News > Ken Burns's War Gets Censored
September 3, 2007
Written by David Morgan
Egad! Ken Burns's documentary has two controversies now? Can we start calling him "renegade director Ken Burns?"
First there was an issue about the depiction of Latinos in the film, now PBS is removing four curse words from the doc to appease the FCC. The words will be silently removed from the film's soundtrack. According to , two of the edits involve the word "fucked" and its place in the acronyms SNAFU (Situation Normal, All Fucked Up) and FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition). Another problem spot was a veteran saying "holy shit" and another calling enemy combatants "assholes."
Burns personally says that all of the words are appropriate and were said by men in combat all the time. Just the same, he understands PBS's motivation.
