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>beheadings are at least as controversial as nudity From one internet stranger to another, and with all due respect: bullshit. We as a society positively fre

>beheadings are at least as controversial as nudity From one internet stranger to another, and with all due respect: bullshit. We as a society positively freak out over nudity and drop our middle-school kids off to see violent movies without even thinking twice. To claim differently is to either a) appeal to an exception that does not represent the overall social norm b) be disingenuous (which I don't think is your case, to be clear) or c) not even be aware of the problem, as advanced by the parent comment. To say the American populace (again, on the aggregate level) is both desensitized to violence and hyper-sensitive to nudity is a massive understatement, one which can be directly traced to our puritanical roots. Seriously, this is like saying America doesn't have a problem with gun violence. It's so patently and obviously false that it borders on comical. (I again feel compelled to mention that I mean absolutely no disrespect. I just couldn't disagree with you more.)

weberc2 10y ago
Or, you know, d) I thought we were talking about actual beheadings (e.g., ISIS promo videos) and not theatrics.
- omginternets 10y ago
  The theatrical dimension doesn't change much. That's how strange the US is in this respect. The amount of censorship for "real" violence is virtually nonexistent, contrary to the amount of censorship applied to sex, real or otherwise. Do Americans censor "real" violence more than theatrical violence? Possibly. Do they censor "real" violence less than any form of nudity? Yes. You can show Braveheart or a video of a street mugging to a bunch of 8-10 year old kids at school but you can't show them a movie where (god forbid) a pair of tits appears on screen. At the very least, the uproar will be an order of magnitude larger for the boobs as compared to the violence. And once again, this is not the norm around the world. The US is special.
  - drstewart 10y ago
    >And once again, this is not the norm around the world. The US is special. Really? Have you been to the Middle East, or is your definition of "the world" a handful of western European countries?
    - omginternets 10y ago
      Fair enough. I was referring to the first world, and specifically the Western world. The point remains. The US is a very special case in this respect. I would further argue that even with the middle east involved, such an ascetic rejection of nudity is hardly the norm across the world. But that's still addressing a tangential (and, I think, pedantic) point.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - pessimizer 10y ago
      Just because many other cultures have a prudishness about nudity doesn't make our particular prudishness about nudity a universal value, and ours isn't similar at all to the Middle East's. Our censorship arrangement is uniquely our own.
  - weberc2 10y ago
    > The amount of censorship for "real" violence is virtually nonexistent So the ratio of social networks that permit ISIS beheading videos to those which don't is very high in your estimation? How about in the newsmedia--are there very many major U.S. news publications that depict the full gore of these beheadings or no?
  - nonce42 10y ago
    Some random thoughts on the US movie situation: For teens, it sort of makes sense in a way to restrict portrayals of sex more than violence. The average teen isn't going to decide to murder someone after watching a movie, but very possibly could decide to have sex. It seems like movies have a monopoly on socially acceptable portrayals of nudity. Nobody raises an eyebrow if you go to a mainstream movie with a nude scene. And actresses can show breasts in movies, but would cause a scandal if a nipple showed happened in real life. Once I started thinking about how much violence is shown in movies, I realized that it really is a crazy level. Just count the murders in a typical action movie and compare to real life. (Interestingly, rapes are portrayed very very rarely in movies.) I'm not suggesting censorship of violent movies, but doesn't it seem like maybe there's a bit too much?
    - tdkl 10y ago
      > but very possibly could decide to have sex. Oh the horror. Perhaps if sane sex ed was wide spread[1], that would be a non issue. Like in EU. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/08/sex-education-requirement-maps_n_5111835.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/08/sex-education-requi...
      - sp332 10y ago
        Sex in movies is usually not "sane sex ed", and that's GP's argument for not showing it.
        sir_smurf 10y ago
        I would guess that he/she means that if there was sane sex ed in school, then seeing people having sex on tv wouldn't make kids have unprotected sex any more than seeing violence on tv would make them go around killing people.
    - serge2k 10y ago
      > but very possibly could decide to have sex. This is the idiotic prudishness that people are talking about. Teenagers aren't going to have sex because a movie has boobs in it. They are going to have sex because they want to have sex. It's basic biology. Educate them and encourage them to make good/mature choices.
  - serge2k 10y ago
