Comrades of the European Internet Forum,
enough is enough!
For decades, we have placed ourselves in the cultural shadows - well-behaved, conformist, as if we were the ill-educated child of the great American moral uncle, who must not be too loud, not too naked and certainly not too independent. While half-naked shoulders are censored at high school graduation ceremonies in the USA, heads are thrown around like bowling balls in TV series. All normal, all ‘entertainment’. But woe betide you if you see a nipple - then the censorship hammer screeches louder than a Trump on Truth Social.
I ask you: What has become of Europe?
We, the continent-born of the Enlightenment, the revolutions, the renaissance of nudity on canvas, in stone and on film - we have allowed a country that bottles cheese in cans, of all things, to tell us what is ‘moral’!
It’s not moral, it’s demurely stupid.
Why are depictions of violence in mass media allowed to flow freely like American fracking oil, but natural, aesthetic, tasteful nudity - which has been part of European art and culture for centuries - is algorithmically filtered out, demonetised and labelled with warnings as if it were uranium?
No more prudish double standards!
We need a cultural return to what we have to offer:
- Enlightenment instead of transfiguration.
- Pleasure instead of violence.
- Nudity as an expression of naturalness - not as a moral offence.
I call on you: Banish pixelated prudery! Let’s tear apart the corset of American moral dictatorship like a badly programmed DRM protection! Save the freedom of the breast - for Europe!
Stop aligning your films, games and series with a market that beeps ‘fuck’ five times but completely waves ‘shoot him in the face’ through.
We are not Hollywood’s post office box. We are Europe. We are culture. We are naked! - So, metaphorically. And sometimes literally. And that’s okay.
Thank you for your attention!
Nice 😏
Hell yeah! But actually, what?
I have no idea what I just read, but it sounded like something I should agree with
It’s a funny post, but a serious point. The Europe of my childhood was different countries all very different from the US. But over time American media and algorithmic dominance are eroding things toward being America with accents. And what will you get for throwing away that cultural identity? Americans will still sneer at Europe.
I think a trickier question is: if Europe ought to retain its own identity, then shouldn’t each European country retain its own identity instead of banding together as “Europe”.
I find identity tends to be like an onion, in that it has layers.
Also in that picking it apart is an unpleasant experience that frequently ends in tears.
I agree. I like the post and its message, but in general everyone needs to focus less on identity and more on community. People have really lost the plot these days. What are we doing all of this for? So our families will have a good life, right? Everyone the world over is mostly just looking for that.
…Now that you actually put it that way, it’s kinda weird to think of identity as something separate from belonging to a community.
The nudity taboo is a conspiracy by the textile industry to sell more clothes.
Are we the hippies now? ;)
Peace and love, my friends.
europe’s mojo has always been there
in fact i think we’re leading at the moment
I for one welcome our bare, heaving and melonlike overlords.
Bruh what’s your problem with depictions of violence on TV?
I assume that you haven’t watched any American TV shows for the past couple of decades. Nudity and gratuitous sex scenes are a staple of the American entertainment industry.
But note that that’s about nudity and sex being the same, and the sex is pornographic (that is, the intent in showing it is to arouse the viewer). The OP is about non-sexual nudity. In fact, OP doesn’t mention sex at all, but I feel like it’s reasonable to extend the argument to non-pornographic depictions of sex.