My ponderings about whether it's possible to put down clear guidelines as to what is obscene seem to be relevant yet again...
Here's the article. The EU put together a short clip of sex scenes from famous European films that were funded by them and it has received a surprising amount of attention with many people terming it "soft porn".
Polish politics make an appearance in the story as well of course *rolls eyes*
A Polish MEP from the conservative League of Polish Families has accused the commission of using "immoral methods" to promote itself.
European Commission spokesman Martin Selmayr said there had been a flood of complaints from Poland about an intimate scene between two men - but refused to accept there was anything controversial about the film.
If you want to make your own mind up about it then see below:
For the other EU European cinema clips see here.
Showing posts with label Polish politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Polish politics. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Monday, May 28, 2007
Teletubbies and the profound effect they might be having on Polish children
Apparently Polish officials are worried that Teletubbies promote homosexuality. The reason they think this is because Tinky Winky carries a woman's handbag. They are considering taking the show off public TV if their psychologists confirm these very terrible fears.
(For those who can't read Polish - I swear, I didn't make this up! That is really what the article says!)
(For those who can't read Polish - I swear, I didn't make this up! That is really what the article says!)
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Pornography, sexual content and obscenity
According to this and this (both articles in Polish unfortunately!) Poland might be facing a full ban on pornography in the near future. The new legislation that some politicians want to bring in (perhaps they'll be in the minority, we shall see!) will make it possible for someone to get a prison sentence not just for distribution but even for possession of any kind of pornography.
No definition of what constitutes pornography is given in this proposal, which sort of brings me to what I want to discuss (other than how stupid our current government is I mean ;-P). I've always felt that the limit of what's ok and what's not ok as far as sexual content goes is a fascinating discussion topic. Of course it's largely about taste and I don't think I'm going to come up with any reasonable conclusions, but if you have any thoughts I'd love to hear them :)
Not so long ago in India, there was a legal complaint against the kissing scene between Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai in Dhoom 2 (imdb page, trailer on youtube). A quote from IndiaGlitz reads:
According to the complainant, the women felt offended after watching the scene and it promoted vulgarity in society, especially among the youth.
Now for anyone who read the Polish articles on the pornography ban you might have noticed that those are almost the exact reasons for which some of PiS want a full pornography ban in Poland. In case you're wondering, here's the scene which we're talking about (the actual kissing happens late in the clip and sorry for the lack of subtitles but didn't find a clip with them):
It's not even as if there's no kissing in commercial Indian cinema, so it's hard to say why this particular kiss was so controversial. In the end, the kiss was cut.
But even a Western perspective of what's ok and what's not may sound just as ridiculous at times. Having been rambling about Equus on this blog I'm going to link to a Guardian article which uses Equus as a starting point to write about the history of nudity in British theatre. Apparently 40 years ago only female nudes were ok in the theatre and only if they didn't move. If they moved they were automatically considered obscene.
Not that people in the West don't have (what I would call) weird ideas about nudity even now. If you check out some discussions about Equus on-line, a lot of people (many of whom seem to be American) think that Daniel Radcliffe appearing nude on stage is enough to constitute child pornography because he's not yet 18 (he will be in about 6 months by the way). In accordance with US laws this might actually be true, I'm not sure, but I still feel it's a bit weird...
Of course so far I've been writing about stuff which nowadays only a small minority of people in the West would call obscene or pornographic (if at all that is - I'd be shocked if someone considerd the Hrithik-Ash kiss as such!). When we think pornography we generally think about stuff which is more explicit - usually photos or films which show people really having sex rather than just pretending. But there are films which would confuse us even there because they show *real* intercourse and yet they probably wouldn't be of interest to someone who is looking for pornography. One such film is definitely Lars von Trier's The Idiots (imdb page, trailer on youtube), another (although I haven't actually seen it) is Michael Winterbottom's 9 songs (imdb page, trailer on youtube). Both of these were shown at art cinema festivals and entered normal distribution in many countries.
And it's not just with films. If you ever check out some sites which specialize in fetish photography you'll find that most of the photographs are very artistic (sometimes - especially when we're talking about the violent stuff - very unsettling, but still artistic). I'm not sure what it is specifically about the fetish community but they really take photos which are way more than something that's just supposed to turn people on (in fact I've not seen many fetish pics which show people "in the act"). And yet when people hear "fetish" we usually think "obscene". Check out Incubus Choice if you want to see some stuff (though I am warning you - if you click on the link you are straying into territory that maaaany would consider porn, not that I think that should scare you but I'm saying it all the same).
