Wow. America Really Is Screwed Up

So a loving family that happens to be gay is considered obscene in parts of the United States. A woman snapped this picture at a local supermarket chain in Arkansas.

That is seriously messed up. It would make you think that they were engaging in sexual acts or having a blood sacrifice behind that screen rather than proudly holding a lovely baby.

I wonder if those same kinds of shields would have been put in place during a different time if their was a picture of an interracial couple on a magazine cover.

Because of the furor this has caused, the shield has come down, but it still messes with my mind that showing two men holding a baby is obscene.

I really have to do another Enemies List post soon.

Dire Straits Song Deemed Unfit: One Man's Opinion

Well, over the weekend news that the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has banned the Dire Straits song Money for Nothing because it uses the word faggot three times and therefore it is not deemed to be unsuitable for air in 2011.

Now, there are a lot of jokes to be made about the quality of the actual song, but based on the content, I think this action is a mistake.

I can understand why the gay and lesbian community would find the use of that word off putting, but in the context, it doesn't seem as bad as it is being made out to be.

I think the thing that everyone who is arguing in favor of this ban is missing is the context. Mark Knopfler is singing as a bigoted character, and that is an important distinction. He is playing an Archie Bunker-type of character in 1985, so in that context such a person referring to someone like this:

in sexually dismissive and offensive terms makes that character look bad, even at that time. You aren't supposed to be sympathetic to the narrator of that song. You are supposed to think he is an asshole... that was the whole point.

Look, I am not condoning the use of that particular word, but when used in context, it can have a societally positive effect, and I wouldn't want such works to also be censored. Like something like Language of Violence by the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy or similar work which uses that language but in such a way to question its use rather than glorify it. Because I am sure there are other songs on the radio that have blanked out the actual word that really are hateful to the gay and lesbian community as a whole, and yet that is ok, isn't it because a word isn't there.

This is sort of similar to that whole Huck Finn brouhaha... though Money For Nothing isn't even in the same sport as the work of Mark Twain.

But I think the reason this action bothers me so much is I've gotten used to a certain level of intellectual freedom on our airwaves... that we didn't remove content because it made someone uncomfortable, and now some of that sense is gone now.

Shenanigans on Katy Perry and Sesame Street

You know, from the moment I heard about that whole Katy Perry/Sesame Street thing, it seemed like a publicity stunt for both entities and a manufactured outrage.

I mean, think about how many different stages of oversight this whole thing had where a change could have been made. There was waredrobe, coverage, editing both for content and to add the backdrop (so if they wanted to make a change at that point, I am sure they could have changed the line of Perry's cleavage rather easily), and there was a moment where they could have just not put it online and not mention the segment.

But none of that happened, so now Katy Perry gets to be the woman who was just too hot for Sesame Street (which, let's be honest, it was a little cleavage, not the end of Western Civilization), while Sesame Street got mentioned a lot on a variety of programs and on twitter and blogs (ahem). And let's not forget, the segment that was filmed got a lot more views than it likely would have without the manufactured controversy.

It was win-win for both sides in this, because how many people watched Katy Perry on that show that would have never watched it in the first place.

So now there is a V-word?

Anyone think it is strange that we can have a bunch of commercials touting remedies for erectile dysfunction, but somehow when a tampon company wants to talk to women like they are adults and refer to the vagina by name or by the compromise "down there", that is somehow not appropriate for 3 of the broadcast networks. Never mind that the line of ads these new ads are following are basically ripping on other euphemistic advertising about these kinds of products anyway.

Interesting how that double Standards and Practices works.

Tags: kotex, tampons, censorship, standards and practices, parody, networks, advertising, satire, vagina

Little People Lobby FCC

An advocacy group for Little People are trying to get the word "midget" off the public airwaves. But unlike a lot of advocacy groups, they are going beyond what is normally associated with this kind of thing.

Usually in these cases, they protest and boycott and generally exercise their power as consumers and rabblerousers to get some attention for the issue they want looked at.

That's not the tack that is being used. Instead of trying to discourage people from using the word "midget" through those means, they are instead lobbying to get it onto a list of words that are deemed unfit for the public airwaves by FCC standards.

They are also equating the term "midget" with racial slurs. I am sure generations of African-Americans would rankle at that comparison, people who are more than familiar with the treatment that surrounds such terms.

I am not a little person, so perhaps I don't understand how hurtful being called a midget is. From my perspective, it seems that being called a little person would be worse. Just the use of the words "little person" seems insulting to me. Put it this way, is it worse to call someone a midget or to tell them that they are a small person, meaning they are petty and all those other negative connotations.

I mean, Hervé Villechaize insisted on being called a midget and not a little person.

So once again, I say no to unnecessary censorship and to a more pervasive FCC presence in the American media.

*your host starts chanting a line from PCU* We're not gonna protest... we're not gonna protest...

Tags: little people, herve villechaize, midget, fcc, censorship, advocacy group

My Enemies List

I was thinking about writing this post for a while. Everyone has a list of people and organizations which just really bother them, but most keep those names secret.

But I thought, that isn't like me. Sometimes you just have to name names, and this is one of those times. I mean, if it was good enough for Richard Nixon to have an enemies list, it's good enough for me.

Some of these are going to be so obvious if you've read this blog, and some of them might indeed be surprising. I am going to put a link to this in my sidebar and add to it as the weeks and months go by, so consider this a preliminary list.

The Church of Scientology: If anyone didn't know that this organization was going to be high on this list, then you haven't been reading my blog for very long. Where do I begin? How about the fact that they are a cult, and have practices which seem almost like they are modeled after a pyramid scheme. As someone who has always had an affinity for how fraud works, this does seem to be something born of beauty. L. Ron Hubbard concocted a scheme where to advance in the Church, you had to pay large sums of money, which entitled you to new Church documents when you reached a particular level of spiritual cleansing. Of course, cleansing yourself of the souls that had attached to your own soul after Xenu dumped them on Earth means you basically have to confess everything you've ever done wrong in your life and all your secrets, so that if you try to leave, well, they can now destroy you. And if you are someone who is outside the Church and criticizing them, well, they have been known to try to destroy you through the Fair Game doctrine. And the places people would turn to to try to get help, have either been bought out (like the Cult Awareness Network hotline who antagonized them for many years, which now tells desperate people that Scientology isn't a cult), or demonized like the entire field of psychology.

Fundamentalists: I am not casting aspersions on the entire religious community. I am talking about the kind of people who are trying to legislate their own narrow definition of morality into law, or their religious laws to be the law of the land (Sharia). I am talking about the kind of people who want Intelligent Design to be taught in science classroom and make movies like Expelled. The kind of people who books banned from their local library not just issues such as homosexuality, swearing and the like, but because they have a rainbow on the cover, or the story has a witch in it or in a particular book, a child's father drinks a beer and his son chews gum in class. I wish I was making that last one up. And of course, the kind of people who picket outside the funerals of gay people, those who have died because of AIDS and soldiers. Basically, I am talking about that minority of people who blacken the reputation of the normal, well-adjusted people who share a faith, a school district, a state or even a country with.

