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Joined: May 31, 2002 Posts: 11 Location: California, USA
Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 9:36 pm Post subject: Re: Censorship - Round Table
I was wondering what happened, a few years ago a lot of 3D cartoon started showing up and I thought it was a good start and would get better as the style matured but then suddenly it all went away and was replaced by a bunch of - and don't take this wrong Anime lovers - low class, low talent pieces of garbage.
Like at least the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles still survive (see I do like chop sockie art, when there's talent and origininality involved and not just stupid little over exagerated cut-n-paste mouth movements on some character that looks like my 3 year old grand daughter drew in school).
It's too bad, America wants to re-gain it's loss talents and excellence but thinks it can do so by still outsourcing everything over seas.
It's like I told one of my employers, outsourcing does not generate bigger bottom lines, it only excelerates the path to destruction. One can never expect some 'outside' company to actually care about the quality and reputation of your company...however it does open the door to - Corporate Take Over.
Heck, I've now been downgraded to being a "contractor" working for Xerox...like do you think that I have, or ever will have the concern and commitment that the actual employees of Xerox once had? And you should see the ill feelings festering of those few who have still managed to hang on...I feel for them, I have been where they are and future don't look good.
Guess you can take cartoons as an example, outsourse a little today, loose everything tomarrow.
But that doesn't address the topic of "Censorship". Sorry for that.
I heard that censorship was even going to put a stop to Bart Simpson showing his "cartoon butt" anymore, glad to have just seen that so far they have failed....and his cartoon butt pretending to be two shiny pearls in a clam's shell was Funny!
I guess there are still a couple American cartoons left, they come on late at night on the weekend, American Dad and Family Guy. Not exactly kids cartoons but at least they are making a stand.
America is just wound too tight and needs to stop listensing to all those little old bitty committies who think they can make the world a "perfect place" and keep all children "safe" (at least in their little feable minds), even an attempt to do so is to put the children of today at grave parel tomarrow....a latch key kid never learns how to cop with real life. I met one of those latch key kids a few years ago, he had finally turned 21 and went out into the world to get a job...and man, this kid still NEEDED his mommy cuz the world was eating him up alive! He was so freaked out by things that to me was just everyday life in the city - and he grew up in a 'bad' part of Los Angeles, and yet he was Cluless!
Joined: May 31, 2002 Posts: 646 Location: Planet Mongo
Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 2:31 am Post subject: Re: Censorship - Round Table
I know what you mean.
Twelve years ago, I met kids in my Navy barracks that, couldn't set an alarm clock, couldn't do laundry, couldn't cook a can of Spaghettios, couldn't change the oil on their car, or fully memorize their multiplication tables.
But getting back to censorship. The most powerful censors in TV are called focus groups. Like any other committee they're a form of life with at least 6 legs and no brain. Here's a link to a good site worth reading.
The author details the numerous pitfalls in trying to offer a cartoon for sale to the media. He doesn't explore why television is tailored to audiences with the least common intelligence. I begin the think it has something to do with the abundance barracks idiots I once knew.
Those young men were generally sensitive about not being raised in a 2 parent family. The executives in the networks who think they can influence, or improve family life by regulating content are equally stupid. Television is not a baby sitter! We keep our military for that job.
Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 2:09 pm Post subject: Re: Censorship - Round Table
In principle I'm opposed to censorship. On the other hand, there's stuff available freely - even possible to encounter accidentally, especially on the internet - which I don't want my kids to see.
My main interest is in comics, and there's a question there of commercial censorship. Mainstream superhero comics currently are full of content which restricts their audience to semi-adult, and to me, in a title like Spider-Man or Superman, that makes no commercial sense. You've got a property like Spider-Man, with literally millions of kids dressing up in Spider-Man pyjamas, and you make what's supposedly the core product - the comic book - inaccessible to the same kids. Where's the money in that?
If it's a matter of artistic freedom, make your own comics using your own character. Spider-Man is a commercial property, and should be managed properly. The money thus earned could even support more of the "adult" work, if that's what the muse requires.
That's a long way from Mapplethorpe, of course. What we have there is a different commercial product with an adult, paying audience, appropriately inaccessible to children. Not really a problem that I can see.
IMP. _________________ RIVER: skin on the outside. First chapter FREE from www.ianmpalmer.com
Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 9:51 am Post subject: Re: Censorship - Round Table
Firstly, excuse me from coming late into the debate but I feel that I have to scotch the myth about Baa Baa Green Sheep - that story didn't exist outside the head of a Daily Mail journalist playing the 'political correctness gone mad' card and colour me cynical but I wouldn't be surprised if the 'three little pigs banned' story wasn't from the same stable.
The problem with censorship is , quite apart from any other argument it is a popular quick fix that doesn't actually address the underlying problems - why bother addressing the question of how violent anti social people get that way (usually through some form of dysfunctional home life, racism or other abuse) when you can just have a crusade against violent films?
Similarly might it not be better to promulgate a culture where women are respected as human beings rather than blame it on magazines that 'teach' men how to rape - which surely is the effect not the cause.
Also, nudity - what is the big deal when it is not in a sexual context? - the trouble is in the british mind nudity has now become synonymouswith sexuality. I know mothers who will not let their infant children see them naked because they want to 'preserve' their child's innocence. That's not innocence that's ignorance. And what kind of message is it sending out about bodies - that they are dirty? Shameful? Something to be hidden?
Mind you, censorship and responsibility are different things. Does sexually-provocative material create rapists and sex murderers? No. Should it be displayed in newsagents' at shin-height, where the small children are? No.
