Television networks are strict on depicting sexuality but lenient on depicting violence and The Late Show host Stephen Colbert had fun with that on last night's episode.
In a segment on his Nov. 12 show, Colbert discussed a clip in which Bloomberg TV censored Modigliani's painting Reclining Nude. He then transitioned into exploring CBS' own censorship policy, calling out how silly some of the rules are.
In particular, he pointed to the perplexing policy that he's allowed to show Michelangelo's David, but only from far away and for exactly two seconds. Finally, Colbert draws a cartoon image of breasts, which is immediately blurred, but as soon as he adds a nose and smile underneath to make them look like eyes, the same exact drawing is suddenly fine to broadcast.
The Late Show raises an excellent point about the absurdity of television censorship, especially of works of art that are hundreds of years old. One particularly absurd example was NBC censoring a classic painting on Hannibal, a series which features people being murdered and eaten in a grisly fashion every single episode.
"[Network censorship] is more about sex and nudity than it is about violence—it’s just true of this culture," Hannibal's star Hugh Dancy said in an interview. "Nudity is far more frightening to people than seeing people hurt."
Check out the Late Show segment in this clip from the show's official YouTube page.