The Non-Existence Of, Uh, Me*

Or, words you can't say on Arabic television.

I can't believe I'm writing about this topic again, but I just saw the most bizarre thing on television today.

Here I am, on my day off, watching Glee (a rerun) on Fox. We have lots of Western TV shows here, most a season behind unless you buy the premium channels.

Anyway, there's a scene where Rachel is trying to tell Quinn that Finn is not the father of her baby. A little background for those of you who don't watch. Quinn was president of the chastity club, so Finn was a little surprised by the pregnancy since they never had sex. She attributed it to "that time in the hot tub". In fact, she cheated on him with his best friend, Noah Puckerman.

So Rachel goes up to Quinn and "innocently" tells her the story of her uncles or whoever having a baby and needing to get it tested for Tay Sachs, and surely Quinn had done that, right? Quinn has no idea what she is talking about, and Rachel says: "Oh, silly me. It's only a problem if one of the parents is (SILENCE)."

Uh, OK. Jewish was just erased as a swear word would be on this station. I'm a bit baffled.

In the next scene, Quinn is talking to Puck and says "We need to get an appointmen to test for that (SILENCE) disease."

Are you kidding me? We don't say the word Jewish on the television? On a Western show? I have gotten used to the idea Israel does not exist on any maps in the UAE (I don't like it, but I accept it -- the Emirates do not recognize them as a country), but it's one thing to deny the existence of a country and another to deny the existence of an entire religion.

Is it like Beetlejuice, where if you say it three times fast something bad will happen?

Wow.

Update: Next episode, “Yeah, she looked like Pippi Longstocking, but, like, Israeli.” Only Israeli was bleeped. I'm sensing a pattern.