Jack Thompson: You know, if it was just about the video games and the general antagonism he has with his critics, I would sort of laugh him off, or at worst, consider him a nuisance. But his history as a crusader against so many forms of entertainment in the past makes him the poster child for everything that I find repellent in the psyche of those who seek to censor. I'm glad he was disbarred for practicing law in the state of Florida, as he used his power as an attorney to harass people he saw as his enemies (like radio host Neil Rogers, Janet Reno and the Florida Bar Association) before turning his attention to such media scourges as 2 Live Crew, Howard Stern and his white whale, the video game industry and Rockstar in particular. He is almost as widely known for his exchanges with video game related sites (where he is particularly insulting to those he is conversing with), as he is for his appearances as a panelist on news programs and his press releases/conferences. To me, he is just a petty, bitter man who wants some taste of fame and was trying to use his law degree to get it.

Focus on the Family/Parents' Television Council: I know that some of you out there are questioning why this is a separate from fundamentalists in general, but Focus on the Family and the Parents' Television Council hold a very particular place in this list. As you can tell from some of my earlier entries on this list, well, I really don't like censors, and these two related groups thrive on that sort of thing. These are the kind of people who wait years to get a lot of people complain about a show that aired after 10PM (that most of them didn't see) just to try to hurt a network and make a statement. These people are free not to watch programming they find objectionable. They can turn the channel or not order that particular network in their cable or satellite, they have that freedom, but instead of exercising it, they instead resort to fraud to try to get what they want. Yes, I called it fraud. Because the other option is that the membership of these organizations are stupid. I mean, which seems like the most likely option on this, that thousands of people that belong to the organization all watch shows week after week that they find objectionable just so they can complain to the FCC with form letters, or that a few people watch those same shows and tell their membership that they found it objectionable and therefore they should click on a link on their site to make their collective thoughts known to the FCC. I know which one sounds right to me.

Michael Moore: I think this is going to be one of those ones that is potentially surprising, but truthfully, it shouldn't be so. I used to like Michael Moore's work when he was doing TV Nation and The Awful Truth. And then, something happened that made me not like him too much anymore: I watched his movies with a critical eye. I saw how badly he started misrepresenting how situations unfolded in his films just to make a point. I read the opinions of his fellow documentarians who criticize him for the same things. And then there are the character issues, like the fact that he is so thin skinned, responds poorly to criticism, and is someone who hogs credit for things that he was at times only tangentially related too. His troubled past, especially at Mother Jones, is well-documented, and at this point, he has absolutely no credibility to me.

Ann Coulter: She calls her self a polemicist, others call her a satirist, but I'd just call her a cold-blooded and dangerous idiot provocateur. Antagonizing people, like the families of the 9/11 victims doesn't make one cutting edge, even if you are doing it seemingly in jest. Part of me knows that she says those things for the media attention, and because of her background in law, she is likely very aware of how she carries herself, but I have two fears: one is that she actually believes the things she says and two, that other people take what she says at face value and parrot them. I know, coming from someone who attacked Jack Thompson for his own crusade against forms of media for having that same effect, well, it seems hypocritical on my part, but it is just the way she carries herself that makes me loathe her. She takes criticism and tries to spin it as people's attempts at silencing her, when that isn't the case. Being called out on your bullshit and hateful speech is countering bad speech with good speech, not an attempt to silence someone (unless all they have is bullshit). I just wish this version of Ann Coulter was real, I really did.

Rosie O'Donnell: I didn't really have a problem with Rosie when she was acting in movies and had her talk show. I had even forgiven her for being in that dreadful Exit to Eden. She seemed like a genuinely nice, if kooky person. And then she admitted that when she was likable, it was all an act. Soon, her true personality was unleashed on the world showing her to be an opinionated, though not particularly knowledgeable, loudmouth who didn't seem to have the ability or good sense to just shut up. And because of her exploits in blogging, she has given this entire form of communication a bad name.

Bill O'Reilly/Sean Hannity/Rush Limbaugh: Now talk about two pompous blowhards. I'm a blogger... and since I have at least a little of that kind of self-aggrandizing personality, it is obvious when someone else has it too, and these two have it in spades. I will admit that Bill O'Reilly at least paid his dues... he has two Master's degrees and worked his way up the broadcasting chain and I can respect that (one of the rare times when you will actually read me saying something like that). Doesn't make him any less of an asshole or knowledgeable, but at least he seems like he actually did some hard work to become what he is today. Hannity on the otherhand was a college dropout who decided on a whim to do some college radio in his late 20's, got fired and had the Santa Barbara ACLU fight on his behalf to try to get his job back. When he attacks the ACLU now, does that make him a hypocrite? I think it does, I really do. But somehow, these two have become a major part of the conservative broadcast movement with a third member, another college dropout named Rush Limbaugh, who got his big break replacing Morton Downey Jr (and if you remember that gentleman's talk show, than you know what kind of spectacle they were looking for). I guess I expect those who talk about politics to actually have some insight into what they are talking about, but as it stands, none of them could even hope to fill the shoes of William F. Buckley. I guess it is naive to expect that they could actually be thoughtful and actually think about what they are saying instead of being the 3 stooges of the conservative movement.

PETA: I love animals, and most of those fighting to protect them are good people, and I respect them, and on the surface, their general aims are compatible with mine. But some of the things that PETA does are just so counter productive. All those silly campaigns to get fish renamed Sea Kittens and to get Hamburg, Germany to rename themselves Veggie Burger make it hard for me to take them seriously when that is what I should be doing, because their agenda also subsidizes groups like ALF and ELF (Animal and Earth Liberation Fronts respectively), two terrorist groups. For me to say that a group associates with terrorists, you know that I have to have seen some pretty decent evidence to support that. And they are anti-pet ownership as well, which to me, is a very untenable stance (because you love animals, but you aren't supposed to want to share your life with one... interesting).

Added July 27, 2009:

Collectors: Now, I am not talking about people who merely buy lots of related things because they enjoy having them. No, I am talking about the people who collect things as some warped form of investment. And because they consider their hobby one which has financial motivations, they set an artificially high price for whatever they own. I am sure a lot of you out there have been in a situation where you wanted to watch, read or play something and the only people who have that item want an unrealistic amount of money for it... a price that is so far out of whack from either its original value or the value such an item would dictate on the open market. Now there are some that would argue that the laws of supply and demand dictate those prices, but that is not true. What has happened is there are some people who have set a high price, and someone made a choice to buy it at that price, and others seeing that it can be sold for that get all nutty and set their prices that high too. And when you see prices that high, when you are trying to buy the item in auction, well, even if you pay more than it was worth otherwise, you still aren't paying that premium price that everyone seems to want. I'll give you an example from my own life. I bought a copy of Ico for the PS2 at a Blockbuster late last year for 10 dollars because I wanted to play it. But after I bought it, I tried and did not like Shadow of the Colossus, which was made by the same team, so I listed it at a game trading website. Someone offered me a sealed game and 50 dollars for said item (the sealed game, if you went by Amazon.com's marketplace was worth 77 dollars... but if you bought it at the manufacturer that same day, it was 30). I then decided to look up Ico (which sold 250K units in the United States/Canada, so it isn't even super rare) at the Amazon marketplace, and there are people who are trying to get over 100 dollars for it. And one person in particular wants 194 dollars for it. I will say that again. One hundred and ninety four dollars. It makes me question the sanity of the world really. Though I am guilty by association because someone offered me a deal which was insane, and I took it, so I am complicit with this, but honestly, I think someone would have to be pretty low to demand 194 dollars for something which at best should be 50... at best.

