Interesting article about Robin Williams partially standing up to extremist religious groups trying to censor his jokes at the Oscars:
Robin Williams gave new meaning to the term “tape delay” at the Academy Awards. Before presenting the award Sunday for best animated feature, he paused to rip a large piece of white tape off his mouth, then proceeded to mock those who connect cartoon characters with pro-gay messages.
The stunt appeared to confirm reports that producers had censored his gags.
If you haven’t been following this story, the ABC network banned Williams from making fun of extremist religious groups who have been pushing for more censorship of American television, movies, books, and the internet. Williams wasn’t very happy with being censored from making jokes about groups promoting censorship. He came out and made fun of extremists for claiming that certain cartoon characters are gay. He didn’t mention the groups by name, something that he was supposedly going to do before the network gave in to pressure to censor him.
In case you weren’t aware, 99.8% of all complaints to the FCC last year were made by one single extremist religious group according to Media Week. The pro-censorship extremists in America are a tiny minority, but they seem to have a lot of pull with the major media corporations.
Regardless of your views on any specific issue, censorship hurts people more than jokes.
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