today I visited my thai-friend & she had a thai-film or soap on tv - original in thai - I didn't care about that film (couldn't understand a word either), but noticed incidentally that in some scenes there where parts of the screen made all blury - like they do - if someone in a documentation or report or interview is shown & his face shouldn't be recognizable - so they make it in in big pixels - or there are genitals etc. filmed, but shouldn't be seen, so made visually unsharp, like the beep tone they put over an obscene, not to be sent in tv, songs etc.
- but what was censored in this thai-movie was 'cigarettes' - everybody smoking had these blured big pixels over his cigarette - but the uprising smoke could still be seen - if the person took his cigarette to the mouth, all his face got unrecognizable veiled - this probably is a government rule in Siam (Thailand), that prohibits smoking & cigarettes in tv - so in older films before that edict there had probably this nicotine-erasing censorship to be done - but it's so ridiculious - every little child would know at once, what 'forbidden' things these actors were doing - & if not, would get highly curious about what was censored there & soon would find out - how ridiculous governmently educations efforts's can be (& probably ever are)..
I imagine making a dramatical film in Thailand about an cigarette addict, dying by lung cancer & can't stop smoking until death, without showing him smoking - the theme of the film -
Or imagine all our film, movie culture got censored by an alcohol prohibition government & every scene were drinks, alcohol was shown, would be excluded - all blury - what a culture shock!
.. but letz live in a clean world -
but on the other hand, they show murdering & killing & shooting & stealing & stabbing & beating & all kind of violence - yes I know - cigarettes are much more dangerious - So - dear children, you can kill, steal, shout & hate, - that's allright, just do it, like we show it in our tv-films - but please, never touch a cigarette, that could be dangerious to your health!
but as we know all: the strangest censorship of all is the censorship of thoughts - aber die Gedanken sind frei!
