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We had an interesting discussion about censorship changes and ratings with the MPAA/Australian Censorship Board/UK system/etc in the Stupidest poo poo You've Ever Heard thread (starting here) but decided to create a new thread dedicated to the topic. To start with, I think it's interesting how film makers will use decoys of objectionable content to intentionally get a film rejected by the MPAA only to turn around and revise it to have even raunchier content, resubmit it, and then get it approved for the R rating or whatever target rating they're looking for (for example, the South Park movie was originally titled as "All Hell Breaks Loose" and then revised to "Bigger, Longer, and Uncut" to juke the MPAA). As the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated points out, the standards for whether a movie will be approved or rejected by the MPAA are byzantine and often capricious or random, so it's sort of a crapshoot for film makers wanting to push the edge questionable content. This is important to note since, as the film industry is a business like any other, most theaters (in America at least) will refuse to carry NC-17 rated movies as they are seen as a guaranteed money loss, so the MPAA ends up using the NC-17 rating and rejection as clubs that film makers who, in their need to get screen space, must adjust to accordingly. South Park seems to have a history of thumbing its nose at censorship boards in particular, infamously with the Stick of Truth game literally using a crying koala and a message about how Australian censorship sucks in the Australian release of the game, seen here complete with digeridoos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia5Z1-dewEI (Skip to 0:32). Matt Stone and Trey Parker's Team America: World Police also used the over-the-top puppet sex scene as a decoy to distract the MPAA from the other content in the movie and basically to poo poo all over them (  ) and get them - a relatively homogeneous group of frumpy old white male conservatives - to go ballistic.That being said, what are your favorite (or most hated) censorship? It doesn't have to be just movies; it could include video games, paintings, comics (like with the infamous Comics Code Authority in the 1920s-40s), literature, sculptures, etc. Discussion of the history of censorship as well as censorship organizations like with the Hays' Code is strongly encouraged! Discussion of the modern era of politically-charged censorship as with Twitter in countries like Turkey or Iran or China is also encouraged. Teriyaki Koinku has a new favorite as of 01:17 on Feb 18, 2016 |
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Feb 18, 2016 01:01
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Scathach posted:When I was a kid I used to think that married adults really did sleep in two different beds, like they did in old shows like "I Love Lucy" and that people really did say "with child" instead of "pregnant." My parents did! 
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Feb 18, 2016 01:21
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It didn't really get answered in the Stupid poo poo thread, but why does the AO rating for video games even exist? I don't know of any games that are even released with an AO rating. I guess there's hentai/sex games, but I'm pretty sure those don't get released in the US. Even then, dating sims and the like on Steam get a Mature rating, if that. AO video games are rarer than NC-17 movies in the US, the latter of which still get run in art house theaters and the like.
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Feb 18, 2016 01:25
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Do non-pornographic movies still get released with an X rating? It looks like X got changed to NC-17 for mainstream movies after the 70s and 80s in the U.S., but there's still an informal use of X and XXX ratings for softcore and hardcore pornography respectively. The split in commercial mainstream and pornographic film from the 1970s seems interesting. Speaking of which, were there really porno film houses in the 1970s? It's kind of incomprehensible to imagine going to watch porn in public theaters with other people that aren't in a seedy sex shop.  E: There's also some interesting history on the legal definition of pornography and obscenity with the Supreme Court in the 1970s and the murky gray area of "I'll call it as I see it" legal rulings with Justice Potter, etc. Relevant Wikipedia articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscenity#United_States_obscenity_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_rating E2: I'm also curious about minced oaths (eg Jiminy Cricket instead of Jesus Christ, crud versus crap or poo poo, etc) with Christian/Catholic Church censorship of blasphemy, and of course to things like Looney Tunes' Sylvester "Sufferin' succotash!" Plus the whole bit of iconoclasm with Byzantium and the Prophet Muhammad in Mecca. Teriyaki Koinku has a new favorite as of 02:10 on Feb 18, 2016 |
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Feb 18, 2016 01:58
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I still don't get it. It just feels like something that'd be covert and secretive like going to a swingers' party versus having it right out in the open and public. I'm not a prude about it, I just find it incomprehensible, especially when you think of the past being more prudish (in public consciousness) than today. E: Speaking of video games, people were freaking out about nude bodies despite the censor blur over clothes in the Sims 1 as well as the character models in Oblivion. I'm pretty sure it was just Barbie doll nakedness in the Sims while there may have been nipples (Oh no!  ) in Oblivion.It seems like ages ago when people like Jack Thompson and Hillary Clinton led a crusade against the "corruption" of video games back in the 90s when video games were much more of a sub-culture than the mainstream they are today. People getting up in arms about sex or even just nudity when ultra-violence is A-OK, especially in America, is kind of silly. We did mention about the double-standards when it comes to female vs male sexuality as well as minority versus white scenarios and film ratings in the Stupid poo poo thread. Teriyaki Koinku has a new favorite as of 02:29 on Feb 18, 2016 |
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Feb 18, 2016 02:17
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I'm not really sure why Hillary gets so worked up about children and video games. It just seems like a relic of the moral panic about video games in the 90s with things like DOOM and Mortal Kombat.
