History Main / MoralGuardians

* ''Literature/{{Shimoneta}}'' takes this trope to absurd levels. The series takes place in a [[{{Dystopia}} dystopian]] Japan where inappropriate words, phrases, and actions [[BigBrotherIsWatching are monitored by PMs]], and the law which prohibits the above is enforced by the [[StateSec Decency Squad]].

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%% Note: The real life examples are kept around because they are the source of the parodies that appear in fiction, and thus the trope.

* MoralGuardians/RealLife

* [[RealLife/MoralGuardians Real Life]]

[[folder:Real Life]]

[[AC:Advertisements]]
* A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28Enrrh9XOA humorous KFC advert]] from the UK became the most controversial advertisement in the country in 2005. The reason? Some people sing with food in their mouths for comical effect, which Moral Guardians stated promoted bad eating manners as a result.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjJqro420TY An ad]] involving a blind footballer accidentally punting a cat up a tree received complaints for being "offensive to blind people".
* In the late 2000s, Frubes (the TransatlanticEquivalent of tube yogurt brand Go-Gurt) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19d_luvn5fM aired]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9LSP-nFuUk some]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoJYmzZtEeI advertisements]] that featured anthropomorphized characters based on the yoghurts having their heads ripped-off by a child, followed by the tagline "Rip their heads off and suck their guts out!". These advertisements lasted until 2012 when parent groups in the UK protested online about how the motto could "scare children" (despite the fact that the Frubes characters did not show even a slight bit of gore). The motto was later changed to "[[LighterAndSofter Rip them open and suck them up!]]" later that year before the entire motto was discarded.

[[AC:Automobiles]]
* Way back in 1971, Dodge introduced a car called the Dart Demon, complete with a cartoony pitchfork-wielding devil as its mascot. Some Christian groups complained and two years later the name was changed to Dart Sport.

[[AC:Anime and Manga]]
* This happened in the late 1990s with "{{Hentai}} FREE", which basically served as a way for ten-year-old fangirls to assure their parents and brag to themselves that their ''Franchise/SailorMoon'' fan site had nothing to do with [[RippedFromTheHeadlines those horrid articles]] about some boy in elementary school getting caught with hentai from the library.
* In 1997, ''Anime/SailorMoon Stars'' was dubbed in Italy. Also in 1997, Italian "psychologist" Vera Slepoy said "Sailor Moon makes little boys gay". Cue the Sailor Starlights (an alien boy band who [[GenderBender revert to their true female forms]] to fight) becoming six people instead of three -- with the alien boy band now calling on their [[HalfIdenticalTwin twin sisters]] to fight. Even more interesting is the fact that due to this butchering [[WhyFandomCantHaveNiceThings the series was subsequently banned in Italy for the next ten years]] ''[[WhyFandomCantHaveNiceThings by the author herself!]]''
* The TV broadcast of ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'' was canceled due to a few very vocal South Korean busybodies taking umbrage at the portrayal of their country and characterizing it as a right-wing political tract; thanks to UsefulNotes/MisplacedNationalism, this has led to some truly ''nasty'' anti-Korean backlash from some fans. Korea wasn't scheduled to show up in the anime anyway!
* In 1995, a doomsday cult, Aum Shinrikyo, released sarin gas in the Tokyo metro, killing around a dozen people. It soon came out that the cult disseminated some of its propaganda in the form of manga, and that its founder took some of his crazy ideology from sci-fi anime. This prompted a public backlash against anime and manga for a couple years.
* ''Anime/HeartcatchPrettyCure'':
** The Kokoro no Tane birth sequence had to be cleaned up in later episodes, because people complained that the fairies looked like they were wetting themselves doing it.
** Another thing people complained about was this little attack: [[AssKicksYou BUROSAMU...OSHIRI PANCHI!]].
* Japanese people claimed that ''LightNovel/{{Oreimo}}'''s Kirino Kousaka was a bad role model for younger children because she is a 12-year-old person who collected eroge games.
* Creator/GoNagai has, unsurprisingly, always been a favorite target of the PTA and other moral guardians, right from the start when his first major series, ''Harenchi Gakuen'', became a nationwide hit. They even went as far as having Magazine/ShonenJump, the magazine in which ''Harenchi Gakuen'' was serialized, banned in certain parts of Japan. When Magazine/ShonenJump finally gave in to the pressure and decided to cancel the series, Nagai took revenge in his own way by having all the characters [[TakeThatCritics viciously killed by the PTA]].
* In 2002, ''Manga/CardcaptorSakura'' had a kids' meal promotion at Taco Bell, but the American Family Association complained that the Clow Cards looked like tarot cards. The complaints came in when the promotion was scheduled to end, so it is unknown if the complaints had any effect.
* In 2022, the right-wing political commentator Matt Walsh denounced all {{anime}} as “Satanic”.

[[AC:Comic Books]]
* [[UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode The Comics Code Authority]]. In the early 1950s, “Dr.” Frederic Wertham published a book called ''The Seduction of the Innocent'', which was about how comic books were corrupting the youth at the time, which he backed up with many ''anecdotes''. The agency [[{{Bowdlerise}} sanitized American comics to an absurd point]], so much that questioning authority and scary creatures were banned, and drugs and disabled people could not even be ''mentioned''.\\
It got to the point where a ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' strip based around Harry Osborn overdosing had to be published without CCA approval, even though it dealt ''entirely with the negative effects of drugs'', and had been requested by the U.S. ''Drug Enforcement Administration''. This event is often pointed to as the beginning of the CCA's downfall. A series of drastic standards-changes followed, but it was already apparent that the CCA was unnecessary and soon their approval was not necessary for a comic to hit shelves. In January 2011, DC Comics and Archie Comics, the last two publishers participating in the Code, withdrew.
* In the Franco-Swiss comic ''Titeuf'', there was a school nurse with E-cup breasts. Thanks to moral guardians they've been reduced to C.

[[AC:Film -- Animation]]
* Fans of Pixar's ''Franchise/ToyStory'' (at the time) trilogy wanted it to be the only trilogy on Website/RottenTomatoes to have gotten a perfect 100% fresh rating across all three films, and when ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3'' ended up being epic it looked like it would go this way. Then the film received two negative reviews bumping it down to a 99. While the one by Armond White was almost immediately written off as a troll that needed to get banned, the other was, you guessed it, a moral guardian, Cole Smithey, who based his bad review on his opinion that the film was too intense for its G rating.
[[AC:Film -- Live-Action]]
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Legion_of_Decency National Legion of Decency]] was a censor group dating back to UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood. In their heyday, they could effectively kill a film's prospects at the box office by condemning it or declaring it "morally objectionable." Their power began to wane in TheFifties as a consequence of two things: first, non-Catholics were no longer paying any heed to their declarations, and second, the Supreme Court's 1952 decision in ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Burstyn,_Inc_v._Wilson Joseph Burstyn, Inc v. Wilson]]'' (the "Miracle Decision") to declare film a protected art form struck a huge blow against religious-based censorship. By TheSeventies, they had largely faded into irrelevance, although it wouldn't be until 2001 before they were finally dissolved.
* Many film critics decried ''Film/TheWindThatShakesTheBarley'', a film sympathetic to the Irish Revolution, as anti-British propaganda, often without having even seen it. One such Moral Guardian even went so far as to compare the film to ''[[GodwinsLaw Triumph of the Will]]''. As a result, quite a few English theatres refused to screen it. Although the film portrays the Black-And-Tan soldiers in a very poor light, any historian will tell you that yes, that's pretty accurate, and no, ''Barley'' is not propaganda.
* The Chinese government is this on a regular basis. Some of their issues are a bit understandable if frustrating (a movie shown in a Chinese theater '''must''' have the villain -- if s/he broke some law -- be caught and/or face the consequences in the end, and movies that don't have this portrayal must either provide an alternate ending for the Chinese or not be shown in theaters at all), but others can be pretty much summarized to suit heavily-biased Communist Party ideology. See also BannedInChina.
* What the PTC is to television, the [[http://www.capalert.com/ Childcare Action Project]] (usually called by its acronym CAP) is to movies (with the exception of "effective"). Its founder, Tom Carder, appears to have chosen a [[FunWithAcronyms pretentious acronym]] first and then built a rating system around that: "WISDOM," which divides the sins of movies into the categories "Wanton violence/crime", "Impudence/hate", "Sexual immorality", "Drugs/alcohol", "Offense to God", and "Murder/suicide". He then goes on to be incredibly verbose in justifying his system, with charts, no less. Note that whenever a score by his system goes ''completely against common sense'', he, without exception, calls it "proof of the objectivity" of his system. He has a long, detailed explanation for watching movies that are rated as being only appropriate for adults. It basically amounts to "a few parents might take their kids to R-rated movies and I know better than them (and everyone else)".
* The [[http://www.dove.org Dove Foundation]] has a similar approach to rating movies.
* Arguably less heavy-handed in his movie reviews is [[http://www.movieguide.org/ Dr. Ted Baehr]]. He rates films on a scale of + 4 for "exemplary" to -4 for "abhorrent", and classifies {{Shirtless Scene}}s as "upper male nudity".
* In South Australia Family First MP Dennis Hood had a law passed, where all R-rated films in South Australia (eg: ''Film/PulpFiction'', ''Film/ApocalypseNow'', etc) have to either a) be placed in the 'adult section' of all video stores (in a similar fashion to porn titles) or b) have an entirely blank cover displaying only the films name in small font and a note saying that the film may cause offense, furthermore all studios are banned from advertising any R rated films (such as the ones mentioned) on '''any''' medium.
* The Australian Family Association is also responsible for many movie bans. Other than its requisite gay-bashing, it tried to get the OFLC to ban ''[[Film/NineSongs 9 Songs]]'', ''Film/AnatomyOfHell'', ''Film/{{Irreversible}}'', ''Film/MysteriousSkin'', ''Flim/District9'' and ''Film/{{Shortbus}}''. It was actually successful with ''Film/BaiseMoi'' and ''Film/KenPark''.
* [[http://www.commonsensemedia.org/ CommonSenseMedia.org]] are usually pretty good about not going overboard and giving people information to decide for themselves, but it was incredibly funny when they listed all the throat-slashing, rape, burning death, and a [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking steamy kiss]] in ''Film/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet''.
* The innocuously-named [[http://www.movieguide.org/ MovieGuide.org]] is a "[Christian] family guide to movies and entertainment," and can make for some [[SarcasmMode fairly entertaining]] reading--unsurprisingly, they strictly condemn anything that seems to support "immoral behavior," "political correctness" (they objected to the identity of the bomber in ''Film/SourceCode'', for example--and they haaaated ''Inside Job'') or a "humanist" worldview, and particularly anything containing "Pagan" (i.e., anything other than Christian) themes. They're also given to [[UnfortunateImplications occasional racism]], like in their review of ''[[Literature/{{Twilight}} Eclipse]]'' in which they repeatedly refer to "Jakob" as "Indian" (although they praise the story's "strong moral values," such as the 'no sex before marriage' theme), not to mention more-than-incidental homophobia. It's worth a read.
* What [=MovieGuide=] is for the US, [[http://whatisgood.ru/ What Is Good]] (originally ''Nauchi Horoshemu/Teach Good'') is for Russia. The project's rules of "a good film" are basically Russian localisation of UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode (specifically, any portrayal of something. Russian in a "negative" light makes a film "bad"). They even go so far as to attack R-rated flicks[[note]]In Russia and CIS, the closest to R's counterpart is the "16+" rating, i.e. only for those aged 16 and older[[/note]] as unsuitable for children. Because of their incredibly rigid outlook, combined with shades of paranoia and conspiracy search, they make quite an amusing reading -- if you know Russian, of course. Oh yes, and they seem to have a crusade against {{Creator/Disney}} in particular.

[[AC:Food]]
* [[http://www.memeroth.net/ MeMe Roth]] of the National Action Against Obesity. She claimed that Jordin Sparks was a bad idea for ''American Idol'' because she was overweight. She claims that eating cupcakes is the same as ''[[InsaneTrollLogic putting a gun into your mouth]]''. She demands that the school her kids go to give permission slips in order for the kids to eat anything on the lunch menu.
* Many grocery stores stopped selling the holiday-only Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor "Schweddy Balls" (derived from the infamous Christmas ''[[Series/SaturdayNightLive SNL]]'' sketch on the season 24 episode hosted by Alec Baldwin) because it was deemed too offensive to be viewed (and presumably eaten) by children by some groups, who campaigned to have it pulled from store shelves.

