Censorship, my a**!!!

*This post has been censored in accordance to the examples provided by the censorship board. Sincerest apologies if there are any words left uncensored; but to the writer who has been using the English language for her whole life, those uncensored words which you deem offensive are perfectly acceptable to her sensibilities*

Do you notice nowadays when you are watching tv, the characters will be talking, then suddenly a word that they said will be muted out. Or in some cases, you would even encounter a long pause; their lips will be moving but you just don't hear a thing. Welcome folks, to the world of Malaysian censorship. I totally have no idea what the brilliant people at the censorship board are thinking of sometimes. Ok, so you want to censor some expletives like "f*ck" (see, I'm already censoring it for you....), no problem with that...but why would you want to censor some harmless thing that wasn't even said in a bad meaning?

The other day I was watching Kingdom of Heaven. Nicely enjoying the show when suddenly Orlando Bloom was muted out. Like, what the bl***y h*ll???!!! And by reading his lips, I could tell that what he said was "assalam******kum". And he was just saying it in greeting of this other Syrian guy...Heh? Is it wrong? So I asked Wawa if it was against Islam for a non-Muslim to say it. And he said that it was just a greeting in Arabic that meant "Peace be unto you". Huh? So why was it bleeped out when Balian said it?

And that's not the end of the idiosyncratic things which the Censorship Board does. What bout censoring words like br*astfeed (simply because it contains the word br*ast), va*ina, p*nis...eh hello, these are parts of the human body la...How else are people supposed to refer to it? "My 2 lumps of fat on my upper torso"? "My thingy down there"? So now br*astfeed will become "Feed with the 2 lumps of fat on the upper torso." Bang*ng betul...And do you remember the children's show Power Rangers? Last time it was called Mighty Morp*ing Power Rangers, but then our esteemed Censorship Board people had their little pow wow and decided that the word Morp*ing had to go because it sounded like Morp*ine, and that will make all the future leaders of our country who are watching the show want to go out and get high.

Kids: "Mighthy Morp*ing Power Rangers...morp*ing, morp*ing, morp*ine! Hey! I need to get some! Who cares if I haven't even heard bout it or even know what it is, or if I don't even have any money to get it, or even where to get it from. I just wanna get it!"

Seriously, I only knew bout morp*ine when the Censorship Board created such a hoohaa over the similarity between the 2 words...Then they banned Daredevil because they said it had "violent content" (eh, there are even more violent shows showing on Astro now la....) and "Hero-worshipping someone with a devil-sounding name" (=_="...no comments...). Not only that, they also HAD to change the title of the movie H*llboy to SuperSapiens.

And it's not just restricted to movies. What bout magazines? Sometimes you buy a magazine imported from overseas, open the covers, flip through it then find the lingerie ads inked out. Like hello, it's a women's magazine! We women want to see the lingerie! It's not like we're gonna look at the half-naked women then feel all horny and masturbate you know (most of us don't anyway...). Sigh...I also dunno what to say anymore la...I'm ok with them censoring the big things that are politically or religiously incorrect, but the little things...??? The censors all think we Malaysians are stupid little children who have no sense of reasoning and need to be cushioned from every single thing from the outside world isit? Why can't they just leave it up to us to make up our minds bout what is good for us and what is not?