In today’s “For Better Or For Worse” as it was run in New York Newsday, April and her aspiring musician friends are practicing in the school band room, only to discover school bully Jeremy seated outside the door. When April invites him in saying, “We need an audience,” Jeremy replies, “What you need is a giant vacuum, loser…” and walks off in the fourth panel announcing, “Your music stinks.”
Not much of a knee slapper? Lynn Johnston have an off day? Well, not really. A closer look at the last word reveals that the letters between “s” and “k” have been erased, and the letters “tin” have been jammed in by a different hand with a darker pen. That’s right: The original punchline was “Your music sucks.” Which itself isn’t the height of hilarity, but at least prompts a smile, makes sense, and sounds like something a kid would say. Instead, thanks to the (and I use the word loosely) edit, Jeremy comes across like “Biff” in “Back to the Future” saying, “Why don’t you make like a tree and get outta here.”
“Zits” ran into all kinds of problems a few months ago when papers got their knickers in a twist over Jeremy exclaiming something sucked. This in turn provoked the Sunday strip wherein “sucks” was used repeatedly in all manner of utterly benign ways until the final panel that had Jeremy’s bellowing “This sucks!” obscured by black tape while his mother tsk-tsks over his language, rightly skewering the idiocy of banning this context from the comics pages. Apparently, though, it’s still a hot button issue. Or at least it’s a hot button issue when someone named “Jeremy” says it since that’s the moniker of both offending characters.
A quick check on line indicates that, indeed, the original punchline was “”Your music sucks.”
I’m not sure at what level this occurred. It’s hard to believe it transpired at syndicate level because, if Johnston had been told to change it, she could have at least rewritten Jeremy’s set-up line as well. “What you need is a giant skunk” or “a rotting body” or “air freshener” or *something* having to do with smell, so two strips could be provided in order to accommodate the faint of heart.
But in New York? We have faint of heart in New York? We’re usually the market that runs the strips everyone else in the country freaks out about. I’m just hoping this didn’t occur at the newspaper level and some schmuck in the Newsday editorial department took it upon himself to change Johnston’s dialogue. Because that would, y’know…suck. And possibly also blow.
Perhaps all the comic strip artists should get together and coordinate it so “that sucks” appears in every single comic strip. April 1, maybe. Or maybe March 15, the Ides of March. Call it “Suckfest 2004.”
PAD
• 
**If the newspaper was concerned that the strip would offend readers and therefore decided not to run that day’s strip, I would term that “editorial prerogative.”
If a newspaper editor is concerned that the strip would offend readers–or even found it personallyh offensive–and took it upon himself to alter the final product, I woujld term that “censorship.”**
Not surprisingly, I disagree, Peter. Both acts are “censorship”, just different extremes. On the other hand, while we do agree about the editor making SUSTANTIVE changes being wrong, we seem to disagree on what the term “substantive” means. Let’s suppose for example that the opposite had happened and Lynn had written “sOcks” instead of “sUcks”. My guess is that if you had heard about the change, you wouldn’t be making such a “sTINk”over the matter, and would probably be arguing that the editor was doing his job, even though basically he would be doing virtually the same thing, changing the spelling, and ultimately the interpretation of the joke.
See what I get for trying to be nice, Peter?
F you Craigy. F you
By the way Pete, good job. I use nicknames and you jump on me, he hurls insults and you let him get away with it…Godd job, setting a great example for your kids
Bladestar: See what I get for trying to be nice, Peter?
I have to ask, as an observer: At what point, and in what way exactly, were you “trying to be nice?” Was it when you continued using a nickname Craig made it clear he didn’t want you to? Or was it the part where you found another way to antagonize him after the host politely asked you knock that crap off?
You’ve been pretty extreme in your arguments in this thread, Bladestar, but that’s not a big deal until you decide to pick a fight with another poster, man. That ain’t cool.
Anyway, back to this:
PAD: If that person sends a strip out saying, “This is the latest installment of our strip,” then to me what’s implicit in that is: Run it, don’t run it, it’s up to you. But you don’t get to screw with the dialogue, pacing, or jokes.
