My local paper declined to print today’s Doonesbury because of “an unnecessary obscenity”. On the other hand, they had no problem at all with placing a full color front-page photo of coffins returning from Iraq filled with the remains of our servicemen murdered by a rogue president in an illegal war for corporate profit.
Obscenity is relative, it would seem. What in the name of reason is wrong with this country?
I have no idea how old you are, but it’s quite a surprise to me that you’ve lived your entire life to this point without understanding the differences in meaning of the word “obscene.”
Your misunderstanding here gives rise to the fallacy of equivocation. Even granting your highly dubious characterization of the events motivating Iraq, those sorts of events have never been considered obscene in the sense that they cannot legally be represented in print. The meaning of “obscene” that refers to acts or words that cannot be graphically represented is more targeted towards material that appeals predominantly to a prurient interest in sexual conduct, depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
Now, that said, the on-line version of today’s strip has B.D. saying, “Son of a BITCH!” when discovering the loss of his limb. Assuming that was the wording rejected by the local paper, it seems… somewhat of an overreaction. But the proper analysis is grounded in determining that “Son of a bitch” is not obscene, rather than conflating different meanings of the word ‘obscene.’
Whoops. I just relaized that this is IMHO. My response above was made in a GD mindset, and is not an appropriate response in this forum. I withdraw it, and apologize.
Actually, Bricker, that cracked me up. I just thought you were having the mother of all overreactions.
Every now and then there’s an IMHO thread about why people are so mean in Great Debates. I tend not to understand these threads; what’s mean about the way we argue over there?
But I think I can see a subtle difference in the style of the two forums…
I agree. “Son of a bitch!” is hardly an obscenity; the newspaper needs to chill.
Daniel
Good argument, though, were I looking for one. Perhaps “absurdity” and “irony” would have been better descriptive terms on my part. B.D. loses a leg, says “Son of a BITCH!” and Trudeau is censored. At the same time, we see flag-draped coffins on the front page and nobody at the paper has a problem with it.
I’m 56.
I would agree that it’s an over-reaction by the newspaper, but the mind boggles as to why the OP’s paper did not take the same route mine did and alter BD’s balloon with “@#&!”
It removed the “obsenity” but left the joke intact.
Hrumppff!! Just like a lawyer. You say something you know will be ruled inadmissible by the judge, but the jury heard it anyway. 
Your honor, I withdraw the question. 
It’s partly a knee-jerk reaction to the big flap over Ms. Jackson’s flop, in my opinion. It’s pandering to the religious right element in this town who shriek and flap their hands over any perceived threat to godliness, whatever that is.
We’re a nation of prudes who cruise porn sites in private, who solemnly pontificate about the sancitity of man-woman marriage and molest children in our spare time or visit the whores on K street on the QT. We smack our children for saying ‘shit’, then drop them off at the latest splatter flick, or leave them to their own devices while cruising the internet.
The paper routinely prints photos of horrendous car wrecks, dead animals, etc. and details of violent crimes and man’s inhumanity to man, but can’t bring themselves to print the word “bitch”, which was entirely in context with the rest of the strip.
After all these years, I continue to be baffled by the inconsistencies in our behavior. I certainly don’t understand the sudden and selective nature of the paper’s action, but I’ve written a letter of inquiry to them regarding the censorship.
My paper printed the strip, but they had warned readers that today’s strip would contain “strong language.”
However, in defense of newspapers in general, simply put, there’s a difference between “news” and “features.” An editor will print a news story with pictures or descriptions of acts so inhuman we wouldn’t even post them here, yet strip out a mild curse word from a comic strip or Dear Abby. It’s certainly not unique to newspapers. a radio station will bleep a song, and TV newscasts certainly or much more violent than an entertainment program on the same network.
Regarding comics specifically, they’re still considered by many newspapers (or many of their readers) to be the “kid zone.” If I were squeamish about Doonesbury (and I’d be much more concerned about the subject of this week’s scripts than about a relatively mild epithet) I would have moved it to the editorial page.
I have trouble understanding the editor who’d publish a strip in which a major character is shown just having had his leg amputated, but would balk at the next day’s strip, where the character realizes what has happened and screams “Son of a BITCH!”
Talk about splitting hairs…
They’re around 13th & L, actually.
I only know that 'cos I live in the neighborhood. No, really!
Get over yourself. Not every discussion is about the law. It is obscene, not in a legal sense but a moral sense, that we are losing young men and women in this pointless war.
What I don’t understand is the notion that the photos of the flag-draped coffins are “obscene.”
The war in Iraq is obscene. The coffins are merely the results of that obscenity.
A fine hair to split and a matter of perspective. Let me try to explain myself. The coffins represent to me the horror of what is happening to our men and women. They’re not just boxes with pretty flags of honor draped on them.
They’re containers filled with death, dismemberment, pieces and parts, gore and mayhem; with all that those poor people were and will ever be; with sons and daughters and fathers and brothers and sisters; with remembrance of searing and terrified last moments of life. The grief and horror emanating from these photos is palpable to me, as a veteran of another horror-fest of years ago.
Doonesbury is a comic strip.
We’re offended by a comic strip, but feel the coffins are justified. Any more questions?
Credit where it’s due, the Chicago Tribune printed the strip as is today. I thought it was entirely appropriate, as is showing the coffins. It’s harder to make a war into an abstract concept when you see the bodies or at least the caskets containing them.
I understand respecting the families privacy, by the way. I just don’t think lines of coffins like that are particularly private by nature.
[QUOTE=photopat]
Credit where it’s due, the Chicago Tribune printed the strip as is today.
[QUOTE]
The Trib’s comics are getting pretty depressing, with Get Fuzzy and Doonsbury BOTH having storylines about leg amputees from Iraq at the same time. I’m just waiting for the Boondocks to make that whole part of the paper a block of depressing.
Chefguy, if you’re referring to the horror-fest I think you are, I was only a toddler when all of that went down. But I’ve protested with men and women who were there with you, and having learned many things from them, I just want to say welcome home.
Secondly, regarding your latest post: preach it!
My local paper printed it on the Editorial page.
{In our local paper Doonesberry and Mallard Filmore are both on the OpEd page. Sort of a Point/Counterpoint, I suppose. The rest of the comics are one what I refer to as the Crossword Page–except for the Wizard of Id. For some reason the Wiz is always somewhere else in the paper. Not sure what he did to deserve it.}
I agree with Chef Guy. Not just the war in Iraq, but rapes and murders and child abuse galore, and we’re too pure to see the phrase “son of a bitch?” Makes no sense.
I guess you don’t recall all the coffin photos from WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, and Kosovo.
It used to be patriotic to have pictures of the coffins.
It’s only Bush who’s politicized it.
I think you’re missing my point. As in “completely”.
Pictures of coffins are patriotic? Is this some sort of joke? I hope you never have to evaluate that comment in the context of a friend or family member lying in one.
And believe me, I remember the coffins of Vietnam. They were loading them on the cargo plane next to the one I was getting on when I left Da Nang.