Tom reviews American censorship priorities (Part 1)

Here's a picture from AP:



Here are some pictures from various news outlets in 2004:




Here's what the big deal was that they avoided showing:


Of course, the above picture is terrible, abhorrent, a sign of an impending cultural downturn that will envelop all of God's country, America. Or, maybe the picture is just of someone's tit popping out.

Seriously, though... I'm not even talking about sex yet. I'm talking about an instance where someone is walking around, unaroused, naked, and not trying to arouse anyone else. I'm talking about this:


But let's have a chat about the Janet Jackson picture and the picture of the Asian man with the bullet wound in his face that, just so you know, is not a zombie. I know with all the blood he kind of looks like one, but I assure you we'll get to the subject of zombies later.



I know you Americans are saying "What's to chat about, Tom? One is clearly a picture of something indicative of how disgusting humanity can be and the other is a picture of a dude that got shot." To you, I say this: "Look closer."

The picture of the Superbowl incident is simply a picture of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. Literally, that's all you're seeing.

The picture of the man who got shot was the reaction of the red shirts against the yellow shirt protesters in Thailand. Now, I don't know much about the Thai protests, but I do know that it is a culmination of quite a lot of civil unrest and the rights being stripped away from the people of Thailand by a military coup. That picture is symbolic of many types of injustices leading to that man being unjustly shot. Someone attempted to kill that man.

Janet Jackson has breasts.

Guess which one caused the House of Representatives to raise the maximum fine for "indecency" from $27,000 to $500,000?*

Again, don't get it twisted: I'm not talking about sex. I am talking about breasts. Because I fear that most people won't get what I'm talking about if they live in America:

A breast


Fucking


Both

But... violence! :-D

Warning: You just saw a Lost spoiler if you didn't see Season 4.






I couldn't find the picture of Kiefer Sutherland kneecapping that dude's wife in 24, but whatever.

All of the above pictures were shown on television at some point or another, all of them between 5pm and 10pm.

I think, before I go further, I should explain my views on censorship. Well, actually, I should have done it a while ago... but I am too lazy to change anything.

I believe that censorship should only be applied to things that you can't control seeing or hearing, like commercials, billboards, magazine covers, packaging, etc. etc. etc. But, the second that you have control over it, you have a responsibility to not be a bitch about what you see or hear.

And to answer everyone's next question: "Yes". I believe racists, homophobes, and other general idiots should be able to say whatever they want on television. The Stupid Fucking Stormfront Nazi Hour should be a show if they want it to be. I think the fact that they are censored is part of their appeal to stupid, malleable minds. Think of how many minds get sucked in by the tantalizing "it's what THEY don't want you to hear".


Sometimes "they" don't want you to hear it because it's fucking stupid.

But, if censorship is going to happen anyway, I think there should be some basic guidelines. One of these guidelines is that you can't censor something that's part of a human. The first rule is that the only things eligible for censorship are human actions, not humans. Censoring tits, cunts, cocks, and asses is about as arbitrary as censoring wide bridge noses, blue eyes, red hair, and feet with a longer second toe than the first one.



Although I believe that's a good place to start, it still leaves quite a bit to be able to be censored. At that point we, as a society, have to ask what we want our children to be imitating (since Americans love to finger-point and say that everything children do is imitation of pop culture as opposed to giving parents or, god forbid, the fucking children themselves, credit).

There will be at least one more part to this... but I think this is good enough for now. Oh, there's no arbitrary number because that will come when I'm done talking about censorship.

*Answer: Titties.