    > You can show Braveheart or a video of a street mugging to a bunch of 8-10 year old kids at school but you can't show them a movie where (god forbid) a pair of tits appears on screen. Braveheart is rated R. We did get to see scenes from an R rated movie in grade 10, but it was the opening to saving private ryan while we were studying WW2. I'd argue that violence like that in context is more acceptable. 15 year olds are also much better prepared. The thing that's really ridiculous is the swearing. The Walking Dead has gratuitous violence, but they can't say fuck because that would hurt advertising revenue. It's ridiculous.
  - weberc2 10y ago
    > You can show Braveheart or a video of a street mugging to a bunch of 8-10 year old kids at school but you can't show them a movie where (god forbid) a pair of tits appears on screen. Braveheart has nudity and violence, and we don't allow 8-10 year olds to see it.
- smokeyj 10y ago
  Yet we make no distinction between theatrical nudity and actual nudity.
  - webkike 10y ago
    ...what is the distinction? Both are "actual" nudity. Nudity is nudity.
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      A theatrical work that showed a woman wearing one of those "naked lady" t-shirts wouldn't be treated the same as a theatrical work that showed a naked woman.
      - pessimizer 10y ago
        Except in America, where the t-shirt would definitely be censored.
    - smokeyj 10y ago
      And violent depictions are violent. I wouldn't recommend Kill Bill to a child because the gore isn't real.
      - Dylan16807 10y ago
        Violence is bad because of people getting hurt, not because they're getting red liquids all over. Fictional and real violence have a huge difference in who gets hurt. Fictional and real nudity are largely the same thing.
        Noseshine 10y ago
        > Fictional and real nudity are largely the same thing. Yes - and they are the same as the fictional stuff in your first part. Meaning nobody gets hurt, it's just "there". Nothing breaks or is torn to pieces or shredded or crushed. > Fictional and real violence have a huge difference in who gets hurt. Same with fictional violence and nudity - and for the latter it does not matter, as you pointed out. Nobody is going to be hurt in either case.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  If you're talking about ISIS, I don't see any distinction being made between showing ISIS beheadings or just people who support ISIS talking; both are equally censored. ISIS mass beheadings and burning of people alive are shown on prime time news programs up until the instant of the first cut, and until moment the flame is actually lit, and people speaking in support of ISIS are shown without subtitles, and interpreted by newsreader copy. Talking about ISIS beheadings isnt't the same as talking about beheadings, the fact that it is propaganda being distributed by a force declared as the enemy complicates the matter. Also, prosthetic nudity and artistic depictions of nudity are censored too, so I'm not sure of the effectiveness of the distinction you're trying to make. If what you're trying to say is that we don't censor special effects violence just as we don't censor special effects nudity, it's simply not true.
nommm-nommm 10y ago
No middle school kid is going to get into an R rated movie if they are dropped off and not escorted by and adult at all times.
- harryf 10y ago
  That's some serious security control you imagine there...
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    Eh? I wasn't let into R rated movies unaccompanied in high school. Most of the time when we snuck in after buying a ticket to another movie we were caught. They'll come around asking for your tickets during the film if they suspect you are underage or didn't pay or whatever.
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      Where did you grow up, Soviet Russia? I wasn't even one of those "mall rat" kids, and most of the time I went to the movies with friends we switched to a different screen.
      - nommm-nommm 10y ago
        Well the suburban malls didn't care for "urban" kids taking the bus to the mall even if they weren't causing trouble. They eventually just flat out banned anyone under 18 from entering the mall without a parent, seriously, the mall cop stands at the entrance and IDs young looking people at the entrance. That was after I turned 18 they started that policy though. When I was about 24 I got IDed at the entrance to the mall and I was so disgusted by it I never wanted to go back (not that I ever want to go to the mall in the first place)
        jessaustin 10y ago
        Haha I don't think I've ever been an age at which going to a mall was worth getting IDed. Movie theaters in indoor malls suck anyway, like most things about indoor malls. (In USA, anyway, I once went to a mall movie theater in Philippines and it was awesome.) Even so I'd say the mall you're describing was particularly authoritarian. Most malls in USA couldn't afford a guard at every entrance.
kj01a 10y ago
>We as a society positively freak out over nudity and drop our middle-school kids off to see violent movies without even thinking twice. How many people do you know that actually do this? The parents I know that were okay with their kids seeing violent moves were equally okay with their kids seeing nudity.
- omginternets 10y ago
  >How many people do you know that actually do this? Too many to count. FFS, you're responding to an article about Facebook censoring nipples! ;) More seriously, I envy you. Where do you live? I might move there.
serge2k 10y ago
A beheading in a movie isn't a real beheading. I would venture a guess that most people would be upset if an ISIS beheading video was shown to their children.

