Breasts confound and offend at Borders & Blockbusters
by Jess McCabe // 8 September 2008, 18:30
The word 'titty' has been redacted from the title of 'The Itty Bitty Titty Committee' in Borders and Blockbusters stateside, Grace Chu informs us over at AfterEllen.
Anyone spot this happening in the UK?
Grace hilariously describes how the offending term is gradually revealed: totally removed from the cover, it appears half-starred-out on the disc, and then finally is allowed to be shown only when the title screen loads up.
But, more seriously:
The retailers are apparently so ashamed of displaying a colloquialism for the word “breasts,” that they have removed the word entirely. In other words, they have sent out a message that breasts are inherently shameful. Talk about ironic. As Wolfe Films president Maria Lynn astutely pointed out, “You have [Saturday Night Live sketch] ‘Dick in a Box’ win an Emmy last year, and the word ‘titty’ is offensive.”
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Sian // Posted 09 September 2008 at 11:00
I saw an advert in my boyfriend's mum's Country Living magazine that was for a "feminine massager"-in which the word orgasm was typed as Or--sm, rather bizarre I thought.
Cruella // Posted 10 September 2008 at 13:00
Oddly I was on BBC Radio Five Live last night and a rather unpleasant motoring journalist (luckily for him I forget his name) sat next to me asked if it was ok to say "condom" on air. He later insisted he was joking but, trust me, he wasn't!
Qubit // Posted 10 September 2008 at 13:32
I find this odd because my local Borders stocks all the lad's mags and porn DVDs without much censorship of these. Maybe it is just the word is far more offensive than I thought. Otherwise there is a strong difference between UK and US policy.