21 September 2005

Banned in Singapore

Via Chris Loup:

Banned in Singapore: DVDs too hot for Singapore

As the site author of Banned in Singapore explains,
Singapore has banned movies for sexual content, extreme violence, excesive drug use, and extreme religious views that may encourage violence. The list are movies that can be purchased at amazon.com. I've learned of the extent Singapore bans films via my position as a Customer Service Liaison.

One task is processing returns that have incomplete information and the Media Development Authority sends back just enough information for me to process the undeliverable shipments for the confused customer who only gets part of their order.

Sometimes we receive keepers. That's when the the viewer thinks the DVD is so nefarious that it must be kept in Singapore for further inspection. As of late there have been fewer keepers and some aren't even inspected just refused.

I note that the DVDs too hot or sensitive to order into Singapore include:

The Ten Commandments
Madame Butterfly
American Beauty
American Pie 1/2
Basic Instinct
Monty Python's Flying Circus (they showed half a season on TV here 3 years ago?!)
Samurai X (ANIME - shown on artscentral)
Princess Mononoke (Anime - shown in cinemas here)
Bubblegum Crisis
Terminator 1-3
Vampire Hunter D

Oh, forget it.

As Amy Chua, the head of the MDA's said last year, "the Board of Film Censors, which I supervise, does not function as society's moral guardian, or arbiters of taste and decency, and has never set out to do so. It can only reflect, at best, community standards and what society considers to be generally acceptable."

This is the only appropriate response to the jackasses and prigs at Singapore's customs and MDA, who have driven many a sane Singaporean shrill, through their sheer incompetence, malevolence, and mendacity!

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