No Nudity, Violent Video Games or Freedom of Speech?! Censorship in USA vs. Europe

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What I find disturbing in the US is how even the most ridiculous bit of nudity is censored while it seems ok to show most shocking forms of violence.

There was a woman in the UK during the 60's and 70's called Mary Whitehouse, who used to try and get things banned in the UK, and was very good at getting her way. Well she lived not fwr from the town I grew up in, and the local council got a bit fed up with her. So when ever she tried to ban something they would look at it, and the vast majority of the time used to disagree with her and allow it. There was even a film that got banned in the rest of the country appart from that town, so you had people from all over the country, coming to the town to buy or watch it. We used to get all sorts of films in town, that were banned in other places. I think in the end the council were just doing it to upset her, as she used to hold protest meetings in the town. The locals of the town were of the idea, that if they did not like something they would not watch it, or buy it, but at least we had the choice.

I will never forget the look on my husband's face, when he saw a German soap commercial with a woman showering and showing her body. My husband is American, I'm German. His jaw dropped and he turned to look at me and said "This is allowed?" My response was non-plussed at first, since I didn't know, what he was talking about. I had seen these type of commercials most of my life and thought nothing of it. To me, it was just a soap commercial but to him, it was like the forbidden fruit. Mind you, it was in the 70ies, not right now. I was shocked to find out from him, that full nudity was a big no no in the States on tv, way before any cable or streaming services. Where I live now, the level of censorship in schools has gotten out of hand. If one parent complains about a book, it gets taken off the school library shelves. Our public libraries and bookstores now have a special section for banned books, so you can still read them at home, if not in the classroom. ONE parent determines, what other kids can and cannot read. Certain subjects are not to be taught or touched. History lessons are sanitized to the point of vacuous nonsense or minimized to the point of implying, that what happened in the past was actually not so bad or ok. School board meetings have become raucous and contentious. I'm just glad, I no longer have kids in this state's school system and they didn't have to suffer through all of this nonsense that is happening now. It is scary to watch.

I find the concept if "functional nudity" really appealing. I mean ... I think the fault lies in that nudity is sexualised, not in that nudity is inheriantly sexual. The less you sexualise the normal appearance of the human body, the more relaxed you can go about it. And the more you actually see people, not their bodies.

I live in Switzerland and I encountered more than one naked statue. We actually had one honoring the unknown soldiers right next to the playground near the forest. We kids did laugh about it and sometimes we would dress him up in blankets, but no one found it obscene or thought anything bad about it. Seems to me that normal and harmless things like that only become obscene when people hyperfocus on the sexual aspect of nudety, otherwise it wouldn't be such a problem. Same thing with swearwords. Like.. I don't want my kids to cuss too much and I'm telling them that it's a word they shouldn't use just like that, but neither is it worth making a drama out of it. And lets be honest. Some situation justify some solid cussing, it can make one feel better!

One type of censorship you didn't mention has got to do with the privacy of suspects of crime. Here in the Netherlands, as one of very few countries it seems, names and faces of criminal suspects are always censored. Their faces are blurred and their names get shortened to their first name + first letter of their last name, such as "Jan B.". Only when a supposedly dangerous suspect is on the run their uncensored picture and name will be shown, as soon as they're caught everything will be censored again.

The Greek ban had to do with curtailing gambling: it was found that game consoles at arcades were often rigged to transform to slot-machines, and the government admitting inability to control this imposed a carpet-ban. Home gaming (console, PC) was not banned at any point.

Amazingly! - as a lifelong artist, now in his seventh decade - I remember, when at college, I was actually teased by one or two male peers during life drawing class because I was enthusiastic about the actual drawing of the model, rather than gaping at the nude figure spread on a blanket before me. I was actually there to draw as an attentiveness exercise, not to letch at the model! Thing is, that I'd seen it all before. My dad had one or two European mags that he used to read and I had drawn from them a few nudes. Neue Revue was the magazine. I just thought that was just part of the art scene and I'd been to museums and galleries on school trips and had some art books. My mother was quite prudish. My father, being of Germanic origin, clearly wasn't. What some of these Conservative notionalizers - I won't call them actual thinkers as they are far more believers than anything else - don't seem to grasp - maybe they do, but they are incompetent in their reactions to it - is that something that is hidden/censored is way more empowered simply by that fact. Ask any burlesque performer about the nipple covers and those humourous fun twirly bits! What is hidden are empowered far more and actually enhances their power. To be honest, as a heterosexual man, I can look at a nude and, frankly, see it as an object of analysis. I leave arousal regarding someone who I care for and love. As with much else that is censored, most of it is based on dumbed down and infantile attitudes. Usually politically/religiously based that with a decent education would fade of into the ridiculous and obscure. How can a species be mentally healthy and not practically schizoid when it practices so fervently to be so uncomfortable with the way it's body both looks and functions!? No wonder there are so many crossed signals and mental problems!

very difficult to find the right balance between (excessive) censorship and (necessary) protection ... and also to find (impossible) global standards for global media in our current global world ... as an example, i once saw ratings for some movie that were very similar in the usa and in germany: the original version was age restricted to ages 16-17 while a censored version was only restricted to ages 12-13 (whatever the ratings for those ages are named in the respective rating systems). but the reason for censorship was quite different, just as the cuts that were done for the less restricted version: in germany a total of 10 seconds of violence had to be cut from 2 or 3 scenes while in the usa a total of 10 seconds of naked people had to be cut in some different scenes.

