Even a Pixelated Fernanda Lima was too Much for Iran State TV

As I mentioned in the previous post, the graphic images of Catherine Ashton being kissed and embraced by John Kerry and Laurent Fabius, after an agreement was reached in the Geneva talks, was just too much for the Islamic Republic's state TV. That crisis however was quickly resolved by some good pro-active readiness on behalf of the state TV's experts in "image pixelating and blurring" department.

But just when the state TV chiefs in the Islamic Republic, could breathe a sigh of relief after their successful blurring of Catherine Ashton's provocative images, they were hit by the tsunami of Fernanda Lima appearing in the Brazil 2014 World Cup draw ceremony.

State TV's Adel Ferdowsipour, was ready to host the program with three football guests on his show. The messages in his earpiece however kept telling him to delay the start of the program. There must have been a glimmer of hope that Fernanda was not going to be present for the entire show and may decide to walk away after a few minutes and abandon the show. Prayers were said in earnest "God, Almighty, please make Fernanda go away" but to no avail.

For a few seconds, an overview of the stage, with the lights off, was shown, just to get the ambiance of the moment, but how long can you show a dark stage on a TV program? The host joked, "wouldn't it be good to broadcast the entire show like this? it will be easier to report it".
He was told to apply more delay tactics by talking to the guests, while the experts at the pixelating and blurring provocative images department, tried experimenting with covering up Fernanda with all the cover up tools they had at their disposal.

Ferdowsipour struggled to find a suitable subject to talk about. After all, the show was about the world cup draw and viewers wanted to know which team was selected to be in which group?!

Finally it was decided that Fernanda was just too sexy and provocative, even if blurred or pixelated.
The live coverage of the draw was cancelled and it was back to the studio for good. Why show Fernanda at all, when the host and the guests could just talk about it?


 The thoughts of the faithful viewers squinting their eyes to de-pixelate Fernanda must have gone through the minds of the "moral guidance" officers and even further horrified them. The way things worked out however, they won't have to face the wrath of the Friday Prayer sermon leaders next week and can sleep well, at least until Brazil 2014 starts!