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Apple Censors Oscar Wilde Comic Over Gay Kiss, Realizes How Dumb That Was

by Amar Toor on June 16, 2010 at 03:40 PM

Oscar Wilde Comic
A word of advice: If you're submitting a comic adaptation of a classic literary work to the iPad App Store, you'd better prepare for a struggle with Apple's puritan overlords. Not long after the company censored "obscene" images from a comic based on James Joyce's 'Ulysses,' Apple reportedly gave the thumbs down to, arguably, the wittiest writer to ever live.

According to Slate, the company recently decided to block out objectionable panels from a comic strip iPad app, because said comic strip depicted two men kissing. The app, based on a 2001 graphic novel by Belgian artist Tim Bouden, is an adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play, 'The Importance of Being Earnest.' Bouden, however, added a twist to Wilde's narrative, by inserting male characters in originally female roles, thus turning the play into a gay satire.

Prism Comics recently published the censored images, alongside the blacked-out version, and, quite honestly, it's hard to see what rubbed Apple the wrong way. Exposed genitals are nowhere to be found, and the small slivers of nudity are only partial. Furthermore, the app's publisher, Peter Bonte, recently posted full pages of the comic on a Picasa page, along with images from the 'Kick-Ass' comic book, featuring a heterosexual couple kissing. Apple, oddly enough, didn't have a problem with the boy-girl couple sucking face, and promptly gave 'Kick-Ass' the green light. Pictures of canoodling men, on the other hand, clearly crossed some hazily defined line.

As it did with the creators of 'Ulysses Seen,' Apple eventually relented, and, in an e-mail, company spokeswoman Trudy Miller bluntly admitted, "We made a mistake." It doesn't take a math whiz to notice a pattern developing here: Apple makes absurd decision to awkwardly censor original art; controversy arises once the artist goes public with the issue; Apple issues half-hearted mea culpa. No one questions Apple's right to police pornography or lewd material sold on its platform. But how many more embarrassing about-faces will it take before the App Store's council of elders realizes that there's a huge difference between objective regulation and heavy-handed moralizing? [From: Slate]

Tags: app, Apple, apps, AppStore, appstoreapproval, censorship, comics, gay, ipad, iphone app, IphoneApp, james joyce, JamesJoyce, OscarWilde, the importance of being earnest, TheImportanceOfBeingEarnest, top

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