TV Censorship, the Pakistani Way
When I arrived in
Pakistan, there was not much to do in the evenings, but to sit in the
guesthouse, read a bit or watch TV. It stroke me I would regularly get a
test picture on the TV screen, you know, the colour patterns. Like there was
some kind of technical problem at the TV station.
Sometimes, hours
would go by, and all was fine, and other times, the test picture would
appear every couple of minutes. It would happen seemingly at random, no
matter if it was a movie, a TV series or a documentary they showed.. It was
a mystery to me.
After a while, I
figured out that the test pictures appeared each time there was a
'sensitive' scene, where a bit of 'flesh' or some male/female intimacy was
shown. Be it a lady in a short skirt, a person undressing (even taking off a
shirt), people kissing,... I thought that could not be a coincidence! It was
real funny, and really frustrating in some TV shows like 'Silk Stalkings'.
You know, those pseudo detective series where all the 'good guys' are
longlegged
shortskirted young ladies. There
was so much 'fleshy' stuff going on, the test screen would be shown every 10
seconds or so. Even during the intro-scene:
One of the longlegged-shortskirted-good-guys
got out of a car and BLOOP. One of the
longlegged-shortskirted-good-guys
leaned forward a bit and showed a hint of bra, BLOOP. One of the
longlegged-shortskirted-good-guys
kissed their boyfriend and BLOOP.
Each time during the BLOOP, the test screen was shown on TV, and the sound
was cut for a couple of seconds, sometimes for minutes. Irritating! Made me
loose track of the story.
It was a mystery how this was done. I thought they must have a sophisticated
digital code somewhere in the TV signal that said 'BLOOP NOW'... I got
intrigued by it all, and
watched more carefully.
Hmm, there seemed to be some variations... Sometimes french kisses were not
blooped. Or sometimes even kisses on the cheek were blooped. Other times,
just showing a bit of an unbuttoned shirt was enough to bloop, and other
times, people could get away walking around in their underwear and not get
blooped.
One time, I think it was when they showed 'Pretty Woman', some pretty
interesting scenes, were not blooped at all. Shocking! Shocking! I mean, I
was outraged! A scandal!
Anyway, I did not understand. Until one day, one of my friends went to the
TV studio for some work, and unraveled the secret:
In the TV studio, there is one room with some ladies sitting in a row. Each
lady was monitoring one TV channel only. Each had two screens and one big
button in front of her. One screen showed the TV-signal as they picked it up
from satellite or from a tape, that was the input. The lady would push her
big red button when 'bad scene' happened. This is when the 'BLOOP' would
appear on the output. They monitored the second screen for the TV-signal
they were actually broadcasting, to ensure a BLOOP was actually transmitted.
It was clear that some ladies were very strict, and did not allow for any
'flesh', while others were more relaxed about it all. My friend told me that
some ladies pushed the 'red button' rather hesitantly, while others were
really banging the thing with a big smack. 'Nah, bad, bad, bad, bad! Here,
take this. Blaff!'.
As there was no replacement for the 'censor'-girls when they needed to go to
the bathroom, either their button was blocked, transmitting a continuous
BLOOP, or they just left it 'as it was'.
I guess that time 'Pretty Woman' got aired, either the lady fell asleep, got
sick in the bathroom, or maybe got paid to transmit it all.
There are rumours that a technician once patched the red buttons in the
studio, and wired a VCR to it, so that all 'blooped' scenes were
automatically taped. Afterwards, the juicy scenes were sold on the black
market for big bucks... Just rumours of course !
Peter Casier
Censor ladies
