Censorship Of Television Smokers

[The Gentleman Scamp]

Last night I was lying in bed (Ning hogging the ash-tray as usual) - watching Robert De Niro appaulingly dubbed over by some Thai man (apart from - get this - one scene where De Niro spoke a line in French with his own voice!) and this in itself was so amateur it was amusing and the fact I couldn't hear the movie in it's native tounge no longer mattered - this was funny.

Ning was getting annoyed that I was mocking her country's movie overdub efforts and tured her back to me, anyway - the film was one where De Niro is playing a cop, which could really be any half dozen of his films but I'll get to the point, I'm rambling on and not getting to the point which is when my amusement went to utter disbelief.

I have before seen scenes in Thai/foreign movies where a nipple has been 'blurred out' or 'smudged' because the Thai government feels that there may be people watching that are not yet ready to see what a nipple looks like and should be left guessing.

Well last night this happened in one scene (The movie BTW is I think 15 Minutes and it also had that bloke out of Fraiser in it) but ALSO - It blurred out ANY scene involving a caracter puting a gun to anothers head, and - get this - ANY SCENE WHERE A CHARACTER HAD A CIGERETE OR CIGAR TO HIS OR HER LIPS.

Ning explained that this was to prevent small children who may still be up watching TV at 12:45AM from taking up smoking or shooting people in the head at close range.

When I had finished laughing and gained control of myself, I put on my best serious expression and said it was a good idea as this way children would have absoltely NO IDEA that the characters were smoking a fag or holding a gun.

"Oh I do love your country, bless" I said to Ning - this was taken as sarcasm and she punched me in the kidneys which was a litle unfair seeing as I did mean it in a fond sort of way.

[PvtDick]

Utterly daft, agreed. But in the long run, completely harmless.

It's the utterly daft, not-so-harmless ideas coming out of the current regime that are a bit more cause for concern.

[Darth Bangkok]

how about last night, I was watching King of the Hill, which is a cartoon. AS usual, the men were standing around in the yard talking and smoking and drinking. Four men, all holding a beer, two holding a cigarette. one guy was drinking the beer, one guy had the cigarette to his lips and they blocked him out. so its okay for kids to go out and get drunk I guess.

its also funny when you watch promos on the movie channels, like Star Movies. You watch the same promotion for a week or more. When the movie comes out, one of the scenes they were promoting has been chopped up so it doesn't make sense anymore! ok for the commercials, but not okay in the broadcast.

[astral]

Daft, I agree, but it gets out of hand.

It is not just cigarettes, but guns and "naughty' bits of anatomy.

A couple of weeks ago UBC series showed a film titled "Gentleman's Relish"

It was about an artist who became a photographer, c 1900.

He moved into exotic photos of ladies.

In some shots UBC had 90% of the screen fuzzied out.

The film was shown around 11:00 pm.

Why all the fuss? Kids should be in bed anyway.

It seemed to me to be waste of time to show such a film if you are going to ruin it with censorship.

Rather like the Crying Game shown in the cinema's a few years ago. The Thai censor fuzzied out the most critical scene in the fim where we see that one of the principle characters is a man, not a woman. Crazy.

[stroll]

This is amusing. I'd be more worried if the censorship was so clever that one would hardly notice and wonder by whom for which motives, as is happening in farangland.

[Tornado]

censorship here is a little weird, no nipples, no smokes, but a dead bloke on the front cover of the newspaper or live footage of a dead guy on the evening news is ok?

I also saw the king of the hill show, when they blocked out an animation smoke - funny.

[toopeekaa 1]

This is amusing. I'd be more worried if the censorship was so clever that one would hardly notice and wonder by whom for which motives, as is happening in farangland.

Could you be referring to the 'Farenheit 9/11' flick?

or maybe the new actiom movie starring Brad Pitt as the young wombastic 'W' in 'Missing from Action' the story of a young king leading his country into battle from a Alabama Dentist Office. perhaps, maybe, might be, can almost prove it

Up for a 1/2 Academy Award, the back half

[Ajarn]

If I was an impressionable kid, I would sure be impressed by the attention the censor has given to.....something...Now I gotta put ALL my attention on that which they don't want me to see, cuz everyone knows that stuff which adults don't want me to see must be interesting...