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Feb 18, 2016 02:57
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Any idea why Australia seemingly gets its collective panties in a bunch over depictions of drug use in Mature games? While we're at it, why are video games so bloody expensive there relative to the rest of the world?
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Feb 18, 2016 04:32
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rodbeard posted:It's a good thing they left that racial slur in there otherwise we wouldn't know what the censored part rhymes with. Yeah, I was gonna say...
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Feb 18, 2016 05:46
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Scathach posted:Hell in the US people are still panicking over Satanic ritual abuse when it was proven time and time again to be a hoax. If Prester Jane's ACE thread is any indicator, the real ritual abuse comes from Christians.
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Feb 18, 2016 05:48
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4Kids single-handledly ruined America's impression of One Piece. While it is super popular in Japan and elsewhere in the Western world, it's more or less flat-lined in the US. Some people like the "Yohoho! Get a bite of that Gum-Gum!" rap unironically, others (like me) hate the poo poo out of it.  e: My favorite censorship in 4Kids One Piece, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw1u7YvGmYQ For context, the crew is supposed to run into a whale named Laboon at the base of Reverse Mountain, whose relationship with a certain character they meet much later plays a pivotal role in the story. For whatever reason, 4Kids chopped huge parts of the story out (including the entire Little Garden arc) and here, to skip over the Laboon segment, they replaced the whale with a lovely photoshop of an iceberg. It's pretty funny how shoddily they handled everything in the initial dub, from the goofy voices (including Sanji's retarded New York-ah accent) to the edits to... Well, basically everything. It's infamously bad. Teriyaki Koinku has a new favorite as of 06:19 on Feb 18, 2016 |
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Feb 18, 2016 06:13
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Sleeveless posted:ITT nobody actually knows what "censorship" means. Care to enlighten us, then?
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Feb 18, 2016 07:06
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YeahTubaMike posted:I find it amusing that "rear end" is usually not censored, but the "hole" in "rear end in a top hat" is bleeped out. Just...why? People usually find the hole raunchier than the buttock, I'd imagine.
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Feb 18, 2016 19:51
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Considering some states allow you to marry your cousin, some people might not look poorly on that. 
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Feb 19, 2016 04:10
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Panfilo posted:It is interesting how most descriptions of 'nudity' in films tend to be limited to 'boobs' or 'butt crack'. If a guy is shirtless, or in his underpants, does the MPAA still consider this nudity? What about a woman breastfeeding a baby? On that note, why are female butts considered more risqué than male butts and thus censored more often, especially on TV? Men's butts can be pretty much be a clean butt (  ) of a joke or sight gag while women's butts are seen as inherently sexual. It's a double standard. Something something male gaze....Butts. 
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Feb 19, 2016 05:55
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Tiggum posted:You answered your own question. Hypothetically, what would help change things censor-wise to be more gender neutral, so to speak?
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Feb 19, 2016 06:02
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Sentient Data posted:Though Samurai Jack used its robot-death-only restriction to be absolutely brutal Sorry about the crappy uploader added music but this scene: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=neky7mxchcM Is really intense, especially in the last bits with Jack going apeshit and cutting a robot bug in half while it covers him from head to toe in oil-blood and then standing on a pile of bodies dripping in oil. For a show ostensibly for kids, it's incredibly brutal. It's not hard to mentally substitute blood for oil and guts with sudden cybernetic parts from otherwise humanoid creatures. With Samurai Jack returning on Adult Swim, I wonder if they'll keep the robot innards or if they can actually show real blood this time around. Teriyaki Koinku has a new favorite as of 15:50 on Feb 20, 2016 |
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Feb 19, 2016 09:40
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AlphaKretin posted:What? And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why talking about whacky censorship standards is so fun!
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Feb 20, 2016 15:53
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AlphaKretin posted:
I think another poster actually has Cool Dude Fuhrer as his avatar already, before this topic in fact. E: Despite my lack of  and Photoshop know-how, it'd be funny if someone edited it into a loop of his glasses raising and him winking before the shades come down again.
Teriyaki Koinku has a new favorite as of 16:13 on Feb 20, 2016 |
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Feb 20, 2016 16:11
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AlphaKretin posted:That doesn't surprise me in the least. Oh well. I guess it makes sense in a certain way that if you leave kids to their own devices online, more likely than not it's going to devolve into a whirlwind of screaming, cursing, and racial slurs. Lord knows we get that enough already in Call of Duty and CSGO.
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Feb 20, 2016 17:18
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LORD OF BUTT posted:Are you British? The BBFC used to be really, really weird about nunchaku and headbutts, for whatever reason. Isn't face sitting and other kinky porn literally illegal in Britain now? Those are some weird laws.
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Feb 21, 2016 02:09
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AlphaKretin posted:A cups, regardless of the age of the woman, count as CP in Australia. Imagine that's the exploding psyduck with a billion more psyducks pouring out. Shouldn't that count as some form of discrimination? Some women can't help being flat-chested...
