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Homer Becomes Omar
geekster writes "With Omar as Homer, and Badr substituted for Bart, The Simpsons is now playing on Arab television.
But in order not to risk offending an Arab audience, the characters in Al Shamshoon, as the show is now called, have modified some of their most distinguishable traits." And you thought internationalization was hard for software!
The article writers have made a mistake in addition. 60% of the population is below 20, and 40% is under 15, that makes 100% of the population under 21
40% under 15
+ 20% ages 16 - 20
==================
= 60% under 20
I can't remember even one episode in which bacon is mentioned
You're kidding me? You must not have seen many episodes at all then.
Homer's patented Moon Waffles.
The "good morning burger"
The one where Homer starts his grease recycling business (and feeds $25 worth of bacon to the dog.)
The one where Lisa becomes a vegetarian, and Homer lists all the types of meat she won't eat "ham? bacon? pork?" "Dad! those are all from the same animal!"
The one where Homer and Marge are in the garden of eden, and Homer eats the bacon directly from the pig.
and those are just off the top of my head... bacon is mentioned on a pretty regular basis.
I believe the alterations were made by Alex Cox, the director, himself, in response to the BBC's request for cuts so that it could be shown. So he decided to go completely and humorously over-the-top in censoring his own film, partly to make a point, one suspects.
See http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/faqmf.htm
First of all, in Sweden The Simpsons is not dubbed, it's subtitled like just about every other foreign (non-swedish, it's sad that I feel the need to add this) show.
Also, while there probably are a few US-centric jokes that most viewers don't get you'd probably be surprised at how many of these "famous personalities known only to the US public" are actually if not famous in Sweden then at least well-known enough that quite a lot of the viewers get the jokes. Hell, there are enough people in Sweden who know enough about bad US movies and tv shows from the 80's to make Family guy popular... So once again, you'd be surprised at just how much we know of american culture.
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Actually, in the Persian (or Arabian) Gulf States, nearly all of the convenience stores (known as cold stores) are run by Indians, so they can keep Apu.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
Your first point is interesting, though. I would love to see Arabic literature (including certain select TV shows) translated to English... I'm not quite sure why no one has done so.
Hrm... perhaps I should start a company....
Ne Cede Malis.
If showing sexual content and harsh language to children leads to the lowest birthrate among teenager, then we should do that...since we have the highest teenage birth rate. Japan's is 4, ours is 64, and this data comes from unicef.org, not exactly a obscure or untrustworthy source.
http://www.unicef.org/pon96/inbirth.htm
Saying "Did you ever consider that maybe Japan's culture is wrong?" shows not only that you are a idiot, but that you have no idea that not only do people in Japan have less sex, and lower crime rates. So to say that they are somehow immoral because of what they show their children is idiotic, they know how to raise their children, they dont let their televisions do it for they as you obviously let your television do. Stop berating people of other nations and start looking at the problems in your own home you intolerant ignoramus!
That explains why I feed a lovely dog at my house and I'm muslim. Thanks for misinformation.
[Perhaps you think sexual depravity is OK, but that doesn't stop your implied conclusion from being poorly supported].
... just because you disagree with a person doesn't make them ignorant. For all you know he may be Japanese (seems unlikely I know).
OK, well, here goes. My as well post AC on this one. I'm Japanese, and live in Tokyo. Sexual depravity does not explain the situation. Japan is very open to sex in general, and has a thriving large sex industry. No, not the underground, illegal, dangerous industry as seen in other parts of the world (although there is a small bit of this too), but a regulated, legal industry. Want sex? Can't get any for free? Pay for it!
Whether you like the idea or not, it seems to work over here. The women get paid generously, of which the majority aren't forced into the trade as slaves or anything. As for sex related crime rates, well, there are still unfortunately a lot of "chikan" in the trains, but rape is way down on the list. Got drunk, wanna fuck? Well, I think the fact that you can walk into a brothel and get some sorta decreases the drive to actually rape anyone. Afterall, I find it amazing that rape rates are so low considering how much we drink, and how drunk we get.
And finally
Not the grandparent, but ask and though shalt receive.
if Japan were such a repressive society, perhaps due to an obsession with ancestor worship then this might explain the results. I am absolutely not saying this is the case with Japan, I am not a Japan scholar by any stretch of the imagination. I guess I'm just an intolerant, ignoramus.
Japan is repressive in a lot of ways, but very open in others compared to western nations. Sex is one of them, public drunkness another, and so on so forth. I don't think you can really compare them head on and expect to see a clear correlation of facts without considering a whole boat load of intricate details.
That said, here's my take on the issue. In Japan, there are no real dirty words to start out with. There are bad words, some are censored, but none have the same connotation as "fuck" in the English language. You could probably interpret this as being that there ARE words like this (kuso = shit, direct translation) but there's no stigma attached to them, and thus they aren't really that "dirty". So the Japanese have a difficult time in general understanding how a word like "shit" and "fuck" could be such dirty words, merely because there's no comparative word or even the concept.
As for nudity and sexual images in children's anime, it's all in moderation I suppose. For example, you can't show genitals in any publications in Japan. None. It's illegal. TV, magazines, photos, what not. (And I'm not talking about children's stuff here, I'm talking about porn.) On the other hand, the general concept is that boys will be boys, girls will be girls, and no ammount of censorship will change the fact that they'll eventually be intrigued by their sexuality. So what's the point in trying to pretend it doesn't exist. That's why mild nudity is no big deal in anime. Some parents don't want their kids to watch it, or watch it until a certain age, and they control that. But it's not a big deal.
As for teen pregnancy, I suspect there's a bit of a twist here. I think it's more prevalent than unicef makes it out to be, but that there are a lot of abortions that probably go un-reported. If you're an anti-abortionist then this may shock you, but it's not a big deal in Japan. Historically Japan has not exactly been a thriving nation where everyone had plenty to eat. Kids were occasionally "pruned" to make sure the entire village wouldn't starve at times. Same goes for the elderly. In times of famine, this makes sense, but I suppose there was a high probability of famine back in the day. (I'm talking 150+ years ago.) I suspect that such trends help in creating an atmosphere that the unborn are, well, unborn and not quite hum