[[AC:Internet]]
* Stephen Conroy, the former Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications, and the Digital Economy (ie. [[BuffySpeak head government internet guy]]) had made plans to force mandatory censorship on the Internet at the ISP level for ''all'' Internet users in Australia, in which the government gets to ''decide what is appropriate and what isn't''. Even worse, ''what is and isn't blocked will be kept secret'' (as a guide, it's very similar to what China and Iran have in place). This ''despite'' the fact that every test conducted thus far has shown blanket filters to be complete pants when it comes to actually achieving anything, and almost unanimous, vitriolic opposition to the idea on all fronts. This ultimately went nowhere following the 2010 election, where he was met with stiff opposition.
* The Child Online Protection Act represents an interesting case, a law passed in 1998 meant to stop kids from seeing porn. Almost the moment it was passed, the United States Supreme Court issued an order preventing the government from enforcing it due to arguments that it violated free speech due to its vague and broadly-determined definition of what "harmful sexual content by contemporary community standards" meant. Various attempts to remove the ban on its enforcement have been similarly struck down. This is why age verification on porn sites--when it exists at all--is so damned laughable: they'll never be prosecuted.
* There's also the Children's Internet Protection Act of 2000, which requires all schools and public libraries to install filters on their computers in order to receive certain federal funds. It's been challenged by the American Library Association, which has a general policy of frowning on anything that restricts free access to information, but it was upheld by the Supreme Court.
* In an example of a {{fandom}} developing these from within, the UsefulNotes/FurryFandom contains groups such as the now-disbanded Burned Furs and Improved Anthropomorphics, anthropomorphic enthusiasts who believe the community has been corrupted by many of its members' obsession with risqué media, and promote a "cleansing" of the fandom to a more pure, unadulterated state. Unlike many of the above, they aren't usually taken seriously, and their attempts at changing the fandom generally don't have much impact.
* "Warriors for Innocence", a volunteer-based [[{{Paedohunt}} anti-pedophilia]] group that made news by encouraging Livejournal to temporarily ban over 500 accounts and communities, ranging from age-playing and incest fetish groups to child molestation ''victim'' communities to groups discussing fanfiction or ''Literature/{{Lolita}}'' to otherwise completely innocuous accounts who just happened to have the kind of buzzwords they were looking for in the profile. A complete summary of the event, termed "Strikethrough '07" (for the way that banned journals have a strike through their names) can be found [[http://web.archive.org/web/20121215195335/http://wiki.fandomwank.com/index.php/Strikethrough2007 here.]]
* "Shit Reddit Says", a group on Reddit that links to and makes fun of posts they consider bigoted.
* The term "social justice warrior" mockingly refers to this trope among internet users, stereotyped as [[SoapBoxSadie teenagers and young adults]] who use social media to engage in ActivistFundamentalistAntics.

[[AC:Literature]]
* Thomas Bowdler published versions of Creator/WilliamShakespeare and Edward Gibbon's ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'' edited to be more appropriate for Victorian-era women and children, inspiring the word ''{{bowdlerise}}''/''bowdlerize''. Bowdler did that for the sake of appeasing ''other'' Moral Guardians, and actually urged people to seek out the original copies. It's rather like in-house censoring for the sake of allowing something to be published/broadcast.
* [[http://www.cuttingedge.org/News/hpmain.html Cutting Edge Ministries]], home of the most massively convoluted ''Literature/HarryPotter'' Moral Guardianship ever. This is the site that drew some sort of evil monstrous connection between Harry's green eyes, green icing on a birthday cake, green ink on an invitation, Professor [=McGonagall's=] green cloak, and the unsourced assertion that green "is Satan's favorite color".
* ''Literature/AmericaTheBook'' was banned from Wal-Mart for containing cut-out paper dolls of naked Supreme Court Justices. The reader was encouraged to cut out their robes and restore their dignity. Jon Stewart's first book, ''Naked Pictures Of Famous People'', was also criticized for having [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin naked Abe Lincoln]] on the front, and some later editions of the book have text-only covers.
* The Obscene Publications Act of 1959, intended to stop the publishing of obscene material. Penguin Books was taken to court in 1960, in order to prove that ''Literature/LadyChatterleysLover'' had significant literary merit to warrant being published. The not guilty verdict led to a greater degree of freedom for explicit material being published in the UK.
* The title and the cover illustration of ''[[Creator/DrSeuss Hop on Pop]]'' has led to a complaint towards the UsefulNotes/{{Toronto}} Public Library by a moral guardian who thought that the book "encourages children to use violence against their fathers" as it depicts a pair of anthropomorphic bear cubs [[TrampolineTummy jumping on their father's belly]]. The head librarian dismissed this complaint as frivolous given that [[CoversAlwaysLie the book actually condemns such an act]].

[[AC:Live-Action TV]]
* [[http://www.parentstv.org/ The Parents Television Council]] is a conservative, nonpartisan group that has gone after a large number of targets since its founding in 1995. Almost every single current primetime network series has been given the highest possible rating on their website. In their mind, [[SexIsEvil if a show has any form of sexual content in it, it's automatically pornographic]]. The group is almost singlehandedly (it has some help from the American Family Association) responsible for the recent tightening of "decency" regulations for broadcast TV in the wake of the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show, better known as "[[{{Scandalgate}} Nipplegate]]". They've been known to take special aim at anyone who shows what they consider insufficient respect to conservative Protestant Christianity, and are currently intensifying efforts to bring cable TV under the same kind of regulation as broadcast. They have a strong lobby in Washington and have been known to use {{astroturf}}ing methods in their campaigns to censor and suppress content of which they disapprove. The PTC's favorite targets for indecent content on TV: all three of Creator/SethMacFarlane's cartoons (especially ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''). ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' was listed as part of their top ten worst, most offensive shows for, among other things, Buffy [[HeroicSacrifice sacrificing herself to save the world]]. The PTC equated this to suicide, something she should not have done even if it meant the entire universe being destroyed in torment.
* [[http://www.mediawatchuk.org/ mediawatch-uk]] (capitalization correct; definitely not to be confused with Australian TV show ''Series/MediaWatch'') is, roughly speaking, the British equivalent to the Parents Television Council. Formerly the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, it was founded in 1965 by Mary Whitehouse and claims a membership of 40,000 (it counts dead members and anyone who sends letters to them). It espouses an aggressively conservative view of proper TV content and has advocated making the possession of pornography a crime punishable by jail time.
* ''National Coalition of Television Violence'', an ally of Pat Pulling. Its founder and research director Dr. Thomas Radecki, home-brewed theologist of Fundamentalist Christian strain bent on "investigating" Satanism and what he called "research". The latter included reviewing book reviewers and condemning those who "may not have been as sensitive to violence as they should have been", as well as reviewing "''book covers'' of popular paperback books randomly selected from the shelves" in a bookstore to see how many of them he can call "violent". Yes, he freely admitted he used to [[ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontWatch judge a book by its cover]]. He warned about kids not knowing the difference between fantasy and reality and quoted a novel (''Mazes and Monsters'' by Rona Jaffe) as a real document.
* The Ig Nobel Prize ceremonies have a V-Chip Monitor on stage, who steps in to censor potentially offensive lectures or demonstrations.
* ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' has been fighting this since Day 1. People were complaining that the show's violent content was encouraging children to hurt themselves, and a rumor began that a kid died while he was playing Power Rangers with his friends (in fact, many countries censored or simply refused to broadcast the show because of this; in a cute twist of irony, until 2011 the only place where the show was still outright ''banned'' was New Zealand, where it's been filmed since 2002). Nowadays, with the internet and violent video games, ''Power Rangers'' looks rather quaint by comparison, so Moral Guardians tend to just live and let live.
* ''Series/KamenRiderAmazon'' was canceled because of the Moral Guardians, apparently due to the fact that fights would end with the [[MonsterOfTheWeek monster]] [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome losing a limb or lots of blood]] as opposed to blowing up.
* ''Series/GilmoreGirls'' was originally developed through Family Friendly Programming Forum’s (FFPF), and continued to receive funding from them. (Hence the “Changes Everything” ad campaign.) How many shows can say they got approval from both the FFPF and NOW's Primetime Report?
* ''Series/FatherTed'' was subject to criticism from those who viewed it as Anti-Irish. Many of these guardians were English people of Irish descent, a fact Creator/GrahamLinehan thought to be a Wallbanger. Many also felt that the Catholic Church in Ireland was portrayed in a bad light. Gleefully parodied with their protest of an obscene film which only makes the film more popular.
* ''Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration'' (which is mainly an ensemble drama) has had problems with this, in true CowboyBebopAtHisComputer fashion. In the early part of the series, Moral Guardians were convinced that Marco, a gay teen, was the main character of the series. Later they thought this role belonged to yet another gay character, Riley Stavros. While in reality (so to speak), they were both relatively minor characters.
* This was one of the major reasons MTV's version of ''Series/{{Skins}}'' was canceled. People were going onto forums and speaking out against it as "child pornography". The actors were never filmed below the waist, and the most "explicit" form of "sex" shown was dry-humping.
* ''Series/RoundTheTwist'' was almost banned in its home country Australia at the time of its premiere because it contained a lot of things deemed HarmfulToMinors, such as death, nudity (including references to genitalia), underwear, incest (KissingUnderTheInfluence), mild sex references (and one episode -- "Lucky Lips" -- centered on a magic tube of lipstick that attracts females... and not just human females, either), and your typical gross-out humor staples (body odor, ToiletHumor [both urination and defecation] and plenty of vomit). It also had trouble being exported to Britain because of such subject matter.
* ''Series/{{Glee}}'' has been getting a surprising amount of flak by Moral Guardians. While the show never tried to be shy about risque content, its similarities to [[Film/HighSchoolMusical a popular film series aimed at children]] led a lot of people to initially (and some still do) believe the show was targeting children. Some of the particularly ridiculous criticisms were over risque magazine photoshoots featuring the actors who played teenage characters, even likening it to "pedophilia"... Even though the actors in question were in their mid-twenties when they did the photos! Pretty much all the criticism of the show's "inappropriate" content comes from people who don't realize that the show is made for older teens and young adults.
* At the height of its popularity, ''Series/GrowingPains'' suffered from this when the show's lead actor Kirk Cameron became a born-again Christian. [[WagTheDirector Kirk started to enforce his beliefs onto the show's producers]], [[TroubledProduction which in turn led to many problems]]. Scenes and dialogue that contained suggestive content had to be cut, and Kirk even got co-star Julie [=McCullough=] fired for once posing nude for ''Magazine/{{Playboy}}''. The show was eventually cancelled when Kirk started to call the executive producers "pornographers" after they tried to go against his decisions.

[[AC:Magazines]]
* On multiple occasions, the women's magazine ''Take A Break'' campaigns on social issues, but it's obvious that they did not do research on these issues. Also, their agony aunt Katie tends to be guilty of this on multiple occasions, causing moral panic sometimes.
* A supermarket in Arkansas caught some flack when they [[http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2011/01/magazine-cover-with-elton-johns-baby-too-controversial-arkansas used their "family shield"]] to cover a magazine cover that had Music/EltonJohn, his husband and their new infant son in order "protect young shoppers", but eventually reversed their decision when they received complaints.

