Spoiler Warning!!!
If you haven't seen the movie yet or don't want a joke spoiled, don't read any further!!!!

I know there has been a lot of talk in the past about what is and is not acceptable in terms of depicting children in sexual situations.  As I remember there was quite a bit of controversy around whether a fairy can have her breasts exposed.

And if remember correctly there is a law stating that you cannot show any minor (real, drawn or computer generated) naked or in a sexually suggestive pose.

So I saw The Simpsons movie yesterday (very funny btw) and there was a sight gag about covering naked Bart's penis.  But they showed it anyway.   While it was very funny, and absolutely innocent, it made me wonder if that was against the law or not?
Has anyone else been curious about that or do I have too much time on my hands?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editing_of_anime_in_American_distribution

The section on Censorship of underage images relates to your query.

That said, nudity does not equate to "sexually suggestive", which is itself a loaded term.

I just bet this thread turns into a fight about the Rosity TOS, though.  Maybe I'm just too cynical.

I readed the Wikipedia article, and I laughed

I know this kind of censorship, we suffered it some years ago, under General Franco's dictatorship

Luckily we had no censorship now (as far as I know some american moviemakers do three versions of their movies: one for theatres, one extended and with more violence/nudity for dvd, and the last one -and complete- for Europe and countries without censorship). I was stunned when recently, with the BLADE RUNNER anniversary I discovered the version we europeans watched was the complete and uncutted one (some scenes of Zora's death or Tyrell's death)

I said 'we had no censorship' because recently (two weeks ago) we had a well-known scandal of censorship: a magazine published a joke abot our Royal Family in its cover, a judge commanded the kidnapping of the issue, and the result in this Internet society was ... just the opposite: the cover and the news were published all over the world. So... usually censorship get worse result than they try to avoid

www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/20/europe/EU-GEN-Spain-Magazine-Censored.php 

the u.s. supreme court has ruled that 3d images or cartoons aren't violations of the COPA. it's only a violation when an actual photo of an actual child is used. there may be other jurisdictions where nude boys in cartoons are illegal, so they'll hafta address this question in every country where the film is shown.

is there anyone the Simpsons hasn't tried to offend?..;)

I seriously doubt that any film classification boards in Europe will devote even a few moments thought along these lines before giving it the local equivalent of a PG certificate (for language reasons).

It's only exposure to TOS's like Renderosity's and the rantings of people who misinterpret the explaination of why their pictures have been removed from the gallery, that makes people feel the need to ask questions like this.

Quote -
It's only exposure to TOS's like Renderosity's and the rantings of people who misinterpret the explaination of why their pictures have been removed from the gallery, that makes people feel the need to ask questions like this.

Yes that's very true, and perhaps I've been using Poser too long! ; )
It's funny how you can show a little boy's cartoon penis to millions of people across the world, but having naked fairy boobs can get you tossed out of Renderosity!  LOL!

That's why I only work with naked superheroines in their late 20's  : )

RE Miss Nancy

...and here we go again.

sigh

Quote - is there anyone the Simpsons hasn't tried to offend?..;)

Yeah, the Church of Scientology, which the voice of Bart is a member of. lol

Quote - So I saw The Simpsons movie yesterday (very funny btw) and there was a sight gag about covering naked Bart's penis.  But they showed it anyway.   While it was very funny, and absolutely innocent, it made me wonder if that was against the law or not?
Has anyone else been curious about that or do I have too much time on my hands?

Yes you have way too much time on your hands

Quote - Quote - "is there anyone the Simpsons hasn't tried to offend?..;)"
Yeah, the Church of Scientology, which the voice of Bart is a member of. lol

Acutally that's not the case. The season 9 episode "The Joy of Sect" where the Simpson's join a cult called the Movementarians was a shot at cults, with specific references to Scientology.

The light blue shirt, dark blue pants, and dark ties worn by the cults recruiters were an echo of clothing worn by members of the Sea Organization, an "elite" group within Scientology.

The Simpson's are recruited into the cult through a free film. One of Scientology's "body-routing" tactics is to give people free passes to a nutball orientation movie at one of their missions.

Homer signs over all his money, the house, and even himself for a trillion years. Scientologists who become Sea Org members sign contracts that bind them to the church for one billion years, and members are routinely pressured to liquidate assets and take out loans to pay for Scientology courses.

There is a scene in which Movementarian recruits shout insults at Homer. This bears a striking resemblance to a Scientology practice called "bullbaiting". It is part of a "training routine" intended to teach Scientologists how to deal with verbal confrontations.

A UFO theme was central to the Movementarian belief system. While UFO elements are part of many cult mythologies, Scientology does contain several separate references to spaceships, invasions, and extra-planetary stations.

The Leader had a resemblance to L. Ron Hubbard, and the Movementarian claims that he invented morse code and other crap is similar to Scientology's biographical sketch of the man who started it all.

In the  DVD commentary for the episode, it's mentioned that Scientology is one of the cults hat inspired the Movementarians.

