Historically Dumb Censorship: Wal-Mart's Refusal To Sell Jill Sobule's Album Due To Prozac Pill

from the promoting-drug-usage dept

Tue, Oct 5th 2010 9:28pm — Mike Masnick

Singer Jill Sobule recently discussed a story from back in 1997, when Wal-Mart refused to carry the album she released that year -- because of the cover art. I'll let Jill tell the story:

When I was about to release my 2nd Atlantic record, "Happy Town", I was alerted that Wal-Mart was refusing to carry the CD. They told the label that the broken capsule depicted on the cover was somehow celebrating illegal drug use. Never mind that the drug in question was Prozac (with the familiar mint green and Mercedes cream/yellow colors) but that Wal-Mart itself is one of the big dealers. What made it even more silly, was they thought the granules pouring out looked like cocaine. That never crossed my mind. It made me wonder what kind of hopped-up druggies Wal-Mart was employing.

I decided, rather than dismiss a whole segment of society that would probably not buy my record anyway, I would...wimp out. I replaced the capsule with a test tube -big deal. Somehow, this made them happy and the "cocaine" stayed.

The reason she brought this up now, is because the photo above is an exhibit at the Newseum in Washington DC, showing examples of "dumb censorship."

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Filed Under: censorship, jill sobule
Companies: wal-mart

25 Comments

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Pablo Escobar, 5 Oct 2010 @ 9:42pm

Pills
LOL, Funniest story I've heard in forever :)

That's like having a picture of a stork on the album cover, then they refuse to carry due to graphic depictions of child birth.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Oct 2010 @ 10:47pm

The Wiktionary definition of Censorship: The use of state or group power to control freedom of expression, such as passing laws to prevent media from being published or propagated.

Walmart is a private company that is free to decide what it wants to sell in the stores that it owns. It did nothing to prevent Jill Sobule from using that image at other stores or stifle her speech in anyway. All it did was choose not to sell something that it felt could potentially offend some of it's customers. Whether they was right or wrong about that is a debate (and I say not) but this is not censorship.
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- Jon, 5 Oct 2010 @ 11:02pm
  
  Re:
  Actually, it is "censorship." Its just not a First Amendment issue.
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- Dementia (profile), 6 Oct 2010 @ 4:06am
  
  Re:
  Hmm, I believe Wal-Mart could be considered a group. Last time I checked there was certainly more than one person employed there. So it does, in fact, fit the definition you quoted.
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- Marcus Carab (profile), 6 Oct 2010 @ 7:37am
  
  Re:
  It is censorship just not by the government. Nobody said it was illegal -- just kind of dumb.
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JC, 6 Oct 2010 @ 1:03am

They both got want they wanted
Walmart wins. Jill wins. Everybody's happy. I'm not convinced that it's "dumb censorship". I think Walmart has a better understanding of what their customers want to see than the performers do.
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- techflaws.org (profile), 6 Oct 2010 @ 1:31am
  
  Walmart of all companies...
  Appeal to authority, you gotta love those!
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  - JC, 6 Oct 2010 @ 7:25am
    
    Re: Walmart of all companies...
    Um... no, it isn't.
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    - abc gum, 6 Oct 2010 @ 6:21pm
      
      Re: Re: Walmart of all companies...
      "I think Walmart has a better understanding of what their customers want to see"
      
      "Appeal to authority, you gotta love those!"
      
      "Um... no, it isn't."
      
      So you are saying that Walmart is not in any position of authority here. It's just that walmart better understands what the customers want, even if that means the customers want to shop elsewhere.
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    - techflaws.org (profile), 6 Oct 2010 @ 11:29pm
      
      Re: Re: Walmart of all companies...
      Um... but it is.
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      - JC, 7 Oct 2010 @ 12:50am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Walmart of all companies...
        Prove it.
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- Michael, 6 Oct 2010 @ 7:24am
  
  Re: They both got want they wanted
  ...and we, the consumers of this particular art, lose. Instead of the piece of art we were supposed to have available to us, we have a hacked-up version that the artist deemed 'good enough' and met the approval of the store that sells it.
  