[[AC:{{Music}}]]
* The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) were the infamous self-appointed moral crusaders against any kind of fun in music in the 1980s, formed by Tipper Gore and other wives of influential people when she was scandalized by lyrics to the Music/{{Prince}} song "[[Film/PurpleRain Darling Nikki]]" (a full account of the history behind the PMRC is given on Jello Biafra's spoken word recording [[http://www.emusic.com/album/Jello-Biafra-High-Priest-Of-Harmful-Matter-Tales-From-The-Tria-MP3-Download/10739423.html High Priest of Harmful Matter]]). Their aim was soon set at the LA glam scene and metal in general, but although they lost influence, many others eventually took up the moral crusade against metal music, with equally stupid arguments ranging from a (false) accusation of backward lyrics in Music/JudasPriest songs to blaming the recent Virginia Tech killings on the fact that the killer wrote a play which had the same name as a Music/GunsNRoses song. Many metal bands have written songs about the PMRC and censorship -- Music/{{Megadeth}} in particular have written several. Even more infamous was the day the PMRC called Dee Snider, frontman for Music/TwistedSister, to testify, expecting him to make himself look foolish and further promote their cause. [[https://youtu.be/S0Vyr1TylTE Snider showed up dressed in ripped and torn clothing, with his notes in a crumpled wad. However, appearances are deceiving: Dee Snider is a very literate and eloquent man, with a strong sense of the poetic]]. He proceeded to eloquently verbally abuse the entire PMRC, up to and including implications that Tipper Gore was a closet sadomasochist, visibly angering Al Gore to the point of near incoherence. He also finally managed to come off as more respectful than the committee members themselves, when he pushed back on their referring to Tipper Gore as "Senator Gore's wife" and insisted on referring to her by her name, effectively underscoring the point he made about being against sexism. This was possibly the most epic defeat ever handed to the PMRC.
* There was a documentary about "the evils of rock and roll" called "Hell's Bells", which claimed that rock'n'roll makes children prone to violently killing people and that rock musicians ''are possessed by the Devil when they write and/or perform their songs''. Among other things. Apparently it was over seven hours long. There was a sequel, released in 2001, titled "Hell's Bells 2." It suggested that many rock bands promoted [=LaVeyan=] Satanism through their general attitude, even though most of the bands they described probably had little to no actual knowledge of [=LaVey=].
* During the 80s there was a fellow by the name of Michael Mills who had a radio show devoted to finding Satanic messages in rock songs. Among the bands he accused of corrupting its listeners were the usual suspects like Kiss and Led Zeppelin but he also included a few head-scratchers like ELO, Bow Wow Wow, and of all people, Dan Fogelberg.
* The verse "Superman that ho" of Music/SouljaBoy's hit "Crank Dat" was thought to be about a depraved sex act. This caused lots of backlash from Moral Guardians everywhere thinking the song was promoting sexual acts. Turns out, that that's not what he intended ''and'' the meaning is based on an UrbanLegend anyway.
* Music/{{Eels}}' ''Daisies Of The Galaxy'' was a fairly unlikely target for this sort of controversy: When promotional copies were given out at an event at the Democratic National Convention, both a New York Post article and the official site for UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush's election typified it as "a compact disc clearly marketed towards children containing offensive language". The evidence it was being "marketed towards children" was that the cover art was [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids drawn in a style reminiscent of a children's storybook]], while the main things that were cited as offensive were the song title "It's A Motherfucker" and the lyric "when I grow up I'll be an angry little whore" (from "Tiger In My Tank"). In reality, the album is pretty tame for having a Parental Advisory sticker: "It's A Motherfucker" is a song about missing someone that happens to have the album's PrecisionFStrike, and in context, the phrase "angry little whore" was clearly being taken entirely too literally.

[[AC:Newspapers]]
* ''The Sun'', a British tabloid newspaper, is well known for using ThinkOfTheChildren in various campaigns to boost circulation. Examples include a successful 2008 campaign again Website/{{Facebook}} to force the removal of an application that allowed users to virtually "shank" (knife) friends, and a 1992 campaign against ''Film/ChildsPlay3'', which they tied to the murder of a toddler by two boys. Hypocritically, however, they had no problems publishing topless pictures of sixteen- and seventeen-year-old girls in their popular "Page Three" section from 1970 up until 2003, when a change in the law banned topless pictures of anyone under eighteen. It got to the point where a front page article bemoaning moral decline and paedophilia was juxtaposed with a picture of singer Charlotte Church and a leering caption about how she was all grown up at 16. This was mockingly lampshaded by British comedian [[Series/RussellHowardsGoodNews Russell Howard]].
-->''"Are you a paedo? Are you a paedo? Have a bang on her tits, 16 today! Are you a paedo?"''
* The ''Daily Express'', with an equally vitriolic attitude towards immigration, asylum seekers, and the European Union. Has a particular fixation with conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Princess Diana, and is known as the "Di-ly Express" in ''Magazine/PrivateEye''. It should be noted that the ''Express'' and its stablemate ''The Star'' are both owned by millionaire ''porn baron'' Richard Desmond, who is behind many of the X-rated TV channels on British television. This hasn't changed their moral stances and promotion of "family values" at all.
* The ''Daily Mail'' is another [[UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers Right Wing Tabloid in a similar vein to the Daily Express]] and is infamous in the UK for "raging" over many moral issues including Immigration, Education, Video Games, Television content, ''[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking The Daily Express,]]'' and so on.
** One particularly noteworthy attack was the [[http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3588/3341901662_998f5a0cfa.jpg Ban These Evil Games]] front page from back in 2004, when they linked a child's murder to video gaming in general, describing them as "Poisoning Young Minds." They were irritating enough that Music/{{Radiohead}} recorded a song making fun of them.
** The ''Daily Mail'' has also spearheaded a campaign to "Ban Internet Porn", restricting "porn" at the ISP level but not actually specifying exactly what they want to ban other than implying that all porn is extreme, underage, or bestiality and [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2140962/Sara-Payne-backs-block-online-porn-says-images-encourage-perverts-turn-fantasies-reality.html watching porn turns you into a]] pedophile serial killer. Of course, browsers should still display their site's galleries of scantily-dressed young women.

[[AC:ProfessionalWrestling]]
* Mexico City's mayor, Lic. Ernesto Uruchurtu, banned professional wrestling from television, despite Wrestling/{{CMLL}} cutting out all blood and prohibiting GimmickMatches. Pressure from them also led to La Nazi changing her name to La Comandante.
* When TBS standards and practices ordered Wrestling/VinceRusso to cut down on the violence in Wrestling/{{WCW}}, he responded by repackaging the former West Hollywood Blondes (Lodi and Lenny Lane) as a Right To Censor ripoff called Standards & Practices as a TakeThat against TBS. The twist was that S&P secretly loved the sex and violence they supposedly opposed, and that's why their valet Ms. Hancock (Wrestling/StacyKeibler) would do sexy dances on the commentary desk while Lodi and Lenny "censored" the ring. This lasted about a month, with Ms. Hancock becoming the SmurfetteBreakout and Lodi and Lenny getting taken off TV and getting repackaged yet again.
* New York Post writer Phil Mushnick ''hated'' professional wrestling. He wasn't content to just not watch it, he wanted to stop everybody else from watching it. When billionaire Ted Turner donated to charity, Mushnick said he would have done better to close down WCW. He was behind the media assault on steroid use in professional wrestling and, despite the likes of Wrestling/VinceMcMahon being cleared, Mushnick still claimed he was guilty. He claimed all fans are mentally challenged and equated parents letting their children watch it to abuse. Tragedies such as the unrelated death of Wrestling/BrianPillman were used by him to spearhead taking down all wrestling promotions.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* [[http://www.google.com/search?q=%2B%22The+Pulling+Report%22 Patricia Pulling]], mother of Irving "Bink" Pulling (who committed suicide on June 8, 1982), alleged that her son's suicide was caused by roleplaying games, a common accusation of the time (Irving Pulling was noted to be having troubles fitting in at school, and wrote "Life is a Joke" on a blackboard at school shortly before his suicide). Pulling tried to sue the principal of the high school her son attended, then got a private investigator certificate and formed B.A.D.D. (Bothered About TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons), testified as a self-proclaimed expert in "occult" and D&D, and riding [[http://www.google.com/search?q=%2B%22satanic+day+care+center%22 a wave of "cult crimes" scare]], produced handouts for police that contained erroneous or outright false statements (such as claiming that 8% of Richmond, Virginia citizens were Satanists; she came to this conclusion by estimating 4% of teens and 4% of adults, [[ArtisticLicenseStatistics and adding the result]]. And a list of fantasy role-playing games, some of which weren't fantasy, or role-playing games, at all). She had an objection to ''Tunnels and Trolls'' because it used rolls of [[NumberOfTheBeast three six-sided]] dice, so there must be something Satanic. Somehow she was allowed to get away with everything up to unauthorized and re-edited reprinting of newspaper articles and even was hired to give testimony in a court of law. Pulling died of cancer in 1997, and the anti-RPG backlash more or less died with her.
* Creator/JackChick, of course, had a rather [[http://www.chick.com/READING/TRACTS/0046/0046_01.ASP famous tract]] about how ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' leads to suicide and satanism.
* The Swedish book ''De övargivandes Arme'' (Army of the Abandoned) from 1997 claimed that role-playing was secretly a front for neo-Nazi indoctrination and training in guerilla warfare. Although the book's arguments were mainly of the HitlerAteSugar variety (e.g. that ''Creator/WhiteWolf'' sounded kinda Nazi-ish), it did provoke a couple of [=MPs=] to demand age codes on [=RPGs=], before the debate died down.
* As part of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' included many references to the real world, classical mythology, and/or religion. That faded partly because of a devotion to their own world-building and intellectual property, but also to placate Moral Guardians who didn't like upside-down burning pentagrams appearing in card art. The difference is particularly glaring between one printing of the card "Unholy Strength" and another, in which the art of the later version is missing the pentagram that takes up the entire background of the picture but is otherwise identical.
* In 2003, Brazilian TV show host Gilberto Barros made some TV reports for his TV show ''Boa Noite Brasil'', claiming that the games ''Franchise/YuGiOh'' and ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' were Satanic, calling ''Yu-Gi-Oh!'' "The Devil's Card Game". On 5th June 2003, he dedicated his whole time slot to that subject, and the next day, thousands of children across Brazil had their cards confiscated, torn apart, or burned by worried parents and teachers. He kept doing similar reports on video games as well, like ''VideoGame/{{Carmageddon}}''. However, he would later say he was sorry for his reports and reveal he only did them for the ratings, but only after departing from TV and moving to radio.[[note]]There is no footage of those reports on the Internet, however.[[/note]]

[[AC:{{Theatre}}]]
* Theatre has a long history of being banned or closed in the Christian world for reasons of immorality. UsefulNotes/JohnCalvin and UsefulNotes/OliverCromwell come to mind, as do most Puritan sects, but most forms of theatre (Church commissioned morality play being the exception) were banned throughout most of the MiddleAges. Arguments explaining why theatre is evil and/or useless go back at least as far as Plato, and the opposition dates back at least as far as Aristotle.
* Creator/HenrikIbsen's ''Theatre/ADollsHouse'', regarded as the first true feminist play, was criticized for challenging traditional gender roles and the sanctity of marriage, with most criticism being aimed particularly toward female protagonist Nora, who [[spoiler: leaves her husband and children behind in order to start a new life of self-discovery at the end of the original play]]. The ending was criticized so much [[ExecutiveMeddling that an alternative version of the play was performed]], with Nora [[spoiler: giving her husband a second chance and staying with him at the end of the play]]. Nowadays, all performances of this play use the original ending. Ibsen, who was not happy with being forced to write an alternative ending to the play and considered it a travesty, included a pointed TakeThat to his critics, [[spoiler: in that the "happy" ending is only achieved thanks to the husband bullying and emotionally guilt-tripping his wife into staying through their children, and the wife makes it ''very'' clear that she considers staying AFateWorseThanDeath.]]

