ABSURDUS apoPLEXUS

Another day, another attempt by some Russian official to save the Russian soul from the corrupting power of foreign cultural imports. In this case, our favorite bigot-in-chief, Vitaly Milonov, of the gay-propaganda law fame, is fuming against popular HBO series "Game of Thrones".

 

Apparently, "every tenth character in it is a sexual deviant" as he proclaimed in horror. And we all know how impressionable the Russian psyche is (so much so that in Russia one can turn gay halfway listening to a Lady Gaga album, one-third of the way if one is in Siberia). As Vitaly explains it, abominable behaviors or traits which are presented as “normal” on the show, inadvertently burrow their way into the viewers’ head acquiring false legitimacy and thus subconsciously indoctrinating them (the viewers) into lechery and worse.

 

And it’s not only the West's homosexual agenda that the show surreptitiously promotes, no, there’s a whole laundry list of vices that the Americans are trying to shove down the unsuspected Russians’ throats; depravities like incest, sorcery, torture and dragon-breeding. Understandably, Vitaly is quite concerned, he does not want to see his fellow citizens turned into queer voodoo-practicing Oedipuses with a knack of bestiality.

 

And what easier way is there to protect the Russian youngsters from all this foreign smut than outright banning them, which is what Vitaly is proposing through a scheme whereby the Ministry of Culture would need to give its approval before any such import is domestically distributed. The proposal is un-ironically called “plan for the defense of the domestic information space” which makes perfect sense if you consider that by the strict standards of censorship in Putin’s Russia, where most independent news sources have been muffled, blocked or censored, fiction is information.

Game of Throne joins a long list of Western concepts and products that are falling foul of Russian authorities revival of traditional values, from sex education at school to Apple’s products and McDonald's restaurants.  And surely, once Vitaly’s plan comes to fruition there are many American series that are going to be censored like Mad Men (for endorsing lung cancer and capitalism), Shameless (for the title alone), Orange is the new black (for promoting lesbianism, crime), Walking Dead (for glorifying death, flesh eating), Breaking Bad (promoting drugs, the using & making of), Grey’s Anatomy (for encouraging workplace liaisons and reckless medical practices) and How to get away with Murder (self explanatory).