I had to research this essay since the second semester started and write it this Monday and Tuesday, so I thought to myself: Hey, my top world's slipping. Perhaps I can publish this and shoot my rankings back up!
Anyways, let the essay begin!
Some things in this world should not be sugar-coated. That’s why Buckley’s tastes so bad: Medicine should never taste good, or children may think it is candy. It’s also why adults don’t put chocolate on steaks: The sweetness would ruin the unique meaty flavour. Instead, we use more suitable spices to augment the taste of beef, such as salt, pepper and garlic. Unfortunately, these metaphors do not always carry over to the mature side of the media, and it often ends up with a sugary glaze. Sometimes this is to make it ‘more suitable for children’, sometimes to make it a better product for its target audience. Either way, the results are not as intended. Censoring, self or otherwise, of mature media both insults the mature audience and leaves the immature audience less prepared for reality.
In recent events, videogames have been blamed for youth violence. But before videogames, comic books were the scapegoat of western society’s violent youth. It seems that this western paranoia has affected our imports: In the Japanese manga/anime Naruto, characters swear and try to kill each other (because they’re ninjas). While the American dubs (translations) can only tone down the violence from killing to knock-outs, they were proficient in removing all the swear words. Which is quite pointless, come to think of it. The audience of this series is teen based, so there is little use in editing out curses. Also, I could just go on youtube and find the episodes in their original Japanese dubs with subtitles made by independent/underground groups. On top of all that, the characters are of such an age group that, when put in those life threatening situations, you KNOW they would swear. There’s nothing more insulting to a mature audience than hearing a “Darn” when they were expecting a “DAMN YOU TO HELL, BASTARD!” In Naruto Shippuden (part 2 of the series), the titular character shouts the f-word. It is a much pondered question among the fans: what is the American dub (several months behind the Japanese version) going to do then? Make him say ‘firetruck’? And just to add salt to the wound, the Japanese dub has one of the characters using a technique known as the Drunken Fist (whenever he drinks alcohol). This technique became the ‘Loopy Fist’ in anime and the ‘Potion Punch’ in manga (when he drinks an elixir). This is insulting not only because he is quite clearly drunk yet we are expected to believe that it’s just an elixir, but because it’s in such a mature series. One character believes he exists only to kill, and another seeks to kill his older brother as revenge for exterminating his clan, but no alcohol references allowed? What’s next, removing swear words from pornography?
Sadly, the story about the home-brewed stuff isn’t much better. For example in X-Men 160, Juggernaut says “How about option 3…..WE KICK YOUR BUTTS!” right before he bodyslams crowd of Chinese soldiers. What I want to know is: why did he not use “ASS”? Come on, let’s face it, the Juggernaut is, well, a juggernaut. He’s unstoppable once he starts moving, super strong, and immune to physical damage. He doesn’t need to look both ways before crossing the street; I bet this guy crosses even if it’s a red light. Surely, a man of such power would develop a certain speech pattern. In the same issue, he calls a ridiculously large opponent he’s about to attack “Chicken Legs”. I, personally, would’ve said something more among the lines of “Sh*tface” or “Pig F*cker”. 2 issues later, and the villain Sabretooth asks the guys “Who needs to take a leak?” before attacking the X-Mansion. But it feels a little out of character: “Piss” is more Sabretooth’s word. I’m not saying we need a lot more swearing in comics, I’m saying that we need just enough swearing to make sure that the characters are ‘in character’. This works out great for everyone, as the only Marvel character I imagine dropping the F-bomb is the Hulk, but I don’t think it’s in his vocabulary. (Still, it would be hilarious) We need to show children characters that swear: children will learn that people who swear a lot are probably angry at something. Those who swear all the time tend to have certain personality traits, some admirable, some not. We need to get back to the good old days, when Wolverine would say “Let’s nail the bastards!” and jump into a mob of enemies, then Cyclopes would chastise him later for being such an aggressive loose cannon. It is actually quite possible to turn bad words, images and ideas into lessons that everyone benefits from.