weberc2 10y ago

Or, you know, d) I thought we were talking about actual beheadings (e.g., ISIS promo videos) and not theatrics.

omginternets 10y ago
The theatrical dimension doesn't change much. That's how strange the US is in this respect. The amount of censorship for "real" violence is virtually nonexistent, contrary to the amount of censorship applied to sex, real or otherwise. Do Americans censor "real" violence more than theatrical violence? Possibly. Do they censor "real" violence less than any form of nudity? Yes. You can show Braveheart or a video of a street mugging to a bunch of 8-10 year old kids at school but you can't show them a movie where (god forbid) a pair of tits appears on screen. At the very least, the uproar will be an order of magnitude larger for the boobs as compared to the violence. And once again, this is not the norm around the world. The US is special.
- drstewart 10y ago
  >And once again, this is not the norm around the world. The US is special. Really? Have you been to the Middle East, or is your definition of "the world" a handful of western European countries?
  - omginternets 10y ago
    Fair enough. I was referring to the first world, and specifically the Western world. The point remains. The US is a very special case in this respect. I would further argue that even with the middle east involved, such an ascetic rejection of nudity is hardly the norm across the world. But that's still addressing a tangential (and, I think, pedantic) point.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - pessimizer 10y ago
    Just because many other cultures have a prudishness about nudity doesn't make our particular prudishness about nudity a universal value, and ours isn't similar at all to the Middle East's. Our censorship arrangement is uniquely our own.
- weberc2 10y ago
  > The amount of censorship for "real" violence is virtually nonexistent So the ratio of social networks that permit ISIS beheading videos to those which don't is very high in your estimation? How about in the newsmedia--are there very many major U.S. news publications that depict the full gore of these beheadings or no?
- nonce42 10y ago
  Some random thoughts on the US movie situation: For teens, it sort of makes sense in a way to restrict portrayals of sex more than violence. The average teen isn't going to decide to murder someone after watching a movie, but very possibly could decide to have sex. It seems like movies have a monopoly on socially acceptable portrayals of nudity. Nobody raises an eyebrow if you go to a mainstream movie with a nude scene. And actresses can show breasts in movies, but would cause a scandal if a nipple showed happened in real life. Once I started thinking about how much violence is shown in movies, I realized that it really is a crazy level. Just count the murders in a typical action movie and compare to real life. (Interestingly, rapes are portrayed very very rarely in movies.) I'm not suggesting censorship of violent movies, but doesn't it seem like maybe there's a bit too much?
  - tdkl 10y ago
    > but very possibly could decide to have sex. Oh the horror. Perhaps if sane sex ed was wide spread[1], that would be a non issue. Like in EU. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/08/sex-education-requirement-maps_n_5111835.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/08/sex-education-requi...
    - sp332 10y ago
      Sex in movies is usually not "sane sex ed", and that's GP's argument for not showing it.
      - sir_smurf 10y ago
        I would guess that he/she means that if there was sane sex ed in school, then seeing people having sex on tv wouldn't make kids have unprotected sex any more than seeing violence on tv would make them go around killing people.
  - serge2k 10y ago
    > but very possibly could decide to have sex. This is the idiotic prudishness that people are talking about. Teenagers aren't going to have sex because a movie has boobs in it. They are going to have sex because they want to have sex. It's basic biology. Educate them and encourage them to make good/mature choices.
- serge2k 10y ago
  > You can show Braveheart or a video of a street mugging to a bunch of 8-10 year old kids at school but you can't show them a movie where (god forbid) a pair of tits appears on screen. Braveheart is rated R. We did get to see scenes from an R rated movie in grade 10, but it was the opening to saving private ryan while we were studying WW2. I'd argue that violence like that in context is more acceptable. 15 year olds are also much better prepared. The thing that's really ridiculous is the swearing. The Walking Dead has gratuitous violence, but they can't say fuck because that would hurt advertising revenue. It's ridiculous.
- weberc2 10y ago
  > You can show Braveheart or a video of a street mugging to a bunch of 8-10 year old kids at school but you can't show them a movie where (god forbid) a pair of tits appears on screen. Braveheart has nudity and violence, and we don't allow 8-10 year olds to see it.
smokeyj 10y ago
Yet we make no distinction between theatrical nudity and actual nudity.
- webkike 10y ago
  ...what is the distinction? Both are "actual" nudity. Nudity is nudity.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    A theatrical work that showed a woman wearing one of those "naked lady" t-shirts wouldn't be treated the same as a theatrical work that showed a naked woman.
    - pessimizer 10y ago
      Except in America, where the t-shirt would definitely be censored.
  - smokeyj 10y ago
    And violent depictions are violent. I wouldn't recommend Kill Bill to a child because the gore isn't real.
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      Violence is bad because of people getting hurt, not because they're getting red liquids all over. Fictional and real violence have a huge difference in who gets hurt. Fictional and real nudity are largely the same thing.
      - Noseshine 10y ago
        > Fictional and real nudity are largely the same thing. Yes - and they are the same as the fictional stuff in your first part. Meaning nobody gets hurt, it's just "there". Nothing breaks or is torn to pieces or shredded or crushed. > Fictional and real violence have a huge difference in who gets hurt. Same with fictional violence and nudity - and for the latter it does not matter, as you pointed out. Nobody is going to be hurt in either case.
pessimizer 10y ago
If you're talking about ISIS, I don't see any distinction being made between showing ISIS beheadings or just people who support ISIS talking; both are equally censored. ISIS mass beheadings and burning of people alive are shown on prime time news programs up until the instant of the first cut, and until moment the flame is actually lit, and people speaking in support of ISIS are shown without subtitles, and interpreted by newsreader copy. Talking about ISIS beheadings isnt't the same as talking about beheadings, the fact that it is propaganda being distributed by a force declared as the enemy complicates the matter. Also, prosthetic nudity and artistic depictions of nudity are censored too, so I'm not sure of the effectiveness of the distinction you're trying to make. If what you're trying to say is that we don't censor special effects violence just as we don't censor special effects nudity, it's simply not true.