So you see, even though Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart) is a Scientologist, that didn't stop the shows writers from including an irreverant poke at Scientology during their 20 years on television. :biggrin:

jeez, she musta been as mad as a wet hen when they did that episode. maybe bart wasn't in that one :lol:

Quote - the u.s. supreme court has ruled that 3d images or cartoons aren't violations of the COPA. it's only a violation when an actual photo of an actual child is used. there may be other jurisdictions where nude boys in cartoons are illegal, so they'll hafta address this question in every country where the film is shown.

That is a little ambiguous, and there are other US federal laws in effect besides COPA (the Child Online Protection Act of 1998) that cover child pornography.  The US Supreme Court ruled in 2004 in Ashcroft v. ACLU that COPA was likely unconstitutional, and this was later confirmed in 2007 (see link).  There is a separate part of the US Code that classifies obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children, which is still in effect and was not dealt with in the aforementioned US Supreme Court case.  The US Department of Justice still seems to think this law is in effect and should be enforced.  Dwight Worley remains in prison for his conviction under 1466a of Title 18, although I'm sure he has appeals in progress.

Quote -   Dwight Worley remains in prison.

As the Bush Admin has demonstrated, the nice thing about prison is that you only have a lifetime, and the govt has all the time in the world. Innocent? So prove it.

M

Dwight Worley is anything but innocent.  He's a very, very bad man and an incredibly stupid criminal - it's rare that law enforcement gets handed such a slam dunk, open-and-shut case.  The guy downloaded a variety of child porn while at his parole office, not unlike his previous conviction (downloading child porn at a public library) - for which he'd only been out of prison for three months.  IMO his most recent conviction is sure to stand, just because he's such an unwholesome bastard.

hey... don't confuse the issue with facts Pj ;)

^^ guy sounds like he's that special kind of stupid. 

On another note - to the original topic, I saw The Simpsons movie last night and the weenie shot was funny.  Not sure about the movie though.  Homer too, is that special kind of stupid.  Of course they do hit home on many things - I'm sat and watched it with my husband thinking half the time "yup you do that too". 

Note to husbands - Don't watch this with your wife unless you want her irritated with you at the end : p

Back to the other topic - we had an OBGYN here in my city who also performed abortions.  He and his wife had adopted an asian child.  Wife while doing laundry one day caught the girl (2) playing with her underwear (the wifes) the child had them on her head and what not so the wife snapped a picture.  Developing place turned the picture in and the authorities came and removed the child.   Most people were pretty sure if it hadn't been the evil abortion doctor it would have never gone so far.  Either way in this community now if you are going to take pictures of your kid in the bathtub you had better do it on digital.  It's a sorry state of affairs.

He and his wife were wonderful people, he was my doctor and delivered my children.  He was one of the kindest people I ever met.

My point was not that there's any doubt about Worley's guilt. I actually meant what I said (imagine that!): Once a person is in jail, the system reverts to guilty until proven innocent. And there are hundreds of uncharged people at Guantanamo who are living proof that once you suspend habeas corpus, the system works even "better."

Sorry for the confusion. I'll try to obfuscate next time.
M

Erm, you could have picked a better posterchild for that particular non sequitur.  I don't think many readers would have made the connection between this topic and the one you're on about now.  Whorley was very, very thoroughly proven guilty.  If there's any error in justice there it's not with the proving-him-guilty part of the process.

Bart's a WOMAN?!

(well.. seriously... I've never known/thought about who was doing Bart's voice.. and... I guess I just never thought of it as a female voice. Next you're telling me Fry's voice is done by a woman, too?  - yes I personally prefer Futurama to The Simpsons)

http://nancycartwright.com/ <--the voice of bart Simpson...

Quote - Bart's a WOMAN?!

(well.. seriously... I've never known/thought about who was doing Bart's voice.. and... I guess I just never thought of it as a female voice. Next you're telling me Fry's voice is done by a woman, too?  - yes I personally prefer Futurama to The Simpsons)

It's a long standing tradition in animation that children's voices are done by women.

I'm guessing that one of their writers has been trying to get some full frontal on the boy for several years now. cartwright was probly not diggin' that at all.

Well see, here's the thing...Bart does skateboards through Springfield in the nude but, things keep conveniently hiding his "doodle". There is a part where he goes behind a barrier and he is completely hidden. At that point, for a few seconds, all you can see is a "doodle". I'm not saying it's Bart's doodle, it could be a body doubles doodle, it could be Moe's doodle, it might be Barnies doodle, it might even be McBain's doodle (after all, you know what they say steroids do to a doodle). So yes, there is a doodle in the movie, but it's not like it was a naked, big breasted Vicki in a temple with a sword, it's not like someone's heart was being torn out through their neck and blood was spurting all over the screen...it was just a brief glimpse of a little yellow cartoon doodle that may or may not have been a "doodle".  

Come now, we saw Eric Cartman naked long before Bart, so no big shock there.  But it was pretty funny when it did happen as they were doing all sorts of unique things to cover it, and then WHAM.  Hahahaha, the audience was roaring with laughter.

On a more serious note: Child Nudity does not equal Child Porn, otherwise all those parents who snapped pics of their babies naked in the bath or something, would be in such serious trouble.   Child porn is sexualization of children.

As for Renderosity and fairies, I agree with their stance.  I see it as a more cautious than sorry stance as someone might push it too far to the limit and we'd all be guilty by implication.