plebcomics
About Censorship

This whole business about which forms of censorship are good and which are not remind me a lot of a “Simpsons” episode, namely episode 22: Itchy & Scratchy & Marge. If you have some free time you can watch it here. It should take about 20 minutes.

Quick summary: Marge discovers that the violent cartoon Itchy & Scratchy is influencing Maggie into commiting acts of violence, she begins a protest so the show is changed into something that isn’t so violent. A lot of concerneparents join her and ultimately do get the cartoon changed into something that sends of care and friendship.

The show is incredibly dull, and kids quickly lose interest, they go play outside and everyone’s lifes are better for it.

Later, Michelangelo’s David is set for a tour across the USA, and when its time for it to go to Springfield the same group of people that changed the cartoon rally again and ask Marge to lead them agains the “obscenity” that is the sculpture, for it is naked.

Marge being an artist herself is actually in support of the showing of the sculpture, and believes everyone should go see it. When people begin to question how it is that she supports one form of artistic expression and not the other, the cartoons go back to being what they were before and life returns to normal.

As The Simpsons were quite controversial when it started, it could’ve been really easy for the team to just make an episode of “Screw Censorship” and be done with it, but they bring up some very interesting points during the episode

Point is, you should never try to impose your worldview on others, even if what you think the others enjoy is garbage or harmful.