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Three days ago, the censoring of a six-second sequence in William Freidkins The French Connection was reported by Hollywood Elsewhere.

The gist of this nixing had to do with Gene Hackmans gritty cop character, Popeye Doyle, uttering the N-word. This was spotted on the Criterion Channel stream of Friedkins 1971 classic.

Well, apparently, the rights holders to the film are none other than Disney. Criterion had nothing to do with the censorship. It is presumed that the sequence was removed by Disney, which bought the films original owner, 20th Century Fox in March of 2019.

So the theory now is that Disney probably went in and censored it, but, you know, for your own good.

Disney routinely apologizes for its past problematic content, theyve even installed warning labels on older films. Hell, theme-park attractions have been cancelled by them. Nothing is out of bounds for the mouse house.

If Disney is the party responsible for vandalizing an American classic to protect adults from a racial slur in a 50-year-old, R-rated movie, then one would presume that they will eventually release a statement about this.

Heres the problem. For all the fan uproar this has caused, no trades have reported it. The fact remains that Disney owns the film and can do whatever the hell they want with it. Do I believe they will get pressured to reinstate the original cut of the film? No.

Why would anyone in the mainstream media actually call blasphemy on the nixing of the N-word, even if it was committed on an American classic?

Far less harmful words have been censored these last few months in classic books. Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl, Agatha Christie and Dr. Seuss have all been revised under the guise of a sensitivity review.

The reactionary times we live in are trying to negate whatever happened in the past. Instead of learning about it, and making sure the same mistakes dont happen again they are just trying to erase history.

My advice is simple: My recommendation to all of you is to buy as much physical media as possible (books, DVDs etc) before an inevitable purging of the classics becomes the norm.

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Disney Might Be To Blame for 'The French Connection' Censorship ... - Jordan Ruimy

L.L. Bean has just added a third shift at its factory in Brunswick, Maine, in an attempt to keep up with demand for its iconic boot.

Orders have quadrupled in the past few years as the boots have become more popular among a younger, more urban crowd.

The company says it saw the trend coming and tried to prepare, but orders outpaced projections. They expect to sell 450,000 pairs of boots in 2014.

People hoping to have the boots in time for Christmas are likely going to be disappointed. The bootsare back ordered through February and even March.

"I've been told it's a good problem to have but I"m disappointed that customers not getting what they want as quickly as they want," said Senior Manufacturing Manager Royce Haines.

Customers like, Mary Clifford, tried to order boots on line, but they were back ordered until January.

"I was very surprised this is what they are known for and at Christmas time you can't get them when you need them," said Clifford.

People who do have boots are trying to capitalize on the shortage and are selling them on Ebay at a much higher cost.

L.L. Bean says it has hired dozens of new boot makers, but it takes up to six months to train someone to make a boot.

The company has also spent a million dollars on new equipment to try and keep pace with demand.

Some customers are having luck at the retail stores. They have a separate inventory, and while sizes are limited, those stores have boots on the shelves.

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Maryland governor asks textbook publishers to resist censorship - NBC4 Washington

I am rarely in favor of content censorship of any kind, but, like so many parents, I am deeply disturbed by the impact that a rudderless social media is having on our kids, specifically on their health. 

I was reminded about it yet again this week with the sudden run on TikTok of an ancient Chinese herb, berberine, which is found in a barberry, golden seal or even a rhododendron plant. Teens are calling it “nature’s Ozempic,” and promoting it on social media for weight loss, despite that its effect on losing weight is quite small. Don’t get me wrong, berberine does have powerful metabolic effects in terms of lowering blood sugar and cholesterol, but it also impacts the gut and can cause bloating, gas and constipation with unknown long-term effects, which is exactly why a physician should be involved, not self-appointed teen experts on TikTok.

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy is right to put out an advisory warning that social media has become a huge risk to the health of our youth, increasing during the social isolation brought on by the pandemic, but present even before. Murthy spoke to me on SiriusXM’s Doctor Radio Reports recently and talked about the negative impact of social media on the self-esteem of children and teens. 

