YouTube Video Of Two Guys Kissing Gets Age-Restricted

A friend of mine who is a budding performance and video artist Idan Bitton recently posted a sweet video on YouTube called "First Kiss" in which he kisses another man....for a Warholian hour an a half. :) But that's it. They are just kissing. No nudity. No suggestion of nudity or anything else really. Sure, they are two obviously sexy guys but well, that's sorta the point too.

Anyway, the lack of truly offensive content in his video did not stop Google from flagging it a few days ago and now it is age-restricted on YouTube, only for those 18 and older. If you search for "kissing videos" on YouTube, you will find lots of much racier content of heterosexual couples kissing. Thye are not only more suggestive of actual sex but there is a whole series of instructional videos on "dirty kissing" for guys and girls. That series is not only not age restricted but it has millions of hits too. 

In fact, you will find heterosexual couples up to all sorts of non-age restricted nonsense all over YouTube (and the Internet at large for that matter). However, if it's two men kissing then that is too much for the youngsters to handle? I don't buy it. Despite this ridiculous restriction, Idan's video has racked up 50,000-plus hits in a little over a week and generated a very lively and overwhelmingly positive discussion in the comments section. The users of YouTube are apparently much more enlightened and un-shockable than the people flagging the videos. As the most recent comment today read, "what community standards is Google upholding? That of the Russian Parliament?" Well played, sir.

A Different Opening For LINCOLN's International Version

LINCOLN, the Spielberg film about the President who ended slavery, is a historical drama which involves some knowledge of the Civil War. For most American audiences, that knowledge is a given as it's part of the history curriculum in schools.  However, for audiences abroad, this is often not the case. So the filmmakers created a different opening of the film for its international release, involving the use of black and white photos and some title cards.

The Hollywood Reporter wrote about this in an interesting item on their website about how some famous films were altered for their international rollouts. Not surprisingly China is the most censorious, eliminating scenes and Chinese characters in a number of major American films for scenes which they deem "offensive". The most recent film to hit the Chinese chopping block was SKYFALL and some of it's scenes set in Shanghai.

A Daring Art Exhibit Draws Censorship In Vienna

The Leopold Museum in Vienna has put together a daring show about the male figure in art over the last 200 years called "Nude Male: From 1800 to Today".  On the surface, that may not sound controversial but in the world of museums, the male nude has always taken a backseat to the female form and this is a rare exhibit which focuses solely on men.  

The poster for the exhibit, a photo of 3 naked soccer players by French photograph team Pierre et Gilles, has caused a stir though forcing the museum to self-censor the image in outdoor advertising. Of course, if you walk around NYC and many other European cities, you'll see naked women 50 feet tall on billboards (and in much more erotic poses than these sporty fellows) which haven't cause much of a stir. But the minute you have a naked man in public view, it's the end of the world as we know it. And in Vienna, the museum quickly caved to the flurry of protests.

If you're interested, you can see the uncensored version online along with some other selections from this wide-ranging exhibit, which includes works by Ego Schiele, Andy Warhol and Louise Bourgeios. It would be great to see this kind of survey at the Met or even the MoMA but that might be asking a lot.  However, the Brooklyn Museum was recently brave enough to host the traveling version of the Smithsonian's Hide/Seek exhibit....so maybe this will be coming to a borough near you in the next few years.