the irony of watching "1984" in Korea

I went to the recently reopened Smoo library on Thursday afternoon for the purpose of checking out "1984," the version starring John Hurt and Richard Burton. They had it on video and not DVD, which was disappointing. Doubly disappointing-- and deeply ironic-- was the fact that the movie had been severely cut: nude scenes contained plenty of "blotting" to keep innocent Korean eyes from viewing white people's naughty bits.

To be fair, the climate of censorship has changed in recent years; the only recent movie I saw that featured serious tampering was "Sideways" (a flapping dingle is blotted out by what appears to be a luminous cloud... or maybe it was, uh, ball lightning). But the video version of "1984" likely dates back to the years when anything and everything was being censored. Upshot: we get tits but no bush whenever the character of Julia is naked on screen. Perhaps bush is thoughtcrime.


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