Despite its family
friendly time slot and its popularity with kids, adults and the like, The Simpsons is
definitely no stranger to controversy and some, at times, provocative content.
This has led to the show facing many restrictions in different parts of the world.
Today we'll be taking a look at this and some of the ways that The Simpsons has been censored
around the globe.
One big source of issues for the show is when the family visit other countries and get into
their usual hijinks.
To date, the family have visited dozens of regions around the world - including Australia,
the UK and Italy.
However, a few of these countries really didn't appreciate the way they were made to look
on the hit show.
For instance, season 16's episode Goo Goo Gai Pan has the family travel to China to
help Selma adopt a baby and is full of political-natured jokes.
This led to the episode being completely pulled in the country due to its critical depiction
of China.
The BBC writes: "[The episode] involves the family passing
through Tiananmen Square, where they see signs saying: "On this site, in 1989, nothing happened",
and later encounter a tank - both references to the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.
Homer also makes fun of Mao Zedong's embalmed body, which he likens to "a little angel who
killed 50 million people", and poses as a Buddha to enter an orphanage.
China's authorities were also unlikely to be amused at the show's portrayal of Tibet
Town, an area in Chinatown surrounded by barbed wire, or the fact that Lisa Simpson is also
known as a supporter of the Free Tibet movement."
In fact, in 2006 China banned all foreign cartoons from appearing on the mainland's
prime-time television - between 5pm and 8pm.
As reported by the South China Morning Post and others, this was speculated to be an attempt
to stop people from watching The Simpsons due to its coverage of controversial topics.
Moving things Eastward to Japan, where 2 episodes have been pulled in the country and the first
of these was, again, due to its controversial depiction of the country it aired in.
Season 10's Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo sees the family visit Tokyo and causing their usual
brand of chaos and mayhem, including Homer tossing the Emperor of Japan across the room
into a box full of sumo thongs.
Due to this, the episode has not only never been aired in Japan, but it's also completely
skipped in the DVD releases too.
Season 11's Little Big Mom has also been completely pulled in the country and this was due to
its depiction of leprosy, which can be a sensitive social issue in Japan.
In the episode, Lisa pulls a prank on Homer and Bart whilst they are asleep, painting
them with green paint and making them believe they have leprosy.
According to Shari Ross Altarac, who wrote her doctoral dissertation on "The Adaptation
of U.S. Television in Foreign Markets", the episode was pulled due to:
"Former segregation laws [remaining] a sensitive topic in Japan, where litigation of leprosy
cases and charges of human rights abuses by the Japanese government have ensued."
Like Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo, you will also not be able to find this episode on the Japanese
DVD releases either.
The Simpsons family have also visited Brazil, with season 13's Blame It On Lisa revolving
around Lisa sponsoring a poor Brazilian child and the family going to Rio de Janeiro to
track him down.
In the episode Bart is swallowed by a boa constrictor, the city's police are depicted
as lazy, Brazilian men as bisexual and rats and ferocious monkeys roam the streets.
Homer then gets kidnapped by an unlicensed taxi driver before he and Bart are robbed
by children.
The Rio de Janeiro tourist board did not appreciate the way the city was made to look and planned
on suing the show.
They stated that they had recently spent 18 million dollars to try and attract tourist
and now all of that was ruined.
Even Brazil's president stepped in, saying that the episode "brought a distorted vision
of Brazilian reality".
Despite the show's creator's making a public apology, the episode would be banned from
airing after only being shown a couple of times and it would take until 2012 for it
to ever air again.
It's not just the family visiting other countries that can lead to problems though.
In 2017, the episode Looking for Mr. Goodbart from season 28 was pulled in Russia and this
was due to a controversial segment involving "Peekimon Get".
"Peekimon Get" is the Simpsons universe's spoof on Pokémon Go, and the episode sees
Homer wondering into a church to catch peekimon on the mobile app.
This would end up mirroring real life events a bit too closely in Russia though, with a
Russian vlogger recently being arrested for doing the same thing.
The vlogger would eventually be found guilty of 'inciting religious hatred' and handed
a three-and-a-half year suspended sentence.
Due to the similarities to these real life events, the Russian Orthodox Church complained
and got the episode banned in the country.
Another cause for trouble in some countries is due to the timeslot that the show airs.
Some episodes, such as the show's popular Treehouse of Horror episodes, can be pretty
gruesome at times and this can lead to issues with earlier timeslots.
In 2017, Treehouse of Horror XXVII wasn't aired in New Zealand despite it being the
show's milestone 600th episode.
This is something that went on to make headlines in the country and it was said to be due to
the show being aired at 7PM, a time that was felt to be too earlier for episode's cartoon
violence.
Despite numerous regions having to have cuts to some episodes due to its early timeslot,
one of the strictest for these types of edits is the UK, which has censored or even completely
pulled dozens of episodes over the years.
These edits are so frequent in fact, that sites like TV Tropes has a whole section devoted
to just the UK edits - something that no other region has.
The UK also got a special VHS and DVD release called Too Hot For TV - containing uncut episodes
of "Treehouse of Horror IX", "Natural Born Kissers", "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy" and
"The Cartridge Family".
All of these episodes suffered censorship issues in the UK, due to either their sexual
or violent nature.
The Cartridge Family, for instance, is an episode based around Homer buying a gun following
a wild soccer riot tearing up Springfield.
The UK TV networks had major issues with the way guns were used in a comical and positive
light, as well as the soccer riot at the start.
Scared of people being encouraged by the show, the episode was pulled from UK TV for many
years.
Later, the episode would finally air in the UK but with the ending changed.
As The Simpsons Wikia explains: "The end scene of Marge trying to throw out
the gun, but stopping when she realized it makes her look cool was edited, making it
seem that Marge got rid of the gun offscreen, yet the edit ruins the explanation of why
she was walking like a femme fatale when she exited the motel."
By far, the region to get the biggest changes to the show though is the Middle East.
Here's a news clip from abc News, which talks about the Arabic version of
The Simpsons.
This
version of The Simpsons launched in 2005 and, despite the large amount of effort that was
poured into it and even getting some of the biggest Middle Eastern movie stars to voice
characters, Al-Shamshoon performed extremely poorly.
This led to the show being cancelled after only 34 episodes.
That doesn't mean you can't still watch The Simpsons in the Middle East though.
In this region exists a subtitled version, albeit with some slight edits.
But, that's all we have time for today but please let us know in the comments below if
you'd like to see more videos on The Simpsons!
Perhaps next time we can take a closer look at the Arabic version of the show or maybe
even taking a look at some of the ways The Simpsons has had to be toned down in its home
country of the United States.
If videos like this on regional and cultural differences are something that you are interested
in, please consider subscribing to the channel, and, until next time, thank you for watching!
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