I see what you’re saying, and even agree with it, but I have some devil’s advocate: can it be looked at as an editor buying the rights to present all those strips in his paper (I believe the paper pays the syndicate; please correct me if I’m wrong, anyone who knows) in the paper’s own idiom? I mentioned the “opinions presented here” disclaimer above, and I think it relates. The syndicate never gets complaints for offensive strips from readers, the paper gets those. Since the paper is the one that has to deal with the repercussions of presenting the work, couldn’t it be viewed as their prerogative to ensure that the presentation doesn’t damage their reputation or harm their business?
Consider it to be the lowest-common-denominator. The paper’s interest is in presenting material which offends the fewest readers possible. Assuming that everyone is offended by the same things (say, profanity) in different degrees, it’s in the paper’s best interest to use the tamest language possible at every opportunity. This attitude, of course, ignores the fact that some people are more offended by censorship than profanity, which I have honestly never seen as well exemplified as I have on this blog entry.
Of course, I’m not offended by censorship as much as the stupidity displayed by it. My aforementioned Kelly LeBrock example, E! Entertainment Television (why do they make shows that are little more than excuses to show tits only to blur the tits? They don’t have to do it; I called the FCC and asked. Their sponsors are unlikely to be offended, since the commercials aired during Wild On… and Howard Stern consist predominantly of Girls Gone Wild videos and other sexy products. There’s absolutely no reason for it), and of course this comic strip crap: all of these show no actual thought put into the decision to censor or the manner in which it’s approached.
Hey, HE was the one tossing insults, I merely gave him a nickname, there’s nothing unconstitutional about it. But then again, you are in favor of censorship when it suits you
Nekouken’s point raises an interesting question. “FBOFW” is translated into five languages besides English. I’m sure Johnston doesn’t do the translation herself; it’s probably done by someone at the syndicate.
Now, this definitely requires re-lettering the word balloons. And translation is always a matter of compromises; the translator can try to get as close as possible to the original, but “exact translation” is a myth. This is especially the case with wordplay.
The key point of the punchline is a colloquial insult which plays off a setup in the penultimate panel, and uses a term that might be considered offensive by some. The question is: If the translator chooses not to use a potentially offensive term in the target language, would that be considered censorship? Or does the need to retain the joke outweigh the need to retain the potential offense? If the translator has the choice between two equally workable idioms, one potentially offensive and one not, are they obliged to keep the potentially offensive version?
(Mind you, I think this is all academic anyway–the reader should choose how they feel based on the facts of the individual case, rather than having to figure out whether or not it’s censorship before deciding how to feel about it. If a newspaper chose to correct Johnston’s Canadian spelling and did it clumsily, that probably wouldn’t be considered censorship; would that make it less annoying? Ultimately, the only test that might matter lies in the syndicate’s contract with the newspaper; everything else is just personal opinion.)
Ok Doug, you’ve made we real curious…
Who here has seen one of the foreign editions of that edition of the strip and what did it translate to?
Bladestar: Hey, HE was the one tossing insults, I merely gave him a nickname, there’s nothing unconstitutional about it. But then again, you are in favor of censorship when it suits you
I never tried to censor you, nor do I care about who started the namecalling or anything petty like that. It’s something petty in an entirely different manner: you claimed you were “trying to be nice,” and from what I could see, you weren’t. You could be the innocent victim of Craig’s malicious attempts to impugn your stellar character, you could be Dr. Doom. In either case, judging by the posts you made after Peter asked you stop with the nicknames, you were not, in either of those posts, “trying to be nice.”
And I’m in favor of self-censorship (not an oxymoron — as I pointed out, censorship is not exclusively authority-driven nor is it implicitly evil), and I criticize the internal censorship of a privately-owned business’s publication (such as a newspaper) as absurd where applicable; there’s nothing wrong with it if it’s done with a modicum of intelligence attatched (which the primary example given, FBOFW, was not).
Baby went whining to Daddy, sure Petey, anything for you
Uh, no. No, Craig said nothing to me. See, what I’d like to see is a certain level of intelligence and style in the discourse here. I’m not exactly expecting the Algonquin roundtable, but something more intelligent than that level of needless condescension is preferable. And if you think your comment above qualifies as “trying to be nice,” then you are seriously deranged.
Which is a long way of saying what I say previously in a more succinct fashion: Do me a favor and knock it the hëll off.
