Tag: censorship

View from a Rhino House: “Dear God, will nobody think of the children?”

A State judge in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has confiscated copies of the “mummy-porn” trilogy “Fifty Shades of Grey” & other erotic books from stores, & has ordered booksellers seal the novels to prevent children “leafing through them” (like after the adults have finished they don’t just “fall open” at the juicy parts – 😄).

Police & Court officials in the Rio town of Macae seized over 50 books including a dozen copies of the “Fifty Shades of Grey” series by British author E.L. James after the shops broke rarely enforced Brazilian laws by failing to conceal erotic images & content deemed inappropriate for under-18s.

Officials will return the books if the bookshop proprietors ensure they are sealed before being put back on display (by which time they will be well thumbed, no doubt, & bearing some very dodgy-looking stains).

The judge, Raphael Baddini de Queiroz Campos, from the local family tribunal, acted after finding a group of children gathered around a window display at one of the town’s bookshops where “erotic content” (?) was on display, the Rio de Janeiro justice service’s web site said.

Good to know that someone with a nice name is looking-out for the kids in the favelas, but what will happen if they get schools & actually learn to read?

"I don't know what it's about I can't read either.... But I think Elizabeth Taylor was in the film."
“I don’t know what it’s about I can’t read either…. But I think Elizabeth Taylor was in the film.”

Penis poster protests

A prominent Vienna museum has decided to cover the “intimate parts” of three naked male soccer players on big posters put up in the Austrian capital after they caused an outcry.

“We got many, many complaints,” Leopold Museum spokesman Klaus Pokorny said about the public display of the placards used to advertise its “Naked Men” exhibition due to open on Friday.

“We didn’t realise that many, many people would be really upset or really angry in a way that we are also afraid about security, about protection of the visitors of the museum.”

He said a red paper stripe would be used to hide the genitalia on roughly 180 large posters in Vienna. But smaller posters with the same motif would not be touched during the work which he expected to start on Tuesday and last about a day.

“Many people told us that they wanted to or had to protect their children,” Pokorny said. Some had warned that “if we won’t cover it they would go there with a brush and they would cover it with colour. Already somebody did that.”

Pokorny added: “We are not really happy about the situation. You always hope that we have made progress, that we are now in the 21st century.”

Full story at Reuters here.

It’s not just a ball game….