot Car" may not seem like this at first, those listening closely to the vocals will realize he's really singing about "my red hot cock."
  • A non-vulgarity example - to preserve copyright, Vicks threatened They Might Be Giants with a lawsuit if they went forward with calling a song "Nyquil Driver." TMBG compromised by calling the song "AKA Driver" on the album cover and leaving the lyrics out of the liner notes, but the song was unchanged.
  • The music video for Cee Lo Green's Fuck You! opens up with a title card spelling out F**k You! The censored version replaces it with Forget You!
  • The radio version of "Shit on the Radio" by Nelly Furtado was simply titled "...On the Radio" and was also listed under this title on the back of her "Woah, Nelly!" album. However, the album insert lists it under its uncensored title.
  • Green Day's recent live album, Awesome as Fuck, has the title Awesome as F**k on its cover.
  • Kiss. According to Gene Simmons, they wouldn't let him name the band "Fuck".
  • "Die MF Die" by Dope. Take a guess at what MF is shortened from.
  • Anal Cunt is normally written as "A.C." on their album covers, although the band's logo makes it clear what those letters stand for.
  • Gravediggaz' album 6 Feet Deep was originally called Niggamortis.
  • The "clean" version of Butthole Surfers' Electric Larryland goes so far as to credit the band as "B***h*** Surfers" on the cover.
    • Similarly, in certain parts of the country, the band would advertise themselves as "BH Surfers".
  • Revolting Cocks albums are increasingly likely to credit the band as "Revco" on the cover. It might have something to do with their newer albums being distributed by Sony BMG Music, although their major label debut used the uncensored band name, and "Revco" is in fact a long established nickname for the band.
  • The iTunes store censors song titles that could be deemed offensive by replacing all but the first and last letters of the offending word with asterisks. They also at least sometimes do this when a song title includes a trademark - Tad's "Jack Pepsi" is rendered "Jack P***i" for example, making it sound more offensive as a title than it really is. Another quirk is that song or album titles can be censored, but artist names cannot, as this would make it difficult or impossible to search for certain groups: Thus the title of Starfucker's Self-Titled Album is almost entirely asterisked out, even though the uncensored band name appears directly below it.
  • The Reverend Horton Heat's "Five-O Ford" most likely qualifies, as the lyrics pretty clearly refer to "my fucked up Ford".
  • Local H's "High Fivin' MF". It should be pretty obvious what the title really should be.
  • Max Romeo's 1969 reggae hit Wet Dream was not only banned from the air by the BBC, its title couldn't be metioned either. This led to listeners to Alan Freeman announcing the new chart on Pick of the Pops hearing him mumbling "the Max Romeo record" before passing quickly on to play the next entry.

Tabletop Games

  • Noted Board Games/Card Games/Tabletop Games manufacturer Cheapass Games (so-called because they keep the price down by omitting anything that you can borrow from your other board games, like play money) is often called "CAG" in polite company.
  • The roleplaying supplement for BESM titled "Cute And Fuzzy Cockfighting Seizure Monsters". The "Cockfighting" had to be removed from the title to sell it in regular stores (comics/gaming specialty stores still got the uncensored title).

Theatre

  • The Musical F#@king Up Everything.
  • The play Shopping and Fucking was usually listed as Shopping and F*** king in ads.
    • It was Shopping and F$$$ing here.
  • The well known theatre production The Vagina Monologues was retitled The Hoohah Monologues when locals in Atlantic Beach, Florida complained.
    • Until Eve Ensler heard that they had retitled it, and told them that since changing the name was Completely Missing the Point, they had to perform it under the real name or not at all.
  • An Erie, Pennsylvania high school performance of Urinetown could only be advertised as simply the school's "Spring Musical" because the principal objected to the "vulgar" title but not at all to any of the content of the show itself, which is odd considering the libretto contains the word "Urinetown" sung & spoken several times, plus a character who hints at having undergone a sex change and one use each of the words "piss", "hell", "damn", and "goddamn".
  • The iTunes edition of the Avenue Q soundtrack has a song called "It S***s to be Me". What does the "s" stand for? Sucks.
  • New York newspapers had a difficult time reviewing a 2012 play with Chris Rock called The Motherfucker with the Hat, while getting it across which play they were reviewing. Radio and TV ads were upfront about not being able to use the title.

Western Animation

  • The South Park episode "Chicken Lover," in which the eponymous criminal is actually dubbed 'Chicken Fucker.'
    • Also, 'When an Elephant Makes Love To a Pig'. Was lampshaded in the pre-show teaser with Trey Parker and Matt Stone who refer to the episode by its original title rather than the censored version.
    • "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride" was listed on TV Guide as "Big Al's Big Boat Ride.
    • There was also the You Got Served parody episode whose official title was already censored ("You Got F'd In The A"), but still had a couple other cleaner titles, such a "You Got Served" or simply "You Got..."
      • In Britain, it's called "You Got ------ in the ----" on the Sky TV guide.
    • British TV guides refer to "Do the Handicapped Go to Hell?" as "Do the H-------- Go to Hell?"
    • "Whale Whores" often appears on cable guides as "Whale W...." Likewise for "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy," in which it appears as "Miss Teacher B.... a Boy" (though the unofficial alternate title to "Miss Teacher Bangs A Boy" is "Nice").
  • Some Looney Tunes cartoons have gone through title changes when aired on CBS in the 1970s and 1980s. 1949's "Curtain Razor" was changed to "Show Stopper," presumably because the censors thought even the suggestion of a weapon was grounds for being "too violent" (even though there are no razors in the cartoon; the cartoon is about Porky auditioning a string of freaks, weirdos, and funny cartoon animals at his talent agency). "Prince Violent" (a Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon with Yosemite Sam as a Viking) was changed to "Prince Varmint" on all TV versions (including cable, since the original title wasn't readily available).
  • Daria had two when the show was rerun on Noggin/The-N:
    • "It Happened One Nut" (the episode where Daria gets a job at a nut kiosk at the mall as part of a school project) is called "Daria Gets A Job".
    • "The F Word" (the episode where Mr. O'Neill assigns his students to succeed at failing at something -- with unlikely results) was infamously retitled as "Fail".

Other Media

  • Reginald D. Hunter had a tour in the UK titled "Trophy Nigga", it was advertised as "Reginald D. Hunter Live" everywhere.
  • Damned Small Linux is often referred to as "DSL Linux."
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Censored_Title?oldid=1960510"