Daft, indeed.

[monkeygirl]

hey u haven't seen censorship until you've lived in the middle east. there, the movies are about half the length and you don't even know what the heck is missing or what's going on.

[medicinebox]

It happens in the UK too.

One night I was flicking throught the channels and thought <deleted>, porn on BBC 2.

Turned out to be a close up of Rolf Harris eating a Banana.

Gotta get my eyes tested I tell you.

[Darth Bangkok]

censorship here is a little weird, no nipples, no smokes, but a dead bloke on the front cover of the newspaper or live footage of a dead guy on the evening news is ok?

I also saw the king of the hill show, when they blocked out an animation smoke - funny.

a couple of weeks ago there was a picture on the front page of one of the Thai newspapers of a woman who was burned alive in her car after an accident. It was a charred body, still recognizable as a body, it was in a position like she was struggling to get out of the car in time. It was horrible to have seen. I only saw it because one of my students said "hey, chech this out!"

then I went home and was "protected" from seeing cartoon characters smoke cartoon cigarettes. Well thank god for that!

[fatter than harry]

I was having a smoke last night and when I put the cigarette to my lips my whole hand fuzzed out! I jumped into the shower to cool my jets after the scare and my nipples and testicles were completely fuzzed out too! Completely freaked by this I put a gun to my temple only to find my temple had fuzzed out also! I collapsed to the floor to the sound of the scorpions whistling, looped, for everrrrrrr.

Then I realised it was just a bad UBC dream.

Last week I dreamed of Marti pellow....it was my first wet wet wet dream.

I'll get me coat.

[phazey]

I laugh at Thailand's weird censorship also. Like the Carlsberg hoardings being mosiaced during the sports section on the news (chaing/carlsberg fight?) and also the lack of clue when censoring movies with coarse language (Snatch comes to mind, whilst overdubbing the most common of explitives, c**t and w**k got in unchanged!)

[Ijustwannateach]

That which is censored or oppressed will only rise in value, to the advantage of those who profit from it.

"Steven"

[Coffee Dude]

I was having a smoke last night and when I put the cigarette to my lips my whole hand fuzzed out! I jumped into the shower to cool my jets after the scare and my nipples and testicles were completely fuzzed out too!

Almost the same thing happened to me.. Except when I was in the shower... I was fuzzed nearly to my knees..

Of course that was just a dream too

Coffee!!!

[Ajarn]

I was having a smoke last night and when I put the cigarette to my lips my whole hand fuzzed out! I jumped into the shower to cool my jets after the scare and my nipples and testicles were completely fuzzed out too!

Almost the same thing happened to me.. Except when I was in the shower... I was fuzzed nearly to my knees..

Coffee!!!

Hey, my legs were completely fuzzed, as was the ground extending a couple of feet in front of me...

[Insight]

Think this has been said by somebody else before on a previous thread, but what I believe UBC do is send all films and TV shows scheduled to all cencorship authorities across SE Asia before they are due to be shown.

These authorities then tell UBC what they don't like, so UBC can produce a final version that meets the cencorship demands for all countries across SE Asia.

Singapore, I belive, is responsible for the silly pixilated cigarettes.

But, in short, this is the reason why we get complete and utter <deleted> delivered to our TV's. I'm glad some socially repressed retard can tell me what's fit for my eyes...

[RDN]

There was a program on "breast reduction" - on Discovery, I think. The whole point of the program was to show what is done to reduce the size of women's breasts. All done in a very scientific and non-sexual way. (How could you get turned on by huge, saggy boobs?). Do you think you could see anything that these professional doctors were doing? Of course not, all blurred out. Totally pointless in broadcasting the program.

[stroll]

Not entirely useless, it brings the issue of pointless, bigoted censorship up.

[DJ Pat]

I dunno why they bother, I agree that I'd rather not watch the film in the first place if they are going to censor the f*** out of it.