The Entertainment News Media: Yes I have problems with most of the news outlets, but there are things that I need to say another day about them. So, I thought it would be better to start with something which is near and dear to my heart. Do you remember when you would turn on Entertainment Tonight and they would be talking about an upcoming movie, television show or musician about to go on world tour? I do. Oh, the 1980's, how I hate your fashions and hairdos, but I did appreciate what you were bringing to the party in terms of coverage. And I realize that a lot of the things I want from the entertainment news media are now online, but there was something almost heartwarming about tuning into a show just to see some exclusive scenes from a hotly anticipated film. Now, what are we left with? A lot of celebrity gossip about breakups, drug abuse and weight gain and loss. Or we get TMZ which is basically a half-hour of people with a camera harassing celebrities on the street, at the airport and in front of clubs with various snide comments from the team in the office. These two versions of entertainment reporting almost work as a microcosm of the news media in general, but that would be letting the latter off the hook too easily. There used to be a time when there was an unwritten rule that the private lives of celebrities were pretty much off limits for the legitimate entertainment press. I sort of wish we would go back to that standard, because my needs as a pop culture junkie are really not being served by what passes as coverage these days.

Added August 12, 2009

Intelligent Design proponents: I should preface this one with the admission that when I was in university, my specialty during my history degree was the intellectual development of Darwin's Theory of Evolution, so I am very familiar with the competing arguments in this. I would also like to say that I don't care what people believe, as long as it doesn't have a wider, deleterious effect on things in general. Intelligent Design is one of those belief systems which indeed has a negative effect, because let's be frank, it isn't science. No matter how hard these people try to spin it as a scientific theory, it doesn't hold up. They know this for a fact. When held up to scrutiny in the case of Kitzmiller v Dover, even the legal system acknowledged that Intelligent Design is just creationism in new clothing. And I for one certainly don't want someone working in virology, oncology or various other disciplines where understanding the mechanisms of natural selection and the current theories in evolution to be ignorant of this necessary knowledge because someone with a religious ax to grind was so challenged by scientific fact that they denied children this education, thus radically altering my life and the lives of millions of other people. I don't want kids to learn things in science classes which won't help them be the best they can be in the subject, because that is truly dangerous. But the ID proponents try to cloud the issue and say that the scientific community is afraid to debate them, but it isn't like that. It is more like Verne Troyer drunkenly challenging Mike Tyson in his prime to a fight, and when Tyson says no, Minime calls him chicken and tries to punch him in the junk. If it held water at all, it would feature prominently in peer reviewed articles, but that isn't happening. And that isn't happening because there is a conspiracy amongst scientists to suppress it... it is happening because it isn't science. And one particular ID proponent is such a tool he earned himself a place all by himself on this list.

Ben Stein: I know what some of you are thinking... that boring economics teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off who made a career in Hollywood by playing a particular kind of low key character? How can he be your enemy? Well, it boils down to the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, and the media blitz he did when it was released. I had to make this a separate entry from other ID proponents because Ben Stein went above and beyond to me in making himself an ass. With his movie, he proved himself to inflammatory and lacking even the most rudimentary sense of intellectual honesty (because he set up a lot of people in this movie by telling them they were going to be in a more balanced film... he Verne Troyer'd the entire 1986-9 Heavyweight division). I also don't believe for a second that Ben Stein doesn't fully understand the basics of evolutionary science... he would just rather sell the controversy. Do you know how I know he is full of shit? He is an economist by training, and guess what one of the major influences on Darwin was? Classical Economics... Adam Smith, Thomas Robert Malthus and David Ricardo, the very same people who were instrumental in the development of Stein's own discipline. Basically, he knows what that particular audience wants to hear, so he tailored his film to rile up those people. It doesn't add anything to the public discourse, but rather it is a blatant attempt to advance the Teach the Controversy movement. And when he said the following on the Trinity Broadcast Network, well, it really was over for me with him: "Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people." He is also the living example of Godwin's law, as he seems to compare everything he doesn't like to Hitler or the Nazis. Let's go down the list, shall we? Obama, Moslem Extremists and Environmentalists are like Hitler, evolutionists, scientists, critics of the response to Hurricane Katrina are Nazis, and the Minneapolis police were like the Gestapo regarding the Larry Craig arrest. And according to Stein, gay males are all pedophiles. So yeah, even beyond my own misgivings about his evolutionary stance, there is a lot more vile crap in Ben Stein than meets the eye. He spins himself as this affably hip guy, but he is just a petty hatemonger.

Keith Olbermann: I admit that I used to watch Countdown a lot. I mean, almost daily for a long period of time, mainly because many of the people he would relentlessly go after were people who appear on my enemies list, in particular Bill O'Reilly. However, I started to have a falling out with him after his attacks on the show 24, which showed a remarkable lack of knowledge about the series, instead relying on a single idea that the show was propaganda for Fox and the Republican party, when the larger plotlines ended up being very critical of his administration, and was one of the few shows, news or otherwise during the run up to the Iraq War which had the United States entering a war in the Middle East because of bad intelligence and due to some ulterior motives. And as the months went by, Olbermann began acting like the very people he attacked, and he continued to do so as I continued to watch, while not having guests who had opposing viewpoints. And in that echo chamber, his dickish qualities were amplified and I lost a lot of respect for him, despite some of his good Special Comments. Basically, I grew tired of his shtick and I can't watch him anymore without feeling dirty.

Birthers: I have to say this. If you believe in your heart of hearts that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, and somehow he made it through his entire public life with all the scrutiny that comes along with it while maintaining that illusion, or worse still, you use what was once a conspiracy theory from the fringes the the right wing to advance either a personal agenda or your career, then I am sorry to say but you are a complete and total amoral asshole. I mean, think about what a scoop it would have been for someone, anyone to have proven that story true during the last presidential election... and yet, no one did. In fact, evidence to the contrary was presented and accepted by everyone but you. And those of you reading know that if it was John McCain and the fringes of the left were doing something like this to him about being born in Panama, well, they would be ridiculed and mocked without mercy by these very same people.

Added September 8th, 2009

Dennis Miller: I used to be a huge fan of Dennis Miller. I even watched his talk show, and I don't mean Dennis Miller Live on HBO... no, the ABC crap fest, I liked his work so much. But then a funny thing happened. Sometime between when he started doing Monday Night Football and September 11th (because the transformation was already in process before the event, despite what he might say), he became a partisan hack of the worst caliber and ceased being a comedian. Some might argue that I disagree with his politics now, and that is the reason he is on my enemies list, and there is an element of that, but it goes further than that. In the past, there was a sort of bemusement with the things he was critiquing and making light of, but now, it seems that what he calls comedy is fueled by nothing but anger. Not faux anger like Lewis Black either... genuine bottom of a dark well anger. I wish he was just being an opportunistic prick who was playing to an audience that doesn't get a lot of love from comedians, but he seems to genuinely believe the hateful things he says these days.

