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Is YouTube exhibiting a double-standard? Moderators at the Google-owned website have deemed an intimate (but clothed!) embrace between quirky singer-songwriter Perfume Genius and hunky adult star Arpad Miklos "too adult in nature" to post. The explanation, the reaction, and the innocuous 15-second album teaser video, after the jump.
The above clip promoting Perfume Genius's upcoming album uses a clip from the music video for "Hood." Apparently, however, in this instance the gay embrace is too much for YouTube, which has disapproved the video.
A rep for YouTube's moderators explained the decision to the record label. "Any ads that contain non family safe material are disapproved. I noted to the team that the people in the video are not entirely unclothed, but the overall feeling of the video is one of a more adult nature, including promoting mature sexual themes and what appears to be nude content. As such, the video is non family safe. In order to have this video ad approved, you will need to bring it into compliance with our policy."
Hmm. A simple YouTube search of the keyword "erotic" yields pages of results overflowing with sexually-explicit heterosexual videos that, dare I say, are racier than the below clip.
Folks at Perfume Genius's label have asked for clarification and help with what, exactly, they have to do to edit the embrace into something YouTube deems "family safe." They go on to point out the irony inherent in the meaning of the song used in the ad: "All Waters" is about "internalized homophobia—How Mike (Perfume Genius) notices straight couples being affectionate on the street, and how it must feel for them to not have to think about it; he wonders if he would do that with his boyfriend if he wasn't so self-conscious about gay PDA."
Here's the 15-second spot:
Perfume Genius ad from nils bernstein on Vimeo.
Do you think the video's so-called "adult nature" warranted disapproval from YouTube or is a double-standard rearing its ugly double-sided head?
(Source and image source: OMG Blog)
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