You lucky, lucky people.
I shouldn't be up right now.
I'm having one of my periodic bouts of Bad Tummy. I need my sleep.
What is it with me? I turn 18, and my stomach decides that, periodically, it's going to give up processing my food, and instead, it decides to turn into a food luge.
But that's more than you needed to hear, right?
LOCO TAMBIEN
By Matthew Craig.
The Sainted Mother is enjoying these things more and more as time goes on. She suspects that it's because my writing is getting...calmer, I suppose. Less vitriolic.
I, on the other hand, am enjoying re-reading these missives less and less, for precisely the same reason.
One man's meat is another man's dogshit taco.
This is not a new debate for me.
I took part in a remarkably frank discussion on the net last week.
(regular readers will recall that I mentioned this webchat on the front page; it was the one where I kept my cool, while many of the other participants reduced themselves to fits of expletive-riddled apoplexy - they took a radge with each other)
Ostensibly, it concerned a comic called "Alias," about a private detective with some serious personal problems. The first issue is due out next week (and I suggest you buy it). It contains some sophisticated themes, some fruity language, and an apparently graphic sex-scene. I say "apparently," but from what I've heard, it's all tastefully done, and is about as graphic as an episode of EastEnders.
But, obviously, it wasn't tasteful enough. The printers (based in Alabama) decided that they were going to pull the plug on the issue. They weren't going to print it. Marvel Comics, the publishers of Alias, moved the whole shebang to a printers works in Canada, with no significant loss of time on the narrow schedule.
Of course, the fact that it was pulled at all sucks. It sucks like a blow-job-powered vacuum cleaner.
The reasons mooted by the online community (gossiping like a group of oul' fishwives, the lot of us) ranged form the language used (there are a lot of "Fucks" in the comic), to the interracial nature of the sex scene (the detective is a white woman, the other party being a black man). My favourite theory is that it was dumped because it was a comic book.
Because comics are for kids, aren't they?
Leaving aside the question of some Yahoo in Alabama having no right to dictate what I can and can't read, I was interested in some of the justifications people offered for this travesty. I mean, of course the printer has a right to print what they want, as long as they can find enough business. But this sets a dangerous precedent. Or invokes one that we thought had gone by the wayside, depending on how you look at it.
But that's not the point. The point is, somebody else's personal opinion, while valid, often interferes with stuff that I enjoy. And that fucks me off. I don't force my opinion on...okay, this page aside...anybody else, do I? I don't think so.
Although, I think the sainted Mother would disagree. Some of the programmes she watches are unintentionally hilarious, and I tell her so. Probably spoil it for her.
Sorry, Ma.
Censorship happens al the time. When they show movies to legions of sweaty fools all across America (or "test audiences," as they are more properly known), that's one form of censorship, right there. Movies will be reshot or reedited according to the wishes of these unqualified critics. I suspect that's why the good guy always wins, and the bad guy tends to die a lot, usually by falling off the top of a building. Stories are changed to make them more popular, and presumably, more bankable. Happy, simple, satisfactory endings are more "popular" than unsatisfactory or unresolved ones.
Snobbish it may be, but I don't want some dumbass rewriting a movie because he doesn't like to see the baddie win.
An example of how sometimes people can be a little ignorant: The Madness of King George III had to be renamed in America, because the test audiences were asking where the first two films in the series were.
People like this should not be allowed to alter the endings of their own sentences, let alone somebody else's story.
And this is my point. People need to tell the stories they want to tell, the way they want to tell it. These stories also need to made available for the audiences they are targeted at in an intelligent and responsible way.
In a previous View, I talked about how my favourite animated show, Futurama, was cut to ribbons by Channel 4 television. They had cut out all the ribald humour, which left the show full of obvious (and rather jarring) holes.
Jokes (and a big part of the story) were sacrificed because Channel 4 had bought the show for a family audience, and had to comply with some arcane ITC (Independent Television Commission) regulations.
(if you're interested, the brief correspondence between Channel 4 and myself is here)
Bender. Sitll a bit miffed.
As I've mentioned before, Futurama is a show that appeals to all ages, like the Simpsons. To my knowledge, other shows in the same slot aren't tinkered with, and go out with all gags intact. This includes shows like Hollyoaks, which deals with more adult issues, and Friends, which is wall-to-wall sexual farce.
That an all-ages show is censored is bad enough. But to censor one show, when others of similar or more extreme content go out uncut, then that, as you can see, pisses me off. Worse still, when Children's programmes (SM: tv Live, which has a lot of...how can I put this..."boundary testing" moments. Not mention the number of men who watch it for the female co-presenter) go out with more risque content, you have to ask questions.
