You woke up this morning

[austin_dern]

nikonraccoon asked about this: HBO Singapore is finally showing Sex and the City.It is, near as I can figure out, the ``tame'' edition shown on TBS. Last year Channel 5 had a ``tame'' version of The Sopranos I hadn't guessed existed. Parts of scenes were replaced with takes featuring softer cuss words and more concealed strippers. They had fuzzier audio and video, as in the ``I'm surrounded by morons!'' alternate scene from Spaceballs.

I imagine the Media Development Authority web site gives exact rules, but Singapore web sites are not designed to let people find information. Censorship rules seem to demand child-safe shows before 10 p.m. -- so Friends, The West Wing, and Greg the Bunny are on as late as midnight -- and extremes of sex and violence are right out. Fargo, for example, loses the shooting of the parking attendant, though we see the aftermath, and the wood chipper scene seems intact. Sex jokes are oddly restricted: on Late Night with Conan O'Brien (occasionally on CNBC) the Masturbating Bear may visit, be described, be conversed with, but you won't hear the Saber Dance. Eye for a Guy, which I think is two words short of its U.S. title, runs annoying ads that fall short of saying what's on the show.

All this does leave me with one of my cherished trinkets, a Video CD of 2001: A Space Odyssey with its sticker certifying it's been passed by the Singapore Board of Film Censors, I imagine on an easy day of work.

Trivia: Mariner 10 had a bandwidth of 118,000 bits per second of TV data and 2,450 bits per second of non-imaging science and engineering data. Source: The Voyage of Mariner 10: Mission to Venus and Mercury, James A. Dunne and Eric Burgess. NASA SP-424.

Currently Reading: Quest of the Three Worlds, Cordwainer Smith.

Comments

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I guess we all have our comfort level with regard to censorship. I wouldn't be able to deal with that, even though I'm fine with the level of censorship we have here in the U.S., which seemed excessive to Lucky when he arrived from England ("they pixellate naked breasts?!").

(Of course, the weird thing about England is that TV is raunchier, but they have oddly restrictive rules about films, like their anti-nunchuck fetish.)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Really? I don't think the standards are all that different from the U.S., actually. They're more relaxed about Cuss Words -- though it still startles me to hear them on afternoon or evening movies -- and the treatment of sex and violence is a touch more prudish than the U.S., though I don't think drastically so. Sometimes the cuts are clumsy, mind. I also don't watch many movies that get particularly intense, though, so the censorship is probably more obnoxious for (say) Matrix Revolutions than for Thunderpants.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Looking back at your post, I suppose it doesn't seem like anything you mentioned was all that different. I guess I was just surprised by hearing that something like "Friends" has to be shown late at night.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It makes for an interesting split in programming ... before the 9:30 p.m. news, you get Singapore's Brainiest and Jake 2.0 and Monk; after the barrier you get Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and The Amazing Race. I'm not sure I get what's adult versus non-adult there, but there is a divide.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Two words short and one word altered, Austin: it's 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' on Bravo/NBC. (Which I've seen only one episode of, and couldn't get into: It's a mish mash of Date Patrol plus While You Were Out plus What Not To Aear- nonwithstanding the hammy acting.)

You get Greg the Bunny? Lucky Coati. That one vanished fast from American TV.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

A lot of U.S. shows get over here, usually up to a half-year or more after they run in the U.S. -- but they do run things British-style, going straight through all the episodes without rerun weeks and the like. I made a mistake on Greg the Bunny -- I thought they were running it weekly, when they were running it Monday-to-Friday, so only saw three episodes. Too bad; there was a lot that was appealing in it.