Pedophiles on Flickr and other photosites: OK, pedophiles in general are horrible human beings, I think we can all agree with that (though I expect a member of NAMBLA to chime in to my comments section at some point to refute that, and we will all gang punt that individual into next week). The origin of this particular entry involves my niece and the weird and disturbing individuals who are grabbing copies of her pictures (along with the pictures posted by many other parents)) and who are trying to insinuate themselves into my sister's confidence (she isn't buying it). I'm talking about dudes who make lists of favorites which consist of nothing but pictures of toddlers but they don't have any pictures themselves. You are creepy fucks, and no amount of groups claiming you aren't monsters will ever change that. Drop dead in the most painful way possible.

Glenn Beck: I used to stop by Glenn Beck's little slice of madness when his show was on Headline News, and basically, he made Nancy Grace look good, and I hate her. I mean, it takes a lot to make Nancy Grace look good in comparison, but he did it. Whether it was asking a newly elected representative of the Muslim faith in 2006 to prove that he wasn't the enemy to suggesting to a lovely reporter from US Weekly on air that she pose for some salacious shots, Beck found so many ways of being just plain disconcerting. I think the moment that really pushed him over the edge for me was the first time I happened to catch him talking about a geopolitical issue (regarding warming Iranian-Russian relations) and he started talking about that being a sign from the Book of Revelations. That is the last thing I want to hear when someone is talking about this particular subject. Apparently, his move to Fox has ramped up these tendencies, and a recent boycott effort has resulted in him frankly going batshit insane, like he is just going to keep going further and further as sponsors supposedly leave the show. And the worst thing is, he acts like everything that is coming out of his mouth is just coming from some perfectly reasonable individual. He tries to make it seem like he is speaking for every man, when he is, as I said, batshit insane.



For all I know, basically all that is happening is he is bringing more of his radio show game onto his cable show, because there are quite a few tapes out there of him being a total screaming dick to people who call into his show.

The RIAA/MPAA: Let's see here. Litigious: Check. Petty: Check. Sanctimony: Check. No sense of decency or proportionality: Check. Basically, with the Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America, you have the worst of all worlds. Two organizations which claim to be protecting artists, when in fact, they are protecting few rich conglomerates which control mainstream music, as demonstrated by grumblings from a number of artists that they themselves would take legal action against the RIAA for the monies they collected on their work. And if you look at their record for these cases, you will see a lot of bad litigation (in terms of following the spirit of the law), from suing the children of a dead man to blanket suing people and using shady practices to drag as many people into their net of lawsuits. And these two organizations also put pressure on legislators to enact laws which are detrimental to the rights of consumers, which again is a dick move all around.Someone put together a list of 7 crimes that net less fines than file sharing, and some of them are doozies, which shows you just how out of whack with the principle of the penalty fitting the crime really is in these cases. And yet, day after day, these two organizations keep suing people for what amounts to the most trivial of offenses in the grand scheme of things. There is one other element in their collective philosophy which really sticks in my craw as well: what individual copies of a piece of work represent. To me, if you buy a CD, you own that copy... it is yours to do with what you want. If I bought a book, and I decided I wanted to cut out the word "and" from every page, as a consumer, that is my right because I own that copy of that work. The RIAA and its sister organizations argue that in fact, their clients are granting you a license to their work, nothing more. You don't own anything but a hunk of plastic, and thus, they are the arbiter of whatever you do with it. But at the same time, if something happens to your licensed copy of a piece of music, then they aren't responsible for replacing it, despite that being the logical implication of that licensing system (if you are buying the right to use one copy of something, then shouldn't you always have access to that copy despite the vagaries of physical media). I think my version of things is more in keeping with how every other commodity works. If you bought a car and you wanted to modify it for your own enjoyment within the confines of the transportation law, you are allow to do it because it is your property, a principle which basically works in every arena but this small one involving small hunks of round flat plastic and files. That is why the RIAA and MPAA (amongst others) is sort of malignant.


Added November 5th, 2009

Andrew Schlafly: Whenever I do one of these lists, there is usually one wingnut. Some are easy to recognize, some are very difficult. This entry is almost wearing a t-shirt that says they are in great big letters. You see, the reason that Mr. Schlafly is on this list is because I was looking at wikis this week, and he started the Conservapedia. The reason why he did so, and some of the subsequent incidents because of it are the reason why he is made this list. Schlafly has stated that he felt that Wikipedia has a "liberal, anti-Christian, and anti-American" bias. I could bring up a Stephen Colbert's quip that "Reality has a well-known liberal bias" as well, but that would be mean on my part. Some of the reasons he has seemed to find the site anti-American is due to the fact that non-Americans can edit the site from their own point of view and with their own take on the English spelling (British spelling is evil you know), and it is anti-Christian because the accepted date format is CE rather than AD amongst other things. He has been miffed that his edits of Wikipedia seemed to get deleted at times within a minute of posting, and has taken that as a sign that the whole thing is liberal, rather than as a sign that he may be a crank, and yet on his side of the Wiki aisle, there is very little freedom to express one's self outside of an agreed upon version of Conservative Christian orthodoxy. I've even heard rumors that editing is closed on Conservapedia during what are twilight hours in North America. There is the Lenski affair, and a spurious complaint to the FBI because someone edited a number of pages on the site by changing "Christianity" to "Ethnic Identity", the upshot of which is now people are getting permabanned for even mentioning the FBI on the site. But the topper for all this, the thing that proves just how nutty Schlafly is is the fact that he is spearheading an effort to take liberal influences out of the Bible... which includes the passage about He who is Without Sin, Cast the First Stone and Jesus asking God to forgive the people who crucified him. This is of course, just the tip of the iceberg.