Murthy said viewing thousands of images on social media causes teens to make dangerous comparisons to their own lives and images. He said this content is “driving social comparison at a time of adolescence when young people are going through a critical time of brain development, where they’re more susceptible to peer suggestion, per comparison and peer influence.” 

The idea of vulnerable groups turning to social media for “connectivity” makes sense. Unfortunately, it is a trap, often leading to further stigmatization and cyberbullying. 

A doctor like me can try to help by starting a conversation with parents and kids about social media and emphasizing the need for more personal interaction and media-free zones but it is unclear how much of an impact that will really make. The pull on our youth is strong. The social media culture is highly seductive and growing. Murthy noted that technology companies are “not transparent with the data they have about the health impact of their platforms on our kids,” meaning “we don’t even fully understand how bad some of these harms may be or which kids are most at risk.” 

The surgeon general believes that technology companies can design their platforms in ways that support the health and well-being of our kids. I think this goal is laudable but naïve. Social media sites will find a way to pay lip service to the idea without instituting fundamental change, even in the face of increasing regulations which Murthy is right to suggest. 

TikTok, for example, already has a health and wellness hub, but parading under that banner are many videos that mislead and misinform. I believe they will always find ways to infiltrate the brains of our youth, a backdoor that bypasses critical thinking, as Columbia psychiatrist Dr. Ryan Sultan said to me on Doctor Radio.

Don’t get me wrong, Murthy is absolutely right to compare the need for safety regulation for social media to what we already have in place for car seats or automobiles themselves. As a physician, I don’t think twice about the Food and Drug Administration demanding safety protocols for drug manufacturing and distribution, so why should social media be any different?  

As Murthy said to me, policymakers have “a critical role” to play. They must create standards to protect young people from being exposed to “violence and sexual content,” “harassment and bullying” and “the features on social media that seek to manipulate them into spending more and more and more time” on platforms. 

Again, a laudable goal. There is no doubt that the addictive impact of social media may rob our children of some of life’s key moments. And, for once, I have no problem with the idea of trying to restrict content much as the movie rating system kept me from seeing an X-rated movie when I was a kid. 

But the problem is that these kinds of regulations are no longer effective, as social media sites (and teens) will easily find ways around them. Still, every parent with a developing child in this country shares the surgeon general’s concern and we must force action, even if we know that action will have limited impact.

Marc Siegel, MD, is a professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Health. He is a Fox News medical correspondent and author of the new book, “COVID; the Politics of Fear and the Power of Science.”

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Should the government censor social media for kids? - The Hill

Fatima Mohammeds commencement speech drew ire from powerful politicians (Screenshot via @SAFECUNY/Twitter)

On May 12, City University of New York (CUNY) Law student Fatima Mohammed boldly spoke out against Israeli crimes against Palestinians. At first, a video of her speech received little notoriety but shortly went viral after news outlets and pro-Israel politicians took notice. The New York Post published a front-page story on the speech with the headline Stark Raving Grad. Since then, she has been subject to backlash from figures as powerful as mayor of New York City Eric Adams, Democratic Representative Ritchie Torres, and Republican Senator Ted Cruz.

Following the backlash, Mohammeds alma mater removed her speech from Youtube and condemned her words as hate speech.

Israel continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshippers, murdering the old, the young, attacking even funerals and graveyards as it encourages lynch mobs to target Palestinian homes and businesses, Mohammed said in her speech. During the holy month of Ramadan, Israeli occupation forces had indeed attacked worshippers inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Last year they attacked the funeral procession of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, whos killing has been established as intentional by the Israeli state.

Supporters of Palestine are continually persecuted for exercising their free speech rights in the United States, especially in academia. Professors, such as Steven Salaita, have lost their jobs for speaking out against Israel. The infamous website Canary Mission exists to surveil and defame students that are organizing in support of Palestinian liberation. The US has several laws on the books that explicitly ban boycotts against Israel.

Mohammed also criticized CUNY for collaborating with what she called the fascist New York City Police Department, leading to former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly slandering her on FOX News.

