I read with consternation that Starhub Cable Vision was fined $10,000.00 by the MDA for screening lesbian footage when the ‘reality‘ show ‘Cheaters‘ was screened.
How could I have missed that episode?
For those not familiar with Cheaters, it’s a program that is so bad, it’s good. The last time I watched it, they featured a cheating boyfriend, caught on camera f***ing another woman in his girlfriend’s living room. The footage was then shown to the victim (the girlfriend who engaged the Cheaters crew) outside the restaurant the cheating boyfriend was dining at with the other woman.
This was so that the victim would be riled up enough to put on a good show of confronting the cheater and his ho.
Compelling exploitative television, and disturbing only because of its exploitative nature.
And so the cable company was fined $10,000 for showing lesbian footage, even when the offending bits were pixelated the same way as the offending bits of the heterosexual cheating acts like the one I watched.
From Yawning Bread, I found that there was such a thing as the Programme Code for Subscription Television, Para. 4.2 of which reads:
Information, themes and subplots on lifestyles such as homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexualism, transvestism, paedophilia and incest should be treated with utmost caution. Their treatment should not in anyway promote, justify or glamorise such lifestyles. Explicit depictions of the above should not be broadcast.
Wait.
Homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexualism, transvestism are lifestyles?
Wait some more.
Paedophilia and incest are lifestyles?
Though I’m not sure if ‘Cheaters’ has been pulled from the channel completely (where it was slated under the ‘Family Tier’ of SCV’s offerings), I must say that there is something incongruent with the fine and the fact that Channel 5 recently aired the movie ‘The Salton Sea‘ without so much as a complaint letter to the Forum – there were enough drug references and drug usage in the first half hour of the movie alone to put down a horse.
Almost as shocking as the time when I was thirteen, and the whole family sat down after dinner one night to enjoy a pirated tape copy of ‘An Officer and a Gentleman‘. Nothing prepared us for the quite explicit, though quite stylised sex scene between Richard Gere and Debra Winger.
Those were the longest three minutes of our young lives, as my parents, brother, sister and myself sat, transfixed because we didn’t want to look at each other, mortified because we were wondering how much more explicit the scene would get.
Thankfully, the scene ended, and my sister broke the silence, saying ‘wah, never censor one ah?’
We couldn’t muster anything to add to that comment, so traumatised we were. It was only a few years later that I borrowed the movie again to really follow the story.
My family never sat down to watch another video together again. If I remember correctly, we went from watching E.T. – the Extra-Terrestrial to An Officer and a Gentleman to nothing.
Um, so… don’t complain about censorship ok? It saves you from embarrassing family moments like that.
iTunes is playing an illegal copy of Marjorine from the album “The Very Best of Joe Cocker” by Joe Cocker of which I have the original CD.
Technorati Tags: censorship, lesbian, SCV, Singapore
i was 16, Tampopo was showing on UK telly (I think it is banned here). My granny was watching too. at the scene where the gangster and his moll was passing an egg yolk back and forth between their mouths, me and my cousins were transfixed and in suspense. But granny, she said, “ai-yah, so unhygienic one.”
i was 16, Tampopo was showing on UK telly (I think it is banned here). My granny was watching too. at the scene where the gangster and his moll was passing an egg yolk back and forth between their mouths, me and my cousins were transfixed and in suspense. But granny, she said, “ai-yah, so unhygienic one.”
whenever my family used to come across amorous scenes like these, there’s bound to be some nervous laughter. heh.
it’s somewhat nerve-wrecking trying to think if this particular show is “safe” to watch with the parents.
whenever my family used to come across amorous scenes like these, there’s bound to be some nervous laughter. heh.
it’s somewhat nerve-wrecking trying to think if this particular show is “safe” to watch with the parents.
This is FAR from the point you’re trying to make with this post but… Cheaters… did you catch the episode where the host got stabbed by the cheating boyfriend? SO worth wasting my afternoon watching.
This is FAR from the point you’re trying to make with this post but… Cheaters… did you catch the episode where the host got stabbed by the cheating boyfriend? SO worth wasting my afternoon watching.
Ha ha ha ha…
My last movie with my family was Star Wars… yep… the original.
Ha ha ha ha…
My last movie with my family was Star Wars… yep… the original.
Even showing same-sex kissing on the news is not allowed. I remember watching the 7pm news when they showed the MTV awards Britney and Madonna kiss. I was laughing aloud at whomever forgot to censor it. It wasn’t shown at the 9.30pm news.
Same sex kissing in the cinemas is stamped with R21, even with no nudity whatsoever. I always feel sorry for all the ah peks who must be hoping to see breasts at IMAGINE ME AND YOU but instead got a sweet, charming Brit comedy.
Even showing same-sex kissing on the news is not allowed. I remember watching the 7pm news when they showed the MTV awards Britney and Madonna kiss. I was laughing aloud at whomever forgot to censor it. It wasn’t shown at the 9.30pm news.
Same sex kissing in the cinemas is stamped with R21, even with no nudity whatsoever. I always feel sorry for all the ah peks who must be hoping to see breasts at IMAGINE ME AND YOU but instead got a sweet, charming Brit comedy.
What rubbish abour $10,000 fine. And the country wants to be “OPEN MINDED”… take it back lah! Don’t tell me that kids these days don’t know what is SEX!!! They know it more that some blur adults do. Want so many “Ang Mohs” in the country still NOT “OPEN MINDED”. Think about it and reflect.
What rubbish abour $10,000 fine. And the country wants to be “OPEN MINDED”… take it back lah! Don’t tell me that kids these days don’t know what is SEX!!! They know it more that some blur adults do. Want so many “Ang Mohs” in the country still NOT “OPEN MINDED”. Think about it and reflect.
OK. Reflecting. OK done.
OK. Reflecting. OK done.