PAD
I see what you’re saying, and even agree with it, but I have some devil’s advocate: can it be looked at as an editor buying the rights to present all those strips in his paper (I believe the paper pays the syndicate; please correct me if I’m wrong, anyone who knows) in the paper’s own idiom?
I’m thinking not. Idiom or no, I think the newspaper’s obliged to present the comic strip in the way that the artist wants it presented. To me it’s no different than a bookstore stocking a particular novel and tearing out a couple of pages featuring a sex scene because they’re worried it will upset customers. Stock it, don’t stock it, whatever. But don’t mutilate it.
PAD
I think the newspaper’s obliged to present the comic strip in the way that the artist wants it presented. To me it’s no different than a bookstore stocking a particular novel and tearing out a couple of pages featuring a sex scene because they’re worried it will upset customers. Stock it, don’t stock it, whatever. But don’t mutilate it. [PAD]
I absolutely agree.
OTOH, don’t I recall that there’s precedent for retailer mutilation across the tracks in the retail video-rental market? If memory serves, at one point Blockbuster Video was said to be doing some selective editing on certain of the movies it stocked in the interests of keeping excessively graphic material out of the hands of our impressionable youth.
And then after that brouhaha died down, there was a third-party vendor — with a right-wing religious affiliation, as I recall — doing much the same thing on a larger and more forthright scale (to the extent of inserting audibly over-dubbed dialogue in place of sufficiently dirty words, in almost exact parallel to what the local editors did to Lynn Johnston’s comic strip). Fortunately, I think the studios sued that company into oblivion….
If memory serves, at one point Blockbuster Video was said to be doing some selective editing on certain of the movies it stocked in the interests of keeping excessively graphic material out of the hands of our impressionable youth.
It isn’t Blockbuster’s job to edit content “on behalf” of our children.
That’s what parents and guidelines like movie ratings are for.
Blockbuster’s job, “on behalf” of our childre, is to not let children rent said movies to begin with, not edit them and THEN let children get their hands on them.
The sad part about movie editing is that it’s mostly context. You hear something that’s poorly dubbed, or even dubbed well, and you just know by context what it was supposed to be anyways, even if you haven’t seen the movie/tv show before.
And kids are just as smart at figuring this out.
I mean, take South Park… I think it’s even *funnier* by having all the bleeps and stuff and having Kenny’s voice be muffled since most of what he says is obscene anyways.
My brother once, when he was like 12 or something, came home with Baseketball (which was from the creators of South Park). The video store let him rent it in my name.
I’m like, what the hëll?
It turns out it was the manager of the store… that let a 12 year old… rent a near NC-17 movie.
PAD: To me it’s no different than a bookstore stocking a particular novel and tearing out a couple of pages featuring a sex scene because they’re worried it will upset customers.
Does this also apply to movies on television? I’ve already stated my own issues with this practice, but when a network bleeps or dubs a similar-sounding word from elsewhere in the film to cover one of the Seven Dirties or snips a bit of film for content, is this also tantamount to whiting out the punchline, or is there a mitigating circumstance? Or does it, perhaps, fall under the alternative ethics I posed for the comics page?
Keep in mind, the FCC only regulates network television between 6 AM and 10 PM and doesn’t regulate cable at all (save for “obscenity”), meaning that swearing and nudity are legal for broadcast outside those parameters.
Craig: I mean, take South Park… I think it’s even *funnier* by having all the bleeps and stuff and having Kenny’s voice be muffled since most of what he says is obscene anyways.
A related thing: Back when Adam Sandler came out with his first album, I heard the track, “Ode To My Car” on the Dr. Demento Show. I thought it was hilarious. Then I heard it on the album, and it wasn’t nearly as funny. Seems Sandler had a radio edit, with all the cursing covered up by car horn sounds. That song was ten times funnier when censored for content.
Another related note: The movie Crazy People with Dudley Moore and Daryl Hannah actually filmed a television-friendly version. I’m not sure about the swearing — I seem to think they filmed scenes with language twice, once with and once without, but I’m not positive about that — but there were two advertisements created by Dudley Moore that actually had TV-friendly copies made. A Jaguar ad that went, “For men who want handjobs from women they don’t know” aired as “… who want special attention… Ad copy from a horror movie was changed from “This movie will fûçk you up for life” to “… mess you up…” (The ad-man’s boss when the ad saw print: “How the fûçk did the fûçkìņg word “fûçk” get printed in the New York fûçkìņg Times?”) Those are really only funny if you’d seen the theatrical release version, though. If you haven’t seen it, you should.
