A Censored Pleasure
March 18, 2007
I woke up this morning with the idea firmly rooted in my mind and I just had to write about it. Sitting at my kitchen table with a bottle of water beside me, trying to ignore the construction noises coming from across the road, I'm thinking how much things have changed in the past few years. These changes found their way into the movies as well.
A few days ago I went to watch a much anticipated movie named "300". Watching a movie at the cinema, especially a movie inspired from history, where men know how to fight and honor is not a word taken lightly is even more enjoyable than your average gangster flick, in my opinion. So there I was, in my comfortable red chair, with a bottle of water handy (I never go anywhere without a bottle of water, the heat makes me very thirsty), waiting with increasing impatience as the screen is filled with trailers advertising upcoming Thai movies; they're so many that by the time they're finished I forget what movie I came to watch in the first place.
Then the lights dim and I take a sip of water before I allow myself the pleasure of being swept away into the world of Sparta.
As the movie progressed on the screen, we come to a love scene and….wait! What is that, I ask myself although I knew perfectly well what it was but my mind seemed too amazed to accept it so quickly. The image was deliberately blurred, totally obscuring the chest of the woman who would otherwise be naked from the waist up. I exchange a look with my husband who is as baffled as I am.
The movie continues, the story unfolding, and we come to another scene where a young lady portraying an oracle is writhing on the floor in some sort of divine trance, wearing nothing but a transparent flowing dress and the usual blur over her breasts. Her nipples were showing (I actually saw that in the trailer and it wasn't censored) and we can't have that on the screen, no sir, it's not proper. I don't know if I should laugh or get angry but in the end I settle for a bit of both and the result is exasperation.
The funny thing is that as I watch the movie and this time another woman appears in a scene, she is bare breasted and chains hang from her pierced nipples, and yes, I can see it very well because this part is not censored. Now I'm confused, but trying to make sense of it all I notice that this particular lady had more or less a straight face and wasn't in the throes of ecstasy, in fact nobody was touching her. Strange logic if you think about it…we can have naked women on the screen as long as they're not….you know…having sex.
The guys who censored the movie had no problem with the naked man filmed from the back. Apparently there's something about nipples that shouldn't be seen.
At the end of the movie I felt a bit cheated, more so since I've been living in a country that is famous for its sex industry, where the guy selling bread in the supermarket is wearing lipstick and blush, like an actor who forgot to wipe his make-up after the play is over, and where transsexuals, transvestites and gays of all colors cohabitate in harmony.
Wouldn't you say that blurring a woman's breasts in a movie is a bit out of place to say the least? What are we, children watching movies under the supervision of our parents?
Coming home that night I turned on the TV only to find, to my delight, that "Lord of the Rings" was on and since this is one of my favorite movies I sat down to watch it. Imagine my surprise when I saw one of the main characters having a smoke and….a blur over his pipe! I have watched this movie on TV countless of times and never before did I see that blur there or anywhere else in the movie.
There were times, now that I think of it, in a movie, when the blur would be placed on a knife held at someone's throat or even a gun. The amazing thing is, this is not a rule. Some movies have no censored parts and others do, even though both feature guns or sex scenes or knives.
Am I wrong to try and find the logic in this? Or should I just follow the principle that some things cannot be understood but have to be accepted nevertheless?
We all have stories to tell. Sometimes we bring them forth and sometimes we keep them buried. Here are my stories. I hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. 
