Boiling Point: Nanny State Absurdity

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on September 8, 2008

You have to hand it to the Brits sometimes. First, taxation without representation. Bah! Then to curb violence they ban guns – violence increases, as do stabbings. They ban knives. What’s next, you might ask? I don’t know, let me chapter skip ahead in my copy of V for Vendetta. Censorship. Surely that isn’t – wait what? It’s already happening? Fanfuckingtastic! Way to go, England, you’ve done it. A little while back, while trying to find porn on the internet, we accidentally found a news story at Yahoo about how Angelina Jolie’s posters for the movie Wanted glamorized violence and guns, and as such, were pulled.

Cue Kevin Carr: What the fuck? Cue Robert Fure: RAGE RAGE RAGE. Seriously. What the hell, this is beyond my normally extraordinary comprehension skills. The article states that 17, yes, 17 (that is 3 less than 20, in case, like me, you’ve having trouble grasping it) people complained. I’m reasonably certain those 17 were all probably part of the same Church club or other such anti-fun nonsense group. The UK Advertising Standards Association had this to say:

“We acknowledged most viewers would understand the posters reflected the content of an action film,” the ASA said in a statement. “However, we considered that because the ads featured a glamorous actress, action poses, several images of, or related to guns and aspirational text, they could be seen to glamorize the use of guns and violence.”

Wow. Mm yes. Ok first, as mentioned, guns are illegal in Britain. So maybe they should make action poses and actresses illegal too. That will probably solve the rest of the problems. They even go so far as to say they know most people are intelligent enough to understand it’s just a fucking advertisement for a movie. Let’s be clear – the population of England is 50,762,900. Just England, excluding the rest of the United Kingdom. So lets do the math. 17/50762900 = OH SHIT MY CALCULATOR JUST BROKE. The number is so small I almost had to get out a text book to understand what my calculator said, because it’s doing some “e” to the negative some bullshit. I’ve cracked the code: .00000033. Or, .000033% of the population. By any accounting standards, that is zero percent. No one could round that up without being called a liar and fired from their job.

Is this a direction the world wants to go? So fucking few people being offended by something can get it removed? Any day of the week I could convince 30 friends to sign any petition I made up on a lark, and apparently in England that is enough to remove art, promotional advertisements, and who knows what else from public view. Am I alone or is this stupidest thing I’ve heard of in at least a week?

I’ve already boiled over at this kind of topic over Tropic Thunder protests, but this is beyond even that. At least there were hundreds, if not thousands, of upset people. This is under two dozen and the government becomes a giant, slobbering, apologizing pussy and hides, brow beating the studios and shaking a matronly finger at them. Give me a break. This is ridiculous, it’s a sham. This is beyond making me mad, this is offensive. That a government would dictate these completely harmless posters be taken down on a complaint of a statistically non-existent portion of the community. This is one strong step towards censorship. If a dozen and a half people can dictate this much policy, soon the government shall save them the cost of a stamp by just eliminating the questionable art to begin with! I’m for damned sure not alone on this one and I am at 451° Fahrenheit – well past my boiling point. In a special shout out to my easily offended friends, who hate guns (in movies) and violence (in movies) and sexy imagery (hopefully just in movies), I’ve included some extra Jolie Pictures. Enjoy.

What are your thoughts on this turn of events? The beginning of Government censorship? The collapse of reason?

Read more articles by Robert Fure