Ok, so I've gotten from kissing scenes to real intercourse and photography portraying naked people tied up. Surely there should be a limit somewhere, right?
Lets look at the law then - I found this article very interesting and useful for this. Law is obviously different in different countries. But what I think is true pretty much everywhere is that it is illegal to supply pornography to people below a certain age (usually 18 or 16 though in Poland surprisingly enough it's 15 at the moment - however most Polish shops dealing with any sort of porn would not sell it to anyone below 18). It is also illegal to force the viewing of pornography on anyone (hey, I warned you about that Incubus site so I've done nothing illegal! ;-P ). The other legislations differ. Usually depicting bestiality is illegal (though I don't think that is true in the Netherlands - I think it is ok there as long as the animal is not harmed in any way). And of course there's child pornography which also has different restrictions and definitions in different countries. Mostly nobody below the age of 18 should be depicted although sometimes it is 16. Shockingly enough until 1999 Japan was extremely liberal about child pornography:
Prior to 1999, the only Japanese statute prohibiting actual child pornography was very limited in its reach, applying only to children under 13 who filed complaints within six months of an incident. A general criminal obscenity law protected minors over 13, but it also specified that the material must depict sexual organs to be considered illegal. Consequently, pornographic materials in Japan often resorted to showing other sexually oriented depictions of children, including abuse or torture, to avoid running afoul of the law.
Most countries also have laws against possession of child pornography (reading through the imdb boards, I'm not sure if this is true but apparently in the US anybody with nude pics of Daniel Radcliffe from Equus on their computer could theoretically be arrested for child pornography - not that there are many non-photoshoped pics of him floating around but I think even those are not legal under US law).
Many countries have laws which seperate child pornography into "virtual" and "actual" penalizing the virtual kind just as much. Virtual pornography is defined as depictions in which adult models are made up to look like children, and artistic or computer simulations of children involved in sexual activity. Now while I can see the logic of this I at the same time can't help but wonder if some of the stuff I've read or seen wouldn't be considered child pornography of the virtual kind. I mean particularly when I think about Harry Potter fan fiction and fan art... there's a lot of teacher-student relationships portrayed in those. To give you some examples, here's fan art showing Snape with Draco, Snape with Harry and another of Snape and Harry. I can see how for some people this might be considered totally sick, but is it harmful?
There have been (more about this in the long article I linked to) attempts at trying to find a link between watching porn and comitting sexual offences, but generally it seems the results depended on who tried to find this out (conservatives found a correlation and liberals did not).
I think I've finally come to the end of this post, but I don't really have a conclusion... I do believe people should be left with a choice as long as it doesn't harm anyone, but when it comes to "mental harm" it's very difficult to establish what is harmful and what is not (other than making somebody watch porn when they don't want to). Obviously if pornography causes sexual offences then something should be done about it (though I'm not sure a total ban would work), but we don't even know if it does (I've even heard claims that it actually makes the amount of sexual offences drop! but unfortunately don't have a link for this). Also I think even describing what pornography is is problematic. I'm not saying that any sort of porn is ok. There is definitely a lot of things happening in the porn industry which are not right - there are many reports of children and women being forced into starring in porn films (and in the case of children even if they did this willingly there would be reasons to say this is wrong).
On a final note, I think it's interesting that porn is apparently a huge economy booster and a pioneer in technology. The BBC article even says that the switch from Beta to VHS happened because of the porn industry.
No definition of what constitutes pornography is given in this proposal, which sort of brings me to what I want to discuss (other than how stupid our current government is I mean ;-P). I've always felt that the limit of what's ok and what's not ok as far as sexual content goes is a fascinating discussion topic. Of course it's largely about taste and I don't think I'm going to come up with any reasonable conclusions, but if you have any thoughts I'd love to hear them :)
Not so long ago in India, there was a legal complaint against the kissing scene between Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai in Dhoom 2 (imdb page, trailer on youtube). A quote from IndiaGlitz reads:
According to the complainant, the women felt offended after watching the scene and it promoted vulgarity in society, especially among the youth.
Now for anyone who read the Polish articles on the pornography ban you might have noticed that those are almost the exact reasons for which some of PiS want a full pornography ban in Poland. In case you're wondering, here's the scene which we're talking about (the actual kissing happens late in the clip and sorry for the lack of subtitles but didn't find a clip with them):
It's not even as if there's no kissing in commercial Indian cinema, so it's hard to say why this particular kiss was so controversial. In the end, the kiss was cut.
