Over here in Australia the law has decided that the characters drawn in the Simpsons cartoons are the equivalent of real people. Someone who was found to have accessed and downloaded drawing showing the chacters engaged in various sexual acts was fined $3000. He appealed and the appeal was denied.
I’ll accept quite happily that *some* drawing can be made to appear so realistic that they could be mistaken for real people/children and clearly fall under the heading of ‘kiddie porn’, however these characters are so clearly *not* ‘real’ it’s hard to understand how this ruling could have been made… or what ramifications it has for other areas of art!
On my travels around the web I’ve regularly seen these pictures and agree they are quite gross, however they are also quite clearly not real people! They are yellow, have four fingers, have massive overbites and a host of other features quite unlike anything one is likely to find on real people – yet the appeal was denied. This surely is PC gone too far?
So what now for cinemas that show The Simpsons Movie? In the movie 10 year old Bart is dared by Homer to skateboard naked to the burger bar. He is concerned people will see his ‘doodle’ as he calls it… but goes anyway. On the way the sketch is made humorous by strategic placements hiding his genitals… except for one scene where the camera focusses on them! Surely this court ruling would make showing the film illegal?
According to the ruling this sketch could surely be regarded as ‘kiddie porn’? I see the point of the law and under many circumstances it would be right to apply it but how on earth can it be illegal to show cartoon characters engaged in sexual acts, yet Bill Hensons pictures of naked little girls be deemed acceptable??
The law is totally crazy sometimes.
The Eclectic Interweb 