“Four Weddings and a Funeral” also filmed scenes in theatrical and television versions (it was co-produced by BBC 4). In the script book, they comment that this had the ironic effect of creating more profanity in the world–“when the director was told after filming a difficult scene that he had to film it again for the TV version, his response was definitely not ‘oh bûggër.'” (Paraphrasing from memory.)
First of all, the word “censorship” does not, by definition, specify the government. It merely means keeping people from seeing or hearing something.
For an editor to change a cartoonist’s work may be an editorial decision, but it is an unauthorized compromise of the artist’s work, and it is obviously censorship as well, as that person is trying to keep that artist
Bladestar, I agree with you that it’s censorship, and that it is inherently evil. I too, find the “community standards” laws a bit dubious. However, your behavior towards others here has been obnoxious.
You claim that Craig was tossing insults toward you. That’s a lie. He never insulted you in the first post in which he addressed you . He merely criticized your behavior towards Janice, saying that it was not appropriate.
You claim that he ran to Peter to whine about this, which is another lie. What Craig actually did was address the problem to you, and he did so without imitating your behavior. What Peter said to you he said of his own accord. You also spoke condescendingly toward Janice regarding her “ignoring” you, even though she actually responded to your post.
I think you can express yourself far better than that.
I don’t see where I said Janice was ignoring me, and frankly I don’t care. The double standard around here is getting pathetic however.
He’s hurling inults over in today’s thread, read more than just one set of posts. I’m guessing the Craig here in this set of posts is the same over in the “whiny kids cry to PAD” thread of today…
DOuble standard is SOP on this site.
PAD and his cult can insult anyone and it’s fine.
Disagree adn throw the same insults back adn suddenly PAD and others convert a BLOG post on the web into PAD’s living room and he should shut the door.
Fine – you can shut it – but just know that you are being a coward that doesn’t respond and is only comfortable with one real voice.
I’m guessing the Craig here in this set of posts is the same over in the “whiny kids cry to PAD” thread of today…
Well, unlike you, I have nothing to hide by simply admitting I’m the same person that reads and posts under the same name for multiple threads.
Get over yourself already. The only whiner around here is you.
It might be a little late to post to this thread (so I got here late this week, so sue me) but all of this talk of changing words from the original to something less ‘offensive’ reminds me of something that occured during a community play that I was involved with (as a musician) some years ago. That summer they were putting on the play ‘Oliver’. As those who are familar with the play (and/or the book it was based on) know there is a line in there about how ‘. . . the Law is an ášš!” When they were rehearsing the scene where the line was supposed to be uttered I noticed that they had the actor not say the line at all. When I asked one of the folks running the show about it she said that they felt that the line was “inappropriate” for their community standards and they didn’t want their kids to hear such language for fear they’d think their elders endorsed the usage of that word (or words to that effect; I don’t recall what her exact phrasing was). Which I found rather ironic, since there was a scene earlier in the play (where Oliver first meets up with the Artful Dodger and Fagin and their gang) where one of the gang boys makes some smartass comment to Fagin and he responds with “Ah, go drink your gin!”
Chris
Censorship is censorship regardless of who does it.
Otherwise, how would one define the phrase “Self-Censorship”
If censorship required government action, then self-censorship could only occur if you were the government. That would make no sense.
Where the government figures in is whether or not it is constitutional in the United States.
The goverment is prohibited from censoring items by the First Ammendment. No other entity, including newspapers, face this restriction.
But when they do it, it’s still censorship.
Editorial Decisions and Censorship are synonyms. (Except for the positive and negative connotations.)
Editorial Censorship can be ok, or it can be stupid. Depending upon the circumstances. I’d say in this case, it was stupid.
Government Censorship is un-American. (Kinda like Ashcroft making sure nude statues are covered when he speaks….though I am sure there are people who wouldn’t call that censorship.)
1hi
i am a grandmother who loved Zits, as i have teenagers and it hit home, the talk the way parents acted, very real and can laugh at ourselves, especially shopping with mom, messy room, the way teens think, hope we can have it back in paper soon. I need the laughs, ty