But even a Western perspective of what's ok and what's not may sound just as ridiculous at times. Having been rambling about Equus on this blog I'm going to link to a Guardian article which uses Equus as a starting point to write about the history of nudity in British theatre. Apparently 40 years ago only female nudes were ok in the theatre and only if they didn't move. If they moved they were automatically considered obscene.
Not that people in the West don't have (what I would call) weird ideas about nudity even now. If you check out some discussions about Equus on-line, a lot of people (many of whom seem to be American) think that Daniel Radcliffe appearing nude on stage is enough to constitute child pornography because he's not yet 18 (he will be in about 6 months by the way). In accordance with US laws this might actually be true, I'm not sure, but I still feel it's a bit weird...
Of course so far I've been writing about stuff which nowadays only a small minority of people in the West would call obscene or pornographic (if at all that is - I'd be shocked if someone considerd the Hrithik-Ash kiss as such!). When we think pornography we generally think about stuff which is more explicit - usually photos or films which show people really having sex rather than just pretending. But there are films which would confuse us even there because they show *real* intercourse and yet they probably wouldn't be of interest to someone who is looking for pornography. One such film is definitely Lars von Trier's The Idiots (imdb page, trailer on youtube), another (although I haven't actually seen it) is Michael Winterbottom's 9 songs (imdb page, trailer on youtube). Both of these were shown at art cinema festivals and entered normal distribution in many countries.
And it's not just with films. If you ever check out some sites which specialize in fetish photography you'll find that most of the photographs are very artistic (sometimes - especially when we're talking about the violent stuff - very unsettling, but still artistic). I'm not sure what it is specifically about the fetish community but they really take photos which are way more than something that's just supposed to turn people on (in fact I've not seen many fetish pics which show people "in the act"). And yet when people hear "fetish" we usually think "obscene". Check out Incubus Choice if you want to see some stuff (though I am warning you - if you click on the link you are straying into territory that maaaany would consider porn, not that I think that should scare you but I'm saying it all the same).
Ok, so I've gotten from kissing scenes to real intercourse and photography portraying naked people tied up. Surely there should be a limit somewhere, right?
Lets look at the law then - I found this article very interesting and useful for this. Law is obviously different in different countries. But what I think is true pretty much everywhere is that it is illegal to supply pornography to people below a certain age (usually 18 or 16 though in Poland surprisingly enough it's 15 at the moment - however most Polish shops dealing with any sort of porn would not sell it to anyone below 18). It is also illegal to force the viewing of pornography on anyone (hey, I warned you about that Incubus site so I've done nothing illegal! ;-P ). The other legislations differ. Usually depicting bestiality is illegal (though I don't think that is true in the Netherlands - I think it is ok there as long as the animal is not harmed in any way). And of course there's child pornography which also has different restrictions and definitions in different countries. Mostly nobody below the age of 18 should be depicted although sometimes it is 16. Shockingly enough until 1999 Japan was extremely liberal about child pornography:
Prior to 1999, the only Japanese statute prohibiting actual child pornography was very limited in its reach, applying only to children under 13 who filed complaints within six months of an incident. A general criminal obscenity law protected minors over 13, but it also specified that the material must depict sexual organs to be considered illegal. Consequently, pornographic materials in Japan often resorted to showing other sexually oriented depictions of children, including abuse or torture, to avoid running afoul of the law.
Most countries also have laws against possession of child pornography (reading through the imdb boards, I'm not sure if this is true but apparently in the US anybody with nude pics of Daniel Radcliffe from Equus on their computer could theoretically be arrested for child pornography - not that there are many non-photoshoped pics of him floating around but I think even those are not legal under US law).
Many countries have laws which seperate child pornography into "virtual" and "actual" penalizing the virtual kind just as much. Virtual pornography is defined as depictions in which adult models are made up to look like children, and artistic or computer simulations of children involved in sexual activity. Now while I can see the logic of this I at the same time can't help but wonder if some of the stuff I've read or seen wouldn't be considered child pornography of the virtual kind. I mean particularly when I think about Harry Potter fan fiction and fan art... there's a lot of teacher-student relationships portrayed in those. To give you some examples, here's fan art showing Snape with Draco, Snape with Harry and another of Snape and Harry. I can see how for some people this might be considered totally sick, but is it harmful?
There have been (more about this in the long article I linked to) attempts at trying to find a link between watching porn and comitting sexual offences, but generally it seems the results depended on who tried to find this out (conservatives found a correlation and liberals did not).
