Censorship

So hey...... readers? I forget how i start these things, i guess that's the blessing and the curse of informal writing, you have so much choice! But you also have so much choice with no direction, no benchmarks or conventions. So while i like writing in free form and seeing where inspiration takes me it's always hard for me to get the ball rolling (that and i don't put pen to paper the moment inspiration hits) But today inspiration hit! Like a cup cake out of a catapult!  No freedom of speech and expression is a big issue for me and i absolutly believe in the right to speak your mind without being taken into a white van and never being seen again.

However that first paragraph may be a little misleading, i am not talking about censorship in regards to the right to critisize the government or the multi nationals (i guess if the multi nationals took you away it would be in a black lexus) This is about censorship in art.

By this i do not mean high brow art or low brow art. Art is subjective, in some ways that is the beauty of art, one mans treasure is anothers trash. I consider comic books art as some consider films, people call Citizen Kane art, why can't i call The Killing Joke art?

I feel i'm out of focus, so censorship. Censorship in art is usually brought on by offence, someone could be offended so we have to censor it. This is because art produced for the mass market will get more funding than is not intended for the mass market, as much as this pains me to say art is not usually done for arts sake, art is made to sell. That's the price to pay, while there is an incentive to produce art it doesn't mean good art is always created (Michael Bay!)

Do i oppose all censorship? No some is necessary. There is a point to be made that music videos that are played at a time where children could be watching maybe shouldn't contain swear words.

But sometimes it's just silly, there's one song that comes to mind by My Chemical Romance that contains the line "what you got under your shirt." and they censored out "shirt.", never mind it making an apt point in context. But seriously how petty are these people that they have to censor out the word shirt because it's vaguely suggestive.

More seriously it can stifle an artform, hays code for example. Brought on by a few stuffy old men's notion of decency. Basically these codes were rules for movie makers (i.e no swearing, no nudity) to maintain the decency of hollywood.

Never mind that these people were bigots who included the rules no white and black relationships or "sex perversion" (homosexuality) and nevermind that decency like art is subjective.

So now the offended control art, nothing can really push the envolope as long as "someone can be offended" (i mean it's not as if you can change the channel or not rent that dvd or not go to see that movie) which is a shame.

Like i said not all censorship is bad, and it's not as bad as it was in the 50s. But the damage has been done, i read somewhere that the hays code conditioned movie viewers into prefering less thought provoking movies as this was all writers were limited to by the tough restrictions. I've also noticed that tv stations really buy into the notion of "if you are offended please write in and tell us."

So i implore you, the stuffy ones, the soccer moms, the moralists! Put down your pens! Put down your pens and just don't watch it, and if you think it's innapropriate for children, don't let your child watch it, my parents didn't approve of watching South Park as a child, so did they write to someone to say it's offensive? No! They just told me not to watch it.

Rule of thumb, if you're not enjoying it, you're not the intended audience. Thanks you and goodnight.