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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!
Taking Homer and stripping out all of the Americanisms isn't going to make it funny to people with a mideast cultural sense of humor (it would probably be funnier if they just left the Americanisms in). Homer is a success in America because we are laughing at ourselves. I would bet Omar could be as much of a success if the show could present the same kind of local irreverent humor about life there like it does for life in the US.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Even more damning was the response of Al Jean, executive producer of The Simpsons. He said: "If Homer doesn't drink and eat bacon and generally act like a pig, which I guess is also against Islam, then it's not Homer."
Sums it up quite nicely I think.. not having seen this of course.
You do realize he's not an arab, right? Right?
Apu is Hindu and from India, not Muslim from Arabia. Many of the stereotypes about Indians are probably held in common.
Fark that! I can't wait to start downloading subtitled copies of the arab-language Simpsons.
Heck, if this new Simpsons catches on, maybe certain societies will start to accept that self-ridicule can be both constructive and funny.
You can't keep a human culture under glass, sterile and preserved for all eternity. Cultures grow and evolve -- the strongest ones have no problem taking in new ideas and putting their own spin on them.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Of course, the Simpsons never makes fun of Christians or conservatives.
In America, you can go on television and air criticisms of Republican, Christian or any other viewpoints; and you may get a debate or -at worse- a reprimand.
Let me ask you, how likely is it to put forth atheistic and/or anti-muslim views and have them broadcast...and if, by some miracle you were able to; what would happen to you?
Compare and contrast.
Let me ask you, in Saudi Arabia how likely is it to put forth atheistic and/or anti-muslim views and have them broadcast...and if, by some miracle you were able to; what would happen to you?
Look, the issue isn't that we're emasculating our own content. But you can't tell me that we're not pandering to christian values when... well, this is too long to put in a dependant clause, I explain.
Watch some Anime, originals from Japan. There are shows that are marketed to children, or young adults, or at least air during such hours that American families usually allow their children to watch TV. These shows have STRONG explicit words in them occationally, and nudity.
So, what do we do in America? Well, first we change the explicit words so that when say, an actor says "Chikushou" = very strong curse word, along the lines of "fucking christ!", or "kuso" = literally, "shit", we change these words to be "darn" or "dangit". I mean, we change the words coming out of the characters mouth from "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THAT HURT!" to "OUCH! Hey man, that hurt!"
Next up is how to deal with nudity. Well, we have good examples of these... we just digitally insert bikinis on to them. There you go, all happy christian-safe now.
So, yes, the US does censor content coming from foreign countries, the same as this Al-Shamshoons does in Arabia.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
I'm interested to see what they do about Krusty, who's Jewish.
...yet another "kill Krusty" scheme, this time by hypnotizing Bart into becoming a suicide bomber and killing Krusty on the show. However, at the last minute, Krusty makes an on-air apology to Sideshow Bob for all the pain he's caused him, causing Sideshow Bob to have a change of heart. Sideshow Bob warns everybody that Bart is a bomb, prompting Krusty's monkey to swoop in and throw the bomb away (the only people hurt are the evil network executives, whose body parts merge into a T-1000 like monster).
Remember that episode where Sideshow Bob programs Bart, while wearing a suicide bomber's belt, to hug Krusty and blow him up? In the original version:
With "Badr" as the new protagonist, what happens in that episode now?
Did I just give away the ending?
Huh? Great-grandparent was on a US show that was censored in the UK, grandparent was about censoring in Canada?!?
oh, yeah, this is Slashdot, where it's always America's fault!
>>> "... you intolerant ignoramus!"
... just because you disagree with a person doesn't make them ignorant. For all you know he may be Japanese (seems unlikely I know).
Presumably you mean you can't tolerate him?
Oh and just because a nation has a low level of teenage pregnancy doesn't mean it doesn't have a high level of sexual depravity (rorikon? schoolgirl pants in vending machines?) it just means you've been blinded by the prevalence of one set of behaviours into thinking association (or maybe even correlation) implies causation. [Perhaps you think sexual depravity is OK, but that doesn't stop your implied conclusion from being poorly supported].
If a nation allows husbands to beat their wives and coincidentally has low rates of teenage pregnancy (causally connected or no?) then by your reckoning $nationOfYourOrigin should encourage wife beating.
And finally
Seems to me Freud would say something about a society majorly into repression causing the ultimate out-bursting of the repressed emotion in deviant behaviour; if Japan were such a repressive society, perhaps due to an obsession with ancestor worship then this might explaing 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.
Guess what: the landmass we live on is called "America."
Guess what: No it isn't.
The landmass I live on is called *North* America. There is a formerly connected until they dug a big trench through it landmass known as *South* America. Pretty infrequently they are jointly referred to as *The* America*s*
There is no solo landmass referred to as America although the middle country in *North* America is very frequently referred to as America.
What exactly is so confusing about this?!?
***prepares for flamebait mod***
You can blame that on the religious folks wanting to press their beliefs on you. To them, taking The Lord's name is a BIG no-no.
But, of course, that brings up another question... If you're saying "damn it", you're cursing something. You're wishing ill, or a curse upon someone. Isn't God kind of implied in doing it? If you're going to bleep it out, it just occurs that you would bleep out the whole God Damned thing.
I don't moderate anymore. Karma penalty for 90% fair mods? Can I mod that unfair?