IMP. _________________ RIVER: skin on the outside. First chapter FREE from www.ianmpalmer.com
Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 3:45 pm Post subject: Re: Censorship - Round Table
Actually, the Baa Baa Green Sheep bit may well have been an exaggeration, I'm not sure, but the very same subject came up again recently with a school that's insisted on the variation Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep. That's no urban myth either; it was quite widely reported and those at the school admitted it quite openly.
I agree that censorship is the easy way to "solve" what people see as problems. By taking away the influence, or by restricting rights to material, the powers that be can say they've done something to stop people potentially being corrupted by it.
It's like when you have Trenchcoat Mafias going postal in the local school, the investigators will say later "Ah, you see? They had all these Death Metal records and loved gore flicks, so that's what influenced them to commit these dreadful acts."
What they fail to grasp is that it is very rarely these things that make people commit their crimes; they usually have some kind of predisposition towards it in the first place- either because of social or family problems, bullying or true personality disorders- and they pick these things up because their interests lie there. So, obviously they'll have material that relates to it, no surprises really.
They also fail to realise that the other 99.99% of people who are into Death Metal, gore flicks or whatever don't wish to harm others. In fact, the reverse is often true, in my experience such people are usually quite intellectual and have strong feelings about social justice, equality and pacifism.
Responsibility is important though, on the part of people who produce provocative works. One should not lie to the public about what they're getting. I spoke up about this very topic on the IMDB recently; I had watched a horror film which was extremely gory and rather badly made. I didn't object so much to that, but I was appalled to discover a short clip in the film which is of a Russian soldier having his head cut off with a knife, in close-up. This clip is real and is well-known to circulate on the internet. Whilst I would totally disagree with this clip itself being censored for adults who wish to see it (it is horrible and sometimes seeing true horrors can lead people to do amazing and inspiring things for good), I think it is unforgiveable to slide it into a horror film without warning.
If I watch a horror film, part of the enjoyment comes from knowing that it isn't real; I don't want to see a truly upsetting real atrocity without suitable warning. This one thing stopped me from laughing at a trashy flick as I watched and my mood changed completely. I felt cheated by the film makers and question their motives.
It's this kind of irresponsibility that leads to headlines, crusades, clampdowns and so on for those who want to carry on producing entertainment, art or whatever. We can provoke and push boundaries but by taking the p*ss out of the freedoms we have, we'll only help to erode them.
Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 7:03 am Post subject: Re: Censorship - Round Table
With regard to violence in films/books I must say that I have real issues with the depiction, whether real or faked, ostensibly disapproving or otherwise, of sexual violence against women. This is not just because it might turn some guys on in an unhealthy way but because generally every time I see anything like that it makes me want to go and punch every guy I see thereafter in the face. A course of action neither fair nor altogether sensible. _________________ A broken stereotype is a beautiful thing
But why specifically sexual violence against women? The knee to the male groin is still a comic staple, and an approved technique for kickass (or kickelsewhere) action heroines.
IMP. _________________ RIVER: skin on the outside. First chapter FREE from www.ianmpalmer.com
Also I think you would agree that there is a difference in kind between a knee in the nuts painful yes temporarily debilitating yes but generally sexually arousing no (unless there is something I'm missing here) - and a full penetration homosexual rape.
Guys' balls get targeted not because they are a sexual part but because they are the part that is most vulnerable in terms of pain and temporary incapacitation.
Having said which, in my glory days when I did karate I found it more difficult to target the genitals than is popularly thought as guys are very quick to protect said area. A feint to the nuts so they dropped their guard followed by a biff to the head worked best for me. _________________ A broken stereotype is a beautiful thing
The nub of the question I guess is how far we allow the prejudices of an earlier time now deemed to be unacceptable free expression. Personally I am uncomfortable with children being given blatantly racist or sexist material without context.
Adults can make their own minds up. _________________ A broken stereotype is a beautiful thing
Joined: May 31, 2002 Posts: 646 Location: Planet Mongo
Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 2:22 am Post subject: Re: Censorship - Round Table
I know you probably mean "blatantly" in a more reasonable way than some individuals, but whether or not something is blatant is subjective rather than objective to the viewer. Whenever any person or group pushes for cencorship, it's only reasonable to question what their true agenda may be. Rarely it may be for legitimate reasons, but more often it's for purposes of intimidation, or just plain old self-loathing hypocrisy.
I know of a certain noted American political activist who is considered a pillar of one of the minority communites. I am omitting his name in this discussion so it won't register with any search engines. The big media corporations are all deathly afraid he will stage protests and boycotts of their products unless they behave in a politically correct way that pleases him. Ironically, the leader in question is the kind of hypocrite who believes in punishing other public figures for using racial slurs in public when he himself was caught doing the same a few years ago (with less provocation).
It appears the public and the media has a short memory over here. In his own community it would seem he can do no wrong with complete immunity from criticism. One can never know what's in another man's heart, but by observation one might guess that such leadership thrives on perpetuting the petty animosities that divide people. He would be out of job, if he was the man of peace he claimed to be.
Can I hear an amen brother???!!!
I would define the old silent movie "Birth of a Nation" as a blatant movie requiring child supervision, but I've never read of any hate crimes being committed in the name of Tex Avery's Droopy Dog. Have you?
Don't you remember the infamous "Boston Basset" who depressed minorities rather than oppressing them ? _________________ A broken stereotype is a beautiful thing
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