[[AC:Toys]]
* The Lion and Lamb Project, an organization active from 1997 to circa 2011, was this at children's toys. The main problem with their crusade against immoral toys was their massive lack of research involved in their tirades -- the group constantly claimed that various toys were marketed at children simply because of the "Ages 3 and Up" approval rating on all toys (which is the result of a safety test, not a demographic statement). They went straight into CowboyBebopAtHisComputer territory by claiming that a ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' toyline was clearly designed to tie in to ''Film/TheMatrix'', despite the fact that the two franchises have no corporate connection and only shared the unimportant background premise of a background BigBad draining energy from living beings. Their lists of "recommended" toys made it quite clear the people behind the project thought toys were not designed for people who aren't kids, despite the blatant pandering to collectors' markets in many toylines. Possibly due to the increasing irrelevance of physical toys, their website became inactive around 2013 and stayed this way until a Swedish gambling company by the name of [=LionLamb=] bought the domain.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* In the 1990s, the Brazilian Ministry of Justice forbid sales of the ''VideoGame/{{Carmageddon}}'' series and the first ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto''. But in the 2000s they entered CulturePolice level by banning ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}'', ("doesn't let children be educated properly", according to the judge who ordered the ban) ''VideoGame/CounterStrike'' ("violence stimulation") and ''VideoGame/EverQuest'' ("subversion of social order").
* ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' was originally going to have morphine as one of its chems, but a complaint about the portrayal of morphine in the game from Australian Moral Guardians got it changed to Med-X while still coming in rather recognizable syringes. The way it was portrayed? As an extremely potent but dangerously addictive painkiller... which is kind of what morphine ''is''.
* The ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series is a repeated target of Moral Guardians. Several entries have been denied release internationally, including in parts of Japan. This came to a particularly explosive head in ''[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas San Andreas]]'' when hackers discovered a [[DummiedOut disabled sex minigame]] (dubbed "Hot Coffee") that led to Jack Thompson (again) patrolling the media with his anti-gaming theories, as well as facetime from numerous lawmakers including Senator UsefulNotes/HillaryRodhamClinton, who proposed laws to restrict the sales of certain games. Clinton and Thompson even appeared together several times to fight against the game.
* Jack Thompson is a self-appointed crusader against video games, and apparently blames them for every evil affecting American society except possibly global warming and the common cold. Before that, he was involved in efforts to censor music, specifically rap. He has a history of rabid overreaction to his pet issue-of-the-moment, vitriol towards more rational persons on ''any'' side of that issue, and legal threats to anyone who disagrees with him (his lawsuits have expanded to include the ''Florida Supreme Court'' as a target). However, he was considered to be relatively harmless, as his rants cost him his credibility and, eventually, his license to practice law; with more important people making threats against video games, Thompson was merely the most visible and possibly the most entertaining.
* The UK has former politician Keith Vaz MP, a man of [[SarcasmMode sublime intellect]], [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1162213/Keith-Vaz-damning-letter-How-senior-Labour-MP-abused-position-help-crooked-lawyer-court.html unimpeachable]] [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1319919/Vaz-was-made-a-minister-after-Hinduja-brothers-lobbied-Blair.html personal]] [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/3123394/Keith-Vaz-to-face-sleaze-investigation.html integrity]] a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Vaz#Rushdie_Affair champion of free speech]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Vaz#Leicester_IRA_attack common sense]]. ({{beat}}) Hang on...
* ''Eternal Forces'': managed to cause offense on ''both sides''. The non-religious community objected because they saw it as conservative Christian propaganda, and the Religious Right disliked the game because it portrayed the faithful as trigger-happy vigilantes.
* Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman studies how video games can train people to kill. He cites tactics used in shooting games, desensitising gamers to killing and portraying it as a reward and enjoyment as evidence. For the record, he's also quite fond of citing reports on video game violence that cite ''him'' as their primary source.
* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'' was given an R18+ rating in Australia for, among other reasons, "high-impact violence" and "piles of bodies lay about the environment". The problem with this? ''Australia does not have an R18+ rating for games,'' meaning that any game which would rate over an [=MA15+=] is "Refused Classification". Valve submitted a censored version of the game to the classification board, which was eventually passed with an MA-15 rating. The amount of censoring required is so ridiculous though, that at times it looks like a completely different game. Valve had also resubmitted the original for reconsideration, but it was just given another dose of refused classification. In a case of third time's the charm, they were finally able to get an uncensored version released there.
* The release of ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}'' on the [=PS2=] (renamed ''Canis Canem Edit'' in the UK, at least in part over this fuss) was accompanied by a "ban this game" campaign led by disgraced former Cabinet Minister Keith Vaz. This mainly occurred during the game's development, as upon release such detractors were left with egg on their face when ''Bully'' turned out to be fairly wholesome, due to the fact that the path to victory is playing morally, being a good student and taking down the titular bullies (plus, unlike what they claimed, there were no firearms in the game and nobody dies). This was pretty much what caused the Jack Thompson media flare-up to finally die down. ''Bully: Scholarship Edition'' has since been released in the UK under its original title.
* The original ''VideoGame/{{Manhunt}}'' received much controversy over how the game practically reveled in the violence the player could commit. This led to the game being banned in several countries. The sequel received the same treatment, including such notable names as UsefulNotes/HillaryRodhamClinton and Jack Thompson attempting to get the game restricted in the United States. The game still had to be recut because the ESRB gave the first cut an Adults Only rating, thus leading to retailers refusing to carry it and Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all denying the game's release on their platforms. Even after the M-rated cut made shelves, the same moral guardians sought to have the game re-rated and pulled from store shelves. Meanwhile, the game was [[BannedInChina banned in New Zealand and Australia]] and was given the film rating of R in the Canadian province of Ontario.[[note]]Ontario's R rating is equivalent to the American NC-17 rating; in other words, the game cannot legally be sold or rented to those under the age of 18 years in Ontario; the American R rating is equivalent to Ontario's 18A rating.[[/note]] The game's sequel, ''Manhunt 2'', was actually [[BannedInChina banned in Ireland and in the UK]]; though without any kind of controversy associated with the sequel, at least not on a level comparable to that of the original.
** Interestingly enough, under the premiership of Dalton [=McGuinty=], Ontario would later become the second jurisdiction in North America to make the ESRB legally binding after neighboring province Manitoba did so. Yes, moral guardians in Ontario are more successful than their American counterparts, despite not being as vocal.
* The guardians had another video game field day with ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty: VideoGame/ModernWarfare 2''. More precisely, the [[WhamEpisode Wham Level]] "No Russian", where you play as a CIA agent going undercover with terrorists massacring an entire airport. Predictably, they took the level out of context and claimed the whole game to be a terrorism simulator on that alone. The twist is, putting the stage within context is a gigantic spoiler... one that would make the guardians' heads '''implode''': [[spoiler: The whole massacre was planned by the true BigBad, US Army General Shepherd, as the beginning of his utterly vile, corrupt and insane BatmanGambit to begin a horrific war between America and Russia so that ''he can instill total American supremacy upon the world'' and get his name down in history as a (false) war hero.]]\\
The German Moral Guardians actually took some action and forced the developers to punish the player for shooting the civilians in that level with a GameOver in the German-language version. This also resulted in UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} (and the game won't run without it) forbidding players who bought the German-language version (and the conveniently country-coded CD key with it) to download any other languages for it, which is possible for every other game out there. \\
The infamous level was [[BannedInChina cut from the Russian release]]. Nevertheless, a parliament deputy proposed to ban the game, because his teenage son was apparently outraged by the level. The Russian publisher, 1C, responded with a sarcastic open letter, inquiring why the politician would buy his son a pirated game and ignore the "18 and over" mark on the front cover.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' has had to bear a particularly nasty surge of Moral Guardian complaining. Not only did various Moral Guardians accuse it of promoting satanism and witchcraft (due to the game's premise of being able to control "superpowered creatures"), but it also was accused of promoting gambling (to the point where some [=NPCs=] were changed from being called "gambler" to "gamer") and "cockfighting" (despite the fact that the in-game point of Pokémon is friendship and teamwork rather than "use your monsters to beat up the other guy's monsters").
** In addition to the above, some have accused it of being "evolutionist propaganda", in spite of the fact that Pokémon [[HollywoodEvolution "evolution"]] and real evolution are nothing alike.
** The [[NonElemental colorless energy symbol]] in [[TabletopGame/{{Pokemon}} the TCG]] is similar to a Star of David, getting it [[BannedInChina banned in Saudi Arabia]] as "Zionist propaganda". [[NoSwastikas The ADL complained about a "swastika"]] on a [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Koga%27s_Ninja_Trick_%28Gym_Challenge_115%29 Trainer card]], which was actually meant to be an ''omote manji'', a Buddhist symbol of good luck.
* One ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonor'' game has been banned from stores on military bases for allowing gamers to play as the Taliban. While this is a question of sensitivity, you could play as ''Nazis'' in the previous installments.
* The Church of England criticised the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 game ''VideoGame/{{Resistance}}: Fall of Man'', which included a gunfight in Manchester Cathedral. Amusingly, when the Church demanded that Insomniac change the game to ''not'' depict Manchester Cathedral, Insomniac reportedly ''laughed at them'', and began pointing out the numerous other things that the Church did ''not'' have a problem with, including the ''violent depictions of murder''. The Church was, sadly, not suitably chastised. Also funny: the Church's argument was--at least in part--that Insomniac ''didn't get their permission'', which made the whole thing look more like a copyright dispute than a case of moral outrage. (Needless to say, having been built in 1215, Manchester Cathedral isn't subject to copyright of any kind, not to mention that it predates the Church of England itself.)
* Adoption advocates and parents of adopted children criticized ''VideoGame/Portal2'' for remarks uttered by the antagonists that were deemed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUQYrdgIJuI offensive]] to adopted children.
* [[http://www.familyfriendlygaming.com/ Family Friendly Gaming]], a review website that attempts to analyze video games and other media "from a family-friendly (read: conservative Christian) perspective." Short of [[NewMediaAreEvil downright demonizing the media itself]], Family Friendly Gaming follows many of the guidelines of the stereotypical Moral Guardian. Of special note is [[http://www.familyfriendlygaming.com/Reviews/2008/Strong%20Bads%20Cool%20Game%20for%20Attractive%20People.html the review]] for ''VideoGame/StrongBadsCoolGameForAttractivePeople'', where it becomes increasingly obvious that the reviewer has never heard of ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner''.
* ''VideoGame/DeadIsland'':
** The ''Zombie Bait'' edition. The resin statue was considered far too graphic (being a mutilated corpse) and is officially [[BannedInChina not allowed to be sold in some parts of the world,]] but can still be found.
** The sequel ''VideoGame/DeadIslandRiptide'' is an interesting case in regards to the promotion of the game. The trailer featured a graphic portrayal of a couple [[TearJerker killing themselves rather than being ripped apart by the infected]]. However, it was the logo of a lynched...zombie? which caused it to be changed and the ad pulled from Australian television after it was aired.
* ''VideoGame/SaintsRowIV'' was refused classification in Australia because of rape (an alien probe gun being in the game) and drug use. The censors apparently are fine with rape as this was allowed as DLC but they were still very angry at drugs in the game, but eventually allowed an MA rating once the mission involving them was removed.

[[AC:WebOriginal]]
* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMYxImN6EBo this episode]] of [[LetsPlay/{{Yogscast}} Yognews]], LetsPlay/LewisBrindley and LetsPlay/SimonLane ruthlessly mock the Moral Guardians that complain about the Yogscast and adult content, [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids despite it not being for children in the first place]]. They exaggerate the "my child is traumatised" comment, leading to this gem.
-->'''Simon:''' Hi, hi! My seven-year-old daughter watched the Yogscast... YOU SWORE AND NOW SHE'S DEAD!

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* Moral Guardians are the reason the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' have been banned and heavily censored from television (to the point that they're rarely shown on TV, though the invention of home video and Internet file sharing also contributed to this), going as far back as the 1950s and 1960s.
* Because of the ShoutOut to the [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic brony fanbase]] where they had Derpy speak, [[http://tinyurl.com/77bg9j7 parents think the writers were making fun of disabled people.]] "The Last Roundup" has already been pulled from the iTunes store and possibly from the Hub's rotation. Early in February of 2012, all of the "Derpy" merchandise at We Love Fine was renamed to either "Ditzy" or some generic name. Hasbro was apparently pressuring WLF to take them down, as well as having Apple take "The Last Roundup" off of iTunes. In mid-to-late February of 2012, "The Last Roundup" was put back up onto iTunes store, but Derpy has an entirely different voice and her eyes are no longer screwed up, and Rainbow Dash doesn't name her anymore.
** Another reason it is not showing on the Hub could not only be the Derpy scene, but that particular episode had Pinkie Pie [[PottyEmergency banging on an outhouse door and telling the person inside to hurry up.]]
[[/folder]]

* A supermarket in Arkansas caught some flack when they [[http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2011/01/magazine-cover-with-elton-johns-baby-too-controversial-arkansas used their "family shield"]] to cover a magazine cover that had Music/EltonJohn, his husband [[HasTwoMommies and their new infant son]] in order "protect young shoppers", but eventually reversed their decision when they received complaints.

* [[http://www.parentstv.org/ The Parents Television Council]] is a conservative, nonpartisan group that has gone after a large number of targets since its founding in 1995. Almost every single current primetime network series has been given the highest possible rating on their website. In their mind, [[SexIsEvil if a show has any form of sexual content in it, it's automatically pornographic]]. The group is almost singlehandedly (it has some help from the American Family Association) responsible for the recent tightening of "decency" regulations for broadcast TV in the wake of the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show, better known as "[[{{Scandalgate}} Nipplegate]]". They've been known to take special aim at anyone who shows what they consider insufficient respect to conservative Protestant Christianity, and are currently intensifying efforts to bring cable TV under the same kind of regulation as broadcast. They have a strong lobby in Washington and have been known to use {{astroturf}}ing methods in their campaigns to censor and suppress content of which they disapprove. The PTC's favorite targets for indecent content on TV: all three of Creator/SethMacFarlane's cartoons (especially ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''). ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' was listed as part of their top ten worst, most offensive shows for, among other things, Buffy sacrificing herself to save the world. The PTC equated this to suicide, something she should not have done even if it meant the entire universe being destroyed in torment.

* ''Manga/StoryOfADumbPrefectAndHighSchoolGirlWithInappropriateSkirtLength'': The High School Public Morals Committee, especially Vice President Kogori, is opposed to any "inappropriate student relationships". To Kogori that means pretty much any relationship or physical contact, while Sakuradaimon tries to rationalize that if the couple is really in love, the relationship can't be inappropriate, [[spoiler:partially to justify his relationship with Poemu]]. When the school cultural festival announces its main event will be a prom-style dance, Kogori acts like a DrillSergeantNasty to the committee, charging them with preventing anything "impure" from happening (like *gasp* couples holding hands).

