To conflate/confuse Page 3 and Charlie Hebdo?

[Babycham1979]

AIBU to think that there's a major irony in that many of the people vocally celebrating the end of Page 3 are the same that were cynically claiming 'Je suis Charlie' last week?

Surely it's the height of hypocrisy to claim in one breath that Charlie Hebdo should be allowed to publish Mo cartoons, but that the Sun shouldn't be allowed to publish Page 3? What about freedom of speech; the right to offend; pluralism; Enlightenment values and everything else the same people were banging on about last week?

For what it's worth I support Charlie Hebdo's stance, and I think Page 3 is a tawdry, mildly-sexist anachronism. However, I see a logical inconsistency here!

Is it (yet another) case of the likes of Harman only representing the views and interests of bourgeois European women?

Except OP is completely wrong. The Sun has not been banned from publishing page 3. No-one has said "it's not allowed"

It is allowed. It's a pure commercial decision. The fact that many people will welcome the decision is irrelevant.

OP, see if you can wrap your head around this.

I support the right of the Sun to publish tits if it wants to - though I think there are interesting questions about what is and is not considered speech.

I do not, however, support them actually doing it, because I think it's nasty and misogynistic.

I don't think it should be illegal, but I'm glad they're dropping through their own decision, based on commercial factors.

It's a perfectly logical position. People signed petitions asking the Sun to drop p3, stating the reasons they thought it was not the right thing to publish in a daily tabloid newspaper, not asking the Government to ban it.

For what it's worth, I think Charlie Hebdo publishes some appalling stuff. I support their right to do so, while at the same time wishing they drew the line somewhere else.

YABU to take notice of Harriet Harman!

I would quite expect her to call for curbing of non-conforming speech or publications tbh.

I think there is an issue of the politically correct generation (I am one!) forgetting that the awkward, juvenile or even "nasty" voices have the right to be heard in all but the most extreme cases - such as incitement to a crime; because one day ours may be the unpopular view.

How did you come to that conclusion?

Sorry, I was replying to someone else but took forever so it looks like I was addressing your point, but I hadn't meant to.

Hovis2001 There is no right not to be offended and offence to somebody else is JTB. Whether it's CH or somebody reading the Sun (with or without page 3) or the Satanic Verses or come to that the Guardian.

I think there is an issue of the politically correct generation (I am one!) forgetting that the awkward, juvenile or even "nasty" voices have the right to be heard in all but the most extreme cases - such as incitement to a crime; because one day ours may be the unpopular view

Very true.

Freedom of Speech is always the Freedom of the Other -per Rosa Luxemburg.

OP, very good point.
I'm in favour of freedom of speech, I think Islam should be ridiculed, as should other stupid religions/ideas/politicians, etc. Long live Charlie Hebdo and long may they continue to publish images of Mohammed.

Andrewofgg

There is no right not to be offended and offence to somebody else is JTB

I know that. I'm sorry - brain is being really slow tonight - what is JTB?

I think what I've been trying to get at (possibly a slightly different thing from what the OP is saying) is that the Page 3 comparison is interesting and perhaps valuable in this context because the reason people object to it is not the immediate offence it causes but at the wider problems in society (perceptions of women as sexual objects, etc) that it illustrates and arguably perpetuates. I find the Charlie Hebdo cartoons problematic because they highlight a wider issue of negative perceptions of Muslims, which cause serious divisons and even violence (c.f. some of the examples of violence against Muslims I've discussed upthread).

I don't think that either Page 3 or satirical cartoons of Muslims should be banned, much though I may have concerns about both of them. I think it is very good that for whatever reason (social, economic, etc) it is no longer apparently acceptable for Page 3 to be published. I also think that the discussion of the context of Page 3, and exactly what it was about it that made it so problematic, is an important discussion to have. I'm interested in the comparisons because I think that the Charlie Hebdo cartoons are just as indicative of wider issues and just as worthy of the same analysis. I don't want to ban anything but I am interested in trying to unpack these two things in a similar way, which is why I find the comparison helpful. Does that make sense? Free speech or no, nothing should be off-limits from critique that picks apart the messages beneath the surface (because, after all, the petitions to remove Page 3 were about much more than the sight of a pair of breasts).

Anyway, I think I've probably taken this a bit off-topic so will pipe down.

Good points OP and well made. Anything that pushes back against the political correctness of the last few decades is good imho.
Many people, esp here, do not realise just how indoctrinated and rigid they have become. They think closing down a debate is the same as winning a debate, it's not

Oh please. One more time:

Page 3 has not been banned, curbed, closed down or silenced. It was a business decision.

The people who objected to page 3 have done so peacefully and legally.

Titillation does not = satire.

All this has been pointed out repeatedly and patiently but hey, lets not let facts get in the way of a 'shutting-down-debate-political-correctness-gorn-mad' whingefest.

