The other day, I was watching a program on Discovery Channel called "Species Journey," or something similar. It purported to show the saga of the development of Homo Sapiens, starting with the days of Lucy the australopithecus afarensis.
Anyway, the show was moving spritedly along, like most Discovery prehistory shows, giving the viewer a rather condensed and anthropomorphic scenario of early man's life. All went well until the program got to Homo Ergaster, an early tool-using hominid with distinctive human features. I noticed that a lot of the shots of female Ergasters had blurred-out areas over the breasts. What the hell! Have we retreated so far in this culture that we now have to protect children's sensitivities by blurring caveman "naughty parts"? What are we so afraid of, in this country? I remember seeing the program over a year ago and am reasonably sure the female breasts of the hirsute madonnas were displayed in all their simian glory during the first airing.
Who is Discovery trying to protect? The folks most likely to be offended by a cavewoman's knockers are the same ones who want to push creationism through the public schools. The chances of those religiosos watching a program on evolution are only slightly greater than zero. Even in the rather tame 1960s, when I was in elementary school, the only "live" boobs we got to see were in the National Geographic specials and between the gold-clad covers of the magazine. As I recall, none of us impressionable minds was traumatized from the occasional glimpse of flopping and flapping human anatomy. I don't think any of us grew up to lust after pygmy demoiselles or low-browed cave women.
The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization, Part II. Brought to you by Edward Gibbon (Ape).
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