Like, "What the FUCK is going on?"
What is it in the regulations that causes Futurama to be butchered so?
My theory (Thank God, we're near the end!) is this, and it ties into what I've been saying all along:
It's preconceptions.
Preconceptions that cartoons = children = childish mean that things which step outside this boundary are penalised or ignored. And there's no need for it. It's patronising to the audience (younger viewers won't pick up on the more adult-oriented jokes, because, well, they won't get the references). It's insulting to the creators. And, above all, it's unnecessary.
What's next? Five-minute edits of "Taxi Driver," in order to fill that early-evening slot?
TV companies need to have faith in themselves and their producers to produce and label material as appropriate. They also need to have faith in their audience. We know what we can watch. we know what we can show our kids. The ITC regs are a guideline as much as anything, but they shouldn't be used an as excuse. A station that showed a satire on the coverage if paedophiles in the news media that they knew would incite a public row about censorship in the media shouldn't be hiding behind the regulations when a cartoon sitcom comes onto the schedule. The fucks.
I get bothered by these things because they impact on me personally, but the general principle applies. I don't believe in censorship. I believe in knowing your product and your audience, but having the courage to let them decide for themselves what's appropriate for them.
I'm pretty sure that doesn't contradict what I said about American test audiences earlier.
It's a cult of mass marketing versus personal creativity. And it destroys creativity. But when did creativity ever come into the business of making money, right?
Last example, I swear: the Blanding of Dan Dare.
Dan Dare is a pre-WWII comics character from this side of the Atlantic. And like most boys heroes of the time, he was handsome, upper middle class, and in the Armed Forces. The star of Eagle magazine (in many incarnations), Dan was the Pilot of The Future, identifiable by his long chin, jagged eyebrows, and fat, bumbling sidekick (Digby). A science fiction hero predating Kirk, Skywalker and the Doctor, Dan Dare had been in retirement since the 1990's (oddly enough, the era in which his original stories were set).
Dan is coming back in the near future, updated for the New Millennium (TM).
Enter the marketing boys.
They took various designs to the streets, and consulted with the General Public. Which, presumably, consisted of some children in a school in London, not five minutes from the agency's office. Several different designs were shown to these kids, who may or may not have represented a cross-section of the young British public.
And what they came out with was a bland, vanilla-flavoured non-entity.
Gone were the distinctive eyebrows. Likewise the Bruce Forsyth jaw. He looks about as distinctive as an Action Man.
1950's
2001
Captain Scarlet! He's In - Oh, I'm sorry. My mistake...
Danny Boyyyyy, the Pipes, the Pipes are playinnnn'
The changes go further. The animated Dare has a lovely neutral Estuary English accent. And the sidekick, once a proud Northerner, has a Cockernee accent to make Dot Cotton proud! Can't have those horrid Northern inflections crossing the Atlantic, can we? The American market, obviously as important as Jesus, will need subtitles! I can't wait to see his plucky, feisty female love interest. And the weird (in the classic sense of the word) Mekon, villain of the piece and leader of the Venusian Treen. I'll bet he'll be less dome-headed and more human-looking. Can't scare the kiddies, can we? And no-one will die, and when the space-ships blow up, everyone will escape in pods, and...so on.
Look. I'm all for updating things. Especially science-fiction, which needs to be further ahead all the time these days. And it's not the changes I'm angry about (although most of them are badly judged).
It's this creation by committee I'm concerned about. Using marketing, which is vulnerable to selective bias (Kids are fickle enough, but when they don't care about something - and why would they care about some idiot in a suit coming to them with character model sheets? - it's easy to make them change their mind: "Come on, sonny. Don't you think those eyebrows look a bit silly?"), is a shoddy way to refine your design, when it's supposed to be something creative. It makes a mockery of the creative purpose.
You can understand why these marketing types want to do this, though. They want to appeal to as wide a range of people as possible. In theory, it'll make more money for them. But instead of achieving that, all they can do is create something that won't inspire much in the way of enthusiasm in anyone. The most people will say is, "well...it's alright, I suppose..."
And they may as well be showing Tom and Jerry reruns.
You can't please all of the people all of the time. And you shouldn't have to try.
Matthew Craig, the Original (arguably) & Best (ditto), September 1st, 2001 (more or less).
Note added in Proof: having visited the New Dan Dare website, I'm a little less cynical about it than before. The cartoon looks okay, at least. The characters are a bit generic, but I guess sometimes marketing works. A bit.I stand by what I said, though. The weirdest change I could see is that the Mekon looks really, really tired. Odd, I know.

Also, I no longer have the shits. Yay me.
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