Goodnight.

Strange floisme, I seem to recall protests equating page3 with misogyny and child sex abuse. protests by 'the wimmin'

maybe you don't see that as an attempt to silence. I do

Whatever you think of page3 isn't the right to protest one of the things being supported when people promote the right to free speech?

DodgedAnAsbo I see it it as a protest and a perfectly legitimate one which anyone living in a democracy is entitled to make.

If you wish to organise a similar protest against the 'silencing' (as you persist in calling it) of Page 3 then I would support your right to do so.

I look forward to hearing about your petition and Twitter campaign.

Firstly, it's two completely different things so YABVU.

Secondly, Nope, never had a problem with page 3 as I think tits are beautiful and I don't want a world where everyone is covered up (and people can choose to turn the page if they are offended by a pair of tits). However, I do think they should have had a fit bloke with his knob out on page 4, just for equality.

Even more ironic (and hypocritical) is that Holocaust denial is illegal in France. Surely, this is no more or less 'offensive' than Mo cartoons to different 'communities'?

Not hypocritical at all. Holocaust denial is denying a factual event in which millions of people were killed because of their race (which they could not choose), the other is drawing a cartoon of a possibly mythical person who people choose to believe in and is therefore about religion (which people can choose). One is about something that actually happened and in which millions were killed, the other is about a drawing of a person. The two are in no way similar.

It would be like saying people who claim that the Srebrenica massacre never happened and was a big hoax by Albanian Muslims are on par with people drawing a picture of a person. I bet you would be able to see the difference then wouldn't you?

Hovis yes to that cartoon you linked.

Page 3 isn't satire, but then it can be argued, and some are, that CH isn't either.

Thee has been a sea change, I think, among men in their 40s who would have proudly bought The Sun for page 3 through the 80s, 'for the cheap holidays' through the 90s and then really started to notice they were being judged and it affected how they related to, you know, real women (with tits). If they see it affecting sales, customer base, business, they're going to do something. So they switched from paper copies to viewing online.

In the 70s and 80s, from my point of view, The Sun was in every classroom, waiting room, left on every bus. It affected us all, children particularly. It was a part of what made life so difficult for children, girls in particular. It was a part of what caused so many difficulties in personal relationships too.

When I was 20 I went to work in a male dominated heavy industry. Every manufacturing area, every lab, every workshop, was papered with pictures of women ranging from page3 all the way to fairly nasty bondage type stuff. I was always the only woman there, with a bunch of men.

I actually started judging people by their taste in porn.

Now obviously, that was pretty horrible and intimidating for me as a young woman, and I feel it was the kind of thing made published by the Sun that made it be deemed acceptable. It certainly was one factor that coloured my decision to move out of the industry.

Hovis JTB is Just Too Bad.

You're right there are some hypocrites out there and it's basically freedom of speech as long as you're only saying/publishing stuff that I am in favour of. If they truly believed the way they said they did they would be supporting the right for Page 3 to continue saying that, although they didn't like it and felt it objectified women, they understood and supported the freedom for the paper to publish what it liked.

Free speech means you're ALLOWED to say/print something. It means that the government won't close you down, you won't be sent to jail, and no one should come into your office and shoot you dead because of it.

It doesn't mean that someone else HAS to publish whatever it is you want to say/print.

It doesn't mean no one's allowed to object (non-violently) to whatever it is you want to say/print.

It doesn't mean that no one's allowed to think you are an arse and, indeed, say that you are an arse for saying/printing whatever it is.

It doesn't mean that no one's allowed to get up a petition saying that you shouldn't say/print whatever it is.

It doesn't mean that no one's allowed to refuse to buy publications that publish whatever it is you want to say/print.

It doesn't mean that no one's allowed to be happy if and when you eventually shut up about it.

There is absolutely no inconsistency in believing that the Sun should have the right to publish pictures of bare naked ladies and being happy that cultural norms have developed to the point that it's no longer a sensible business decision for them to actually do it.

No-one really believes in freedom of speech as an absolute principle, do they? It's not hypocritical to be against restrictions on one type of possibly offensive speech, like blasphemy or sedition, but in favour of restrictions on other types of speech, like defamation, incitement to violence, pornography, etc.

Offense has very little to do with it.

The thing is, if terrorists had gone into The Sun office and gunned people down because of page 3 I'd have been saying 'I'm a page 3 girl', or 'I'm a Sun Editor' despite my hatred of it. I won't buy The Sun, (or Charlie Hebdo, although did subscribe to Private Eye for a while and I love Monty Python).

I won't use porn, I'll sign petitions for them to change their editorial decisions.

Terrorists are my enemy, no matter what their cause. If they kill random people for innocent acts, that could have been me and that makes them my enemy. The Sun was never my enemy, it was a part of our own social order which needed to (still needs to) change.

Well said, Yves - wish there was a like button on here!