Old news, by now...

[senoritafish]

(but of course, being me, I didn't finish it while it was still timely...)

*snort and massive eye-rolling*

When they started calling Tinky-Winky a gay symbol (because he was purple, carried a purse, and had a triangle on his head), I went right out and got a toy of him for Angus. I already have a houseful of SpongeBob, and Angus dressed up as him for Halloween. Honestly, don't these people have anything better to do than assign orientations with sinister agendas to essentially non-sexual cartoon characters?


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/20/politics/20sponge.html?th

Conservatives Pick Soft Target: A Cartoon Sponge
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Published: January 20, 2005

WASHINGTON, Jan. 19 - On the heels of electoral victories barring same-sex marriage, some influential conservative Christian groups are turning their attention to a new target: the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants.

"Does anybody here know SpongeBob?" Dr. James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, asked the guests Tuesday night at a black-tie dinner for members of Congress and political allies to celebrate the election results.

SpongeBob needed no introduction. In addition to his popularity among children, who watch his cartoon show, he has become a well-known camp figure among adult gay men, perhaps because he holds hands with his animated sidekick Patrick and likes to watch the imaginary television show "The Adventures of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy."

Now, Dr. Dobson said, SpongeBob's creators had enlisted him in a "pro-homosexual video," in which he appeared alongside children's television colleagues like Barney and Jimmy Neutron, among many others. The makers of the video, he said, planned to mail it to thousands of elementary schools to promote a "tolerance pledge" that includes tolerance for differences of "sexual identity."

The video's creator, Nile Rodgers, who wrote the disco hit "We Are Family," said Mr. Dobson's objection stemmed from a misunderstanding. Mr. Rodgers said he founded the We Are Family Foundation after the Sept. 11 attacks to create a music video to teach children about multiculturalism. The video has appeared on television networks, and nothing in it or its accompanying materials refers to sexual identity. The pledge, borrowed from the Southern Poverty Law Center, is not mentioned on the video and is available only on the group's Web site.

Mr. Rodgers suggested that Dr. Dobson and the American Family Association, the conservative Christian group that first sounded the alarm, might have been confused because of an unrelated Web site belonging to another group called "We Are Family," which supports gay youth.

"The fact that some people may be upset with each other peoples' lifestyles, that is O.K.," Mr. Rodgers said. "We are just talking about respect."

Mark Barondess, the foundation's lawyer, said the critics "need medication."

On Wednesday however, Paul Batura, assistant to Mr. Dobson at Focus on the Family, said the group stood by its accusation.

"We see the video as an insidious means by which the organization is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids," he said. "It is a classic bait and switch."

Apparently, even Stephen Hillenberg has said, "Sponges are genderless. Get over it." He did major in marine biology, so he knows these things.

And somehow I feel these are related:

Via Neil Gaiman's blog - Greek thoughts on US objection to the Olympic opening ceremonies

Athens chief fumes at US lewdness claims
Mon Jan 17, 2005 07:45 PM GMT

By Karolos Grohmann

ATHENS (Reuters) - A clutch of complaints by U.S. viewers that the Athens Olympics opening ceremony featured lewd nudity has incensed the Games chief, who warned American regulators to back off from policing ancient Greek culture.

Gianna Angelopoulos warned the Federal Communications Commission watchdog, sensitive after a deluge of outrage when singer Janet Jackson's breast was exposed at a Super Bowl game, not to punish NBC television that aired the Games.

Male nudity, a woman's breast and simulated sex were the subjects of shrill complaints about the opening ceremony on August 13 which were posted by the FCC on its Web site.

"Far from being indecent, the opening ceremonies were beautiful, enlightening, uplifting and enjoyable," Angelopoulos wrote in a weekend commentary in the Los Angeles Times titled "Since When is Greece's Culture Obscene?"

"Greece does not wish to be drawn into an American culture war. Yet that is exactly what is happening," she said.

Complaints focused on a parade of actors portraying naked statues. Among them were the Satyr and the nude Kouros male statues, both emblems of ancient Greece's golden age.

Created by modern Greek dancer Dimitris Papaioannou and broadcast in the United States by NBC, the opening ceremony was credited with giving the Games a vitally successful start.

HISTORY OF EROS

"We also showed a couple enjoying their love of the Greek sea and each other. And we told the history of Eros, the god of love. Turning love, yearning and desire into a deity is an important part of our contribution to civilisation," Angelopoulos said.

The FCC, whose authority only extends to U.S. media, has said it is looking into complaints, nine of which were listed on its Web site, but it was not clear whether a formal investigation would be launched.

Angelopoulos, who said the handful of U.S. complaints were dwarfed by the 3.9 billion people who watched the ceremony, had a blunt message.

"As Americans surely are aware, there is great hostility in the world today to cultural domination in which a single value system created elsewhere diminishes and degrades local cultures," she said in her commentary.

