Cartoon Censorship: Good or Bad?

1. The pool of blood was a brief scene.
2. There were no limbs being torn off left or right.
3. No head decapitation.

Plus the content served the purpose of showing how dangerous a gun can be if handled unproperly, so whatever intensity there is is offset by the content being tastefully done.



Censorship shouldn't have to be done at all. It compromises the story and the vision that the creator has for the show/movie.

Take Batman Beyond Return Of The Joker. The reason for Batman swearing off sidekicks and the reason for Tim's feeling of torment is that he purposely took the life of another person (the Joker albeit and with a gun no less). Whereas in the unedited version, he merely tries to subdue the Joker and accidently kills him. Therefore it's hard to really buy that Tim feels haunted by his actions.

I suggest the DVD treatment for the safe family because they're telling the network to alter the show to conform to their needs, whereas the family of the mature kid chooses programs that fit their need rather than forcing their standards on others.
 
Now for something completely different

Well personally I think that Cartoon Censorship is bad, just not in terms of violence, but more other fields. Sure some of the way that other races were portrayed in some old WB, MGM, Disney Cartoon may not be funny to a certain group now, and with PC growing ever so mainstreamed, people are more offended because it gets to them. I don't see the point in cutting scenes out with racial stereotypes just because it offends a certain group now. To me it more a part of our history that we can't ignore, we were racist back then, we continue to be racist and it being portrayed in cartoon, and you know what? It will happen in the future as well. I know that down the line most of the lines taken at people of the Middle East will be removed from Cartoon and other thing just because.


Violence, Just as long as there is a grasp that something like Jerry hitting Tom with a Mallet being fine 10 seconds later is Cartoon violence, while in real life, depending on how hard you hit, you might be knocked out. At a young age, like 5-7, I think I had a good grasp at what was consider between Cartoon Violence and Real Life violence, that and the consequences, IE getting shot at will not produce holes like swiss cheese in real life, rather you will either be hospitalized, or worse killed. My parents allowed my siblings and I to watch R-rated movie, shows that were consider MA at the time, and play M-rated Video games at a young age, and I think we all turned out fine.
 
I was really sensitive to stuff as a kid. You know what I'd do when I saw something scary on TV?

I'D TURN OFF THE TV AND TALK TO MY MOM ABOUT IT!

Nobody forced you to watch Gargoyles as a kid. If it made you that uncomfortable, you should have been able to stop yourself.
 
Censorship is never a good thing. EVER.

Note however, that censorship and self-restraint are not the same. Self-restraint for target audiences is a different idea altogether.
 
Maybe it's just me, but I thought that the Joker getting electrocuted in RoTJ was pretty shocking (sorry) and at least as intense as what happens to him in the uncut version. I mean, was the censored alternative really any better? My philosophy is that art and entertainment should be presented uncut, and then we get to take it or leave it. Very fair, no?

On parents: Maybe you can't monitor everything all the time, but I think you can research programming and know what to expect and then be able to set limits. So far as Deadly Force goes, I always thought it was an extremely good and responsible episode. A kid sees that and instantly understands that handling a gun is bad news. Granted, I wasn't super young when I saw it for the first time, but still. It was violent, but just enough to make the point. I think it exercised the self-restraint that Beat speaks of.
 
I say WB did the right thing with their censorship. As for programming, such content should had never been created in the first place.
 
But who decides that? Surely, it should be the marketplace? You get on a troublesome road when you start saying that there are things that you shouldn't be allowed to write and cannot portray in art. Where does that end?
 
ARCANE censorship is bad (for example, changes mandated by network BS&P are often arbitrary and political rather than based on offensive content).

Like I've said in an earlier thread, censorship is as far away from an exact science as people can get, and nothing can ruin a cartoon quite like subjective censors (well, there's also terrible writing, but that's neither here nor there)
 
Now the thing that gets me is that if television is suppose to be safe and wholesome, why sitcoms are allowed to feature the main characters behaving poorly.

I'm not crying out for sitcoms to be banned from television, just playing the devil's advocate.

For instance, many kid characters will often backtalk their parents without even so much as a grounding. Or they may do something like messing up their parent's car (covering it with paint) only to get sent to their room.
 
If I even so much yell at my parents, I get the whipping of a lifetime. :sweat:

The reason why playgrounds suck so much now just became so much clearer...and it's not because I'm a teenager. There's more rubber all over the place, no wonder.
 
My point exactly. Tweencoms shows a parent to be completely unfazed by back talk. Not even a stern "watch your tone",

Restating some earlier points I've made, there are a few couple of Disney movies which are "wholesome", but playing the devil's advocate, there are some objectionable things to be found from them:

1. Max Keeble's Big Move: Can encourage kids to participate in food fights as the main character received no punishment for it.

2. The Lizzie McGuire Movie:
a. Character fakes sick to get out of a class field trip.
b. Character goes around in a foreign country with a boy that she doesn't know.
c. Character commits the crime of identity theft/fraud. Which I understand is illegal.
d. Negative sterotype/depiction of blonde girls.

How the movie is deemed appropriate with those points I have no clue, but hypocracy in censorship at it's finest. And here's the punchline. After doing all three of the aforementioned actions above, Lizzie's punishment you ask? She's grounded for the rest of the summer. Pretty mild penalty for committing a crime I have to say.
 
You can kill people off in kids shows. The last-second DEM finale wasn't because of censorship, it was because of writing.

Censorship is only an issue when the writers don't know how to get around it... shows like Batman, Justice League, TMNT2K3, W.I.T.C.H., and others have gotten away with a lot (death/murder, rape, what have you); you just need some creativity and finess?, is all. One can argue censorship helps writers be creative, as the case of Timm/Dini and John K are evident enough.
 
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