A Raleigh, North Carolina, NBC affiliate censored parts of comedian Dave Chappelle’s act on Saturday Night Live, leaving many to wonder if this could become a common trend among broadcasters wary of edgy content under a President-elect Donald Trump regime.
Chappell joked about President-elect Trump taking the White House and how being rich has changed his life, but for the NBC affiliate, some of the language proved to be too much.
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“WRAL-TV has a station obscenity, decency and profanity policy that outlines 10 specific words that will not be broadcast on our air. This policy is based on our own standards in combination with FCC guidelines. Our broadcast operators have a 10-second delay button they can choose to use. During Saturday Night Live on NBC, guest host Dave Chappelle used 2 of those words on 9 different occasions and they were silenced,” the station said in a statement. “Obviously, SNL is a live show so we had no prior indication about what would be said during the broadcast. We understand this caused disruption during the program. We wanted our audience to know this was a station decision, not the network’s, and why we made that choice.”
During his monologue, Chappelle joked about staying in a Trump-owned hotel and asked the housekeeper about grabbing female anatomy, a reference to to the 2005 Access Hollywood recording in which President-elect Trump boasted about being able to sexually assault women because of his social status.
The station tried to censor Chappelle’s language, but were too late on the button and censored the wrong part.
The censorship has left social media divided, with some agreeing it was necessary and others saying it’s oppressive.
Where do you stand?
[ H/T Variety ]