* The church from ''Film/StationsOfTheCross'' sees pop music as corrupted by "Satanic rhythms." That sounds silly on paper, but when it leads to a fourteen-year-old being screamed at until she cries just because she wanted to go to a modern choir, [[PlayedForDrama it's difficult not to take seriously]].

* Mary Whitehouse was parodied with Mrs. Desiree Carthorse in ''Series/TheGoodies'', where she hired them to produce a "gender education" film. Despite it being censored to the point of ridiculousness (everyone and everything in the film was covered in white sheets), she still objected morally. At the end of the episode, she got her way, and all television was banned to stamp out "S-E (cross motions with finger)". The Goodies pointed out that, since there was no TV, everyone would be having sex anyway, so the episode ends with her running down the street, shouting into windows, "Stop it! Stop it!" The reason for the last was that Mrs W. had written to ''The Goodies'' complimenting them on their wholesome show, which [[YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame annoyed them so much]] that they set out to offend her as often as possible from that point onwards.

** Spoofed with a sketch where it turned out that "Perhaps the Mary Whitehouses of this world aren't as monumentally stupid as they appear at first, second, and twenty-third glance." A RunningGag on the show was that Creator/StephenFry would punch Creator/HughLaurie in the face, and there was a concern that people might emulate Stephen's behaviour... by punching Hugh. So instead, Stephen gave Hugh a pile of money, in the hope that all the impressionable people out there would imitate him.
** One sketch had a Mary Whitehouse-type figure objecting to the language in a previous sketch on the grounds that her children might have seen it...and it was only due to the good fortune that they hadn't yet been born that they hadn't seen it. What made this even more ridiculous was the fact that the bad language in the previous sketch consisted solely of {{Unusual Euphemism}}s. ('Cloffprunker')
** They once apologised to the audience because MP and BBC Governor [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Rees-Mogg Sir William, now Lord, Rees-Mogg]] had forbidden them from performing a sketch with an InterplayOfSexAndViolence. Sir William had written them a sketch they can perform instead that will promote common decency, family values, and standards, entitled 'Bitchmother, come light my bottom.'

'''Student:''' Oh, come on, sir, don't be silly! Why, ''we're'' the only kids in Britain who never say "f--" {cut to next scene}.

* Roger Waters, lyricist of Music/PinkFloyd, savagely attacked Mary Whitehouse in a verse of "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" -
-->Hey you, Whitehouse, Ha ha charade you are!
-->You house proud town mouse,
-->Ha ha charade you are
-->You're trying to keep our feelings off the street
-->You're nearly a real treat,
-->All tight lips and cold feet,
-->And do you feel abused?

-->"Oh my god, we've gotta protest that!
-->Some rock and roll ninja [[Music/OzzyOsbourne bit the head off a rat]]
-->Let's march into his concert and chant 'em to hell,
-->Cause he's so fuckin' TERRIBLE!
-->Meanwhile his record sales double and triple,
-->Cause of YOU whining bout him rubbing his nipple!
-->Religious? Shit, you helped them bands
-->Instead of helping them poor people eating outta them garbage cans.
-->When you're done with that, bitch, come protest me!
-->Shit, muthafucka, I could use the money!"

* Early ''ComicStrip/BloomCounty'' stories parodied [[TakeThat (and mocked)]] guys like this with Otis Oracle, a caricature of right-wing extremists. Otis was the MilesGloriosus of such folks, holding book-burning parties (he had to buy the "objectionable" material himself in order to burn them) and the banning of ''The Roger Tory Peterson Guide to Penguins'' due to its portrayal of penguins in cohabitation. (His case fell apart in court when his "expert witness" [[DamnedByAFoolsPraise claimed the Earth wasn't round]].) He was a {{hypocrite}} too; in one strip touching a young lady's knees while clearly drunk, then blaming the lady for tempting "the inner demons of sin in men" (this got him little but a fat lip) and woke up drunk and naked at a New Year's eve party. [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome He was one of many characters eventually written out of the strip around 1984.]]
** Hilariously subverted in another storyline: Opus' girlfriend's mother (who never liked him to begin with) sics the local priest on him, hoping to get some outrage because Opus is part of a death metal band. But the priest turns out to be a very nice fellow with an excellent sense of humor, and he actually ''likes'' Opus' music (saying of the song "Let's Guillotine Grandma", "Something to slip into the hymns next Sunday!"). The end of the series shows the mother very upset as the priest tries to gently calm her down.

** Andy becoming a member of the group MAGG (Mothers Against Gory Games) and only allowing Peter to play MAGG-approved games, which include ''[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity Nice City]]'', ''[[VideoGame/PacMan Pacifist Man]]'', ''[[Franchise/ResidentEvil Resident Good]]'', and ''[[VideoGame/EternalDarkness Eternal Lightness]]''. She also complains at one point about how Donkey Kong is not wearing pants.
** Andy buying a "[=MomVo=]", which does things like shutting down the TV after showing a certain amount of cartoons, or forcibly changing the channel from "trash TV" to PBS. Eventually she gets rid of it when it blocks out her soap operas too ("You should have seen how fast she yanked the cables," Jason remarks).
** Andy objecting to the ''[[BlandNameProduct Doomathon II]]'' game that Jason gets for Christmas, only to end up getting addicted to it.

* In a delightfully caustic TakeThat to the good decade or so of Moral Guardians complaining in the franchise's history, the villains in ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' are a gang known as Team Plasma, a polarizing group that aims to forcibly separate people from their Pokémon for the same reasons as real Moral Guardians intend with pretty much everything. For good measure, they're dressed as [[VisualPun literal]] [[KnightTemplar Knights Templar]] and their logo resembles the [[SigilSpam Chi Rho]]. They're almost entirely {{hypocrite}}s; [[WellIntentionedExtremist only one of them]], their PuppetKing leader N Harmonia, has any actual altruism behind this motives. [[TheManBehindTheMan The leader who is actually pulling the strings]], Ghetsis, intends to use Pokémon to [[TakeOverTheWorld dominate a world where no one else is allowed to use them]], and the [[{{Mook}} grunts]] are just [[KickTheDog casually cruel]] and support Ghetsis' intentions.
** However, in [[VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2 the sequel]] it's shown that some of them genuinely had good intentions, leading to a schism in which the decent ones left to become TheAtoner while the others [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope continued to follow Ghetsis and became full-on terrorists]].

* The ''Website/SCPFoundation'' has [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3922 SCP-3922]], a metal cylinder with the engraved with the insignia of the Three Moons Initiative, a paranormal anti-war group. When 3922 is placed close to a recording of fictional media, the media will [[DeusExMachina be invaded]] by TMI operatives (designated SCP-3922-A) armed with futuristic military equipment. The operatives will attempt to stop all perceived wrongdoings within the chosen media, [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill primarily through absurdly excessive amounts of force]]. At times SCP-3922-A instances will even go after the media's creator, like when they executed the creator of ''Film/TheHumanCentipede''. After the mess the device made with ''Film/SaloOrThe120DaysOfSodom'', it's pretty clear that the ☽☽☽ Initiative is extremely pissed about what kind of stuff the media's showing to people nowadays. Interestingly, when exposed to a pornographic film, they do not actually stop any of the sexual activity, but simply stand guard to make sure it remains consensual. They also leave ''Film/TheLionKing'' almost unaltered, save for a message in the credits stating that they had investigated the film and have found no instances of illegal hunting occurring.

** In one episode, they subjected William Donahue, the leader (and apparently only member) of The Catholic League, to a TakeThat in the "Fantastic Easter Special" episode.
** ''WesternAnimation/SouthParkBiggerLongerAndUncut'': For those who haven't heard the song "Blame Canada", the last two lines. "We must blame them and cause a fuss before somebody thinks of blaming us!" In response to them [[DontExplainTheJoke allowing their children to see a Canadian movie with copious use of the F-word, then blaming Canada for their kids being disrespectful and foul-mouthed.]]

* Parodied by ''WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse'', which featured the Censor Monkeys... who, at one point, received [[DropTheCow a safe to the head]]. The safe was dropped after the monkeys decided that disguising the violence with novelty sounds was an acceptable compromise. When the safe hit, it sounded like a squeaky toy being squished. One of them even opens the safe and sticks his arm out to show everyone they're ok.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' (Hilloween) had a Christian one of these move into Arlen and get the town's police to cancel Halloween after "Satanists" (Hank & Bobby egging her house) "ran over my cat" (which she did herself while chasing them down in her car). The Halloween-loving (Christian) Hank took it upon himself to end the nonsense.

** Parodied to the point of deconstruction when, after Maggie hits Homer with a mallet--seriously injuring him--after seeing the same thing on "Itchy and Scratchy", Marge leads a movement to get violence in cartoons banned. They succeed in getting "Itchy and Scratchy" retooled as a cute cartoon in which the titular cat and mouse are best friends who do things like share homemade lemonade on the porch. But then the group objects to Michelangelo's ''David'' touring the city because of its nudity. Marge, a lover of fine art, is not offended by the statue and she thinks children ''should'' see it up close because it's a masterpiece. In a television interview, she is challenged with regard to the hypocrisy of calling for the banning of one form of expression that is found objectionable and not another; as she's unable to answer, her protest is reversed.
** Subverted by Seymore Skinner's mother (In "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes") who calls down to Seymore on his computer demanding to know "[[TheInternetIsForPorn Are you looking at naked ladies]]?!". When he answers no, she yells back "Sissy!".
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': Peter started his own TV station, called PTV, which is filled to the rife with very crude and lewd programs. After Lois sees the "[=SideBoob=]" hour, she gets offended, and even when Brian points out that it is still the parent's ultimate responsibility to prevent their kids from seeing this. Because of this, she called in the FCC, where they censor Quahog, forcing them to go to DC to significantly weaken the FCC's power. (This was in the version that aired on TV.) In the uncut version on DVD, the reason why is to give more detail: one of the PTV shows that Peter made, a ''Series/{{Jackass}}'' expy called "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Douchebags]]" (featuring a segment called "I Dare You to Crap Off Of That") had Peter being dared by Cleveland to poop off the side of a highway onto another highway. Peter does so, and the poop lands on Lois' car, causing it to crash, she gives Peter a tongue-lashing, pointing out that Stewie is now deeply traumatized from the car crash (even moreso with the attempts to wipe it off), and then calls the FCC.

--->'''Bender:''' Bender should not be on tv! Who does he think I am?
** When the [[IncrediblyLamePun Mighty V-Giny]] Satellite was about to censor/destroy Earth because of this immoral content. Farnsworth leads the crew on alerting people to act less immoral, claiming that "they will listen to rational folks like us" then emerging from the ship dressed in robes and holding signs with conservative messages and shouting stuff like "The end is near!" and "Repent!". The whole episode can be considered a TakeThat to the Moral Guardians, including the ironic twist ending [[spoiler: where the satellite ''obliges'' Adam/Eve clad Leela and Zap to engage in intercourse like the biblical couple, with Fry afterwards begging for V-Giny to censor it. It is instead "APPROVED FOR ALL AUDIENCES." Then it flies away.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'': '''HOO BOY, where do we begin?''' The show basically ''reveled'' in insulting Moral Guardians at every given moment. This show, with its ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes''-style humor, came out at a time when Moral Guardians started to grow rampant when it came to cartoons with said style and considering how this show loves to poke fun of society...
** "Valuable Lesson" involves two television executives (one being a Creator/WallaceShawn caricature) interrupting an otherwise normal Warner cartoon about them harassing UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun and taking them to two test rooms where they observe kids watching this show and other kids watching an {{Expy}} of ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs''.
** "Bully For Skippy" has Slappy Squirrel being unable to use her usual cartoon slapstick to help Skippy deal with a bully after new television guidelines about educational programming had been written.
** Even [[WesternAnimation/Animaniacs2020 the revival series]] has one of the [[CouchGag variable openings]] be "parents will complain-y!" complete with Wakko scissoring a letter from a Moral Guardian in half.

* The backlash against ''VideoGame/HogwartsLegacy'' due to Creator/JKRowling making a supposedly controversial statement online led to several online pundits stating that buying the game was tantamount to murdering trans people. Several review websites outright refused to cover it at all. [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity All this led to the game becoming a massive success]], with some people reportedly buying multiple copies out of spite, similar to the staged protest against horror movies mentioned under "Films."