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Feb 21, 2016 02:21
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I think in DBZ any punching or blows would be censored by putting a frame of white or a flash at the point a blow would connect.
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Feb 21, 2016 20:21
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Really, that's all of it; America is a culture that glorifies violence but abhors sex. The late Umberto Eco would have a few choice words on this. Also, didn't George Carlin pave the way for less censoring on cable with his 'Words You Can't Say on TV' routine?
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Feb 22, 2016 02:09
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Inzombiac posted:For fuckssake, electric guitars were considered tools of the Devil less than 75 years ago. Don't forget that Jazz was seen as utterly corrupting back in the 1920s and 30s with black Jazz musicians high on jazz cigarettes (ie weed) and of course the Nazis' distaste for Negermusik and the Jazz-loving Swing Kids who rebelled with their admiration of British-American dress, dance, music, and sexuality. Sexuality in particular has been the eternal enemy of conservatives and fascists alike! 
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Feb 22, 2016 08:45
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Is that why so many of Carlin's comedy presentations were HBO specials?
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Feb 22, 2016 16:02
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Cool, thanks for the explanation. 
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Feb 22, 2016 18:12
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Cat Hatter posted:I came in to post basically this. The old ones were under 5 seconds long, so it was more like killing your fallen opponent in the most expedient way possible. The MKX ones keep going for about three times as long so they have more of a sadistic feel to them as your character just keeps on dismembering their opponent. Not to mention that when I finally get around to playing it, I'm not going to want to bother sitting through that long-rear end animation every match. I like to think that, in doing the extended gory fatalities, MK is doing it with a knowing wink and a smile at how ridiculously over-the-top it is.
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Feb 22, 2016 19:44
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Thanks for the 10,000 views! I appreciate the popularity this topic has gotten on PYF. That being said, what are all of your views on censorship in general? While I agree that there should be parental controls on what kind of content the young children of parents are allowed to see, in general I support keeping content free of censorship. Generally, if good media is made with sexuality or violence as part of its message, it's best to keep the authors' original message intact. By deleting or modifying the work, you lose the intent or impact the work is meant to make. See: Goodfellas, Scarface, etc as another poster mentioned. Without their violence in these cases, these movies lose their meaning. Being uncomfortable is a good thing. If we do not flex the boundaries we are comfortable with, society is worse off in the long run. On that note, I disagree with Germany's censorship of violence and Nazism. If we do not talk about these things and explore these topics in our art, we allow them to flourish in the darker corners of society where there is no oversight. Teriyaki Koinku has a new favorite as of 07:58 on Feb 23, 2016 |
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Feb 23, 2016 07:47
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Panfilo posted:I think we really need to shift the responsibility on ourselves to determine what is appropriate. If the MPAA operated on some kind of rubric, and it was based on actual scientific studies about the effects of violent media and sexuality at various ages, it would have more credibility: "Best as our research shows, letting your kid see this content could mess them up". But it doesn't work that way, and its seen through a very narrow cultural lens. This is the logic that the MPAA uses to justify its existence (ie "It's better that we do it so the government doesn't have to"). It's got a pretty libertarian streak in that sense.
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Feb 23, 2016 17:46
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LORD OF BUTT posted:With film, I can kinda see it, because government regulation of film would a) be very iffy on First Amendment grounds and b) potentially neuter films like Elysium, Sicario, the Purge series, etc. that are critical of the current American status quo. Movies that depict the US military and take their funding/advice from them already whitewash/self-censor any negative depictions AFAIK.
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Feb 24, 2016 18:02
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Speaking of Nintendo and censorship, there's the whole issue of crossdressing, transexuality, and ambiguous gender that gets totally whitewashed for American release compared to their Japanese counterparts as is the case with Birdo the dinosaur, Vivian the ghost (from Paper Mario), and Gracie the giraffe (from Animal Crossing).
Teriyaki Koinku has a new favorite as of 06:17 on Feb 29, 2016 |
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Feb 29, 2016 04:46
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My Lovely Horse posted:They did move Mika's rear end out of frame in the newest one. And nerds online lost their loving poo poo over it, too!
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Feb 29, 2016 19:45
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Buckets posted:Art through adversity can be really strong, censorship sometimes forces creators to be way more clever then they would be otherwise. 'Necessity is the mother of invention' and all that.
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Mar 4, 2016 11:01
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Would anyone be interested in pointing out how ratings systems differ between countries (ie if violence bumps up a rating higher in, say, Japan or Australia versus how sex would be rated differently in America)? I've heard some interested talk about ratings between the ESRB and CERO in the Zero Escape thread in Games, just curious to hear more here.
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Mar 9, 2016 18:14
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Didn't GameFAQs automatically censor swears as well? I remember being a kid on there and everyone posting on the Dragon Wang (an obscure PS1 game, wang means king in Chinese) and thinking it was the height of hilarity.
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Mar 12, 2016 03:19
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