There are actually a lot of differences between America and Germany, but one of the more interesting ones is when you turn on the television. Hollywood is big business, you see the result of their work everywhere. Did you see Star Wars? What about Titanic? Any of the Harry Potter movies? Depending on the movie or more specifically its content you may see less of the movie on German television than in America.
It turns out that violence in Germany is considered bad and that violent scenes have a tendency to get cut. That isn’t to say that very graphic violent scenes are especially entertaining or add much to the plot but they are likely to get cut. Depending on the movie and how some of the scenes are done, it is difficult to impossible to follow some parts of the movie when parts of the movie simply disappear.
That doesn’t tend to happen so much in the US, the more violent movies do tend to end up on the television a bit later in the evening or on cable. What makes this a bit ironic is that the situation is exactly the opposite when it comes to sex and nudity.
In Germany sex or nudity is not censored in the same way. In the United States, movies with more of this type of “adult” content does end up on television much later at night or the movie gets censored. Not only that I did notice that for a while on one of the German television channels they had scheduled soft porn on a fairly regular basis.
The same is also true for their literature as well. Pornographic magazines have no protective opaque wraps and isn’t always on the top shelf.