I think I've finally come to the end of this post, but I don't really have a conclusion... I do believe people should be left with a choice as long as it doesn't harm anyone, but when it comes to "mental harm" it's very difficult to establish what is harmful and what is not (other than making somebody watch porn when they don't want to). Obviously if pornography causes sexual offences then something should be done about it (though I'm not sure a total ban would work), but we don't even know if it does (I've even heard claims that it actually makes the amount of sexual offences drop! but unfortunately don't have a link for this). Also I think even describing what pornography is is problematic. I'm not saying that any sort of porn is ok. There is definitely a lot of things happening in the porn industry which are not right - there are many reports of children and women being forced into starring in porn films (and in the case of children even if they did this willingly there would be reasons to say this is wrong).
On a final note, I think it's interesting that porn is apparently a huge economy booster and a pioneer in technology. The BBC article even says that the switch from Beta to VHS happened because of the porn industry.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Gronkiewicz wins the local elections in Warsaw
Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz is now president of Warsaw with many saying this is because of the public support she received from Marek Borowski and Aleksander Kwaśniewski (before their support, it was Marcinkiewicz who was leading the polls).
I would have probably not bothered with putting this news up onto my blog (I can't say I'm particularly excited about it even if I'm happier that she's president rather than Marcinkiewicz), but I figured that since I had been following the elections and the left-centre developments in particular on my blog, it was worth noting the outcome. However, there is also another reason - I'm getting more and more of a kick out of news such as this being reported internationally. Yep, honestly! The BBC actually thinks news such as this is worth reporting, see here if you don't believe me ;-P And it's not just them either. See here for what a search on Google News comes up with, apart from Polish news outlets there are media reports about this from outlets based in places like Pakistan, Turkey, France, Bulgaria, Romania... I like this, I like the feeling that the world and particularly Europe cares about what's happening in Polish politics. Not because it makes me feel Poland is important, but because it makes me feel that there's certain things (like for example re-introducing the death penalty which PiS would very much like to do) that Polish politicians cannot get away with.
I would have probably not bothered with putting this news up onto my blog (I can't say I'm particularly excited about it even if I'm happier that she's president rather than Marcinkiewicz), but I figured that since I had been following the elections and the left-centre developments in particular on my blog, it was worth noting the outcome. However, there is also another reason - I'm getting more and more of a kick out of news such as this being reported internationally. Yep, honestly! The BBC actually thinks news such as this is worth reporting, see here if you don't believe me ;-P And it's not just them either. See here for what a search on Google News comes up with, apart from Polish news outlets there are media reports about this from outlets based in places like Pakistan, Turkey, France, Bulgaria, Romania... I like this, I like the feeling that the world and particularly Europe cares about what's happening in Polish politics. Not because it makes me feel Poland is important, but because it makes me feel that there's certain things (like for example re-introducing the death penalty which PiS would very much like to do) that Polish politicians cannot get away with.
Friday, November 24, 2006
Borowski supports Gronkiewicz-Waltz
PO still don't seem to have made up their minds what their actual ideology is (some are supporting PiS, others are supporting LiD and yet others are not saying anything), Gronkiewicz-Waltz has however tentively stated that she might consider a PO-LiD coalition in Warsaw on the local government level which has prompted Marek Borowski to support her in the second round of the local elections.
Borowski explains his view further in a recent interview which you can read here. He is still rather derogative as far as the whole of PO goes, but has decided to support Gronkiewicz in Warsaw.
Links are in Polish, sorry!
Borowski explains his view further in a recent interview which you can read here. He is still rather derogative as far as the whole of PO goes, but has decided to support Gronkiewicz in Warsaw.
Links are in Polish, sorry!
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Borowski and the centre-left after the Polish local elections
To my shock and horror this blog is getting more and more political by the minute ;-P I didn't actually intend it that way, but oh well...
Anyway, after the local elections, the centre-left bloc Lewica i Demokraci (SLD+SDPL+PD+UP) have established themselves as the third most important political force in Poland (after PiS and PO) and I'm following the effect it has had on the political scene.
PO is refusing to form a coalition with LiD even on the local government level. Read about it on Marek Borowski's site in Polish here. I'm disapointed but not surprised.
And here's a very interesting interview with Marek Borowski.
Here are two quotes (in Polish, sorry!) that I liked best from the interview.
The first one I like because it amuses me (while at the same time it's so true):
Więc kto ma większe szanse na pana poparcie? Chyba jednak kandydatka PO?
