Crybaby Catholic's Cartoon Complaint Quietly Canned

Popetown Complaint Thrown Out

from Stuff

AUSTRALIA - The Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) has thrown out a complaint against C4's irreverent cartoon show, Popetown, which had been slated "anti-Catholic propaganda."

The complainant, Stephen Leaper, had complained that Popetown was "offensive, biased and misleading," and served no purpose "except the promotion of anti-Catholic propaganda and discrimination." He also alleged the programme was unfair because only the Pope and Catholics were singled out for ridicule, and it did not qualify as a "humorous or satirical work."

However, CanWest, the company that owns C3, argued that the characters were obviously "caricatures and exaggerations." CanWest noted that an expected part of the cartoon genre was that events did not have to follow reality, and Popetown "did not relate to the Catholic Church except in the most trivial of ways." The cartoon did not intend to promote anti-Catholic propaganda: its sole purpose was to entertain.

CanWest quoted the communications director of the Catholic Church in New Zealand, Lyndsay Freer, who said she "couldn't take it seriously enough to consider it harmful or offensive."

Leaper was not satisfied with CanWest's response, saying 500,000 New Zealand Catholics could be affected by the cartoon even if they had not seen it, because it "instigated anti-Catholic feeling."

In releasing the BSA's decision, chair Joanne Morris said it accepted that the satire was likely to offend at least some Catholics - but as Popetown did not contain offensive language, violence, sexual material, nor nudity, it did "not go beyond commonly accepted norms of good taste and decency."