Popular American TV show can air late night only
“The Simpsons,” one of the world’s most famous and successful cartoons, is not so popular with the Ukrainian State Commission of Morals. The commission, established to decide such issues, recently declared that the TV show violates moral principles.
The commission didn’t ban the program altogether, but recommended that TV channels air the show late at night. But media outlets and Simpsons’ fans argue that the cartoon’s value is in satirizing hot contemporary issues, such as stereotypes, American lifestyle, peculiarities of world cultures and, of course, politics, religion, same-sex marriages and war in Iraq.
Recommendations made by the commission are often challenged by journalists, who defend the right for freedom of expression. The commission’s decision to relegate the program to late-night TV is opposed by Oleksandr Asaulyuk, chief producer of M1 music channel, which has broadcast the cartoon in Ukraine.
M1 music channel stopped broadcasting “The Simpsons” at the end of December, right before the commission’s decision. But the channel did so because its license to air the program had expired. M1 is currently in the stage of negotiating a license extension.
“The people who made such a verdict on the Simpsons either don’t have a sense of humor, or they live in the Stone Age, or they simply have not ever watched the Simpsons,” he said adding that the cartoon had one of the best ratings on the music channel. Asaulyuk is, himself, a fan. He recalls the Guinness Book of World Records once listing it as the most popular cartoon of all times.
Vasyl Kostytskiy, head of the Commission of Morals, explained that members were analyzing “The Simpsons” at the request of two governmental bodies (the prosecutor’s office and National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council). Their task was to check the show’s compliance with the nation’s morals law.
“Our conclusion regarding ‘The Simpsons’ said that there was no violation of law on the protection of morals, but our expert believes that the time frame should be taken into account when demonstrating.” Kostytskiy said, pointing out that 400 episodes of the cartoon “were under investigation in many countries.”
The cartoon has raised eyebrows for its saucy humor. It has been banned in Venezuela, Russia and China. But Asaulyuk names such countries more as bad examples for Ukraine to follow. He believes other nations, such as America, care about their children even when “The Simpsons” are broadcast there on Sundays during prime time.
Venezuela and China appeared to have the same reason as Ukraine to limit “The Simpsons.” Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez decided the cartoon was “unsuitable for children.” Communist China said they wanted to give national TV programs the prime-time slots instead of “The Simpsons”.
Meanwhile, M1’s Asaulyuk disagreed that children should be “protected” from watching the show.
“I actually know people who didn’t want their children to watch ‘The Simpsons’ at a certain age, but my children who are 10 and 4 years old do watch, because I think that it is better for them to learn it in this form than learning it in the perverted form on the streets.”
Meanwhile, the morals commission asked the Institute of Psychology and the Institute of Children’s problems to study the cartoon, and determine its future in Ukraine. And a group that protests time restrictions on broadcasting “The Simpsons” was created in the social network, vkontakte.ru, which is a Russian version of American Facebook. Murad Chopsiev, a freshman student at National Kyiv University of Taras Shevchenko, is a member of the group.
“I am against limitations on the good old ‘Simpsons.’ It has many times criticized the realities of our life. That is why I believe that even though it sometimes crosses the line, it develops people’s outlook by developing critics and a wish to tell the truth,” he said.
Besides “The Simpsons,” another famous entertainment program, “Comedy Club,” was recommended to be banned from Ukrainian television altogether. The morals commission experts described the decision about the show as “harsh,” but found the program’s humor to contain too much swearing. Other shows banned in the commission’s most recent decision are: “Material Proof,” “The Witness,” “Most Popular Ukrainian Maniacs,” “Postscript” and “The Eater of Men.”
