Censorship, like, sucks or something

One of the new FAQs (C.E. Forman's) contains the following:

A couple years ago (I think it was mid-1993), a five-year-old kid got hold of his mom's lighter and proceeded to imitate Beavis, setting the house on fire and killing his little sister. The woman sued, demanding that MTV move the show to later in the evenings and remove all references to fire, and won the suit.

Does anyone have any more detailed information about this? Was this actually a decision handed down by a judge, or did they settle out of court? It sets a very dangerous precedent and likely stands on shaky constitutional ground. Sorry if this has been gone over again and again here but I just started reading this group regularly a little while ago.

It really pisses me off that there are episodes I can't see or can't see in their original form because some asswipe buttmunch of a mother was completely irresponsible and stupid. She should have been locked up. Blaming it on the show is the height of gall. If you're going to use TV as an electric babysitter, you've got to take some initiative to keep your kids from imitating what they see. B&BH is tame compared to a lot of what's on. Some people just don't get the idea that there are cartoons for ADULTS. They must figure that censorship is OK with cartoons because they're "for kids". What a bunch of dill-holes.

If they settled out of court, then MTVs legal folks are a bunch of wussies. If it was an actual decision handed down, then I've got some letters to write.

Anybody know the scoop? A case number would be very helpful.

drewbob

I did some checking and as far as I can tell the case never made it to court, and it may not have even been filed. Most of the case law out there would not support a decision against MTV and Viacom anyways. What MTV did was to move the show from 6 to 9 p.m. (and eventually even later), and to "clean up" the episodes. This was done on their own initiative, and not by a court order. You're correct that their is little constitutional ground, and this is why the suit never made it to court.

Something interesting to point out is that MTV's Kurt Loder stated a couple years ago that censorship was (this is a paraphrase) "censorship is when a product is denied release through any outlet at all." This was in reference to censorship of music videos, saying that if MTV decided not to show the videos, and they could be gotten to the public some other way, it was not censorship. If you apply this to the Beavis and Butthead situation, you have censorship. This is why. MTV has had legal battles in the past to preserve their copyrights to Beavis and Butthead, and retain all rights to the characters. Therefore, since any other attempt to market Beavis and Butthead has to gain approval from MTV, and since they decline to give this approval, they are censoring Beavis and Butthead since there is no other way to get the "banned" episodes or those containing "violent" behavior out to the public.

BTW, for those who are interested, I believe there was an article about it in TIME, Oct. 25, 1993. The case happened in Ohio, and the child's last name was Messner, the mother's last name was Burk, the boy was 5, his sister was 2, and they lived in a mobile home. (Those are all the facts I was able to dig up.)

Yessss!!! I have also seen some mentions about this issue, and as a new reader don't know anything about it. I think it hasn' tbeen so popular news item in Europe, or then again maybe I am living in a barrel.

On the whole this seems like a typical example of american attitude towards justice system... :) I mean one can sue the manufacturer, if it hasn't mentioned in its microwave oven instructions "do not, I repeat - do not try to dry your lovely cat in the oven". Gimme a break.

Petri J.

------
	"Oh man ! What is this ?"

-Beavis and Butthead-

This reminds me of King Missile's vid "Martin Scoreseasy"

BH: "This guy needs to settle down or something." B: "YEAH! YEAH!...I mean, really." BH: "This must be what happens when you lose your penis."

This is Beavis & Butthead, not Newt & Bill. E-mail your beliefs to each other off the group, most of us couldn't care less.

Ian
	"So, in summary, I drew a really weird, obtuse cartoon that wasn't
	 funny, which led me to greater success and recognition.  Yeah--I
	 like this country."
					-Gary Larson, regarding confusion
					 surrounding his cartoon "Cow Tools"

Joseph G. Adams ([email]) wrote:

:

Drewbob in his mail asked about more info on the 5 year old putting their house on fire, well, a few week ago i run a gopher search for "beavis" or "B&B". There was about 50 location with interesting files, wavs, articles. Some of them described what really happened with the 5 year old country kid. Run a gopher search and you can read it yourself or something :)

LArry

I can't believe how many dumbfucks try to turn every single internet bulletin board into a forum for their own uninformed political beliefs. It's the REPUBLICANS who censor everything you nitwit. Now shut up and let us talk about big thingys or something.

Pudman

Thppt.

There may be different kinds of censorship, but if you ask me, the type occurring here is the most insidious form.

The facts are
  1) Beavis and Butthead originally had humor about certain things.
  2) Had no one filed a lawsuit, they probably still would.
  3) Even though the lawsuit never went through court, MTV
     a) moved it to a different time slot
     b) banned certain episodes
     c) edited certain episodes.

I'm not arguing that MTV had no RIGHT to do what they did. However, what they did IS a form of censorship. Having a right to censor something does not suddenly take that censorship out of the category of censorship. I don't like censorship in any form, whether or not the censorer has the right to do the censoring.

(Hehheheh hm heh hem, he said 'sore', like lots of times)

Anyway, this has gotten far too serious for me!

Dave

Dave Hoehn ([email]) wrote:

Yeah, I know that's right! Heh-heh. Alleluia! M-heh heh. Here's all my money, dude!!

Dammit, Beavis! Huh-huh.