nommm-nommm 10y ago

No middle school kid is going to get into an R rated movie if they are dropped off and not escorted by and adult at all times.

harryf 10y ago
That's some serious security control you imagine there...
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  Eh? I wasn't let into R rated movies unaccompanied in high school. Most of the time when we snuck in after buying a ticket to another movie we were caught. They'll come around asking for your tickets during the film if they suspect you are underage or didn't pay or whatever.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    Where did you grow up, Soviet Russia? I wasn't even one of those "mall rat" kids, and most of the time I went to the movies with friends we switched to a different screen.
    - nommm-nommm 10y ago
      Well the suburban malls didn't care for "urban" kids taking the bus to the mall even if they weren't causing trouble. They eventually just flat out banned anyone under 18 from entering the mall without a parent, seriously, the mall cop stands at the entrance and IDs young looking people at the entrance. That was after I turned 18 they started that policy though. When I was about 24 I got IDed at the entrance to the mall and I was so disgusted by it I never wanted to go back (not that I ever want to go to the mall in the first place)
      - jessaustin 10y ago
        Haha I don't think I've ever been an age at which going to a mall was worth getting IDed. Movie theaters in indoor malls suck anyway, like most things about indoor malls. (In USA, anyway, I once went to a mall movie theater in Philippines and it was awesome.) Even so I'd say the mall you're describing was particularly authoritarian. Most malls in USA couldn't afford a guard at every entrance.

kj01a 10y ago

>We as a society positively freak out over nudity and drop our middle-school kids off to see violent movies without even thinking twice. How many people do you know that actually do this? The parents I know that were okay with their kids seeing violent moves were equally okay with their kids seeing nudity.

omginternets 10y ago
>How many people do you know that actually do this? Too many to count. FFS, you're responding to an article about Facebook censoring nipples! ;) More seriously, I envy you. Where do you live? I might move there.

serge2k 10y ago

A beheading in a movie isn't a real beheading. I would venture a guess that most people would be upset if an ISIS beheading video was shown to their children.