Canadian Cable Companies: I have to preface this by saying that I live in an area that may or may not lose its local stations. There is a battle between local television stations and their networks and the Canadian Cable Companies. The cable television companies, who as far as I know have territorial monopolies (although maybe there is competition in places like Toronto and Montreal), and are carrying local stations on their systems without compensating those stations for their content. Those stations want some compensation, especially since as I understand it, cable viewers cannot be counted when they sell advertising on the station. What's more, the cable companies pay American stations to air them on the system, and yet, somehow they've gotten around that with local broadcasters, despite the fact that they are getting paid for doing so. When local stations started to complain and they banded together to get the revenues that they are owned with a series of television ads explaining the situation, the cable companies responded with a series of commercials of their own, making it seem like the local stations were being paid and were just trying to extort 10 dollars a month from subscribers, which is sheer chutzpah on two level. One as I mention, the local stations are getting dime one from the cable companies and two, where this 10 dollar fee came from is a mystery since the parties involved haven't even started negotiating over this, which to me tells me that the cable companies plan on instituting a new charge no matter what happens, even if the CRTC (the Canadian equivalent of the FCC) says they can't pass on the local TV payments to consumers. The CRTC declared that cable companies couldn't charge customers for a payment they are supposed to make to support independent productions in Canada, but somehow, cable bills went up the same amount that the cable companies are supposed to be paying into that account. But I am going to tell you a little story that might demonstrate why I have a hard time believing anything the cable companies have to say at the moment. Back in 2003, our cable system was slowly making the transition from a purely analog system to a two tier system with basic analog cable with a set of digital channels with a box for the higher channels. During this transition, the Canadian equivalent of HBO was on both the analog and digital dial, until one day, it just disappeared from analog, which was what I was watching it on. So I call the cable company and tell them my problem, that the station disappeared without warning, and the guy on the other end, without missing a beat, says that what I say isn't possible... because that channel was never on analog. Right... a channel that I had watched for 7 years was never on the system. So I am a liar then and my previous experiences were a hallucination. I mean, that is a much more likely explanation than say this one: you wanted subscribers to move up to the digital package, and you didn't want to send a letter telling analog subscribers that you were in fact discontinuing that channel for them like you had for so many other changes. Telling your customers they are liars is always a great policy, isn't it?

Tags: scientology, ann coulter, rush limbaugh, michael moore, peta, alf, elf, rosie o'donnell, william f buckley, jack thompson, james dobson, focus on the family, parents television council, awful truth, tv nation, fair game, intelligent design, expelled, legislated morality, fundamentalism, sharia law, censorship, fred phelps, boondocks, 2 live crew, rockstar, bill o'reilly, sean hannity, college dropout, collectors, entertainment news media, entertaiment tonight, tmz, ico, blockbuster

Scientology vs. Wikipedia

Over the weekend, I was discussing a certain celebrity's history and mental state and how information about them seemed to be removed from Wikipedia, and it made me think about a particular article in Wired Magazine I had read in 2007 about a tool called WikiScanner that could identify where edits were coming from. I decided to put a particular organization in just to see what they may or may not have been doing to the largest editable online encyclopedia in existence.

I am of course talking about the Church of Scientology.

Of course their various organizations have had a hand in reshaping the entries for the Church, L. Ron Hubbard, prominent members like Tom Cruise and David Miscavige and the like, which, while unethical, is likely common practice for many corporations and groups.

But there was something a little darker and low key in some of their edit attempts.

I had noticed there were the names of various celebrities and people of notoriety on that list... and there was a common thread... they had all committed suicide or due to mental illness had killed or been killed.

Someone at the Church of Scientology had at some time added links to the bottom of the entries for Kurt Cobain, Elliott Smith, Phil Hartman, Michael Hutchence and the Columbine Shooters to poorly written short articles at the domain cchr.org.

What is the CCHR? It is the Citizens Commission for Human Rights, which is a Church of Scientology non-profit (and admittedly so) which is a group dedicated to fighting the abuses of psychiatric medicine, which sounds like a noble cause.

But if you have seen Tom Cruise on the Today Show discussing psychiatry, you know that the Church publicly goes far beyond that CCHR mission statement.

Of course, the CCHR goes beyond that statement too. Don't believe me? Watch this video of Dr. Jeffery Schaler of American University giving an acceptance speech for winning an award from the group. I am not saying he is a Scientologist... but his speech and the reception it received demonstrate the true intentions of the CCHR.

In looking at the list of topics someone at the Church of Scientology had edited, I noticed that in many cases, they were topics on psychology and learning as well.

They dropped in links on depression, general anxiety disorder, active learning, parenting, postnatal depression, schizophrenia, school violence, ADHD, dyslexia, the American Psychiatric Association, bipolar disorder and anti-psychiatry (which whoever did that one did quite a bit of editing). It is sort of creepy when you think about it.

Luckily, given the nature of the community, most if not all of these attempts to hijack discussion in those subjects were quickly removed by other users. But after seeing the hundreds of entries listed from that search, it makes me really question the overall integrity of Wikipedia, so if it is a controversial subject, I will likely take a trip to WikiScanner to make sure certain organizations didn't totally co-op an entry. I can't be completely assured of that, but I can at least make the effort.

Tags: scientology, cchr, american psychiatric association, tom cruise, today show, jeffery schaler, american university, study tech, phil hartman, kurt cobain, elliott smith, mental illness, david miscavige, citizens commission for human rights

Gay-Advocacy Group Attacks The Simpsons

Yesterday I read that the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) a Gay-advocacy group has decided to turn its attentions towards, of all things, The Simpsons by calling the show out for a homophobic remark.

They are upset because in the most recent Treehouse of Horrors episode, Nelson Muntz referred to the Grand Pumpkin as "supergay", and as we all know, The Simpsons has been a hotbed for anti-gay rhetoric for years.



Wait a minute... it has been like that at all. I mean, if you think about it, The Simpsons has been one of the most gay-friendly shows out there, and over the years The Simpsons have presented story lines dealing with gay and lesbian issues in a positive and relatively sensitive manner, which has won the show a few Emmys and a GLAAD media award.

Think about it. The show features two prominent gay characters (Waylon Smithers and Patty Bouvier). It has had stories about Homer coming to terms with an openly gay John Waters, of trying to "degay" Bart and then through trauma coming to terms and being able to accept the possibility that his son is gay (when he isn't). It has also tackled gay marriage and featured a storyline about accepting a loved one who has come out of the closet, while also intimating that two other characters on the show were potentially gay but weren't at the stage of acknowledging it. In a related storyline in a later season, Patty's sister Selma, after going through menopause, was left flustered by the bureaucratic machinations of the Chinese government when she tried to adopt a child, as they required her to have a husband, which again, resonates with those in the gay and lesbian community who want to adopt for themselves.

There was also a flash forward episode where Lisa was revealed to be the first straight woman president following the election of Chastity Bono.

Frankly, given the setbacks the gay and lesbian rights movement had during the election, picking on The Simpsons is really picking the wrong battle to fight. Especially since I have yet to see an article mentioning GLSEN's opposition to Katy "I Kissed a Girl" Perry's first single from that album Ur So Gay. I mean, if anything, that song is so much worse than the fleeting reference on The Simpsons because the line following the title in the chorus is "and you don't even like boys". When the GLSEN complains about that, then maybe I'll respect their objection to that particular Nelson remark.

And for all we know, The Grand Pumpkin WAS indeed gay.

Tags: the simpsons, homosexuality, gay, lesbian and straight education, network, fox, treehouse of horrors, supergay, nelson muntz, grand pumpkin, glsen, proposition 8, selma bouvier, patty bouvier, katy perry, i kissed a girl, ur so gay, chastity bono, glaad media award

Wardrobe Malfunction Fines Dismissed

You all remember that hideous, culture shattering incident at the 2004 Super Bowl, that according to the wackjobs at the Parents Television Council and Focus on the Family destroyed the innocence of an entire generation of kids? The incident that got the FCC all up in arms and became part of the impetus for increasing fines tenfold? The incident that made the entire continent of Europe laugh at North America for being such moralistic prudes.

You know, that thing where Justin Timberlake pulled a piece of fabric from Janet Jackson's leather-breastpiece and exposed her breast and some fancy, filigreed piece of metal?

Well, a federal appeals court has just thrown out the half-million dollar fine against CBS and 20 of the stations it owned. Thankfully nothing really bad happened because of it, because despite the fear of potential FCC censure and fines, everyone in the television industry kept doing the same things they always did.

Wait a minute... that's not what happened at all. If I remember correctly, the networks and affiliates got so scared of what might happen to them, that on the following Memorial Day, many ABC affiliates refused to show Saving Private Ryan uncut, despite the fact that they had done so the previous year(as well as showing Schindler's List uncut.

I also vaguely remember something about the FCC levying fines against an almost 5 year old episode of NYPD Blue that must have offended a lot of people in the Central and Mountain time zones all of a sudden. Either that or Middle America really is 5 years behind them times in everything, because there is no other explanation. I mean, it isn't like some band of kooks would get together and use a website to quickly flood the FCC with a disproportionate number of complaints to try to punish networks after the fact for their perceived slights. Nah... that's too far fetched, and really, who would be so pathetic to do something like that. I mean, you'd have to be a real loser to wait 5 years to be offended by show you likely didn't watch anyway... and to be offended with a large group of people by something that was 5 years old at approximately in the same short window... what are the odds... really, what are the odds.

But surely every script and joke written for network TV remained largely the same in the post-Janet Jackson 9/16 of a second(that's how long the court said it was) breast exposure world. Because the networks would never worry about the kind and loving hand of the FCC smacking them upside the head with a fine because of an off-color joke or reference, however fleeting it was.... *snicker*... I'm sorry, I can't keep a straight face writing that. We all know that most of the envelope pushing writing and such has moved on to the cable networks, as the Emmy nominations show.

So basically, despite this court decision, and hopefully many more positive results for the networks against the FCC, the chilling effect that the Janet Jackson nipple had on the entire network broadcast system will be with us for a long time. I don't know when it will finally abate, but I hope it will be soon.

Tags: fcc, janet jackson, emmys, hbo, justin timberlake, court decision, nypd blue, fines, saving private ryan, appeal, overturned, censorship, nipple, parents television council, focus on the family, james dobson

My Fellow Canadian Bloggers: Help Stop Bill C-61

Be warned, this is not a post is slightly different than the majority of the content on this blog, as I am genuinely angry and appalled by an intellectual property/copyright bill my government is trying to get passed.

It is Bill C-61, a draconian and farther reaching version of the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a piece of legislation which will turn millions of law-abiding Canadians into criminals if it passes after the summer break.

The Conservative government tabled this bill on the same day they made their apology to the Aboriginal peoples for the Residential School system so that potential media coverage for this issue would be minimized (as this bill doesn't have compelling images of weeping men).

The people who put together this bill were very cunning, I'll give them that because the text makes it look a lot friendlier than it really is. On the surface, it looks good for libraries and for the most part, the provisions seem quite reasonable, as do some of the fines.

However, upon examination, it turns out it is like one of those trick tests where you should read all the questions to find out that you only need to answer one particular question. You see, all those nice and seemingly benign clauses in the law, well, they only count under the narrowest of circumstances, so that instead of 200-500 dollars per offense, in most cases, the fine would be 20 thousand dollars.

Some of the things that would be illegal

-If you have a DVD player and you've entered a remote control code into it to make it region-free so you can watch legally acquired content from overseas, you have broken the law.

-If you have a CD, you are allowed to put music from it on to your MP3 player as long as it doesn't have copy-protection. If that CD does have copy protection, then doing so is illegal.

-The law states that you can record television on a DVR, but you can't keep that content on your drive indefinitely.

-If you have a cell phone, and you will not be able to unlock it to do so.

So basically, any right the bill gives to you is taken away if any form of copy protection or hardware/firmware device is involved... so in essence, the content companies and electronics manufacturers and cellular phone service providers are the ones who get to make the laws, not the citizens of this country.

Last May, I wrote about Warner Pictures complaints regarding people recording movies in theatres using camcorders in Canada.

So yes, I would be willing to tell my member of parliament that I would support closing this particular loophole and I believe Warner Pictures' actions are entirely fair based on the circumstances. But I hope our government doesn't implement overly draconian measures because, as we have seen in the United States with the laws the MPAA and RIAA advocate, the trade organizations don't have consumer's best interests at heart either and will lobby for as much power and control over their product as they can.

So my advice to the leaders of my country is take a Buddhist approach. Chart the middle way. There is a reasonable compromise to be made between protecting intellectual property and individual liberty and consumer's rights.

Now the more I read about this, the angrier I get, especially this little tidbit that has been floating around: when the Conservatives' minority government were drafting this bill, they didn't consult copyright holders or our country's citizens. No. This law had to satisfy the US Government. I didn't vote in those elections... I wasn't allowed to vote in those elections. So why should our media laws have to conform to the whims of a government that is unpopular both at home and abroad? That doesn't seem very kosher to me.

Now what I am asking of you, my fellow Canadian bloggers, especially those of you who write about media, pop culture or technology, is to write posts about this troubling proposed law, and to write your member of Parliament an email and send them that same email by regular mail to the following address (if you are in Canada, you don't have to put a stamp on the envelope):

Your MP's Name Here
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON
K1A0A6

I plan on writing my member of parliament as soon as this entry is posted, in both electronic and snail mail form, and I highly recommend you do the same.

I find it encouraging that Americans who are seeing this happen up here are also getting involved in spreading the word, and that I am reading stories of lifelong Conservative supporters who are so angered by this bill that they are threatening their MP's. Unfortunately, the Liberals are so afraid of forcing an election with their popularity levels that despite the fact that fighting this may be in their best interests politically, they may just let this one pass, so if you live in a riding that is represented by a member of that party, make sure you make sure they know how you as a constituent feels about this issue and how their opposition to this bill could be vital to their reelection, because if they roll over on this one, they deserve to lose most of their seats.

Tags: bill c-61, conservatives, liberals, digital millennium copyright act, copyright, cell phones, dvd players, dmca, digital rights management, reelection

An Open Letter to the Nations of the World regarding insults

I am sure by now everyone has heard about the joke about the Philippines on Desperate Housewives that led to a huge furor, and it reminded me of the controversy and lawsuit surrounding the Brazilian-based episode of The Simpsons.

Somehow I think these efforts are ill-advised. Yes, there may be some hurt feelings, and people may have been offended, but complaining and bringing lawsuits against the producers of television shows that made a statement or insinuation that you didn't like in a comedic way isn't the best course of action.

These communities should do what Canadians do... we don't get mad, we just get even.

Did you hear any stories about Canadians complaining about the episode of the show that took the family to Toronto and Bart and Milhouse joining the Canadian Basketball team, or that the Canadian kid Gordy in You Only Move Twice being in the slow class? Or Canadians being upset about being the theme of an Oscar-nominated song by the South Park boys?