* The ''Website/SCPFoundation'' has [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3922 SCP-3922]], a metal cylinder with the Three Moons Initiative's insignia engraved onto it. When 3922 is placed close to a recording of fictional media, the media will [[DeusExMachina be invaded]] by TMI operatives (designated SCP-3922-A) armed with futuristic military equipment. The operatives will attempt to stop all perceived wrongdoings within the chosen media, [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill primarily through absurdly excessive amounts of force]]. At times they will even go after the media's creator.

* Naturally, ''Website/TheOnion'' has parodied Moral Guardians more than once, as well as the science of "psychology" excuses as a whole: [[http://origin.theonion.com/content/node/30883 "U.S. Children Still Traumatized One Year After Seeing Partially Exposed Breast On TV."]] To think -- some of them weren't even one year old... oh, the horror!

* ''Anime/HeartcatchPrettyCure'': The Kokoro no Tane birth sequence had to be cleaned up in later episodes, because people complained that the fairies looked like they were wetting themselves doing it.

* In the Franco-Swiss comic ''Titeuf'', there was a school nurse with E-cup GagBoobs. Thanks to moral guardians they've been reduced to C.

* Lampooned in this [[http://blogs.20minutos.es/madrereciente/files/bg_8530360.jpg strip]] by cartoonist Creator/{{Quino}}. [[note]]For context, a group of "concerned" adults have a Art/VenusDeMilo replica statue in a park replaced by a giant baby bottle sculpture due to concerns of showing exposed breasts near a children's playground [[/note]]

* The Church of England criticised the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 game ''VideoGame/{{Resistance}}: Fall of Man'', which included a gunfight in Manchester Cathedral. Amusingly, when the Church demanded that Insomniac change the game to ''not'' depict Manchester Cathedral, Insomniac reportedly ''laughed at them'', and began pointing out the numerous other things that the Church did ''not'' have a problem with, including the ''violent depictions of murder''. The Church was, sadly, not suitably chastised. Also funny: the Church's argument was--at least in part--that Insomniac ''didn't get their permission'', which made the whole thing look more like a copyright dispute than a case of moral outrage. (Needless to say, having been built in 1215, Manchester Cathedral isn't subject to copyright of any kind.)

* ''{{LightNovel/Shimoneta}}'' takes this trope to absurd levels. The series takes place in a [[{{Dystopia}} dystopian]] Japan where inappropriate words, phrases, and actions [[BigBrotherIsWatching are monitored by PMs]], and the law which prohibits the above is enforced by the [[StateSec Decency Squad]].

* Lampooned in this [[http://blogs.20minutos.es/madrereciente/files/bg_8530360.jpg strip]] by cartoonist Creator/{{Quino}}.

[[folder:Stand-up Comedy]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* Fans of Pixar's ''Franchise/ToyStory'' (at the time) trilogy wanted it to be the only trilogy on Website/RottenTomatoes to have gotten a perfect 100% fresh rating across all three films, and when ''Toy Story 3'' ended up being epic it looked like it would go this way. Then the film received two negative reviews bumping it down to a 99. While the one by Armond White was almost immediately written off as a troll that needed to get banned, the other was, you guessed it, a moral guardian, Cole Smithey, who based his bad review on his opinion that the film was too intense for its G rating.

* ''The Sun'', a British tabloid newspaper, is well known for using ThinkOfTheChildren in various campaigns to boost circulation. Examples include a successful 2008 campaign again Website/{{Facebook}} to force the removal of an application that allowed users to virtually "shank" (knife) friends, and a 1992 campaign against ''Film/ChildsPlay3'', which they tied to the murder of a toddler by two boys. Hypocritically, however, they had no problems publishing topless pictures of sixteen- and seventeen-year-old girls in their popular "Page Three" section from 1970 up until 2003, when a change in the law banned topless pictures of anyone under eighteen.

The CulturePolice are sometimes Moral Guardians taken to a satiric and/or [[KnightTemplar frightening extreme]]. The Administrivia/{{Bluenose Bowdlerizer}}s are a form of Moral Guardians in our ''[[ParanoiaFuel midst]]''. Moral Guardians are often responsible for a work being BannedInChina, or calling something a "MurderSimulator".

* ''Manga/StoryOfADumbPrefectAndHighSchoolGirlWithInappropriateSkirtLength'': The High School Public Morals Committee, especially Vice President Kogori, is opposed to any "inappropriate student relationships". To Kogori that means pretty much any relationships or physical contact, while Sakuradaimon tries to rationalize that if the couple is really in love, the relationship can't be inappropriate, [[spoiler:partially to justify his relationship with Poemu]]. When the school cultural festival announces its main event will be a prom-style dance, Kogori acts like a DrillSergeantNasty to the committee, charging them with preventing anything "impure" from happening (like *gasp* couples holding hands).
* ''{{LightNovel/Shimoneta}}'' takes this trope to absurd levels. The series takes place in a [[{{Dystopia}} dystopian]] Japan where inappropriate words, phrases and actions [[BigBrotherIsWatching are monitored by PMs]], and the law which prohibits the above is enforced by the [[StateSec Decency Squad]].

* The Crusader, a [[TheFundamentalist fundamentalist]] who believes that the church should become more active in fighting paganism and godlessness in modern society, is a satire. His methods are questionable at best, and include murder. His actions have led to his defeat (and usually humiliation) at the hands of [[ComicBook/TheMightyThor Thor]], [[ComicBook/TheAvengers the Black Knight]], [[ComicBook/XMan Nate Grey]], ComicBook/DoctorStrange, and ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}, the last one costing him an eye.[[note]](Wolvie pointing out his hypocrisy [[AsTheGoodBookSays by while quoting the Bible]] with "An eye for an eye.")[[/note]] Since that defeat, he wised up, preferring to stay in prison than accept the Hood's invitation to participate in the ''ComicBook/CivilWar''.

* In the film ''{{Film/Matinee}}'', the in-universe film ''Mant'' (about a half man half ant) was protested by a couple of purported moral guardians for being obscene. The main character in the movie, a horror-movie-obsessed teenager, recognizes the protestors as character actors that have appeared in some of his favorite low budget horror films. When he calls them out on their identities, they admit that they were hired by the producer to stage a fake protest in order to make the film seem scarier and edgier than it is, under the rubric of there's [[NoSuchThingasBadPublicity No Such Thing as Bad Publicity]]. This is [[TruthinTelevision Truth in Television]], as some low budget exploitation films of the time actually staged fake protests for the same reason, and because the idea that a film would be picketed by moral guardians would attract just the audience that they were looking for, as well as bringing a lot of attention to the film. In Matinee, it actually works, as we see people who would ordinarily never go to such a film deciding to see it in order to spite the moral guardians.
* The church from ''Film/StationsOfTheCross'' sees pop music as corrupted by "Satanic rhythms." That sounds silly on paper, but when it leads to a fourteen year old being screamed at until she cries just because she wanted to go to a modern choir, [[PlayedForDrama it's difficult not to take seriously]].

* This kicks off the main plot in Vivian Vande Velde's ''Literature/HeirApparent'' novel. The titular character spends her birthday present (a gift certificate) on going to a virtual reality video game arcade that is presently being picketed by a group called the Citizens To Protect Our Children (who believes only in G-rated movie making and that libraries should only stock nice, friendly, uplifting books). Soon after she enters a game, the protesters break inside and damage the building's video game equipment, including the game she's in. She's only got a few hours to win before the game fries her brain, and, when she wakes up, the head of the company (who, like her, is a teenager) mentions that "they're going to get their asses fried for endangering the welfare of a minor."

** In ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment''. The old women of Polly's home village (and, presumably, a lot of other Borogravian villages too) are notorious gossips, and spread the word far and wide about anything they disapprove of, and mostly what they disapprove of is not behaving according to the stringent and arbitrary principles of their religion; this, in a nation which has abusive corrective schools for girls who don't adhere strictly to the lifestyle (not to mention, one occasion sees Polly reflect upon her family's old pastor, who felt that women were living embodiments of all that said religion forbids, and ought to be abused regularly just for the principle of the thing).

* In ''Literature/{{Midnight}}'' by Creator/JacquelineWilson, the heroine is a huge fan of a fantasy author/artist named Casper Dream. She mentions that his first book, about a fairy which appears in smoke clouds, was banned from shops because Moral Guardians were concerned that it encouraged children to smoke.

* ''Literature/ChocoholicMysteries'': G. Ann Vanderklomp, a former English teacher introduced in ''Book Bandit'', has rather strong opinions about books and what kinds have "literary merit", and has been trying to enforce her views on everyone else -- she publicly scolded a girl for reading a romance novel in the cafeteria, and did the same to another English teacher for letting a student do a book report on a ''Franchise/StarWars'' novel. [[spoiler: She's such a stickler for it that she's been going through the books donated to the library for its collection and removing ones she finds objectionable, all because they aren't up to her standards -- like ''Literature/NancyDrew'', ''Literature/TheHardyBoys'', romance novels, or westerns by Creator/ZaneGrey -- and storing them in an old closet in the library basement.]]

** One sketch had a Mary Whitehouse type figure objecting to the language in a previous sketch on the grounds that her children might have seen it...and it was only due to the good fortune that they hadn't yet been born that they hadn't seen it. What made this even more ridiculous was the fact that the bad language in the previous sketch consisted solely of {{Unusual Euphemism}}s. ('Cloffprunker')
** They once apologised to the audience because MP and BBC Governor [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Rees-Mogg Sir William, now Lord, Rees-Mogg]] had forbidden them from performing a sketch with an InterplayOfSexAndViolence. Sir William had written them a sketch they can perform instead that will promote common decency, family values and standards, entitled 'Bitchmother, come light my bottom.'

* In the first episode of ''Series/FilthyRichAndCatflap'', Richie tells Eddie to stop swearing incase children are watching the show. Eddie then turns to the camera and explains that SantaClaus doesn't exist.
* Referenced in an episode of ''Series/{{Bottom}}''. After losing their television, Richie and Eddie decide to spend the evening playing chess instead which ends up in the usual mindless violence. As he's smashing Richie's head into the fridge, Eddie takes a moment to BreakTheFourthWall and point out to moral guardians who think that TV causes violence that in fact this particularly bout of violence is due to a lack of TV.

* Music/AmandaPalmer's song "Guitar Hero" parodies the idea of a school shooting being inspired by a video game. Particularly, well, ''VideoGame/GuitarHero''. The song shows how easily any game can be compared to real life violence (with the help of some IncrediblyLamePun lines such as "It's a hit!" and "There's people screaming, just like they should / but you don't even know if you're good..."). It is made extra poignant because Amanda lost some of her friends during a school shooting -- and she refuses to blame it on any part of pop culture.

-->When your done with that, bitch, come protest me!

* Moral Guardians are probably the most common enemy type in Music/{{Eminem}}'s music, due to the [[TheNewRockAndRoll ridiculous backlash]] he got for his violent music in the late 90s and early 2000s. Most of ''Music/TheMarshallMathersLP'' is a [[TakeThatCritics swipe at music critics who claimed his music would cause moral degeneration of the youth]] ("Who Knew", "Criminal", "Bitch Please II"), as well as satirical BoastfulRap about his ability to [[CorruptionOfAMinor corrupt children into turning evil]] with his music ("The Real Slim Shady", "I'm Back"), and one [[AuthorPhobia horror scenario]] based on the idea of what kind of [[LoonyFan broken weirdo]] ''would'' take his music literally ("Stan"). In ''Music/TheEminemShow'', he writes songs more sympathetic to the kind of people who relate to his music, who he views as having been failed by the same kinds of tutting white middle class authorities who are trying to get him censored ("White America", "Square Dance", "Sing For The Moment"). Even once the moral panic about him was [[RatedGForGangsta virtually forgotten]], it remains a part of his persona, reflected on in songs about his legacy like "Rap God", "Offended" and "Venom".

** One strip has Connie preaching (quite literally) to Jeremy while watching TV, dressed in a New England Puritanical Era outfit speaking in manner from the time. In the last panel, Jeremy says, "Don't be such a prude, Mom, it's just an episode of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''.

* Wrestling/CMPunk's {{heel}} character spends a lot of time chastising the audience (or other wrestlers) on their debauched and indulgent lives full of drugs and partying, while saying his life of purity and abstinence makes him "better than you". In WWE he takes this to a cult-like level by leading around a troupe of "converts" who accept and endorse the hardline Straight Edge way while doing anything Punk demands.

* In Wrestling/{{WCW}}, after Turner Broadcasting Standards & Practices ordered booker Wrestling/VinceRusso to cut down on the violence and sleaze on WCW programming, Russo decided to stick it to TBS by making a wrestling tag team of moral guardians. Lenny Lane and Lodi, who had previously played a [[CampGay flamboyant homosexual]] gimmick, had been taken off television due to complaints from GLAAD. Russo brought them back as a tag team called Standards & Practices, and they came out to the ring wearing suits and occasionally disrupted a hardcore match or a fanservice segment just like the Right to Censor. However, they had a miniskirt clad secretary named Ms. Hancock (real name Wrestling/StacyKeibler) who would do sexy dances on the announce table. This was supposed to emphasize that Standards & Practices were low down dirty hypocrites who indulged in what they forbade everyone else.

