On media choices

I was writing another post, but I have had to interrupt myself to comment on something. I was watching the start of Chicago on TV again. I saw it on an American station a couple of weeks ago. This time it was on CBC.

On the American station, they were so paranoid careful with the language that they edited "you've been screwing the milkman" to "you've been seeing the milkman". It isn't a swear word, but, you know, having all those half-naked women in lingerie dancing in sexualized ways isn't as suggestive as the word "screwing".

On CBC, on the other hand, they left the word "shit", so they probably left "screwing". I didn't get far enough through to find out; I turned it off in frustration. They cut to commercial 30 seconds into "Cell Block Tango". I wonder who made the plan to cut the movie in the middle of a song and how stupid they feel when they see the results.

I think I'll just rent Chicago next time I want to watch it.

The converting power of bumpers

Has anyone ever changed their opinion about an issue because of a bumper sticker?

I saw one of those cars with a thick layer of bumper stickers across the back. This one was an environmentalist vegan car (Go vegan!, Save the whales!, Save the animals! Stop "sport" hunting! *, etc.). Setting aside the actual content, upon seeing it, I wondered if anyone has ever read a slogan on a bumper and gone: "Oh my God! I never thought of it that way!"

Perhaps a sport hunter in a beat-up, mud-coated pick-up truck is heading back from the woods with a cooler of freshly butchered wild game (let's pull out a whole bunch of stereotypes... or we'll just refer to my sister-in-law's boyfriend, who fits this description perfectly). While stopped in traffic, he ends up reading Stop "sport" hunting! on the back of the hybrid car in front of him. And maybe it's the power of the sarcastic quotation marks, or maybe it's the eye-catching colours, but suddenly he regrets the death of the animals he hunted and he renounces his hobby and all the parts of his lifestyle associated with it. He goes vegan and stops wearing leather.

Perhaps a young environmentalist on a bike, heading home from their socially- and environmentally-conscious work, sees a Save the whales! Collect the whole set! sticker on the back of the SUV that cuts them off. And maybe it's the witty sarcastic slogan, but suddenly he realises that he has been wasting his whole life and hasn't been making nearly as much money as he could have been. He becomes an advertising executive and buys a Hummer.

Ah, the hypothetical power of bumper stickers!

Really this is all idle wondering. I think people put bumper stickers out there to advertise who they are, not to convert anyone else.

*On a side note, I think that's the only correct use of sarcastic quotes I've ever seen in public. How many grammar geek points do I gain because that's why I noticed the stickers? Or do I lose vegetarian points for not noticing the stickers for their pro-animal stance?