The religion of perpetual anger once again performs a successful act of de facto censorship due to fears of what will happen if to media producers if they don’t knuckle under. Imagine if Southern Baptists had protested the blasphemous use of a bible verse. I can hear the laughter now.
LittleBigPlanet, one of this year’s most-anticipated PlayStation 3 releases, won’t be arriving in stores next week as expected.
The “social platforming” game is already gathering rave reviews, but it hasn’t proven popular with one Muslim group, which issued a complaint to the game’s publisher Sony concerning one background music track. Performed by award-winning Malian musician Toumani Diabate, the song quotes two verses from the Qur’an. Many Muslims consider the mixing of music and scripture to be deeply offensive.
Although the game is already pressed, packaged, and reportedly sitting in the back rooms of many worldwide retailers awaiting its original Oct. 21 debut, gamers eager to get hold of it will have to wait at least another week while the offending content is expunged. Updated versions of the game are expected to be shipped to stores during the week of October 27.
“Sorry for the delay, and rest assured, we are doing everything we can to get LittleBigPlanet to you as soon as possible,” commented Patrick Seybold, Sony’s US director of Corporate Communications, in a statement on the company’s PlayStation blog.
The title of this article, “Religious outcry sparks LittleBigRecall” actually left me hoping that some nod to decency had infiltrated the video game industry, because it gave no hint that the outcry was Islamic. I had brief imaginings that some level obscenity had prompted some church or para-church organization to complain, and the company had acquiesced.
I should have known better.