* Creator/MontyPython took their own swipe at Mary Whitehouse in a live performance which happened to fall on Creator/MichaelPalin's 30th birthday. As it also happened, Eric Idle's mum was a dead ringer for Ms. Whitehouse, and when the troupe brought her onstage to present Palin with a cake and flowers, he promptly thanked "the old bag herself for coming out," and stuffed the flowers into the cake.

* In Creator/{{Moliere}}'s ''Theatre/LeMisanthrope'', Arsinoé is a prudish old woman who seeks to limit Célimène's pleasures, largely because she is jealous of her love with Alceste. Theatre/{{Tartuffe}} from the play with the same name is also morally censorious, at one point draping a handkerchief over Dorine's overly exposed bosom (though he is, of course, a complete hypocrite, and tries to seduce Oronte's wife behind his back). Molière suffered a great deal from RealLife Moral Guardians.

** Parodied to the point of deconstruction when, after Maggie hits Homer with a mallet--seriously injuring him--after seeing the same thing on "Itchy and Scratchy", Marge leads a movement to get violence in cartoons banned. They succeed in getting "Itchy and Scratchy" retooled as a cute cartoon in which the titular cat and mouse are best friends who do things like share homemade lemonade on the porch. But then the group objects to Michelangelo's ''David'' touring the city because of its nudity. Marge, a lover of fine art, is not offended by the statue and she thinks children ''should'' see it up close because it's a masterpiece. On a television interview, she is challenged with regards to the hypocrisy of calling for the banning of one form of expression that is found objectionable and not another; as she's unable to answer, her protest is reversed.
** Subverted by Seymore Skinner's mother (In "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes") who calls down to Seymore on his computer demanding to know "Are you looking at naked ladies?!". When he answers no, she yells back "Sissy!".
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': Peter started his own TV station, called PTV, which is filled to the rife with very crude and lewd programs. After Lois sees the "SideBoob" hour, she gets offended, and even when Brian points out that it is still the parent's ultimate responsibility to prevent their kids from seeing this. Because of this, she called in the FCC, where they censor Quahog, forcing them to go to DC to significantly weaken the FCC's power. (This was in the version that aired on TV.) In the uncut version on DVD, the reason why is give more detail: one of the PTV shows that Peter made, a ''Series/{{Jackass}}'' expy called "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Douchebags]]" (featuring a segment called, "I Dare You to Crap Off Of That") had Peter being dared by Cleveland to poop off the side of a highway, onto another highway. Peter does so, and the poop lands on Lois' car, causing it to crash, she gives Peter a tonguelashing, pointing out that Stewie is now deeply traumatized from the car crash (even moreso with the attempts to wipe it off), and then calls the FCC.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{ReBoot}}'', [[RunningGag in yet another parody]], made fun of this in the episode "Talent Night". While auditions are being made for Enzo's birthday party, a binome named Emma rejects everything but the BSNP song, which spells out the nature of this trope while set to the tune of YMCA.

** Bender, after becoming an overnight sensation in ''[[ShowWithinAShow All My Circuits]]'' due to his criminal antics, realizes what an awful rolemodel he is to children and starts his ''own'' anti-Bender protest group.

** When the [[IncrediblyLamePun Mighty V-Giny]] Satellite was about to censor/destroy Earth because of this immoral content. Farnsworth lead the crew on alerting people to act less immoral, claiming that "they will listen to rational folks like us" then emerging from the ship dressed in robes and holding signs with conservative messages and shouting stuff like "The end is near!" and "Repent!". The whole episode can be considered a TakeThat to the Moral Guardians, including the ironic twist ending [[spoiler: where the satellite ''obliges'' Adam/Eve clad Leela and Zap to engage in intercourse like the biblical couple, with Fry afterwards begging for V-Giny to censor it. It is instead "APPROVED FOR ALL AUDIENCES." Then it flies away.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'': '''HOO BOY, where do we begin?''' The show basically ''reveled'' in insulting Moral Guardians at every given moment. This show, with its ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes''-style humor, came out at a time when Moral Guardians started to grow rampant when it came to cartoons with said style, and considering how this show loves to poke fun of society...

* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'': Sam's parents, Jeremy and Pamela Manson, are stereotypical conservative parents, who protest against things they find "objectionable, immoral, or obnoxious". This puts them at odds with Sam, because not only is she a goth who is into the things they loathe (such as [[CircusOfFear Circus Gothica]]), but she's also friends with the son of two eccentric ghost hunters.

* In the late 2000s, Frubes (the TransatlanticEquivalent of tube yogurt brand Go-Gurt) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19d_luvn5fM aired]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9LSP-nFuUk some]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoJYmzZtEeI advertisements]] that featured anthropomorphized characters based on the yoghurts having their heads ripped-off by a child, followed by the tagline "Rip their heads off and suck their guts out!". These advertisements lasted until 2012, when parent groups in the UK protested online about how the motto could "scare children" (despite the fact that the Frubes characters did not show even a slight bit of gore). The motto was later changed to "[[LighterAndSofter Rip them open and suck them up!]]" later that year before the entire motto was discarded.

** Another thing people complained about was this little attack: [[AssKicksYou BUROSAMU....OSHIRI PANCHI!]].

* Creator/GoNagai has, unsurprisingly, always been a favorite target of the PTA and other moral guardians, right from the start when his first major series, ''Harenchi Gakuen'', became a nation-wide hit. They even went as far as having Magazine/ShonenJump, the magazine in which ''Harenchi Gakuen'' was serialized, banned in certain parts of Japan. When Magazine/ShonenJump finally gave in to the pressure and decided to cancel the series, Nagai took revenge in his own way by having all the characters [[TakeThatCritics viciously killed by the PTA]].

* The Chinese government is this on a regular basis. Some of their issues are a bit understandable, if frustrating (a movie shown in a Chinese theater '''must''' have the villain -- if s/he broke some law -- be caught and/or face the consequences in the end, and movies that don't have this portrayal must either provide an alternate ending for the Chinese or not be shown in theaters at all), but others can be pretty much summarized to suit heavily-biased Communist Party ideology. See also BannedInChina.

* In South Australia Family First MP Dennis Hood had a law passed, where all R rated films in South Australia (eg: ''Film/PulpFiction'', ''Film/ApocalypseNow'', etc) have to either a) be placed in the 'adult section' of all video stores (in a similar fashion to porn titles) or b) have an entirely blank cover displaying only the films name in small font and a note saying that the film may cause offense, furthermore all studios are banned from advertising any R rated films (such as the ones mentioned) on '''any''' medium.

* [[http://www.memeroth.net/ MeMe Roth]] of the National Action Against Obesity. She claimed that Jordin Sparks was a bad idea for ''American Idol'' because she was overweight. She claims that eating cupcakes is the same as ''[[InsaneTrollLogic putting a gun into your mouth]]''. She demands that the school her kids go to give permission slips in order for the kids to eat anything in the lunch menu.

* Stephen Conroy, the former Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (ie. [[BuffySpeak head government internet guy]]) had made plans to force mandatory censorship on the Internet at the ISP level for ''all'' Internet users in Australia, in which the government gets to ''decide what is appropriate and what isn't''. Even worse, ''what is and isn't blocked will be kept secret'' (as a guide, it's very similar what China and Iran have in place). This ''despite'' the fact that every test conducted thus far has shown blanket filters to be complete pants when it comes to actually achieving anything, and almost unanimous, vitriolic opposition to the idea on all fronts. This ultimately went nowhere following the 2010 election, where he was met with stiff opposition.
* The Child Online Protection Act represents an interesting case, a law passed in 1998 meant to stop kids from seeing porn. Almost the moment it was passed, the United States Supreme Court issued an order preventing the government from enforcing it due to arguments that it violated free speech due to its vague and broadly-determined definition of what "harmful sexual content by contemporary community standards" meant. Various attempts to remove the ban on its enforcement have been similarly struck down. This is why age verification on pornsites--when it exists at all--is so damned laughable: they'll never be prosecuted.

* In an example of a {{fandom}} developing these from within, the UsefulNotes/FurryFandom contains groups such as the now-disbanded Burned Furs and Improved Anthropomorphics, anthropomorphic enthusiasts who believe the community has been corrupted with many of its members' obsession with risqué media, and promote a "cleansing" of the fandom to a more pure, unadulterated state. Unlike many of the above, they aren't usually taken seriously, and their attempts at changing the fandom generally don't have much impact.
* "Warriors for Innocence", a volunteer-based [[{{Paedohunt}} anti-pedophilia]] group who made news by encouraging Livejournal to temporarily ban over 500 accounts and communities, ranging from age-playing and incest fetish groups to child molestation ''victim'' communities to groups discussing fanfiction or ''Literature/{{Lolita}}'' to otherwise completely innocuous accounts who just happened to have the kind of buzzwords they were looking for in the profile. A complete summary of the event, termed "Strikethrough '07" (for the way that banned journals have a strike through their names) can be found [[http://web.archive.org/web/20121215195335/http://wiki.fandomwank.com/index.php/Strikethrough2007 here.]]

* [[http://www.cuttingedge.org/News/hpmain.html Cutting Edge Ministries,]] home of the most massively convoluted ''Literature/HarryPotter'' Moral Guardianship ever. This is the site that drew some sort of evil monstrous connection between Harry's green eyes, green icing on a birthday cake, green ink on an invitation, Professor [=McGonagall's=] green cloak, and the unsourced assertion that green "is Satan's favorite color".

* The Obcene Publications Act of 1959, intended to stop the publishing of obscene material. Penguin Books was taken to court in 1960, in order to prove that ''Literature/LadyChatterleysLover'' had significant literary merit to warrant being published. The not guilty verdict led to a greater degree of freedom for explicit material being published in the UK.

[[AC:Live Action TV]]
* [[http://www.parentstv.org/ The Parents Television Council]] is a conservative, nonpartisan group that has gone after a large number of targets since its founding in 1995. Almost every single current primetime network series has been given the highest possible rating on their website. In their mind, [[SexIsEvil if a show has any form of sexual content in it, it's automatically pornographic]]. The group is almost singlehandedly (it has some help from the American Family Association) responsible for the recent tightening of "decency" regulations for broadcast TV in the wake of the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show, better known as "[[{{Scandalgate}} Nipplegate]]". They've been known to take special aim at anyone who shows what they consider insufficient respect to conservative Protestant Christianity, and are currently intensifying efforts to bring cable TV under the same kind of regulation as broadcast. They have a strong lobby in Washington, and have been known to use {{astroturf}}ing methods in their campaigns to censor and suppress content of which they disapprove. The PTC's favorite targets for indecent content on TV: all three of Creator/SethMacFarlane's cartoons (especially ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''). ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' was listed as part of their top ten worst, most offensive shows for, among other things, Buffy sacrificing herself to save the world. The PTC equated this to suicide, something she should not have done even if it meant the entire universe being destroyed in torment.

* ''National Coalition of Television Violence'', an ally of Pat Pulling. Its founder and a research director Dr. Thomas Radecki, home-brewed theologist of Fundamentalist Christian strain bent on "investigating" Satanism and what he called "research". The latter included reviewing book reviewers and condemning those who "may not have been as sensitive to violence as they should have been", as well as reviewing "''book covers'' of popular paperback books randomly selected from the shelves" in a bookstore to see how many of them he can call "violent". Yes, he freely admitted he used to [[ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontWatch judge a book by its cover]]. He warned about kids not knowing the difference between fantasy and reality and quoted a novel (''Mazes and Monsters'' by Rona Jaffe) as a real document.

* ''Series/{{Glee}}'' has been getting a surprising amount of flak by Moral Guardians. While the show never tried to be shy about risque content, its similarities to [[Film/HighSchoolMusical a popular film series aimed at children]] led a lot of people to initially (and some still do) believe the show was targeting children. Some of the particularly ridiculous criticisms were over risque magazine photoshoots featuring the actors who played teenage characters, even likening it to "pedophilia"... Even though the actors in question were in their mid-twenties when they did the photos! Pretty much all the criticism of the show's "inappropriate" content come from people who don't realize that the show is made for older teens and young adults.
* At the height of its popularity, ''Series/GrowingPains'' suffered from this when the show's lead-actor Kirk Cameron became a born-again Christian. [[WagTheDirector Kirk started to enforce his beliefs onto the show's producers]], [[TroubledProduction which in turn led to many problems]]. Scenes and dialogue that contained suggestive content had to be cut, and Kirk even got co-star Julie [=McCullough=] fired for once posing nude for ''Magazine/{{Playboy}}''. The show was eventually cancelled when Kirk started to call the executive producers "pornographers" after they tried to go against his decisions.