(Paul McMasters, 27)
The internet is a minefield of censorship issues. Take http://www.theotaku.com/ for instance: it is a relatively small website that allows users to upload fan art (comics, pictures, wallpapers, etc) and make blog posts (fanfiction, essays, and all that good stuff) I am proud to be part of this online community, but there is one aspect of it with which I am discontent: There are no genitalia or female nipples allowed. I understand why this is (to protect children), but I have seen pictures where the nipple are covered by black boxes, and let me tell you: it REALLY ruins the artwork. Sure, I could just be saying that because I’m feeling perverted, but if I wanted to see nipples or vaginas as something to turn me on, I wouldn’t bother hanging around some dumpy little fan art site. Very large portions of the internet are dedicated to pornography, and any mature audience doesn’t look at the boobs on a fan art site just because they are boobs. I am dismayed by the fact that there is no maturity filter available on the site. Many other fan art sites have installed this simple feature (most noticeably devianArt) and it can be customized to a reasonable degree. Maybe you have to be 18 to see genitals, but you’re okay for boobies if you’re 14. Nudity has always been a part of art; sometimes, a piece of art has to be controversial to be artistic. If you take away the nudity, controversialism and mature themes from a mature audience, you’re going to be treating them like children, and NOBODY wants that.
Staying on the topic of fan stuff, turn your eyes to Fanfiction.net: A massive collection of fanfiction. Although it is rated according to maturity, there is no censorship whatsoever, and people can put up whatever the hell they want. Most of it is absolute sh*t that is poorly spelled and written at a level well below high school education standards. However, there are a few good ones in there, albeit most of them are humorous, satirical and/or parodical in nature. As said before, no censorship here. No, our problems are in the forums, where people have discussions about many things (like which pairing is the best, what is considered cannon, writing techniques, etc) Sometimes these discussions turn into arguments. No problem with that, except on the internet, arguments often become flame wars: unintelligent, dislogical online shout fests where everybody tries convince everybody else their opinion is right. Hate speech, cursing, and many other atrocities are common in flame wars. As a result, admins will use the banhammer to resolve flame wars. However, I believe that using this ultimatum all the time is irresponsible. Sure, sometimes you need to use the ultimate power, but would it not be more ideal to intervene at an earlier stage, say, just when things started to get nasty? When people start getting emotional in their arguments, there is a good opportunity to pull the opposing sides apart to give them time to chill. In that time, you can teach them skills and tactics important to constructing and using a good argument: finding evidence to support your thesis, extrapolating that evidence further to make more points, how to counter-argue, how to deal with counter arguments and, probably the most important skill of all, how to agree to disagree if not definitive outcome is determined. These are skills both immature and mature audiences would benefit from, and I’m sure that if the admins of any forum were more PROACTIVE (by teaching people how to argue) than they are REACTIVE (when they use the banhammer on people) that both the web and the real world would be a much more pleasant place.
Videogame are a controversial axel of censorship issues, largely because kids end up playing them so much. Then the parents (who let them buy the game in the first place) criticize the industry for churning out best-selling virtual slaughterfests. They say “Videogaming requires a Zen-like approach: one shot per kill; no time to celebrate a score or curse a miss. You have to go onto the next obliteration.” (Michael Brody) One could easily argue that many normal activities require a Zen-like approach, and that the ability to swiftly move onto the next task with no celebration or regret carrying over from the last task is a gift. But although “Simulated combat has always been part of children’s play…..” (Jacob Sullum), there are some games some kids certainly shouldn’t play. Take the Diablo series, for instance. It’s an isometric click-and-pwn RPG that puts you in control of a powerful warrior/wizard/assassin/whatever who is on an epic adventure to prevent demons from overthrowing the world. I have only played the first Diablo a few times, but I am ecstatic to hear of a third installment in the series, and eagerly seek out every detail of knowledge about it I can obtain. The class I’m looking forward to playing the most is the Barbarian, who comes in 3 flavors: Beserker (leaps into combat and deals high damage), Juggernaut (more of a slow, hard hitter with massive hitpoints) and Battlemaster (uses shouts to encourage self and teammates.) All the Barbarians fight close range, use physical weapons, have high strength and hitpoints, and can even wield some weapons single-handedly that other classes would need 2 hands for. In the demos, the Barbarian has been shown as a very dynamic fighter, jumping around, putting cracks in the earth with his foot, breaking open doors, bringing down the roof and liquefying/mauling/ripping apart opponents. But one thing disturbs me: the fansites inform me that Diablo III is not going to contain any nude statues. Well, okay, not going to miss that too much. Oh, and the demons with human female tops? Yeah, you can’t see their boobs either. What? Why is this happening? Well, according to the Man, you can have half naked chicks in 2d pixels (like Diablo I & II) but when you go into the 3d zone (like Diablo III) it’s verboten. This is just plain rude to a teen/adult audience. Not only are you crimping the game artist’s style, but you’re telling a mature audience what it can and can’t see. We don’t like it. I’ll admit that the Man sometimes accepts violence in mature games, but the gaming industry will never grow up and achieve its full potential if this situation continues.
