Sticking with my television roll of posts, I've got a puzzler for you today. Well, not for you, 'cause all y'all are thinking people. But, you know what I mean.
As we all know, nipples are verboten on TV especially after Janet Jackson. As you might imagine, labia are also on the no-no list.
Even when they are shreds of skin that are unattached to a body.
See, I was watching Dr. 90210 and they did a reconstruction for a woman who had a difficult childbirth and was torn six ways from Sunday, including splitting her labia so badly that they would not heal. The cameras blurred out out the surgery, naturally, but then when there was a little blob of tissue lying on the tray? They blurred that out too. Now, scant moments before they had shown - in another surgery - the doctor holding up a flap of skin as big as my entire torso, and you couldn't tell what it was, it was just remnant skin. But because the little flaps and bits were labia (ooh! evil! bad!) they had to be blurred.
Even more interesting was the MTF getting ready for top surgery. She had been living as a woman for some time, and wanted implants to take the next step in her transition. She had a woman's name, dressed as a woman, presented as a woman, and came in with her lesbian partner.
When she took her top off, they showed her nipples on TV. Why? No doubt because she was really a man in the censors' eyes. During the surgery, they showed the nipples being cut, and the implants being inserted (which they don't show for the "real" women on the show.
You know what's coming now, right?
In the after photos, they blurred the nipples.
I am so glad I don't have television.
Posted by binky at May 31, 2006 10:52 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Culture | MediaThat is all SO very American. Our great nation, summed up in one neat nutshell.
(Yes, I know you don't like to use that word to apply just to US citizens, and I am somewhat sympathetic to that argument, but I haven't a better one handy.)
Posted by: jacflash at May 31, 2006 11:26 AM | PERMALINKthat is absolutely brilliant. jacflash is right -- that's about the most perfect illustration of our schoolyard mentality toward matters of sex, gender, and presumed prurience i can recall hearing about.
Posted by: moon at May 31, 2006 11:53 AM | PERMALINKOf course it's not just the censorship -- it's also the fact that we're showing fricking labia surgery on television in the first place. It's just perfect.
Posted by: jacflash at May 31, 2006 12:25 PM | PERMALINKI've long thought that Eric Cartman represented much that's truly American on US TV - but I think jacflash is right - this even beats him.
Posted by: Armand at June 1, 2006 10:15 AM | PERMALINK