#1
Posted: 12/24/03 at 10:34am
It's not a holiday-worthy topic, but censorship has never seemed more ludicrous. Or should I say, "standards and practices," the righteous network terms used for arbitrary decisions made re what we can and cannot have in our homes.
NBC fully edited out all shots of Kate Winslet innocently posing nude in TITANIC, while showing a promo for the "holiday" FEAR FACTOR, in which buff yups vie for greenbacks by eating reindeer testicles. The bowl was shown, full of the gleaming orbs, right there in the commercial. Kids of America: breasts are a no-no; Prancer and Comet's sliced off jewels are wealth-inspiring.
I'd take on hypocritical film ratings, but that's a separate post (but! best current example: heads lobbed as cannonballs in LORD OF THE RINGS earns a PG-13, but authentic battle in the civil war earn COLD MOUNTAIN an R. Teens would be devastated to learn real war is hell.)
As self-proclaimed moral arbiters for the world, we could perhaps stop for one moment and look at our own pop cultural excesses, messages re what we think is "right" and "wrong" contained therein, before we impose them elsewhere.
Since it's Christmas Eve: Santa, lock up your hooved stock; the suits at Rockefeller Center have other plans for them.
NBC fully edited out all shots of Kate Winslet innocently posing nude in TITANIC, while showing a promo for the "holiday" FEAR FACTOR, in which buff yups vie for greenbacks by eating reindeer testicles. The bowl was shown, full of the gleaming orbs, right there in the commercial. Kids of America: breasts are a no-no; Prancer and Comet's sliced off jewels are wealth-inspiring.
I'd take on hypocritical film ratings, but that's a separate post (but! best current example: heads lobbed as cannonballs in LORD OF THE RINGS earns a PG-13, but authentic battle in the civil war earn COLD MOUNTAIN an R. Teens would be devastated to learn real war is hell.)
As self-proclaimed moral arbiters for the world, we could perhaps stop for one moment and look at our own pop cultural excesses, messages re what we think is "right" and "wrong" contained therein, before we impose them elsewhere.
Since it's Christmas Eve: Santa, lock up your hooved stock; the suits at Rockefeller Center have other plans for them.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling