Tom & Jerry censored - for smoking!!
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 3:41 pm
I can't help thinking that the UK is becoming more and more like Soviet Russia every day, with more and more personal freedoms, lifestyle choices and even attitudes and opinions under attack from the paragons of political correctness, vocal minorities with an agenda, assorted campaign pressure groups and a nannying Government.
"Don't do this, don't do that".
"Ban this, ban that".
"You can't say such-and-such because it may offend this or that group".
In the Great Socialist Utopia that was the Soviet Union, they used to censor films by simply editing movies and newsreels to literally blank out people who had fallen out of favour with the Party. Literally airbrushing them out and pretending that they didn't exist.
Now (I've just seen on tonight's news) the same thing is happening with certain episodes of old "Tom & Jerry" cartoons, with scenes depicting cartoon animals indulging in stylised smoking having the offending scenes edited out in the interests of "protecting children".
It seems that the (mostly self-appointed) "guardians of the most vulnerable members of society" have no problem with all the stylised violence portrayed in these cartoons - for example Tom & Jerry (and that bad-ass bulldog whose name escapes me) bashing each other round the head with saucepans, dropping heavy objects on each other and blowing each other up with sticks of cartoon dynamite etc.
They are, it would seem, confident that as far as the "violence" is concerned, your average primary-schooler will realise that it's just a cartoon and so won't start whacking his or her siblings around the head with kitchenware after watching it.
But apparently they feel that there's a risk that seeing a cartoon cat chomping on a cigar while playing tennis will encourage young kids to take up smoking.
Fucking madness!!!!!
I'm against censorship full stop. But once they start censoring classic cartoons in this way, it seems to me that the lunatics really have taken over the asylum.
"Don't do this, don't do that".
"Ban this, ban that".
"You can't say such-and-such because it may offend this or that group".
In the Great Socialist Utopia that was the Soviet Union, they used to censor films by simply editing movies and newsreels to literally blank out people who had fallen out of favour with the Party. Literally airbrushing them out and pretending that they didn't exist.
Now (I've just seen on tonight's news) the same thing is happening with certain episodes of old "Tom & Jerry" cartoons, with scenes depicting cartoon animals indulging in stylised smoking having the offending scenes edited out in the interests of "protecting children".
It seems that the (mostly self-appointed) "guardians of the most vulnerable members of society" have no problem with all the stylised violence portrayed in these cartoons - for example Tom & Jerry (and that bad-ass bulldog whose name escapes me) bashing each other round the head with saucepans, dropping heavy objects on each other and blowing each other up with sticks of cartoon dynamite etc.
They are, it would seem, confident that as far as the "violence" is concerned, your average primary-schooler will realise that it's just a cartoon and so won't start whacking his or her siblings around the head with kitchenware after watching it.
But apparently they feel that there's a risk that seeing a cartoon cat chomping on a cigar while playing tennis will encourage young kids to take up smoking.
Fucking madness!!!!!
I'm against censorship full stop. But once they start censoring classic cartoons in this way, it seems to me that the lunatics really have taken over the asylum.