Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Television Taboo

Just when I thought our television had turned over a new leaf.

I should have known of course that there'll always be certain boundaries drawn, especially around supposedly sensitive issues such as homosexuality. Still, when they showed Brothers and Sisters on our cable tv more than a year back, I found myself pleasantly surprised. Whoa. A regularly recurring main character who happens to be gay on our national tv? Hell, that's progress if anything.

Maybe our idiotic censors can change.

With the heartwarming emphasis on family values, it came as no surprise that my mom loves the show. Of course I never quite expected that Kevin Walker would turn out to be my mom's favourite character.

Still when week after week they continued showing Kevin's brief dalliances with his coterie of male admirers ( at least before he settled down with Scotty ), I found myself almost applauding the seemingly enlightened censorship board.

Beaten
Scotty : Awww, Look, our proposal scene is coming on!
Kevin : Where? Bloody hell. Did they just erase it?

Of course - as usual - I spoke a lil too soon in praise of the scissor-happy censors. Since I guessed that tonight would be the infamous proposal scene that Kevin makes to his partner Scotty, I figured I might as well take a look. As a measure of support if nothing else - and I'll admit I was curious to see my mother's reaction.

Came down a few minutes late so I thought I missed the part when the episode cleverly segued into a preview of the coming week's delights ( with scant mention of the proposal! ).

Paul : Hey, how was the proposal?
Mother : What proposal?
Paul : The one where Kevin proposed to Scotty?
Mother : Wow. He proposed? A gay marriage?

Doubt my mom would have missed something that significant so I figured out later that our diligent censors had been busy at work. Helpful lil buggers. Obviously talk of gay marriage turned out to far too much for them. Two men committing to each other must have blown their little minds. Shouldn't have expected much from folks who'd censor the word 'gay' from the Oscars.

So for all my fellow countrymen - at least those who aren't as blindly bigoted as our homophobic censors - just take a look at what actually happened at the end of the episode.



Makes me wonder how they're gonna play out the episode next week which centers on Kevin and Scotty's marriage. Will the overeager scissor-happy censors slice and dice again? Tune in next week.

14 comments:

V said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
V said...

we don't hv time to follow this soap opera :(

maybe soon we'll buy all the DVDs and watch it when we r free from being fabulous!

btw, did anyone flaunt vera wang on the wedding episode? ;P

Dave said...

Wow....gay marriage proposal on Malaysia TV! Which channel is that?

When I thought that The Reader wlll never make it to theatres in Malaysia after seeing an uncut version in Singapore, I am surprised to see Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes binding with each other on the big screen in Malaysia.

Surely we expect some changes on censorship after the Malaysia elections. :)

Jason said...

You made me wana watch the show..haha

Tanglebloom said...

beautiful

the viennamese said...

That has got to be one of the most unromantic proposals ever. But oh well, guess that's just the way it is cuz life's not a fairytale...

rainbow angeles said...

awwww! i think it's kinda romantic! love love this series!!!

Cabbageboo said...

The most realistic, meaningful proposal scene. It made, so called normal guy & gal, approved by happy scissors censorship board 'proposal scene' lame...very lame indeed.

Kelly said...

I wonder how Malaysia will perceive the hot shirtless make out session between scotty and kev in season 3 ep 21. LOL.

Anonymous said...

awwww... so sweet tat scene, i still remember tat scene, i almost shed my tear for them. and i love scotty so much, his character just so lovely and adorable.

and tell me the bad experience with censory board, in early 90s i used to b chasing this soap opera called Santa Barbara, i followed more than hundred episodes, every weekday night showing only after 12 midnite, i had been religiously watch it before go to bed. and after like a year or so, when the gay factors started to surface in that drama, they just suddenly stop airing at all. i suffer from obsessive depressive mood every night there after for weeks....

since then i have no faith nor believe for our censory board liao...

Darren said...

i am so going to watch it..

Jason said...

lol.. i have this feeling that it'll be a 15 minute episode with 45 minutes of adverts! Enjoy!!!!

Perky said...

Hey I love that show too!

Musang said...

hahahaha... jase is so right!!

it is going to be the shortest of the brothers & sisters on nat TV.

hiks.