At this same commencement, students booed and turned their guests on surprise guest speaker Eric Adams, who was once an NYPD officer himself. The mayor has come under fire for several policy choices that will negatively affect poor New Yorkers, such as homeless encampment sweeps and cutting funds for schools. In a shocking lack of transparency, the student body was not informed about Adams presence prior to his arrival, and he was rightfully met with resounding boos as he attempted to deliver a self-aggrandizing apologia for police violence disguised as a speech, read a statement authored by Within Our Lifetime, a NYC-based Palestinian liberation organization.

The Palestinian Youth Movement, a transnational organization of Palestinian and Arab youth in the diaspora, declared that they stand with Fatima and all those facing repression for speaking up & organizing against the Zionist entity. This backlash continues to prove the fragile position of Zionism in this country.

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Law Student in NYC faces backlash and censorship after speaking ... - Peoples Dispatch

Bold exhibitions, middling sales and enduring tensions over censorship marked the eighth edition of Gallery Weekend Beijing (GWBJ), which closed on Sunday (4 June). This was its first iteration since China lifted most of its Covid restrictions and re-opened fully to international visitors.

Featuring 21 Beijing galleries, five institutions and 13 visiting galleries, GWBJ fell between two of the citys main art fairs, Beijing Contemporary Art Expo (28 April to 1 May), better known by its Mandarin name Beijing Dangdai, and JingArt (1 to 4 June), which this year partnered with the gallery weekend. The confluence of events this past six weeks has provided a marquee season for the Beijing art scene, which has been battered by three years of zero Covid measures and simmering political tensions. The economy is bad, the mood is worse, said one gallerist, asking to remain anonymous: A pall has set over the city following the high-profile censorship of comedian Li Haoshi last month. His management company was fined $2m after he made a joke referencing the Chinese military.

Nonetheless, many saw the gallery weekend as a much-needed chance to forge and re-establish connections after years of isolation. "After three years we are meeting friends from all over the world," says GWBJ director Amber Yifei Wang. She surmises that the pandemic has changed peoples priorities and that the exhibitions taking place around the gallery weekend must be exciting enough to draw in crowds. That poses a big challenge, she says, requiring GWBJ to be "more proactive".

Wang says the opening attracted over 50 collectors from outside the city, from cities like Nanjing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Qingdao, as well as Hong Kong and Singapore. Low flight availability kept institutional visitors mostly Asia-based as well, except for a few key foreigners, such as Nora Lawrence, the chief curator of New Yorks Storm King Art Center.

Installation view of Qin Yifeng at Magician Space, Beijing

Courtesy of Magician Space, Beijing

Standout exhibitions include a solo show by Ma Quisha at Beijing Commune, which is showing a single, not-for-sale work, No. 52LiulichangEastStreet. Referencing the capitals iconic, now defunct antiques market, the artist has packed treasures and ephemera referencing her family history and Chinese cultural exports into a replica shop window. Other standouts include Qin Yifeng series of negatives, at Magician Space, which invert the process of photography, and Chris Zhongtian Yuans videos, installations and sketches that muse upon mortality at the Macalline Art Centre.

In the longtime artists' village Songzhuang, the new Sound Art Museum has opened with impressive facilities. The inaugural exhibitions include a permanent audio history of Old Beijing and early Chinese sound installations. According to the museum's director and co-founder, the curator and artist Colin Chinnery, for Beijing after the initial relief of restrictions ending, the realisation of a new economic reality is dawning on people". This mood is of "cautious optimism, with an emphasis on cautious, he adds. Of GWBJ, he says: It was nice to see artists and projects from around the world again, with artists actually being present. It feels like we're reconnecting to the world again. That's absolutely essential for the art world here to be nursed back to health.

This post-Covid economic reality is not only felt, but seen: Beijing, like the rest of China, remains pockmarked by boarded-up storefronts. This is the case in the Caochangdi neighbourhood, from where several galleries departed during the worst of Covid. Those that remain include White Space, ShanghArt and Ink Studio, all of which are back in action. Meanwhile, the emptied spaces are filling up again as studios. In the airport-adjacent Shunyi District, the free-trade zone Blanc Art now houses several galleries like Lisson and White Space, plus additional storage and short-term spaces. During the GWBJ opening week, Blanc Art hosted a pop-up exhibition cooperating with Hong Kong institution Tai Kwun Contemporary to show artists from Mythmakersa recent show of Asian LGBTQ art.

