It’s not the lack of morals, it’s the nonsensical value-assignment to what is and isn’t appropriate to be shown on a website. I’m speaking of American media consumers nonsensical value-assignments–not HuffPo’s.
I appreciate the reply. If it’s a moral issue at all, and I don’t see it as such, it’s a pretty minor issue.
I feel like you’re conflating the morality of showing dead bodies with the morality of causing dead bodies.
To me, the answer seems fairly obvious. Take an average fifteen-year-old boy who’s been raised in a normal, healthy home. Is he at high risk of getting pulled into a life of violent crime? No. He’s normal and healthy, so there’s very little risk of that. Even if he plays Grand Theft Auto and watches The Matrix there’s very little chance that he’ll imitate what he sees.
On the other hand, is there high risk of him having promiscuous sex? Yes, because it’s part of fifteen-year-old nature to have a strong sex drive, potentially strong enough to override reason and lead the individual to risky behavior that he’ll regret later. Consequently it makes sense that many parents would want to screen their children from media that normalizes risky sexual behavior (and nudity is inherently associated with sex) while caring less about violent TV and movies. You may personally not agree with that reasoning, but I think you’d find it at least respectable.
Only if you accept the premise that seeing a tit or a penis will send a kid into hormonal overdrive.
I thought that the comic strip Get Fuzzy perfectly encapsulated this aspect of American culture after the Janet Jackson incident at the Super Bowl (2004):
Why are people more angry about the nudity than the violence?
I’m not sure it does. We’re talking about concerns about potential complaints and firewall blocks, not actual complaints and blockages. But I agree it’s excessive.
All the comments about advertisers’ concerns and fears of public backlash are missing the point. The basis for those concerns and fears is the American culture that sees any implication of sex as inherently worse than violence. “Oh my god, they showed a penis - a limp penis taking a piss, as opposed to a rigid penis doing sexual things, but still a penis!”
The nudity taboo is far stronger in the US than Europe. Or probably South America (at least Brazil).
If that’s true, then why was the gossip regarding this year’s Superbowl half time show all about an errant middle finger and not about the dancers gyrating, pelvises aloft, on the floor? Which one’s sexy and which one’s violent?
The only gossip I heard about the Super Bowl halftime show was how badly it sucked.
I would argue that anything with non-alcohol/tobacco/caffeine is much, much more taboo.
How many scenes with rich businessmen have you seen and how many have been blowing lines of cocaine?
How many scenes with people have you seen and how many of them are smoking joints?
The middle finger is violent? It’s “Fuck you” Yeah, an agressive form of sex, but it’s the sex that is the cringe inducer, not some unspecified violence. I’d argue it’s the “fuck” part that gets people worked up rather than the imperative command. Whereas the gyrating and flopping about can be passed off as “dancing” and whatnot. Hey, I’m not saying American culture makes sense.
A strong public nudity/sex taboo does not preclude other taboos.
Nudity, I would argue, is not inherently associated with sex; if only because I would tend to say that nudity shown as part of pissing on gorily dead bodies strips any possible sexual meaning to be found. It’s neither a correct nor a respectable argument.
I at least thought this was damn funny.
There is no inherent association of nudity with sex, that’s a good part of the problem right there. There may be an inherent association of sex with nudity (though you can have sex clothed), but nothing about nudity is inherently associated with sex. It’s Victorian-ish prudishness that equates nudity with sex and considers a flaccid penis more of a no-no than graphic violence. Of the ‘naughty bits’ penises are the biggest no-no, think of how many vaginas you’ve seen in R rated movies compared to the number of flaccid penises.
That’s true, but if ITR champion’s argument is true (and I do agree with it), it leads to a *general * taboo on showing nudity in public. So even though this specific instance has nothing to do with sex, the fact that it shows penises, and we are hesitant to show penises overall because they are *often *associated with sex, it means they get censored. Yes, ideally if we evaluate each situation on its own merits we might come to a different conclusion, but media companies are not known for their subtlety of thought.
Isn’t there a general taboo against dead bodies (or, for that matter, gore) in public too, though? Even in news reports on war or suchlike, they tend to be pretty careful about what they show along those lines. Doesn’t them showing the bodies already indicate they’ve evaluated this situation on its own merits, or show some subtlety of thought?
It shows they evaluated showing dead bodies to be graphic but acceptable with a warning, but showing fuzzy limp penises to be too graphic to show even with a warning.
Precisely. I find that indicative of the general mindset of the American public, and I don’t really get it (the general mindset, not the HuffPo decision; which was, AFAICT, made because they anticipated this wacky mindset).
What evidence do we have that people actually would have been more offended by the penes? Does it not make more sense that HuffPo is being overly cautious due to agreements they’ve already signed? An advertiser doesn’t usually have to worry about dismembered bodies showing up in stories, as few people want to ever see those, but nudity is something that could show up pretty easily. So they have rules against the latter and not the former. And HuffPo didn’t think it was worth upsetting the rule that is obviously stupid in this context when they could just blur or obscure the problem.
Hopefully I’m making sense. I think it’s more likely just a quirk from advertisers wanting to avoid being used on pornographic sites, and being overly broad with their language to guarantee this doesn’t happen. I don’t think the average American finds a penis more offensive than a dead body.
The only real moral issue is that HuffPo did not think this was such a travesty that it was worth risking anything over.