No.

What happens is our comedians and sitcoms take some shots back, and despite our reputation as being such nice people, we are absolutely merciless when it comes to the burn.

For example, the CBC sends Rick Mercer down to Washington or another major American city, and makes people on the streets look like idiots. We give it back as good as we get and aside from an incident involving Triumph the Insult Comic Dog in Quebec, we don't get all up in arms about jokes made at our expense. We just dish it back... because that's how you win a putdown contest. You just have to be funnier than the person or group insulting you, and in large part, we are succeeding.

I think this is a lesson for every community out there that gets pissed off about a little jibe on a television show about their country of origin... just burn America back and everything will be good. I mean, in real life, if you tease someone and they get all upset about it, you want to tease them some more, don't they?

---
Thank you to Semaj for the inspiration behind this post.

Tags: rick mercer, desperate housewives, philippines, brazil, simpsons, canada, south park, trey parker, matt stone, cbc, burn, talking to americans, triumph the insult comic dog, semaj

Jeff Zucker loved 1984

I was just reading a short piece on the blotter at the IMDB about NBC CEO Jeff Zucker lamenting that "the unfortunate truth is that today we are losing the battle" against Internet Piracy... with a straight face no less, because everyone knows that they certainly aren't selling any copies of the Heroes, The Office, 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights DVD sets (which are #6, 15, 104 and 58 on Amazon.com's DVD sales rankings at the moment).

And I would be more willing to take that statement at face value if NBC didn't make its shows available in an electronic format for free for a week so people can catch up on their programs. And most of the other networks do the same. I'd also be happier with that assertion if there wasn't an element of statistical flimflammery. I mean, think about it this way. It was a record breaking summer for Hollywood with 4 Billion dollars grossed... and yet, we still read about how piracy is killing the industry. Guess what the trend on DVD sales is as well? And of course, the RIAA cooks its books on losses as well and here is some evidence.

But it wasn't Jeff Zucker's stance on piracy that chilled me to the bone. It was a passing reference to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is pushing for someone to have the job title "intellectual property enforcement coordinator" at the White House because of this artificial hysteria over piracy.

Let me break that down for you so you can see that in a different way:

Intellectual property which is the product of Thought

+

A specific department of the government whose job would be to enforce or Police copyright infringement.

If this plan comes to pass, we will be in the era of Thought Police in the most literal of senses. Think about how litigious the RIAA and the MPAA are when it comes to the enforcement of their copyrights and then think about those two organizations with the full weight of the federal government behind them. And then I saw exactly what Mr. Zucker wants the federal government to do with said department.

He wants them to police every piece of information going through every IP address for copyrighted content and I am sure that some of the other law enforcement agencies would like a piece of that action to help them regulate that, after all, having that kind of access to that much information on people is a gold mine if it was even technically possible for one agency to do that.

So yeah, I think that analogy about Thought Police is quite apt in this case.

Tags: censorship, thought police, riaa, mpaa, jeff zucker, copyright infringement, movies, music, television, nbc, 1984, chamber of commerce, fbi, dvd sales, statistics, imdb, hollywood reporter, piracy

Remembering James Joyce's Ulysses

Now if I had been a more forward-thinking, I would have written this piece back on June 16th, which is also known as Bloomsday to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the book's release but seeing that this is Banned Books Week, I thought that this would also be an appropriate time to discuss James Joyce's Ulysses.

The reason that this week is fitting for remembering this book is because it was banned for over a decade in both the United States(until 1933) and Britain(until 1936) and yet, despite this(or rather because of it), the Modern Library voted it the best novel of the 20th Century.

Yes, the book is a little lascivious, as it features masturbation, defecation, child birth, sexual fantasy and various other themes which at the time, organizations like the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice found detrimental to society. In fact, the Society's founder, Anthony Comstock was the namesake of the law that was used to prosecute those who attempted to publish or import the book into the United States. I am almost afraid to contemplate the day and age when there are Bozell or Jack Thompson laws on the books, however unlikely that may be.

Ulysses largely follows the story of 2 Dubliners over the course on June 16th, 1904 during the 18 waking hours of the main characters over the course of 18 chapters. Both Stephen Dedalus, a young schoolteacher and writer who also happened to be the main character of Joyce's earlier book, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Leopold Bloom, a half-Jewish advertising canvasser are the characters which make up the bulk of the narrative, though there are others who take center stage at points throughout the book. Each chapter is analogous to a particular chapter or incident from Homer's The Odyssey and is written in a unique style. Yet despite these stylistic devices, the narrative itself is highly compelling.

Now, the book has a reputation for being difficult, and I am not going to lie to you, there are some chapters which are tough sledding, like the Oxen of the Sun episode, which is written in 9 different historical English styles and Circe which is in essence a full-length hallucinatory play. But there are chapters which I absolutely adore, like Nausicäa(the chapter that caused the original furor), Aeolus (takes place in a newsroom, so random headlines break up the narrative) and Ithaca (the tale is told through a series of questions and very specific answers), and the most famous chapter of the entire book is the long internal soliloquy by Molly Bloom in the final chapter, Penelope, which perhaps received its most notable attention in the movie Back to School. As both a student of history and a pop cultural aficionado, I also respect the level of gritty detail and fleeting references to things which were ephemeral to make the city of Dublin a character itself, and these references are especially stunning given the fact that Joyce hadn't lived in Ireland for 18 years by the time the book was ready for publication.

As both a masterpiece of modernist literature and a trail blazer and a rather decisive blow to early 20th century censorship, James Joyce's Ulysses did much to create the artistically free world we have today. It was a fight I am glad was won for freedom of speech.

Tags: james joyce, ulysses, portrait of the artist as a young man, dublin, leopold bloom, molly bloom, stephen dedalus, back to school, nausicaa, aeolus, ithaca, circe, oxen of the sun, banned books week, bloomsday, anthony comstock, bozell, jack thompson, censorship

Movie Censorship at Home: Canada

Last week, when I wrote that entry about movie censorship around the world, I just happened to browse the IMDB and notice that my country has at one time banned quite a few movies, though it seems that most of those bans are no longer in force. I have to admit that it is always interesting to look through the titles of movies that are or were once banned in your country.

The list throughout those pre-1992 years is a nice menagerie of movies: Day of the Dead, The Tin Drum, Pink Flamingos, Bad Taste, Caligula, and a lot of grindhouse/direct to video movies that really don't bear mentioning.

But in recent years, our country has gotten a bit more liberal about some things. For instance, I have a hard time imagining a movie like Kill Bill being shown on national network television uncut in the United States, even after 10PM. In fact, looking at some of the banned movies on that list, part of me thinks that perhaps it may have been banned provincially if it was released a few decades earlier. Then again, even when I was a kid, I remember watching European movies like My Life as a Dog, Manon des sources and Tampopo on the CBC uncut, so who knows what might have happened.

But before I begin, I should explain something. You see, Canada doesn't have an industry wide rating board like the MPAA, but rather. we have individual provincial rating boards, and sometimes they don't see eye to eye on what is and is not acceptable but generally speaking, there are some things that will get a movie banned in at least one area of Canada, if not the whole country in this day and age.