GWBJ is run by Beijing 798 Culture Technology, which oversees the 798 Art Zone and is owned by the state-owned electronics conglomerate SevenStar Group. Last year the group removed Wang Yanling, 798s popular director since 2011, due to allegations of misconduct, and replaced him with Teng Yanbin.

But it is broader politics, rather than management changes, that appear to be responsible for the heightened censorship concerns during GWBJs opening. Following Li Haoshi's $2m fine, criticism of Yue Minjuns longstanding series of paintings of soliders resurfaced online, with pro-government commenters claiming the artist was mocking the military. This resulted in reports of Beijing galleries subsequently censoring or self-censoring all military imagery.

The censors were all over GWBJ, said another gallerist, speaking anonymously. After the Li Haoshi incident, they fear civilian digital vigilantes almost as much as official censors. The government operates on perception as much as reality. Right now, in areas of culture and entertainment, it is actively creating an environment in which everyone assumes the government is paying attention, whether this is literally true or not, said the gallerist. My expectation is that contemporary art would be part of this shift. The reality is that overt censorship is probably the old school way. There are probably newer methods involving decentralised crowd-sourced monitoring and reporting being used today. Even supportive visitors may post images that then are picked up by wumao [nationalistic reposters] who are incentivised to report events of interest.

Censorship was about the same as always, countered GWBJ director Wang. Censorship and the security guards have always been here, and the guards are here more for security and crowd management than oversight.

We did a self-censorship in preparing [Yangs] exhibition, exploring how netizens rerouted around social media censorship during last years harsh Shanghai lockdown, say a spokesperson for White Space gallery. Before the opening, some worrying events did occur in the arts and cultural sector, but we still managed to realise the exhibition with a positive and flexible attitude.

For the first time, GWBJ split foreign galleries and those from China into separate venues. A number of gallerists reported somewhat conservative sales figures throughout the weekend. This incarnation's most explicit difference was the lack of people, says Mathieu Borysevicz, the founder of Shanghai gallery Bank, which has taken part in GWBJ since 2021. "Last year it was buzzing even with Covid controls; this year is just noticeably more quiet." He says there is now a conspicuous lack of foot traffic in China in general. It just feels a lower energy these days post-Covid.

Bank brought conceptual photography from Patty Chang, who had a solo show at 798 nonprofit Macalline Art Centre last year, and sculptures by Zhang Yibei. Changs works were from a planned 2022 Shanghai show scuttled by censors. Sales proved brisk, if mostly to familiar collectors. Everything was priced around 80,000 Chinese yuan and below, so that's maybe one of the reasons we did so well. I think people these days are really conservative about spending money and maybe we came in under or within their budgets." Bank also joined Beijing Dangdai, selling well with works priced under 60,000 RMB.

Overseas galleries that took part included Timothy Taylor, David Kordansky and Chantal Crousel. We did great for Gallery Weekend, says Chantal Crousel's director of China, Wang Wan. The Paris gallery showed works by the artist Mimosa Echard, and is also holding a pop-up show of Wade Guyton in Blanc until late June, following a group show there in October 2021 when the project first opened. We don't really do too many fairs in China and never in Beijing, and since we don't have any spaces in China, we need more opportunity to present exhibitions [longer] than just few days fairs to the local audiences," Wan says. "We do have a lot of Asian/Chinese clients as we started working on the market quite a long time ago, and Beijing is still one of the most important cities playing an irreplaceable role in the art ecosystem currently, in the past, and in the future.

"Beijing is certainly somewhere you have to appear," says Borysevicz. There are more serious collectors in Beijing than anywhere else in China, but there are also artists, the other galleries and the media industry". Beijing and Shanghai are "like apples and oranges, they both serve different purposes".

Link:
'The economy is bad, the mood is worse': Gallery Weekend Beijing ... - Art Newspaper