North Korea's state TV channel has censored Alan Titchmarsh's trousers.
On Monday, Korean Central Television was showing an episode of the 2010 BBC series of Gardening Secrets, featuring the famous gardener and broadcaster.
The show was said to be a condensed version of the original, and at one point broadcasters blurred out Mr Titchmarsh's jeans.
In the scene Mr Titchmarsh is kneeling in a garden, tending to plants, when the blurred effect is applied to his legs.
It doesn't hide the fact he's wearing trousers, just obscures them. The BBC first revealed the move.
The censoring is said to be linked to Kim Jong Un's regime's efforts to restrict Western fashion and culture in North Korea, NKNews reports.
Blue jeans are said to be a sign of the West, according to the outlet, and have been essentially banned since the 1990s.
It isn't clear how North Korea got hold of the TV show but the country has a history of illegally pirating neutral content like football matches and other TV shows.
Central TV aired a 2010 edition of Alan Titchmarsh's Garden Secrets for its morning audience, but made sure that viewers could not see his jeans. Jeans are seen as a symbol of western imperialism in the secretive state and as such are banned. Mr Titchmarsh said the news has given him "a bit of street cred".
Censorship is a form of media monopoly, where the government oversees all media content in order to maintain obedience. North Korea utilizes a three-tiered approach to control its citizens at the ideological, physical, and institutional level.
North Korea bans skinny jeans as symbol of 'capitalistic lifestyle' North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (A.K.A. Kimmie, Round Boy, and Pund scum) has banned skinny jeans, mullets and certain body piercings as symbols of a “capitalistic lifestyle”.
North Korea operates a dual electricity grid that often results in factories and the military getting power while households do not. At night, this can mean that major factories shine more brightly thanks to the greater supply of electricity than their neighboring towns.
Aid workers are subjected to considerable scrutiny and they are also excluded from places and regions which the government does not want them to enter. Since citizens cannot freely leave the country, the nation's human rights record has mostly been constructed from stories from refugees and defectors.
Avoid all travel to North Korea due to the uncertain security situation caused by its nuclear weapons development program and highly repressive regime.
In general clothing restrictions in North Korea are fairly laxed. During summer its fine to wear shorts & light clothing and in winter we recommend bringing thermals and winter jackets.
Examples of censored topics include: sexuality (including educational information about the subject), hom*osexuality, information about North Korea, violence, anti-government materials, and political discourse.
The major impetus for establishing such laws was to strengthen control of the public since such media were excellent vehicles to influence its viewers. They required filmmakers not to tarnish the image of the Japanese Empire nor praise their enemy, in order to prevent any form of doubt on the Japanese paramountcy.
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