* On multiple occasions, the women's magazine ''Take A Break'' campaigns on social issues, but it's obvious that they did not do the research on these issues. Also, their agony aunt Katie tends to be guilty of this on multiple occasions, causing moral panic sometimes.

* The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) were the infamous self-appointed moral crusaders against any kind of fun in music in the 1980s, formed by Tipper Gore and other wives of influential people when she was scandalized by lyrics to the Music/{{Prince}} song "[[Film/PurpleRain Darling Nikki]]" (a full account of the history behind the PMRC is given on Jello Biafra's spoken word recording [[http://www.emusic.com/album/Jello-Biafra-High-Priest-Of-Harmful-Matter-Tales-From-The-Tria-MP3-Download/10739423.html High Priest of Harmful Matter]]). Their aim was soon set at the LA glam scene and metal in general, but although they lost influence, many others eventually took up the moral crusade against metal music, with equally stupid arguments ranging from a (false) accusation of backward lyrics in Judas Priest songs to blaming the recent Virginia Tech killings on the fact that the killer wrote a play which had the same name as a Music/GunsNRoses song. Many metal bands have written songs about the PMRC and censorship -- Music/{{Megadeth}} in particular have written several. Even more infamous was the day the PMRC called Dee Snider, front man for Music/TwistedSister, to testify, expecting him to make himself look foolish and further promote their cause. [[https://youtu.be/S0Vyr1TylTE Snider showed up dressed in ripped and torn clothing, with his notes in a crumpled wad. However, appearances are deceiving: Dee Snider is a very literate and eloquent man, with a strong sense of the poetic.]] He proceeded to eloquently verbally abuse the entire PMRC, up to and including implications that Tipper Gore was a closet sadomasochist, visibly angering Al Gore to the point of near incoherence. He also finally managed to come off as more respectful than the comittee members themselves, when he pushed back on their referring to Tripper Gore as "Senator Gore's wife" and insisted on referring to her by her name, effectively underscoring the point he made about being against sexism. This was possibly the most epic defeat ever handed to the PMRC.
* There was a documentary about "the evils of rock and roll" called "Hell's Bells," which claimed that rock'n'roll makes children prone to violently killing people and that rock musicians ''are possessed by the Devil when they write and/or perform their songs''. Among other things. Apparently it was over seven hours long. There was a sequel, released in 2001, titled "Hell's Bells 2." It suggested that many rock bands promoted [=LaVeyan=] Satanism through their general attitude, even though most of the bands they described probably had little to no actual knowledge of [=LaVey=].
* During the 80's there was a fellow by the name of Michael Mills who had a radio show devoted to finding Satanic messages in rock songs. Among the bands he accused of corrupting its listeners were the usual suspects like Kiss and Led Zeppelin but he also included a few head-scratchers like ELO, Bow Wow Wow, and of all people, Dan Fogelberg.

* Music/{{Eels}}' ''Daisies Of The Galaxy'' was a fairly unlikely target for this sort of controversy: When promotional copies were given out at an event at the Democratic National Convention, both a New York Post article and the official site for UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush's election typified it as "a compact disc clearly marketed towards children containing offensive language". The evidence it was being "marketed towards children" was that the cover art was [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids drawn in a style reminiscent of a children's storybook]], while the main things that were cited as offensive were the song title "It's A Motherfucker" and the lyric "when I grow up I'll be an angry little whore" (from "Tiger In My Tank"). In reality, the album is pretty tame for having a Parental Advisory sticker: "It's A Motherfucker" is a song about missing someone that happens to have the album's PrecisionFStrike, and in context the phrase "angry little whore" was clearly being taken entirely too literally.

* ''The Sun'', a British tabloid newspaper, is well known for using ThinkOfTheChildren in various campaigns to boost circulation. Examples include a successful 2008 campaign again Website/{{Facebook}} to force the removal of an application which allowed users to virtually "shank" (knife) friends, and a 1992 campaign against ''Film/ChildsPlay3'', which they tied to the murder of a toddler by two boys. Hypocritically, however, they had no problems publishing topless pictures of sixteen and seventeen year old girls in their popular "Page Three" section from 1970 up until 2003, when a change in the law banned topless pictures of anyone under eighteen.
* The ''Daily Express'', with an equally vitriolic attitude towards immigration, asylum seekers and the European Union. Has a particular fixation with conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Princess Diana, and is known as the "Di-ly Express" in ''Magazine/PrivateEye''. It should be noted that the ''Express'' and its stablemate ''The Star'' are both owned by millionaire ''porn baron'' Richard Desmond, who is behind many of the X-rated TV channels on British television. This hasn't changed their moral stances and promotion of "family values" at all.

** The ''Daily Mail'' has also spearheaded a campaign to "Ban Internet Porn", restricting "porn" at the ISP level but not actually specifying exactly what they want to ban other than implying that all porn is extreme, underage or bestiality and [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2140962/Sara-Payne-backs-block-online-porn-says-images-encourage-perverts-turn-fantasies-reality.html watching porn turns you into a]] pedophile serial killer. Of course, browsers should still display their site's galleries of scantily-dressed young women.

* Mexico City's mayor, Lic. Ernesto Uruchurtu, banned professional wrestling from television, despite Wrestling/{{CMLL}} cutting out all blood and prohibiting GimmickMatches. Pressure from them also lead to La Nazi changing her name to La Comandante.

* [[http://www.google.com/search?q=%2B%22The+Pulling+Report%22 Patricia Pulling]], mother of Irving "Bink" Pulling (who committed suicide on June 8, 1982), alleged that her son's suicide was caused by roleplaying games, a common accusation of the time (Irving Pulling was noted to be having troubles fitting in at school, and wrote "Life is a Joke" on a blackboard at school shortly before his suicide). Pulling tried to sue the principal of the high school her son attended, then got a private investigator certificate and formed B.A.D.D. (Bothered About TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons), testified as a self-proclaimed expert in "occult" and D&D, and riding [[http://www.google.com/search?q=%2B%22satanic+day+care+center%22 a wave of "cult crimes" scare]], produced handouts for police that contained erroneous or outright false statements (such as claiming that 8% of Richmond, Virginia citizens were Satanists; she came to this conclusion by estimating 4% of teens and 4% of adults, [[ArtisticLicenseStatistics and adding the result]]. And a list of fantasy role-playing games, some of which weren't fantasy, or role-playing games, at all). She had an objection to ''Tunnels and Trolls'' because it used rolls of [[NumberOfTheBeast three six-sided]] dice, so there must be something Satanic. Somehow she was allowed to get away with everything up to unauthorized and re-edited reprinting of newspapers articles and even was hired to give testimony in a court of law. Pulling died of cancer in 1997, and the anti-RPG backlash more or less died with her.

* As part of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' included many references to the real world, classical mythology and/or religion. That faded partly because of a devotion to their own world-building and intellectual property, but also to placate Moral Guardians who didn't like upside-down burning pentagrams appearing in card art. The difference is particularly glaring between one printing of the card "Unholy Strength" and another, in which the art of the later version is missing the pentagram that takes up the entire background of the picture but is otherwise identical.
* In 2003, Brazilian TV show host Gilberto Barros made some TV reports for his TV show ''Boa Noite Brasil'', claiming that the games ''Franchise/YuGiOh'' and ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' were Satanic, calling ''Yu-Gi-Oh!'' "The Devil's Card Game". On 5th June 2003, he dedicated his whole time slot to that subject, and the next day, thousands of children across Brazil had their cards confiscated, torn apart or burned by worried parents and teachers. He kept doing similar reports on video games as well, like ''VideoGame/{{Carmageddon}}''. However, he would later say he was sorry for his reports and reveal he only did them for the ratings, but only after departing from TV and moving to radio.[[note]]There is no footage of those reports on the Internet, however.[[/note]]

* Creator/HenrikIbsen's ''Theatre/ADollsHouse'', regarded as the first true feminist play, was criticized for challenging traditional gender roles and the sanctity of marriage, with most criticism being aimed particularly toward the female protagonist, Nora, who [[spoiler: leaves her husband and children behind in order to start a new life of self-discovery at the end of the original play]]. The ending was criticized so much [[ExecutiveMeddling that an alternative version of the play was performed]], with Nora [[spoiler: giving her husband a second chance and staying with him at the end of the play]]. Nowadays, all performances of this play use the original ending. Ibsen, who was not happy with being forced to write an alternative ending to the play and considering it a travesty, included a pointed TakeThat to his critics, [[spoiler: in that the "happy" ending is only achieved thanks to the husband bullying and emotionally guilt-tripping his wife into staying through their children, and the wife makes it ''very'' clear that she considers staying AFateWorseThanDeath.]]

* The Lion and Lamb Project, an organization active from 1997 to circa 2011, was this towards children's toys. The main problem with their crusade against immoral toys was their massive lack of research involved in their tirades -- the group constantly claimed that various toys were marketed at children simply because of the "Ages 3 and Up" approval rating on all toys (which is the result of a safety test, not a demographic statement). They went straight into CowboyBebopAtHisComputer territory by claiming that a ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' toyline was clearly designed to tie in to ''Film/TheMatrix'', despite the fact that the two franchises have no corporate connection and only shared the unimportant background premise of a background BigBad draining energy from living beings. Their lists of "recommended" toys made it quite clear the people behind the project thought toys were not designed for people who aren't kids, despite the blatant pandering to collectors' markets in many toylines. Possibly due to the increasing irrelevance of physical toys, their website became inactive around 2013, and stayed this way until a Swedish gambling company by the name of [=LionLamb=] bought the domain.

* Jack Thompson is a self-appointed crusader against video games, and apparently blames them for every evil affecting American society except possibly global warming and the common cold. Before that he was involved in efforts to censor music, specifically rap. He has a history of rabid overreaction to his pet issue-of-the-moment, vitriol towards more rational persons on ''any'' side of that issue, and legal threats to anyone who disagrees with him (his lawsuits have expanded to include the ''Florida Supreme Court'' as a target). However, he was considered to be relatively harmless, as his rants cost him his credibility and, eventually, his license to practice law; with more important people making threats against video games, Thompson was merely the most visible and possibly the most entertaining.

* The release of ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}'' on the [=PS2=] (renamed ''Canis Canem Edit'' in the UK, at least in part over this fuss) was accompanied by a "ban this game" campaign led by disgraced former Cabinet Minister Keith Vaz. This mainly occurred during the game's development, as upon release such detractors were left with egg on their face when ''Bully'' turned out to be fairly wholesome, due to the fact that the path to victory is playing morally, being a good student and taking down the titular bullies (plus, unlike what they claimed, there were no firearms in the game and nobody dies). This was pretty much what caused the Jack Thompson media flareup to finally die down. ''Bully: Scholarship Edition'' has since been released in the UK under its original title.
* The original ''VideoGame/{{Manhunt}}'' received much controversy over how the game practically reveled in the violence the player could commit. This led to the game being banned in several countries. The sequel received the same treatment, including such notable names as UsefulNotes/HillaryRodhamClinton and Jack Thompson attempting to get the game restricted in the United States. The game still had to be recut because the ESRB gave the first cut an Adults Only rating, thus leading to retailers refusing to carry it and Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all denying the games release on their platforms. Even after the M-rated cut made shelves, the same moral guardians sought to have the game re-rated and pulled from store shelves. Meanwhile, the game was [[BannedInChina banned in New Zealand and Australia]] and was given the film rating of R in the Canadian province of Ontario.[[note]]Ontario's R rating is equivalent to the American NC-17 rating; in other words, the game cannot legally be sold or rented to those under the age of 18 years in Ontario; the American R rating is equivalent to Ontario's 18A rating.[[/note]] The game's sequel, ''Manhunt 2'', was actually [[BannedInChina banned in Ireland and in the UK]]; though without any kind of controversy associated with the sequel, at least not on a level comparable to that of the original.

** The sequel ''VideoGame/DeadIslandRiptide'' is an interesting case in regards to promotion of the game. The trailer featured a graphic portrayal of a couple [[TearJerker killing themselves rather than be ripped apart by the infected]]. However, it was the logo of a lynched...zombie? which caused it to be changed and the ad pulled from Australian television after it was aired.

-->'''Simon:''' Hi, hi! My seven year old daughter watched the Yogscast... YOU SWORE AND NOW SHE'S DEAD!