The GOS has been wondering for several days whether to write about this issue. In some ways it's too ludicrous even for him. But that never stopped him before, so here goes …
The television watchdog Ofcom have instructed Turner Broadcasting to review its catalogue of Hanna-Barbera cartoons and remove the bits where toons smoke. They think that this will help make smoking less glamorous to children.
And why have they made this lunatic decision? Because one sad person complained.
That's right, one. One single solitary bigot watched a couple of Tom and Jerry cartoons and protested because the cartoon cat was smoking. He didn't complain about the fact that Jerry is a mouse - a creature most of us would go to considerable lengths to remove from our houses. Mice are vermin. They carry diseases. We put poison down for them. Yet the cartoon mouse regularly outwits the dastardly cat and emerges as the hero. Why didn't our bigot protest about glamourising vermin?
Nor did he mention the violence. Tom and Jerry cartoons are incredibly violent - that's why we love them. Characters are smashed with hammers, run over by cars and trains, their tails are set on fire, they fall from great heights, they get nailed to the floor - it's hilarious. Why didn't our bigot complain that Tom and Jerry encourages small children to be violent and could spawn a rash of toddlers hitting each other on the head with hammers?
Because it doesn't, that's why. Our local crèche has never reported one of the children setting fire to another, dropping a friend from a third-floor window or tying him to the railway tracks. Nor have they noticed any toddlers lighting up in the stationery cupboard or indulging in a spot of promiscuous mouse-fondling. This probably indicates that the average four-year-old has a good deal more sense than the aforementioned bigot - or the pundits at Ofcom.
This is not the first time that public bodies have acted because of a handful of complaints. In 2004, Ofcom banned an advertisement that included a play on the word "faggot" because three radio listeners were offended. They also banned another advertisement that showed people shaking uncontrollably as a car drove past, because 10 viewers said it mocked people suffering from Parkinson's Disease. I wonder why nobody's complained about those "shake your ass" Renault adverts, which presumably are highly offensive to anyone with a fat bottom? Not that the GOS would know, of course - he's got a very thin bottom. It's the rest of him that's fat.
And it's not just Ofcom. Recently the police told a Hampshire householder to remove a sign saying "Our dogs are fed on Jehovah's Witnesses" after they received one complaint. Personally I think it's rather funny - but then perhaps the Hampshire police haven't had, as I did once, a Jehovah's Witness with small daughter in tow, knocking on the door on Christmas Day! Last year a school in Swindon invited prisoners who were nearing the end of their sentences to visit the school and help with (non-compulsory) PE lessons. They had to cancel the invitation when one parent complained.
So, Ofcom, for being a bunch of weak-kneed, politically correct, tight-arsed anal retentives with no sense of proportion (or of the ridiculous, come to that), you are our Wankers of the Week. Congratulations.
As for the pea-brained bigot who's got nothing better to do during the day than watch Tom and Jerry and look for things to take offence at, he is beneath contempt. The best I can offer him is "Wanker of the Minute". I hope a mouse dashes out of the wainscot and bites him on the bum. And I hope it's a very dirty mouse, and gives him a disease.
The GOS says: I find that almost everything I've said here had already been written (better, probably) by Brendan O'Neill in "The First Post". My apologies to him. But if a thing's worth saying, it's worth saying at least twice, and there's no copyright on opinions - just because someone's already expressed a view, that doesn't mean the rest of us have to shut up about it.
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
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