book-banning in the U.S.

[mortalterror]

Completely agree with you Bien. There are decency standards on the public airwaves.

HBO isn't just about nudity, profanity, and violence Virgil. There's a lot more to it than The Sopranos, Deadwood, and Rome. In addition to Real Time With Bill Maher, they have a variety of intellectual and downright artsy programming. The Angels in America, Band of Brothers, and John Adams mini-series all came out of HBO. They also regularly adapt pulitzer prize winning plays into films for television such as Dinner With Friends or W;t. It is a watershed and refuge for out of the norm and experimental televised art, a place where risks are still taken.

[OrphanPip]

List of the 100 most challenged Books between 1991 - 2000 for those who were curious.

The most confusing appearance on that list is Where's Waldo at 88.

[Virgil]

HBO isn't just about nudity, profanity, and violence Virgil. There's a lot more to it than The Sopranos, Deadwood, and Rome. In addition to Real Time With Bill Maher, they have a variety of intellectual and downright artsy programming. The Angels in America, Band of Brothers, and John Adams mini-series all came out of HBO. They also regularly adapt pulitzer prize winning plays into films for television such as Dinner With Friends or W;t. It is a watershed and refuge for out of the norm and experimental televised art, a place where risks are still taken.

I'm not disputing that. What's that got to do with banning? HBO bought the rights to those programs. It doesn't mean they were banned from regular TV.

[Red-Headed]

Actually I thought everyone was originally talking about the kind of petty censorship that happens in libraries when redneck conservative Christian demands they remove Heather has Two Very Excited Daddies or liberals want books removed from library shelves because it caricatures or is belittling to a racial group (yes, liberals censor too).

I think that there are two debates here, one of the pettily tendentious fringe (Christians, fundamentalists, etc) & the other of the possibilities of some form of corporate censorship. Both are worrying.

[Quark]

HBO isn't just about nudity, profanity, and violence Virgil. There's a lot more to it than The Sopranos, Deadwood, and Rome. In addition to Real Time With Bill Maher

Never use the words nudity and Bill Maher in the same paragraph, mortal. Oh, that's unpleasant.

As for the issue, I have to agree with mortal that the ratings system can unfairly push good entertainment out of the public eye. The argument has been made so many times that's it's almost banal now, but I guess it's worth repeating that ratings systems employ very superficial standard to the shows and movies they come across. Sometimes it's merely a quantitative measure of how much blood in a firefight is seen or how many thrusts in a sex scene occur. A good example of the system's shortcomings is actually the movie "Obsessed"--a so bad it's good movie starring Beyonce (really, it's hilarious). A woman--not Beyonce--sexually assault the protagonist several times in one-hundred minutes, but the movie received a PG rating merely because it wasn't graphic enough. If a nipple had escaped during the rape scene (okay that part probably wasn't hilarious), maybe the movie would have a drawn an R. As it is, almost anyone can walk into a theatre--although, this was probably straight to video--and see some pretty disturbing things. Meanwhile, tasteful nudity or poignant violence gets put on a high shelf above everyone's head.

That's the usual jab at America's rating system, and there's something to it. Sorry for the unoriginal thought, but I had to do something to get the mental image of an X rated Bill Maher out of my head.

[Dinkleberry2010]

xxxxxx

[Dinkleberry2010]

bumped