Arab Censorship
18 Apr 2011
In order to achieve these goals, you need to understand what various animals and symbols mean and how different objects can be interpreted according to the Islamic traditions and customs.
For example, dogs are believed to be “filthy animals” that is why you can rarely see puppies in the local ads. There are other traits as well. Fish symbolizes Christianity. A crow is a symbol of death and a chameleon means hypocrisy.
The Crusades left a deep wound in the Arab psychology. Thus any form of a cross is considered to be a violation here. The Red Cross organization in the Muslim world is called Red Crescent.
It is prohibited to demonstrate open eyes in the advertisements in the most conservative Asian countries. Local advertising agencies have to use their imagination when they show people in ads. The most popular ways of showing eyes are pixelation, glasses and “rolled eyes”.
Magazines
Magazines go through hand-censorship. Even their covers are “finalized”. Photoshop and other things including black markers, paper and glue are widely used.
Any form of nudity is prohibited. Islamic culture is very conservative. Only the skin on the face, hands and feet can be showed.
Movies and Video Games
A particular attention is paid to movie adverstising. Such ads must get a “retouch” in order to comply with the strict cultural expectations. Legs, chest and even shoulders of women and men have to be covered. Even cartoon characters must be dressed.
Brands
All world-famous brands that are sold in the Asian market have to be adapted to the Arabic script.
Arab designers managed to preserve the famous arrow hidden in the “FedEx” logo.
Some brands don’t even try to use fonts similar to the original ones when they translate their names into the Arabic language. They sacrifice it for the sake of their brand’s spirit using the simplest classic Arabic fonts.
the dog , cross , crusades psyology !!
that's completely wrong , were the hell r u reading about muslim countries!!
The only thing that's is true , not showing naked womens with bikinis!
Which is not true at all.
<--- Jesus said spread love, not hate.
and thats happening everywhere in the world
2- not an arab but i totally agree with them covering naked women
its make me sad how we use sex to sell
3- "They sacrifice it for the sake of their brand’s spirit using the simplest classic Arabic fonts"
really !!
thats just pathetic, dear poster have you ever been out of ur mother basement.
what make me even sadder is that readers take shit like this for granted =(
as for changing the brand name from english to arabic, i dont see the issue there. if it was set in chinese many people would have had their mouthes closed. btw, in marketing when targeting a country you should respect the culture of that country. for instance, MacArabia from MacDonalds is only served in the middle east, whereas wine is served only in France with a Big MAc!
nothing. Just interesting to see how it happens in other countires.
Archlord,
Pixelation is nowadays used so excessively that it makes me laugh. Sometimes, the only reason why I know there was something "indecent" in a newspaper picture is that my attention is drawn to it by extreme pixels. Or, you see newsstories about some woman accidentally displaying more skin than morally acceptable, with a "non-illustration" where the entire subject of the story has been hidden by four or six gigantic pixels covering the entire bosom of the woman...
Or, the classical censor strips on photographs of tribal people. National Geographic was world famous for NOT using them, everone else did. Nowadays, even NG practically without exception restricts themselves to pictures where certain parts of the body are "accidentally" hidden by another object. That is not too different from "Even cartoon characters must be dressed".
We find it extremely silly that some moslem countries demand that arms be clothed, yet we are shocked by people who suggest that breasts need NOT be clothed. The principle is the same in both cases: Some skin should not be exposed. Details of where to draw the line betweeen forbidden and permitted skin are nothing but details.
Those lines may change quite a lot over the years. When I was a boy, nobody would ever consider a photo of a naked child "pornography" as long as the child had no explicit signs of sexual maturity, i.e. well into the school years, while porno magazines displayed women in underwear as "daring" pictures. Nowadays, ordinary newspapers regularly show pictures of adults having intercourse, but in their midsummer reports from the beach, you won't even see a naked two year old without his/her private parts being discretely hidden behind some object, or pixelated. -- That is in Europe, but USA has seen the same trend: NG can't even show young tribal children without concern for what could be termed child pornography, while adult pornography is more or less freely available on the Internet.
This ridiculing photo series is rather hypocritical. We WANT censorship - it is only that we have slightly different ideas about what should be censored.
and sorry but the woman are so many times using for sale like object (where is the feminist ??)
and for the arabic marks....O_o in Japan you see its with japaneese language, because arabs have a different ortohgraphe.
its stupid....no...its islamophoebia!!
for the First remark.....the red cross....there is no relation between this and the crusade O_o....its just the Red creasent...the equivalent of Redcross...and where is the problem is the her Symbole O_o.....You have a great problém
this article just shows examples of censorship in arabic countries, what's wrong with that. Relax, Izi didn't comment on censorship or islamic stuff... what's with the trolling each time it deals with arab or Islamic stuff? You can't stand reality?
admin r u jewish? cuz some of your post praising israel & some loathing arabs/muslims!
or you do that to boost the visitors/comments rating?
I not going to explore the "tolerance" yet again
thanks for the effort units