"In this context, it is astonishingly unwise for an agency of the U.S. government to engage in an investigation that could label a presentation of the Greek origins of civilisation as unfit for television viewing."

An FCC spokesman was not immediately available for comment on Monday, which is a public holiday in America.

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

He says:

I thought this story was fascinating. I wonder if it'll get to the point where the US media doesn't cover things happening in the rest of the world, from fear of seeing nipples or hearing bad words. (Given some classical Greek traditions, I can't help feeling that Olympic viewers got off easy.)

I think it's already that way, to some extent.

And:
Does this offend you?



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16857-2005Jan17.html

FOX edits out a butt-crack -

No Ifs, Ands or Butts: Fox's Bottom Line

By Lisa de Moraes
Tuesday, January 18, 2005; Page C01

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 17

Cartoon baby nudity is out at Fox, as the network tries to guess what the Federal Communications Commission would consider lewd, Fox Entertainment President Gail Berman told TV critics yesterday.

"FCC guidelines are not clear; we are now second- and third-guessing ourselves," Berman told a gaggle of critics after her Q&A session at Winter TV Press Tour 2005.

The Griffins of "Family Guy," including little Stewie, have had to cover up in the post-Janet Jackson TV world. (Fox Broadcasting)
Fox felt it had to pixelate the bare bottom of animated tot Stewie in an episode of "Family Guy" that aired a couple of weeks ago. (It did so in a Christmas ornament reflection.) When Fox ran the episode about four years ago, before Janet Jackson exposed her breast at the Super Bowl, endangering the moral fiber of American youth, it did not blur the shot of Baby Stewie's behind.

Fox also pixelated the bare backside of Stewie's dad, Peter, in a recently rerun episode, and obscured the backsides of the family's nudist neighbors in episodes rerun over the summer opposite NBC's coverage of the Olympics in Athens. You know, the same Games that may get NBC slapped with an indecency fine from the FCC for showing, among other things, replicas of ancient Greek statue nudes.

"We did it because it came right after we were cited for indecency," Berman said of the decision to pixelate Stewie's posterior, explaining that the network had to protect its stations from the FCC. "It was at a time when we had just been cited in a situation we also didn't feel was indecent."

She's referring to the FCC commissioners' unanimous vote last fall to fine each of the 169 Fox TV stations $7,000 for airing bachelor party scenes in the reality series "Married by America." The total fine came to nearly $1.2 million -- the biggest fine ever levied against a TV broadcaster, beating the previous record of $550,000 that the FCC had slapped on CBS-owned stations just one month earlier over Jackson's appearance during the Super Bowl halftime show.

"Even with Fox's editing, the episode includes scenes in which partygoers lick whipped cream from strippers' bodies in a sexually suggestive manner," the FCC said of the "Married" episode.

Another scene featured a man "on all fours in his underwear as two female strippers spank him," the commission said, noting that although the episode electronically obscures any nudity, "the sexual nature of the scenes is inescapable."

I thought maybe it was Quagmire, but no, it was baby Stewie! Seems like a cartoon baby's rear end is whole different animal than a couple of topless strippers.

It's a simple curved line in a cartoon, people. Frankly, anyone getting offended by a butt-crack in that show should have been more offended by the rest of the content in the first place. I could, but then I understand and enjoy satire - which those who are complaining probably don't. And they'd better not hire a plumber.

Although FOX didn't go the effort that Funimation did with DragonBall Z. They actually digitally moved trees and bushes in the background around to block a character's potentially offensive nudity, and in one post-fight scene where a naked Gohan (naked because he had transformed into a giant monkey, and his clothes just weren't very stretchy*) has fallen down on an unconscious Vegita, they actually edited in a strip of Vegita's ripped pants leg, folded up to cover Gohan's bare butt. I remember thinking at the time I watched on Cartoon Network, that that was an awfully strategic coincidental tearing of clothing. It wasn't until I saw the unedited version on the International Channel (for which my husband thought I was nuts, because it didn't have subtitles, and I don't speak Japanese**) that I realized what they had done. I continue to be confused by this. Cartoon Network regularly shows Dexter (Dexter's Lab) and Ed, Edd n Eddy without pants. And Dr. Venture in the Venture Brothers. Funimation also edited out cigarettes, colored mugs of beer blue, and removed a lot of blood, because they were marketing it to kids and it was a prime time show in Japan (I believe). In any case, it was the company's decision, not the network's.

*speaking of this, if the Incredible Hulk had been dreamed up in Japan or Europe, do you think he would have got to keep his pants when he transformed?

**except for a few words I picked up when I spent a month on a Japanese longliner - "Shichi tara, dozo!" (Seven cod, please! - and I have no idea whether that's correct or not), to which the crew would reply "O-K!" and put aside some fish off the longline for me to sample.

Ok, I'll shut up now.