I think it’s most useful to think about the different meaning of freedom of speech and freedom of opinion. The latter is the fundamental right in Germany. A lie about reality is not protected, as it is not an opinion.

I absolutely adore this video! I was always fascinated with the different kinds of censorship in different cultures (namely US/Western European/Latin American - all very different). What drives me nuts is, that in Europe we're getting more and more "americanized" in what gets censored (e.g. bleeping words, blurring images) but don't get the freedom parts (e.g. video games, graphic novels for adults, possibility to comment on copyrighted material).

The "Grapes of Wrath" was banned from school libraries in Northern California until the 80's. It seems the locals weren't happy with a book about their families' sins even if it was one of the most profound literary work written in US

A lot comes down to the difference between freedom of speech (as in the US) and freedom of expression (as in much of Europe). In Europe, some speech may be banned where it would not be in the US, but this is where there would be ground to believe it could cause harm (such as overt racism, incitement to violence etc). However showing the human body, and realistically representing normal behaviour with swearing and sex, is more normalised in Europe, in films, TV, books and theatre. In some cases there are caveats (British TV has a 9pm 'watershed' before which there are more restrictions) but a lot of what is normal would be illegal or otherwise banned in the US (there are lots of 'culture shock' Youtube videos where US tourists are amazed by the British nude dating show "naked attraction").

My first thought when you mentioned Michelangelo was not David, but the Last Judgement on the wall of the Sistine Chapel (which popped up briefly as a picture). There was a time when clothing had been painted over the frescoes because people were so disturbed about the nudity (in a church of all places!). The make-over has long since been removed. I once saw a documentary on American TV that I had previously seen in Germany on the evolution of humans. One scene showed two very, very distant ancestors (more ape-like than human-like) copulating. They were tiny, tiny figures on the screen, seen from a distance, and nothing even resembling details could be seen, but it was obvious what they were doing. On American TV, a blurry circle had been superimposed over the lower regions of the bodies. Europeans are often baffled at Americans who seemingly have no problem showing violence of all kinds on television, yet go absolutely crazy if there is even the slightest bit of (semi-)nudity or any hint of sex.

I remember clearly as a Canadian driving down from skiing at Feldburg into Freiburg to a full side of the building with an advertisement of a woman in just ski boots in 1988. We too took a while to follow locals nudity in baths in Baden Baden. FKK camping was also very popular. After a few years we just regarded it as normal. On the other hand, as an English only speaker, leading up to the Gulf war, I had NO idea there was any tension in that area. Today, one wouldn’t understand the lack of media coverage back then. Today it is very much the opposite. I find I can not rely on factual well rounded information. We have people like you that can help us. Thank you for the topics you choose and the research that goes into it.

The approaches to the different types of censorship have evolved over time, too. It was common that German versions of video games had the violence turned down - often as acts of self censorship by the developers who wanted to target certain age ratings. The main issue was that even games rated 18 weren't immune to that, because they could be placed on the index, preventing them from being advertised (like you said in the video). That has become very rare during the last 10 years though. If a game is rated 18, almost anything goes nowadays. We've also seen more mass market games during the last decade (that target an age rating of 18+) to feature nudity. It's usually games by European studios though - two recent examples: Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Projekt Red and Baldur's Gate 3 by Larian Studios. Both of these games were not censored in the US, and were very successful, so there isn't really anything that prevents US studios from doing the same. I guess they just don't because of cultural reasons.

The difference in conceptions of what ought to be censored versus what falls under a constitutional right is fascinating. In general, I think the overall mentality toward nudity, the body, and the line between personal freedoms and social wellbeing is substantially healthier (not to mention more sensible) in Germany. Although, to be fair, the puritan link between nudity and morality did originate from Germany :)

I would love to see an average americans reaction to the Norwegian TV series called Trekant (threesome), which was an educational series about sex aimed towards the teens. This series was aired around 2013 or so. But as a teenager myself in the 80s we had a serie called Kroppen vår (Our body) which was an health and sex education serie aimed for kids of 7 years and up. It did show nudity of both genders in prime time TV.

A couple of thoughts. The US idea of censorship seemsto be best summarized by saying "Make war, not love" - violence is fine, but one nipple is exposed on a live show, and the entire nation freaks out. I could understand that from 13 year olds, but... And I couldn't care less if Google and advertisers weren't pushing US ideas worldwide. European censorship... I gave up on Brussels caring about freedom of speech or opinion when they made Ursula von der Leyen president of the Commission. You do not make someone known as Zensursula (Zensur = censorship) for pushing through internet censorship with good old "think of the children" BS your president if you care about any of that. And it hasn't gotten better since then, just the "hard to disagree with" excuses got broader.