Fortunately for American (and, therefore, the world's) culture, censorship
inspires and
encourages artists. [img]smile.gif[/img]
This last year, the moral and political neo-conservatism has had a great deal of targets to attack. Let's see…
First, there are two films about 'the right to die':
Mar adentro (Spain-France-Italy, 2004) by Alejandro Amenábar and
Million Dollar Baby (US, 2004) by Clint Eastwood, starred by Hillary Swank. Still, both are Oscar© nominees and Golden Globes winners.
Next there's a film about the 'right to live' and 'the right to decide':
Vera Drake (UK-France-New Zealand, 2004) by Mike Leigh, about a woman who practiced domestic abortions in the 1950s.
Amazingly, the religious right-wing in the southern United States has not protested by these films. It is not amazing at all, however: the religious right-wing in the southern United States is not remotely sophisticated or knowledged enough to watch ART FILMS and, not having seen it, it can't offend their 'moral values'…
Even
Sideways (US-Hungary, 2004) by Alexander Payne has made angry some right-winged groups by its excesive consumption of alcohol…

Damned be those films about alcoholism in which a lot of alcohol is consumed and in which frontal male nudity and fat-arses are included! [img]graemlins/no.gif[/img]
And how about some Bible Belt owners of cinemas who have protested against Collin Farrell's nudity scenes in
Alexander (US-UK-Germany-Holland, 2004) by Oliver Stone? And let's not even mention the historical inaccuracies of the latter one, who portrays the greatest conqueror of all times as a Freudly-traumed-spoiled-queer boy…
Then there's the most controversial and 'sinful' film of all:
Kinsey (US-Germany, 2004) by Bill Condon. One, it is the story of a sexologist who dared to tell an entire hipocrit society what they actually did behind closed doors and who, 65 years later, is blamed by stupid conservatives of being the one responsible for 'AID, abortions, high divorce rate and thousands of broken souls and hearts'. If we add that there's another male nude and that Liam Neeson is seduced by young actor Peter Saarsgard…
But if we take into consideration that these puritans are the same people who censored
Some Like It Hot (US, 1959) by Billy Wilder because it indecently portrayed two men dressed like women, and who censored as well as
From Here to Eternity (US, 1953) by Fred Zinnemann , because it had an immoral beach love scene with two daring and indecent bathing suits (which later became one of the most romantic, iconic, famous and most beautiful filmic sequences in History), straight dialogues about infidelity, prostitution and other taboo subjects…
These is the people who voted for Bush and whose ideas are dominant in many places of the Unites States. That just convinces me of their brain capacity and general culture and knowledge.
In the end, however, it is ART and FREEDOM OF SPEECH the ones that always win…
Regards.