Let’s just say it, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. As Kevin Burwick of MovieWeb mentions, Disney+ has been attempting to censor their own shows, namely Wizards of Waverly Place, by blurring out a bit of cleavage here and there, which might be taken as Disney+ cleaning up the act a bit, except for one thing. They’re not bound to do it to EVERYTHING. That would mean every last animated and live action movie and show would be getting this treatment, and to be fair, that’s a lot of blurring to do considering that animated movies such as Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, heck even Mulan and several others, hint at cleavage and make plenty of innuendo in other ways. So how far is the editing going to go? While it’s obvious that there’s no desire to show full frontal nudity or anything so terribly close to it on Disney+, there’s still the idea that they should be able to show their programs as they are since there’s nothing so terribly bad in their shows or movies that can’t be explained to children. Censoring a small bit of cleavage is only going to draw more attention to it while leaving it alone might actually allow people to focus on other things in the show, a thought that appears to have escaped those at Disney+ since the blurring only makes things worse and the ‘problem area’ more noticeable.
So Disney+ is blurring out the tiniest hint of a cleavage now?! Seriously?! pic.twitter.com/d9YB1ASA4e
— Danielle Owen (@lovelychubly) May 18, 2020
Really, the idea of The Little Mermaid was the first one that popped into my head upon seeing this since lest we forget, her cleavage was on full display save for what was covered up by those clam shells. Is Disney+ going to put a full blouse on Ariel or just cut out a significant portion of the movie? Probably not obviously, but the censorship of a moment that shouldn’t really be taken into consideration is still confusing since it means that someone higher up on the ladder really had an issue with a little bit of cleavage showing and for one reason or another just couldn’t let it go. If it was Game of Thrones type cleavage then it might be an issue, but this is essentially nothing that’s being argued over and next to nothing that is worth being censored. There is an acceptable level of cleavage that is bound to occur in any TV program so long as it’s not happening all the time and isn’t bound to become a problem. How this became a problem is anyone’s guess since Disney could have just let it go and saved itself the hassle of people wanting to know what’s going on.
Censorship on TV has been something that people have dealt with for decades now since some folks don’t want to see certain content and others just don’t care as long as it’s not the type of content that normally belongs in an adult movie or in something that has more adult themes. For instance, a lot of people wouldn’t want to see what’s allowed on HBO programming to become normal fare for regular TV, especially not for channels that are dedicated to children’s programming. But as far as censoring what kids are watching it feels like overkill since it implies that kids haven’t seen or heard any of the content that’s delivered in the standard cable show or movie by the time they hit grade school or junior high. It’s not a bid to advocate for teaching kids about content that’s too mature or not age-appropriate, but it is about recognizing that kids aren’t quite as fragile as Disney appears to think they are when it comes to the human body. One might think that Disney is under the impression that many kids that watch WoWP don’t know what it looks like when a woman wears a low-cut top. The lie behind that of course is that most kids, especially those old enough to understand the show’s theme, have seen much more than that at that point in their lives. In that light censorship such as this is kind of pointless, not to mention more than a little silly. Ellen Scott of Cosmpolitan has another view on this matter that might be interesting to some folks.
If there’s really a problem with cleavage then drawing more attention to it isn’t really the way to go, but again, with everything that Disney+ has on the site it’s hard to think that this show was seen as any more problematic than a young animated girl that’s wearing something that’s held on by a single strap and a lot of imagination. The argument might be that “Ariel is a cartoon” but that falls pretty flat when one considers that it’s a cartoon that a lot of kids still watch and are enchanted by. Imagine if it were possible for an animated movie to experience a ‘nip slip’. How many kids would be traumatized then? Seriously Disney+, get over yourselves.
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