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Naughty Disney
THE US ruled against government censorship of the Internet in 1996.
Pennsylvania District Judge Steward Dalzell said in his judgment against the
Communications Decency Act that the Net "may fairly be regarded as a never-ending
worldwide conversation".
This conversation can become pretty silly at times, unfortunately.
The latest outbreak of absurdity concerns the Disney studio and the 1977 animated film,
The Rescuers. Dozens of people are trying to flog sealed, boxed copies of a video of the
film for as much as $50. Their for-sale notices are posted in the several Disney-related
newsgroups on the Net, and may be seen, or responded to, by simply typing the word
"rescuers" in the search box at the DejaNews
Web site.
The fuss over this unremarkable movie about mice started a fortnight ago when Disney took
the unprecedented step of withdrawing from sale 3.4 million copies of its latest release
of the video that went on sale in North America on January 5. An American fundamentalist
group called the American Life League had reported to Disney that images of the torso of a
naked woman were visible in a whole two frames of the 110,000-frame video.
The image cannot be seen when the video is watched at normal viewing speed. But those with
the time and inclination can freeze-frame it to have a look. According to CNN, Disney
recalled the video "to keep our promise to families that we can trust and rely on the
Disney brand to provide the finest in family entertainment".
The offending picture was inserted in the film after the cartoon was drawn, according to
Disney spokesmen. The image was on copies sent to cinemas for a re-release, but as with
the video, was not visible when shown at normal speed.
The American Life League which started this brouhaha has
its own Web site. Here it challenges the right to abortion, as well as promoting press
releases with titles such as "Non-white children - Bad for the world's future?"
But it makes no mention of the naughty bits in The Rescuers.
Neither does Disney at its new hard-selling Go.com
site. Sweetness, light, purity and the American way dominate both.
But the ALL's complaint over something that is almost impossible to see and Disney's mass
withdrawal has caused idle minds on the Net to go a bit wild. That is one of the problem
with a fast, global medium like the Net. Trivial matters balloon out of all importance.
People try to cash in. Several of those trying to sell copies of The Rescuers for between
$25 and $50 openly admit that they want to make some money out of this unique event (a
"dirty" Disney film). The whole scale of the conversation is in inverse
proportion to the actual smuttiness.
In a superb irony, one poster to a Disney newsgroup has alerted everyone to the existence
of a Web page where pictures of the two offending frames are shown. One minute at
Swanbourne Beach would put what is on show in the shade.
Other posters have signalled the existence of dubious sites which purport to show several
instances of pornography in Disney animations.
Needless to say these sites require registration and payment because they are porn sites
themselves.
The whole episode helps to confirm the commonly-held prejudice of computer programmers:
the software and hardware are not the problem -- it is the meatware (or people) in
between.
All articles Copyright: © West Australian Newspapers
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