  Personally, I would rather see artists not get pressured into changing their art because some store executive thinks it may offend someone. Is it possible that the artist may have sold less albums because there was a pill on the cover? Sure. Is money the only driving force for an artist to produce something? Nope.
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  - JC, 6 Oct 2010 @ 7:37am
    
    Re: Re: They both got want they wanted
    Walmart doesn't care if they carry it or not. No one forces the artist to change anything. If the artist can't handle the pressure, well too bad for them.
    
    You're not deprived of the artist's work because it is available in many other places.
    
    I may be mistaken, but Walmart has a set of standards which they seem to enforce universally amongst the brands they carry. Everyone knows this going in. I may not agree with their standards, but they are certainly within their rights to only carry things they want their customers to see.
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- Marcel de Jong (profile), 6 Oct 2010 @ 7:37am
  
  Re: They both got want they wanted
  No, Jill lost. Sure, after the change she could sell the discs in WalMart, but unaltered she could not sell her disc there. Thereby, Walmart limited her creative freedom, hence the word 'censorship'.
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  - JC, 6 Oct 2010 @ 7:40am
    
    Re: Re: They both got want they wanted
    So, she "lost" because she can sell her disc in the largest retailer in the U.S.?
    Brilliant.
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    - Marcel de Jong (profile), 6 Oct 2010 @ 7:41am
      
      Re: Re: Re: They both got want they wanted
      She lost, because she had to ALTER her art. She had to concede to a higher power, in this case the corporate board of Walmart. Which by definition means that she lost.
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      - JC, 6 Oct 2010 @ 10:27am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: They both got want they wanted
        But she didn't HAVE to alter her art. She chose to, because she felt it was more important to have it in Walmart's stores than to not have them there. She got what she wanted and Walmart got what they wanted. I don't see the problem.
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        techflaws.org (profile), 6 Oct 2010 @ 11:31pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: They both got want they wanted
        > But she didn't HAVE to alter her art. She chose to
        
        Because otherwise Walmart wouldn't have it. So she HAD to.
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        JC, 7 Oct 2010 @ 12:54am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: They both got want they wanted
        No she didn't. She made a business decision to change it. It was her decision to compromise with Walmart. She could have chosen to change nothing and kept it out of Walmart's stores.
        
        What would you have done if you were in her situation?
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        techflaws.org (profile), 8 Oct 2010 @ 6:58am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: They both got want they wanted
        Tell Walmart to suck it and write a blog post about how they suck, of course.
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        JC, 8 Oct 2010 @ 4:59pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: They both got want they wanted
        Well then, you would have made a different business decision than she did. Same result... you're happy, Walmart's happy.
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techflaws.org (profile), 6 Oct 2010 @ 1:33am

Another dumb one
Remember "Teenagage Dirtbag" by Wheatus? Lyrics go like this:

Her boyfriend's a dick
he brings a gun to school

and guess what, some moron bleeped over "gun". So from now on I guess, noone would ever think of shooting up a high school again, right?
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- Marcel de Jong (profile), 6 Oct 2010 @ 7:40am
  
  Re: Another dumb one
  I got another one for ya:
  "Oh no no no.. don't mess with my heart"
  
  That's the version I heard on college radio about 5 years ago, instead of "Oh no no no.. don't phunk with my heart" (Black eyed peas)
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Jason, 6 Oct 2010 @ 6:14am

"Congratulations..."
"...you're stupid."
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ross1, 23 Oct 2010 @ 9:58am

Employment Law Advice
i got another one for ya:
"Oh no no no.. don't mess with my heart"

That's the version I heard on college radio about 5 years ago, instead of "Oh no no no.. don't phunk with my heart"
Employment Law Advice
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