Go Censor This, Big Brother

Been missing watching a good gay movie. Don’t get me wrong I don’t mean porn, I’m talking quality gay themed movies from worldwide cinema, a good Spanish drama, a hilarious British comedy, an insightful Canadian documentary, a Holy Wood thriller … or a romantic Israeli flick for that matter.

Granted, a lot of LGBT movies out there are crap – but some of them are gems.

They’re not always erotic, mostly inoffensive, sometimes even rated PG-13, and yet we won’t be able to get them in Lebanon any time soon. At least not at the Virgin megastore next door, the new 16-screen cinema megacomplex around, or the next pirated DVD seller in Da7ye.

Anyone who still watches movies on Lebanese TV stations will have noticed, that the way our censor gurus have been acting lately is just unacceptable. Slicing and dicing movie scenes to the extent they do, on the basis of both visual and verbal content, is way too 20th century to be acceptable to any educated citizen today. Hopefully some minister in the next government will have the courage to topple this censorship bureau once and for all.

But as 21st Century citizens, how can we accept the censorship of a cultural item on the mere basis that it features a gay couple or touches on gay issues?

Well we don’t.

Whether they like it or not, we will get to watch those movies. For Technology Is On Our Side.

We will get them anywhere from international shipping via Amazon to Internet streaming on Netflix… and all the way down to the shady Russian gay torrents online.

With 3G Internet around the corner, with the new maritime Internet cables we’re hooking up to, soon enough our Internet plans will become Unlimited and Uncontrollable. Same thing with online shooping picking up.

Now go censor this Big Brother:

Open up every one of our packages at the customs. We’ll re-order it out.

Strip search our luggage at the airport. We'll hide it out.

Watch each one of our bits and bytes. We’ll figure it out.

Block the torrents and streams. We’ll mirror it out.

Then keep trying to “educate” us. And we sure will kick you out!



My own GiBby Box Office from the last few years!

- by GiB#2 - Photo captions mostly from IMDb