Egyptian girl strips to protest; western media censors her photos

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Right, because the drag on Sci's reputation here is not the blatant trolling and flame posts, but Fraggle's distaste for such.

 

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for you bells http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTD7kELMRPM

 

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I think the title of the thread is misleading and it even affects the OP. Her blog was not censored. The photos, per se, were not censored. I don't think this is censorship issue in that sense.

The muddled ideas about how much body a women gets to show in Western society, that is highlighted here.

 

It's the point of the title of thread and the OP. I just joined the discussion.

Because we are more terrified of the issues raised by sex than we are of those raised by violence.

I assume, if one came at it via the link.

Or did they actually censor her blog?

see above. And note, my answer is my sense of why it is this way, not my approval of it being this way.

 

I didn't see one of them. I'll let you guess why.

 

Well, you are entitled to your opinion. Even if it is utterly asinine.

There's nothing wrong with nude art. There's nothing wrong with her photograph. It is not pornographic. There is nothing at all wrong with a *gasp* full frontal nude woman. It is not immoral to look at her. Every day any woman walks around without a Burka that woman is taking away other people's choice NOT to see her nude face. Walking around without a Burka in public is making a "Dictatorial" choice FOR others. "Ooooohhhh my virgin eyes have been de-flowered! I saw some ankel and a cheek bone!" *rips out eyes*
That's asinine

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The ONLY argument that can be made is that someone may be fired for seeing a nude image at some draconian employer's discretion. Unfortunately, some places may confuse nude art with pornography. As a comprise I have "hidden" two photos. One a photo of Aliaa and another of a photo of a nude statue.

Spoiler

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Spoiler

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That's interesting. I don't think we are TTYTT. I think we're more terrified of violating taboo. The fear of being ostracized for violating religious taboo. Seeing a nude??? I don't think that is all that terrifying. Violence OTOH, that is terrifying. Innately terrifying. Arts, like Aliaa, I think they're attuned to that (whether well thought out or otherwise) and they know somethings' wrong with society and they want to see it changed, righted. I think she's very brave. In a way 20 year olds sometimes are.

 

Society for the Suppression of Vice

Luckily someone stood up a hundred years ago and said: WTF?!?!

 

Yes and we blur out genitals or hair or shoulders because impressionable young people should not be exposed to skin, but violence is literally poured down everyone's throats

Why don't we have a taboo on violence?

Do you know Fraggle I do believe you are missing the point here. Care to argue about the legal basis of forcing women to veil in Saudi Arabia as well? Its not about whether they censored ONLY Aliaa's photos. I picked the Daily Mail, which is NOT an American newspaper, btw, but an English one. The irony is that the difference in censorship of the nude female body - which, after all, is the WHOLE PURPOSE of Aliaa's stripping - is a matter of degree. So no matter how many nude European films are out there, no matter how many topless beaches or page 3 models, when it comes to a simple 20 year old saying, the human body is not obscene, you don't find any media except the internet which will agree with her, and we already have rules on the internet where people can lose their jobs if they even read about her protest because there are obscene body parts accompanying it.

So how long do we have this freedom left on the internet? And when that is taken away, where will Aliaa strip to protest?

And what about the flip side of it? What if a woman wants to cover up? Is it then justified to have laws that forbid her to cover up?

The flip side of Aliaa in Egypt is Princess Hijab in France. She expresses her protest against the suppression of women's right to choice by painting veils on adverts

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Its not just women in Egypt who are forced to conform

 

Not Quite ....

Nope.

American gore is controversial. Like Julie Jacobson's photo of an American Marine mortally wounded in Helmand, Afghanistan. Showing the realities of war is apparently disrespectful to our troops.

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Disrespectful? Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard, mortally wounded Aug. 14, 2009,
at Dahaneh, Helmand, Afghanistan.​

Americans are so hypocritical about their prudishness that while the news media is anxious to show the body of Col. Qadafi, reporters had to fight the Bush administration to show photographs of the caskets of American soldiers coming home to their final rest.

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Controversial? Such pictures were deemed by the Bush administration
to be too invasive for American dignity.​

____________________

Notes:

Associated Press. "Associated Press says photo of Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard shows realities of war". St. Petersburg Times. September 4, 2009. TampaBay.com. November 22, 2011. http://www.tampabay.com/incoming/article1033549.ece

Mackey, Robert. "A Glimpse of the Iraq War That Cost a Military Contractor Her Job". The Lede. February 11, 2009. TheLede.Blogs.NYTimes.com. November 22, 2011. http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/20...-war-that-cost-a-military-contractor-her-job/

 

I don't think that's about prudishness Tiassa, it is the same reason why they fudge the numbers of civilian deaths or report all deaths as insurgents or militants even when its kids they are executing. Thats about morale

 

Apparently it's easier this way

Perhaps, but that only underscores the point, I think. After all, if reality is too great a burden for morale ...?

