Stopped to light up a cigarette, and we dived into a doorway

[venta]

Warning. Rant approaching.

I've just been watching the NME chart show, which is on MTV2. Watching MTV2 over the past couple of years, I've been quite surprised occasionally by their use of pixellation. I'm familiar with faces of suspects in court cases being pixellated out. I wasn't hugely surprised to see hands pixellated out when when the hands were making rude gestures. I was amused to see the mouth of the girl in the Puddle of Mudd video She Hates Me blurred to prevent lip-readers being corrupted as she lip-synched to the chorus she fucking hates me.

But tonight pixellation has made me quite cross. Number one on the NME chart is The Libertines' swan-song Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads. The video shows two boys, aged about ten hanging out together, playing and generally pissing about after the fashion of ten year olds everywhere. They ride bikes, fight, hold spit races off a building, bounce on the furniture, and so on. One of them tries an experimental drag on a cigarette and - while still clearly visible - the image is pixellated. Later in the video they smash a telly up with sticks, throw furniture and a shopping trolley in a pond, and go shoplifting. None of these, however, are as evil as trying smoking.
Vandalism ? Fine. Stealing stuff ? Sure, no problem, just don't have a fag while you do it.

Now, I'm assuming that blocking out an image of smoking is mainly aimed at kids - they're not expecting the hardened 40-a-day brigade to be affected by a video of a kid smoking. I'm quite happy with the idea that children should be discouraged from smoking - after all, it's an expensive habit that can be potentially fatal. But instead they're making it mysterious - what's this pixellated image that's being hidden ? I remember being ten - nothing was as interesting as the things they didn't want you to see or hear. Smoking is too dangerous to show on telly ? Hey, it must be cool, let's try it!

I do wonder whether there are legal restrictions on showing an under-16 smoking. In which case, frankly, the relevant bodies should stick to their guns and make sure that people actually don't show it. Pixellation is a half-hearted sop - there's no room for any doubt at all that it's a fag in the kid's hand.

Comments

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Cigarette smokers should be banged up without mitigating circumstances or rules of war, I tells ya.

It really is silly.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

I can't remember what I was watching last week, but there was a pixellated cigarette. My (our? I'd swear there was somebody else watching, whatever it was) conclusion was that it wasn't just a cigarette, but must have been something a little more... wacky.

Not that that really makes any difference to the effects of pixellation, but it does provide legal protection against the station being accused of showing (and glamourising) illegal activity.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Also, even a fairly dim ten year old would have no trouble at all working out what was behind the pixels.

(You can tell the guy isn't just eating a Curly Wurly because nobody can bite off a piece that quickly !)

[(Anonymous)]

The cigar, in a TV documentary, was completely removed (not just pixellated) from the best-known picture of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. That is censorship.

[cuthbertcross.livejournal.com]

Um, smoking does make your legs drop off if you're diabetic. And most of 'em started at about ten. I appreciate the pointlessness of airbrushing out cigs, but don't underestimate how crap their effects can be.
Ok, rant over. Youngest amputee I've seen was 38..... so far.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Aye. I wasn't intending to make light of the potentially serious effects of smoking. I just think that it's unfairly demonised, given the potentially serious effects of (say) alcohol - which is still advertsied on telly and made to look cool.

Smoking is bad for you. It can be fatal and has horrible non-fatal side effects. People should know this. If they still choose to smoke I might think they're stupid, but I don't think they're evil.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Given that I'm aware that circulatory problems can necessitate amputation, "will make your legs drop off" was probably a bad choice of phrase.

I was thinking of Spike Milligan's story of the Bald Twit Lion who, in order to make all the other lions shave their heads, tells them that their legs will drop off if they don't.

[cuthbertcross.livejournal.com]

Ahhh! Didn't get the reference, sorry. Ying tong etc.... :o)

[marjory.livejournal.com]

Just to lower the tone...

On American TV they like to pixellate images of TV screens and any clothes with writing on them in case of copyright litigation. I also get quite amused when I watch crap on MTV and people are going into strip bars/ performing ridiculous stunts on jackass and their lower bits and hindquarters are pixellated BUT BOSOMS ALMOST NEVER ARE PIXELLATED! Is there an intelligent explanation for this?

Smoking will make your legs drop off, your hair, clothes and hands smell and your skin look like a monkey's pixellated parts...

[cuthbertcross.livejournal.com]

Boobs don't get pixellated cos the men who do the pixellating like looking at 'em, so they "forget". Can't blame them, really...

[marjory.livejournal.com]

That's it! Career-change coming up!

I now intend to seek work as a film-pixellator.

Take this as a herald of a new reign of televisual terror!

[casilda.livejournal.com]

What can I say...other than Bumular jewelry :)
and
Where is your Looooong hair on your LJ user pic? :)

Anticles of jewellry ?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Where is your Looooong hair on your LJ user pic?

It's there all right! Just hiding behind me, or cropped out of the picture. No photos of me with short hair really exist to speak of :)

[marjory.livejournal.com]

Now have intelligence that the film-editors maybe had already smoked too much in their lives.

I will stop commenting soon.

Promise.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I will stop commenting soon.
Nah, carry on :)