I have always felt disgust towards that unworthy old lady called censorship, but I admit that her prohibitions fed me deliriously morbid when I was a child and adolescent. There was a rush of adrenaline when the rhombuses appeared on the television screen warning the parents of the danger that the children would suffer if they saw that and the ingenuity that they developed to observe it from a hiding place. And movies shown in theaters received moral ratings. Of priests or professional onanists always ready to discover the devil. They were rated with a number. 3 was tempting. Much more the 3 with reservations. And the 4’s, which implied they were seriously dangerous, took your imagination to the skies. Getting around those prohibitions before myopic or simply bored doormen, who did not ask for your card, was a joyful challenge. Accompanied many times by final disappointment, but what a pleasure to feel like a sinner.
I check in the series, the cinema and the documentaries that certain platforms show that at the beginning little signs appear warning you of the content. People who will charge a salary for discovering the devil in those contents warn that there is sex, toxic substances, nudity, violence, alcohol, crude language, suicides in them. And lately I see that they have added tobacco. What a paradox. Hollywood convinced us for many decades that every cool person on screen had a cigarette in their mouth (I imagine the tobacco companies spent a fortune on that non-stop promotion) and now, if someone is shown smoking cigarettes, it is inevitably the monster.
To be fair, I think that they should apply these cautionary signs not only to fiction but also to reality television programs, advertising, news, talk shows about politics, the liver and the heart. Not only tobacco poisons people.
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