Of course, maybe that's the point of showing a dead Bin Laden or Qusai Hussein, as well. And in that case, well, suddenly the idea of censoring nude female breasts makes sense. It's bad for morale if people are merely distracted from the wars.

• "The bullets were flying, fast and furious, and maybe he would have made it home if he hadn't stopped to stare at the dead woman's breasts ...."

• "Kill 'em! Kill 'em all! Kill those goddamn towelheads and let God sort out the parts! Kill .... Oh, hey! Titties!"

• "I pledge allegiance to the flag of ... boobies!"

• "This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am ... holy gazongas, Batman! Did you see those?"​

You know ... now that I think of it, the problem isn't hypocrisy. It's that you somehow expect Americans to make sense.

That's the whole point of being a world-dominating empire. When you're in charge, you don't have to make sense.

 

I'm not sure how this became about Americans except that Arthur is one and we were discussing his right not to be confronted by nudity - the American press is actually far more prudish than the EU one. The Abu Ghraib pictures for example, appeared in Salon, not CNN and there are no blurred breasts in the US news media, because they have only her headshot.

The National Press Photographers Association Code of Ethics states that the “primary goal” of the photojournalist is the “...faithful and comprehensive depiction of the subject at hand.” and yet not one of the mainstream newspapers showed the pictures of prisoner abuse and there is not a single newpaper which will show Aliaa's protest. Michael speaks of desensitisation to violence but I disagree, how many times have we seen this picture?

Moderator warning: The following image is from Vietnam. It shows a man about to be shot in the head at close range.

http://johnryanrecabar.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/picture51.jpg

Anyone desensitised yet?

Pictures are powerful which is why Aliaa's protest has acquired a global dimension - to me the fact that NO ONE outside the internet can reproduce her protest indicates how widespread is the issue she brought to the fore.

 

That isn't quite what you said.
You said you'd ban her worthless ass.
You also said she was a lying, cheating, intellectually dishonest manipulator.

Most of the time, you are even-tempered, but when the subject is religion,
your brain goes AWOL.
Maybe you would be best avoiding threads that discuss the subject.
If you weren't an administrator, you would probably be banned yourself for the above inexcusable ranting remarks.

 

Well then, we disagree. There might well be some rollback against the general tide, but that doesn't mean the tide isn't coming in. As I commented before: in which previous media incarnation would they have printed such a picture? Or even given the link? I think you might argue that it's static within certain reaches, but I don't see it becoming more conservative overall.

Well, how much of the society are we talking about here? The society au complet? I don't believe you could argue that it was anywhere near so uniform and widespread. Also, what corresponds to 'hissy fit'? That the nipple wasn't shown?

I've never counted the rape threads so I couldn't say if they were indeed limitless, and anyone suggesting that a woman deserved such handling is a pig and a degenerate. I think we're digressing here a bit. Sam's criticism is that Western media is bad because of censorship, which then is presumed to censor her opinion. The latter isn't true, because her opinion was in fact printed. As for the nude aspect of her protest, you could indeed argue that this was censorship. Yet what is Sam comparing this to? Does she propose a better model? Is she attempting to slam the Telegraph for being hypocritical? Does this really indicate some generalized hypocrisy in the Western media? You realize that one can be more liberal and still have some limits on expression?

As above: sure.

Rather, I disagree with your conclusion that it is becoming more prudish.

Let me make this simple for you: the argument isn't ironic. In pointing the finger at Western media-cum-society, Sam invites a comparison with non-Western media and sociality. I know this because she included the word "western". So, the correct response is "all right then, is your preferred system any better?" We know what Sam's preferred system is, and so it's a simple process to critique it. The Saudis are one branch thereof, but there are others, and they don't seem to be turning out any better, and certainly are less permissive than the naughty Westerners and their dirty newspapers.

They also blanked her vagina, I note, so it isn't just nipples. But it's pointless to say that "the West" has an issue with nudity and showing nudity to the public: by your standard, one could make the same claim at the very least for most extant human civilizations, and in some other civilizations the reaction would certainly be more extreme. As such, is it worthwhile talking about the censorship of nudity in "the West"? "The West" certainly has and displays more than its share of nudity in art. I'm sorry, but it seems just like more trolling to me: Sam's evocation of the Mohammed cartoons seems, similarly, like a cheap draw-in for the purposes of making a cheap attack.

 

+1.