Um, remember earlier today when we reported that the Tokyo subway officials banned nude Britney Spears pics on the city’s trains? Our bad.
Well, it’s not really our fault, since it was true at the time. But now, following the original ban by lame government censors, who called Spears’ Harper’s Bazaar magazine cover “too stimulating” for young people, the city is now permitting posters of the pretty, pregnant pop princess to proceed as planned, People proclaims.
The poster of Spears, of course, is a blow-up of the cover of the August issue of Harper’s Bazaar. The cover of the magazine’s October Japanese edition will also feature this photo spread.
In objecting to the picture, Tokyo Metro Co.’s obscenity screening team had asked the publisher HB Japan to modify the photo, given that nudity is not accepted in ads in subway cars and stations.
During talks last month, the publisher reluctantly agreed to blacken out the image from the waist down, with the intention of plastering a message over the masked body parts reading, “In this place we are not allowed to exercise the same level of freedom of expression as the original Harper’s Bazaar.”
But today, Tokyo Metro said it would allow full presentation of the photo as an exception to its obscenity rule, saying it understood the publisher’s intention was to portray a happy, expectant mother.
The magazine’s deputy chief editor, Kayoko Higashino, who had called the initial restriction ridiculous, welcomed the decision, saying she is “glad the subway officials understood the meaning of the photo.”
Spears, 24, and husband Kevin Federline, 28, are expecting their second child this fall. The couple already have an 11-month-old child, Sean Preston.