More political correctness gone mad over in the US where the TV channel PBS are replacing scenes of nudity from a movie for fear of it upsetting the audience.
This is a movie which graphically depicts the detonation of a dirty bomb, a slightly adult subject, in central London and the aftermath including the tracking of other dirty bombs through the city. So nothing too scary for little kids who might get offended by seeing a naked woman.
What?! If anyone is watching this programme who would be offended by the image of naked people surely should not be watching the graphic images of a dirty bomb and it’s effects on a busy London city! It’s also not like there’s a couple of naked people having rampant sex thrown in there for the hell of it, it’s pictures of people being stripped and decontaminated with their clothes burnt, it’s part of the procedure for cleanup after such an attack. It’s what happens.
At least HBO have the guts to show the movie as is. PBS have paid to recut scenes especially to replace those that are shown. They believe they will be fined by the US Federal Communications Commission following complaints from viewers.
The BBC carry the story:
It is not worth showing “non-essential” nude scenes when indecency complaints are “aggressively pursued” by US TV watchdogs, said PBS’ Jacoba Atlas.
I’ve seen this film, and it’s not non-essential. It’s part of the process that people are subjected to during a cleanup operation, it’s humiliating, degrading and the people are lined up and they basically loose all humanity. It’s an important part to understand that even not being in the vicinity of the explosion can be a terrible experience.
Ms Atlas said PBS could put itself financially at risk if it showed the uncut version of Dirty War, and it could also deter many of its 170 individual stations from airing “an important film”.
“You want to pick your battles,” she said.
I do understand their position, especially with the current climate in the US. However in the airing of a documentary on Auschwitz they even blocked out the image of a naked man as they thought the viewers might be upset about the nudity, and the more official line was given that it was degrading to the man. The documentary was made and it would be safe to assume that all film included the relevant permissions from families and survivors, and it was about the mass murder of Jewish people within the camp as well as the experimentation that was carried out on them by the Nazi’s.
Isn’t that a bit more upsetting than a picture of a naked man, for which consent must well have been received to include in the documentary? Surely the relevance of this is to educate people on the horrendous crimes against humanity that occurred. However, no mention of the disturbing material other than the picture of a naked man.
I don’t get it. People are getting more upset about pictures of naked bodies, one of the most beautiful and natural things there is, but not at pictures of murder, genocide, human experimentation, etc. There’s pictures of dead and burnt bodies on the news every night for god’s sake!
PBS mention the Janet Jackson incident. That was such a big joke in the UK, no one could get what the fuss was all about and one show in particular interviewed US people in the streets. Some of them were manic about their condemnation, and the UK programme commentators were astounded at their response.
Political correctness gone mad, and totally focused on matters that aren’t important at all. Then when it causes TV channels to edit and even re-film sections of a movie after it’s made I find incredible, especially when you consider the subject matter.
I shake my head in despair.
