Boston Globe Pulls Doonesbury for the word B**ch

[NewHampster]

Text from today's comic page:

To our readers

The Globe has decided not to publish today's installment of "Doonesbury" because the strip includes language inappropriate for a general readership. The strip's creator declined to change the wording or offer a substitute. "Doonesbury" resumes in tomorrow's comics pages. Today's strip is available online at www.boston.com/ae/comics/
----------------------------------

What the F... B.D. saying Bitch as he sees his leg is gone is not suitable? Why is it OK to show it on the web?

I think the Globe (NY Times owner) didn't want to show one of the most powerful images of this war. Assholes.

[Goldmund]

1. Bitches.

[Syrinx]

2. arghhh!

[BlueEyedSon]

3. Miscalculation on GBT's part. He made it too easy to cancel the strip.

Too bad, the message is important.

[mouse7]

4. I'm just waiting to hear what a misogynist Trudeau is

You know it's coming.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[billybob537]

5. SON OF A BITCH

How'd you like to give your arm for a fake presidents made up war!

[SharonAnn]

6. It's on the editorial page of the paper here in Knoxville and it

wasn't pulled. It was there in all it's glory!

Of course, it's right next to Mallard Fillmore, the right-wing editorial cartoon.

[NewHampster]

11. mallard has Kerry saying S.O.B. today

I can't believe that crap is published on a comics page and not the Op Ed if they want to keep it.

[sablescort]

34. Was the amputation strip on the Wed. News-Sentinel?

I didnt have a chance to grab a NS on my way that day.

I've been seeing the NS's politics seesawing between Dem and Repug lately.

[seabeyond]

7. wow

sittin in a wow here. can we say nazism yet

doonsesbury has been around how long. how much do they get away with before people awaken. an interesting time in history here. what people will allow their life to be created for them

[tsakshaug]

8. pulled here too

rochester NY

[mark11727]

9. Too bad Trudeau didn't draw up TWO strips...

...one with "BITCH", one with "@*%@#" for the more "sensitive" reader, and let the paper choose which one to run.

[truthspeaker]

10. couldn't they just have changed "bitch" to "*&%!$" ?

[NewHampster]

13. son of

Son of a *&%!$

doesn't quite have the same effect

as

Son of a Bitch!

edit: added !

[Mike Daniels]

24. There's not much else that would have "filled in the blank" on

Son of a $%*#(#@.

Sorry, I don't understand the outrage here. It's not like they censored the entire run of the strip and it's not like they didn't offer an alternate means for viewing the one particular strip in question.

I could see moving it over to the Op-Ed page for the day but perhaps the layout wouldn't allow it.

[wysimdnwyg]

12. They pulled it from the Tennessean (Nashville), too

While I have no problem with the language myself, I can understand the reason. The comics are read by a great many children, and they would have been slammed with complaints had that been shown. I would have preferred a slightly edited one (say, "Son of a B****!) to not having it at all, though.

[anarchy1999]

14. Unbelievable it would be pulled from any publication.

We get hit with so much more every night of the week. Can anyone here say "Sopranos", HBO, DeadWood, and all of the ugly rest. But, Doonesbury crossed a line. Okay, I give, I am confused.

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. War is ... a box of chocolates?

HEll! War is HELL. And there's no nice way to pussy-foot around it.

[DRoseDARs]

17. My local paper, Reno Gazette-Journal, went ahead and showed it.

Rather suprising. I'm sure, though, that some people are going to bitch in their Letters to the Editor over the next couple of days.

Damn this Liberal Media... :eyes:

[NewHampster]

18. I just sent off this hasty letter to the Globe - jerks

A powerful image against war was censured by the Globe (Doonesbury 4/23/2004) today adding to the belief many have that you are truly a pawn of the administration. Shame on you.

Using a substitute for a commonly used word would have diminished the effect the strip has on readers, but I guess it's OK for the Republican tool Mallard Filmore, to come down on John Kerry and use S.O.B. Won't little kids run to mommy and ask, Mommy, what does S.O.B. mean?

Move the Republican mouthpiece Mallard Filmore to the Op Ed page where it belongs. Perhaps move Doonesbury too. But please don't stifle one our great commentators in the middle of such a strong story line.

[chaska]

19. A bitch is a female dog, people. What's their email address?

No way that's obscene, or anything even close to it.

[NewHampster]

20. email address

[e-mail]

[NewHampster]

21. I think I'll dump the Globe and switch to the

Manchester Union Leader

:puke:

[Journeyman]

22. You won't put the word in your subject line. . .

but the newspaper editors are assholes because they won't print it for the general readership?

I don't agree with the Globe's editorial stance, but I find your protest laughable.

[Mike Daniels]

23. What are you talking about?

The "powerful image" was in yesterday's comic which I'm gathering they didn't censor.

I read the strip almost daily, but I can see where if someone didn't read Doonesbury regularly and didn't follow this week's strip then the expletive in today's strip looks like profanity for profanity's sake. I'm no prude but I'd be hard pressed to see that as acceptable on a comic page.

Given that they told you were to find it, I have a hard time thinking this is something worth getting upset about in general.

[dr.strangelove]

25. So there are dumbasses in Boston besides Red Sox fans!

Just kidding Sox fans. I figured that subject would get me pretty well hated rather quickly. I don't really have anything against Sox fans, but I do believe in the curse.

On Doonesbury. I wonder if the decision to bounce the lost language was more related to the recent FCC crap than the anti-liberal position the Globe often takes. They put the picture of the lost leg in yesterday. I think this is more of the FCC crap. A bandaged bloody stump is safe while the word Bitch is not.

Oh, and lets lay off newspapers putting Doonesbury, Mallard or any other political leaning cartoon on the op ed page. I live to read FBOFW (For Better or For Worse) every day, and Lynn pushes gay rights and general liberal thinking in almost every strip. Its a comic and it belongs on the comic page. Hating the crap in Mallard is no reason to move it to another section of the paper. Maybe encouraging the papers to replace it with Gasoline Alley or Garfield (man I love that cat) is what we should do.

Anyway, great post hampster. I like your style.

[Bridget Burke]

26. Get Fuzzy mentioned the Red Sox....

In that strip's oddly parallel story.



Get Fuzzy runs next to Doonesberry in the Houston Chronicle. Which has run all the strips, so far.

[dr.strangelove]

27. Fuzzy Rules

I get such a lift out of Get Fuzzy. Hell, the Times Crossword and the whole comic pages of the NY Daily News get me through the morning now that I've cut back on the coffee.

[NewHampster]

28. for the coming home crowd

:kick:

[HFishbine]

29. I've lost my leg.

Son of a gun!

[NewHampster]

30. Doesn't have quite the punch

:toast: To Birthdays HF

[HFishbine]

31. Exactly!

Played a round of golf, now out for some Thai food and to the pub where my friends will buy me drinks. Hope yours is going well.

[NewHampster]

33. I'm off to a huge Birthday party

for someone else. But I'll have fun too.

:party:

[WoodrowFan]

32. WWNFS

What Would Ned Flanders Say?

I can't write in Flanderize but I'm sure someone here can suggest something that would get past the Globe...

[rumguy]

35. breathtakingly lame