While one can certainly make a case for the most damaging member of the president's administration (after the man himself) being Rumsfeld or Gonzalez or Bybee, I wonder if we should add Michael Powell as a contender for that post. Not only are his morals police egregious on philosophical grounds, and probably very harmful to society on that score, they are also ridiculously inept - no one has the vaguest clue about what exactly they require. That's the kind of censorship that can lead to both horrifying and ridiculous extremes. It's already gone so far that Fox has decided to obscure the bare asses of the Griffin men (yep, I'm talking about animated characters) on reruns of The Family Guy because they are afraid they'll get fined for indecency. This is what our government is worried about? Images of cartoon characters?
Posted by armand at January 18, 2005 11:17 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Culturemeanwhile, often during the playoffs, a particular beer ad ran over and over (can't remember the brand) that features a gaggle of young men and women in silvery bathing suits frolicking in the surf by night. the women's suits, remarkably scanty, in the silver-edged silhouettes created by the light, bounce and move about in a way wholly indistinguishable from how they would bounce and move were they stark naked, and indeed nudity is the dominant impression created by the ad. i'm not complaining, but if the family guy and the simpsons (which i assume will have to follow) are obscuring vaguely animated buttocks with no claim to realism, then i don't think it's proper to let labatts are becks or whatever it was parade nipples across the screen during the early evening of one of the more watched annual television events.
it's all such a joke.
Posted by: joshus at January 18, 2005 11:28 AM | PERMALINK