Powiem tak: ta sytuacja przypomina mi oświadczyny. Przychodzi do panny dwóch konkurentów i każdy ją wychwala: jakie kształty, jakie oczy, jakie włosy – a tymczasem już wyciąga rękę po posag. Jak go złapie, to od razu zwieje. Ale my posagu dobrze pilnujemy. Proszę brać razem z posagiem albo wcale. Możemy po prostu stracić zainteresowanie dla wyniku tych wyborów. Mogą je również stracić moi wyborcy i albo zostać w domu, albo skreślić obie kandydatury
The second one I'm actually rather surprised at:
Nowy program wygładzi wszelkie różnice wewnątrz waszej federacji?
Nie. Będzie oczywiście część, gdzie musimy mówić jednym głosem, obejmująca kluczowe zagadnienia: zasadnicze kierunki polityki zagranicznej, podstawowe problemy społeczno-gospodarcze, walka z przestępczością oraz sprawne, uczciwe państwo. Ale różnice mogą pozostać na przykład w kwestii liberalizacji ustawy antyaborcyjnej, gdzie PD może mieć inne zdanie niż SDPL i SLD.
I would have thought that it's the economical part that they might have trouble getting a mutual agreement on. I'm surprised that PD has a different view on the abortion legislation, I thought they were rather liberal about that.
Anyway, after the local elections, the centre-left bloc Lewica i Demokraci (SLD+SDPL+PD+UP) have established themselves as the third most important political force in Poland (after PiS and PO) and I'm following the effect it has had on the political scene.
PO is refusing to form a coalition with LiD even on the local government level. Read about it on Marek Borowski's site in Polish here. I'm disapointed but not surprised.
And here's a very interesting interview with Marek Borowski.
Here are two quotes (in Polish, sorry!) that I liked best from the interview.
The first one I like because it amuses me (while at the same time it's so true):
Więc kto ma większe szanse na pana poparcie? Chyba jednak kandydatka PO?
Powiem tak: ta sytuacja przypomina mi oświadczyny. Przychodzi do panny dwóch konkurentów i każdy ją wychwala: jakie kształty, jakie oczy, jakie włosy – a tymczasem już wyciąga rękę po posag. Jak go złapie, to od razu zwieje. Ale my posagu dobrze pilnujemy. Proszę brać razem z posagiem albo wcale. Możemy po prostu stracić zainteresowanie dla wyniku tych wyborów. Mogą je również stracić moi wyborcy i albo zostać w domu, albo skreślić obie kandydatury
The second one I'm actually rather surprised at:
Nowy program wygładzi wszelkie różnice wewnątrz waszej federacji?
Nie. Będzie oczywiście część, gdzie musimy mówić jednym głosem, obejmująca kluczowe zagadnienia: zasadnicze kierunki polityki zagranicznej, podstawowe problemy społeczno-gospodarcze, walka z przestępczością oraz sprawne, uczciwe państwo. Ale różnice mogą pozostać na przykład w kwestii liberalizacji ustawy antyaborcyjnej, gdzie PD może mieć inne zdanie niż SDPL i SLD.
I would have thought that it's the economical part that they might have trouble getting a mutual agreement on. I'm surprised that PD has a different view on the abortion legislation, I thought they were rather liberal about that.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Polish Winter Sports funding
On page 12 of this pdf file there is an article (sorry, it's in Polish again) about recent happenings in Polish winter sports. Olympic level competitors are quitting because they're not getting the funding they need. The funding goes to young (junior level and below competitors), but hardly any money is spent on those who are on the highest level of competition (even Jagna Marczułajtis who was 4th at the Olympics in Salt Lake City has been forced to lose at least one season because she is not getting the financial support she needs).
Friday, November 10, 2006
More Polish politics
Sorry, again a link in Polish (click here). It's a short note about changes made in excise tax. Basically, after all of PiS's promises of helping the poorest, they've hit everybody big time. They've gotten rid of one particular excise tax, but in a market area that doesn't actually guarantee that those products will become cheaper and they've raised the excise tax in another area of the market which will effect many industries and therefore many product prices (including food).
I have no idea why this particular thing has hit me enough to want to tell other people about it via my blog (it sounds kind of boring, doesn't it?), but for some reason it has ;) Perhaps because it's so cynical.
I have no idea why this particular thing has hit me enough to want to tell other people about it via my blog (it sounds kind of boring, doesn't it?), but for some reason it has ;) Perhaps because it's so cynical.
A man for every woman...
The Polish elections for the local presidents, governors and the like are coming up very soon (the Warsaw ones are on Sunday, the 12th of November). Whether this particular campaign is real or fake, I don't know, but it's quite original to say the least. Unfortunately the link is in Polish, but I'll just say that Helena Miszkin's motto is "Work for every man and a man for every woman".
The poster for her campaign is here
The poster for her campaign is here
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