There are some videogames, however, that are definitely suitable for children, but also enjoyable by older audiences. The Sly Cooper series is one of these. Sly is a raccoon who comes from a long line (all the way back to the time of the pharaohs) of thieves who choose only to rob other criminals. He has his own squad of teammates to help him out on his heists. In the second game of the series, one of the crime lords you take down is Rajan: an Indian kingpin who deals in illegal ‘spices’. These ‘spices’ make its users very angry, and as another crime lord in his gang demonstrates, susceptible to hypnosis. In fact, most of his gang’s money revolves around the ‘spice’: Dimitri distributes it among his nightclub patrons in France (and makes his real money by counterfeiting it), the Countess uses it to hypnotize other criminals into giving up the locations of their stashes, Jean Bison owns half the trains in Canada and uses them to distribute ‘spice’, and the gang leader uses the ‘spice’ as part of his master plan. Clearly, the word ‘spice’ is just a substitute for narcotics and/or hallucinogenic drugs. I was originally going to use this as an example for insulting a mature audience, but then again, it is clearly aimed at younger children, and this is necessary censorship. Or is it? In the game, one of your gang members is captured and held by the Countess. She uses the spice and her advanced hypnosis techniques in an attempt to break his mind. It almost works, but you are able to retrieve your teammate in time to save him. Of course, he takes considerable effort to bring him out of his unstable state. Since no characters used the spice to get ‘high’ at any point, could the developers not have used this as an opportunity to show children the negative consequences of drug use? You wouldn’t even have to call them ‘drugs’; ‘bad medicine’ or ‘herbs’ might be a little more ESRB friendly. Perhaps this could’ve been a lesson, but probably not the way things are now. Maybe in the future, then, things will change, and every child’s videogame will be both entertainment and a subtle life lesson.
So much censorship in this world, so many ‘reasons’ why. “Protect the children!” You think your children aren’t going to grow up one day? They’ll be exposed to it all eventually, its better you get them weaned off sugar coated stuff as soon as you can without messing up their minds. But when is that? At what age should people be exposed to certain things? I believe this is a personal decision, and should be decided by the parent at first, then the child as they grow older. But the Man sometimes decides that under a certain age, NO ONE should see something. In fact, sometimes, NO ONE should see certain things EVER. Usually, he is not right in his thinking, as it is driven by fear and exaggerations made by his own psyche. The speech police of this world believe that we are drowning in sex and violence. They would convince us that the reading, viewing or playing of violent entertainment is just as bad as committing violent crimes. (Paul McMasters, 26) But we’re not drowning. At most, as a society, we’re wading. The only time someone drowns is when they’re dumb or clumsy enough to fall in face first and not get their head back out of the water. But don’t get everybody out of the water just because a few idiots drowned…..just give those clumsy fools some water wings. Of course, why save them? If they’re so dumb as to drown in shallow water, how long could they really have lasted on dry land?
Jacob Sullum, Reason, May 19, 1999
Michael Brody, The Brown University Child and Adolescent Behaviour Letter, November 2000
Paul McMasters, Speech Should Not be Restricted, Mass Media: Opposing Viewpoints, 2004