For instance, in a pornographic movie, if the sexual acts depicted demean the female participant(s), there is overt violence or the work truly turns them into sexual objects, then there is a chance it will not be allowed into Canada. Since 1998, these movies represent a majority of banned movies here in Canada, largely based on the Butler case which was predicated on community standards not protecting society from obscenity, but rather that in some cases, the most extreme pornographic movies posed a threat to women as members of society.

Then there is 2000's Fred: The Movie, which is a documentary film that is an examination of Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church. But in a weird twist, the filmmaker ended up joining the Church while he was filming the movie, and so the focus of the movie shifted away from its original theme and became something completely different. Because of the rather inflammatory things that Reverend Phelps is known for saying, the movie is banned in Canada based on our hate crime laws.

There was also some controversy over a movie called À ma soeur!/Fat Girl, which featured simulated sex scenes between minors. Here is the funny part. It was banned in Ontario for 3 years, rated R in Alberta and yet if you lived in Nova Scotia, you could go see the movie when you were 14. In 2003, the head of the Ontario rating board changed, and with that change came some changes to the code and the movie was released in this province.

And then there is Karla, which is the story of Karla Homolka, accessory to rape and murder for Paul Bernardo. The movie, starring Laura Prepon is apparently banned in the specific cities where the crimes took place and the victims were from. I can't confirm that mind you.

Now, with all that being said, it is also interesting to note that in a lot of cases, movies receiving lower ratings in Canada than they do in the United States... the funniest of which has to be the discrepancy for This Film is Not Yet Rated, the stinging rebuke of the MPAA's secrecy and the seeming double standard the rating body has when it comes to independent and studio films. The MPAA rating: NC-17(rating surrendered). The Canadian Rating: 14.

I think this whole entry boils down to me being able to look at some of the challenges movies face overseas with a clearer eye now that I've laid out the censorship challenges that are right here in my own backyard.

Tags: karla, kill bill, caligula, pink flamingos, day of the dead, pornography, butler decision, bernardo, this film is not yet rated, mpaa, nc-17, fat girl, fred phelps, hate crime, secrecy, feminism, supreme court, bad taste, tin drum, grindhouse

The World Festival of Movie Censorship

There was a story today about the potential problems Rush Hour III may have being released in China because of the depiction of the Triad in the movie piqued my interest in some of the other seemingly arbitrary censorship decisions about Western films that are made around the world. These are not decisions made based on sex or violence, but for more ambiguous reasons.

For instance, in that very same story, the author mentions the fact that Chinese authorities made the producers of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End cut scenes with Chow Yun Fat because his character was bald and scarred and therefore was an insult to the Chinese population. So I guess there has never been a Chinese man who was bald and scarred in the entire history of that country, through all of recorded history. Not a one.

Right.

The Chinese censors also banned Scorsese's The Departed from their country because a small part of the plot involves agents of their country trying to acquire American-made microchips, and they had considered not letting Mission: Impossible III be released because the Shanghai police didn't come off too well in that movie.

And when Thailand would not allow the movie Thank You For Smoking to be shown in that country it is speculated the reason was because the title of the movie had the word "Smoking" in it. This is the kind of thing I worry about in North America when it comes to the power the anti-smoking groups wield here.

There is also the story of India's chief censor, Sharmila Tagore, who watches and enjoys quite a few of the movies she won't let the public see, films like Closer because a small vocal minority of the Indian population react with telegenic violence every time they feel that Indian values are being threatened.

The Queen received a rating of 15 in Dubai because the censor figured that people under that age wouldn't want to see it anyway.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention Borat being effectively banned in Russia because it offends "ethnic feelings". Now, the reason I say effectively is because while the body that regulates film has recommended it not be released, and generally speaking, in Putin's Russia, it is generally advisable for those who like life and a career in that order to not rock the boat, like most requests, it is really an order.

Now, if my site hadn't been banned in China already, this probably would have put me over the top. I'd like to thank Melon Farmers for gathering these stories from the past couple of years, because there are incidents that I would have otherwise not known about because they didn't make a big splash here.

Tags: the queen, pirates of the caribbean, chow yun fat, china, india, closer, the departed, mission impossible iii, at world's end, borat, russia, thank you for smoking, putin, dubai

Movies and game distribution: A Double Standard

When I wrote yesterday's article about the Manhunt franchise, I did not know that the second part of that series had been effectively banned for the Wii and Playstation 2 because both Sony and Nintendo have stated that they will not license a game that is AO for their respective consoles.

And then I was reading an article in Entertainment Weekly about how weak the Restricted rating is, because a brutal movie like Hostel II received an R rating, meaning that a parent or guardian could take their kid to see that film, when in years' past, the current cut would have most likely been the commercially suicidal NC-17(but much less severe than AO for games which comprise only 23 titles, 21 of which are pornographic).

When the two stories came together, I noticed a stunning and incredibly hypocritical parallel that I think is worth exploring in regards to home entertainment.

Sony says they won't license Rockstar's Manhunt 2 because of the AO designation, and yet, the company releases any number of Restricted rated movies for the DVD market with additional footage as Unrated releases. And as Sony is also the company that released and marketed Hostel series amongst, and released those titles for consumption. How much do you want to bet that if I stuck a copy of that movie into my PS2, it would play?

And if Sony is so concerned about what adults play on their consoles(as the average age of US video game players is 33), why would they allow their unrated DVD's play on the hardware they control? And why would they release Hostel in Blu-Ray format?

I think Dan Zuccarelli from the BBPS really nailed the point when he said of the issue:

My being upset at Sony and Nintendo stems more from them [being] more than happy to play the game and release a game like this, but then take the high road when it gets the rating. Had the game, in the state it is now, gotten the M rating neither company would object to the content, they’d release it just like any other game.

Given the fact that console game makers do not have the luxury of releasing unrated games, this unequitable arrangement comes into further contrast. The MPAA allows film companies to release titles as unrated as DVD's if they are totally forthcoming about them being unrated, and that is a loophole that these companies use to avoid the stigma and financial consequences of releasing those movies as NC-17, because like many theatres, a lot of the major players in the rental business like Blockbuster have made a corporate policy stating they will not distribute those movies. And I have a feeling that even if the ESRB policy changed to allow unrated titles, retailers would not give games the same fair shake that movies receive with the same status. And since retailers routinely sell movies and games in the same department, this differentiation is even more pronounced.

I am a legal adult(as are 69% or more of gamers) and I am capable of making my own choices, and this increasingly apparent double standard is becoming disturbing, and on some level untenable. This issue is really going to come to a head sooner rather than later.

I would like to thank Sony, Nintendo and the ESRB for forcing me to defend something I had a hard time doing just a day ago.

Who will think of the children? A better question is, who will think of the rest of us?

Tags: manhunt, censorship, adults only, nc-17, restricted, blockbuster, entertainment weekly, hostel, sony, nintendo, blu-ray, unrated, rockstar, censorship, banned, double standard, blockbuster, bbps