Mariah Carey meets Photoshopping Saudi censors

An image gallery of Photoshopically-censored Mariah Carey album covers, as sold in Saudi Arabia. Mariah! Beware the self-replicating censorkitty!

(via Ethan Zuckerman, originally from Ahmed Al-Omran, aka Saudi Jeans, Saudi Arabia's best English language blogger.)

Update: Shocked cat is shocked:

Update 2: Rob Beschizza found the rest of the images in this series. Censorkitty takes over.

• [deckard68]

  In the source article, I noticed that they not only gave her sleeves and pants, but they removed the “I 3> NY” from her shirt. [sarcasm] I wonder why. [/sarcasm]

• [Brainspore]

  If you think the Saudis are good with Photoshop you should see the American retouchers who digitally remove clothing from the models in Middle Eastern publications.

• [Mister Eppy]

  hmmm… If they have to ‘shop a dude to make it more ‘haram-licous’, do you think they would use a rooster?

  • [Brainspore]

    I see what you did there.

• [qatarperegrine]

  Hey, these are remarkably good. Usually they just take a Sharpie to haram shit.

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    hahahahahah

• [Virion]

  Yeah, they’re surprisingly well done. The splash one even looks good, though I don’t know if it’s any less censored…

  I like the touch on the I <3 NY one, that must be the head of some portfolio.

• [eliterrell]

  Jellabiya kitty is a jellabiya.

• [hassenpfeffer]

  Anyone with mad ‘Shop skillz willing to paste Shocked Kitteh onto Blob Censorkitteh? ‘Cause frankly I don’t think Shocked Kitteh has yet outlived its memefulness.

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    Thanks. So, I checked in with Shocked Cat, and as it turns out, he is in fact very much shocked. I’ve updated the post accordingly.

• [Anonymous]

  And thus, the censors have now indicated that Mariah Carey likes puss-y-cat in her face.

• [Anonymous]

  The Saudi censors don’t like her “I NY” shirt?

• [ecobore]

  Ha, reminds of flying into Saudi. I had some CDs with naked shoulders and customs used a big black marker to cover up the shoulders (but on the outside of the jewel case!) so inside the picture was untouched!!

• [theawesomerobot]

  They did an amazing photoshop job for a lot of those covers. American Magazines should start outsourcing their photoshop work to Saudi Arabia, apparently.

• [knoxblox]

  Hmmm. I always thought the slang for those things on her chest was “puppies”.

• [jungletek]

  They way her eye looks ‘wrong’ as she’s slowly consumed is truly terrifying.

• [jungletek]

  The, even.

• [Anonymous]

  ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT GREY MEW

  REPORT ANY AND ALL NANOCAT SPILLS

• [Anonymous]

  Funnily enough I had to go through Saudi customs a few years back when I went there for some video production work. Getting cameras, laptops and hard drives through customs was always going to be a challenge, and sure enough I was ushered backstage for a rigorous 45 minute search through all my tapes and files for anything remotely salacious.

  I spotted a pile of confiscated CDs – mostly hip-hop, rap and the like… but on top of the pile was a Mariah Carey album!

• [kc0bbq]

  The cat picture has me making ‘splortch’ sounds in my head as I imagine it expanding out and absorbing her.

  Weird.

• [hassenpfeffer]

  Thanks, Xeni! You made my Monday!

• [penguinchris]

  Doesn’t anyone think these were probably actually done by retouchers hired by her label in the US? Why are we assuming that they’d bother to do such a good job in Saudi Arabia when they can just put black bars over it?

  Also, the “I heart NY” one would look really weird if they added in more shirt but didn’t remove the text – look again and try to imagine. It’d be quite difficult to move the I and the heart closer together realistically, so they just removed the text.

• [MrsBug]

  Call me crazy, but I kind of like some of the Saudi ones better.

• [cory]

  While I abhor the urge to censor and pretend sexuality doesn’t exist, most of these are well-done. The one with the cat made me laugh.. probably my favorite.

• [blueelm]

  I like the one where it looks like a cat/starfish hybrid is digesting her.

• [Anonymous]

  why’d they wonk out her left eye in the second update

• [drewand1200]

  Are you certain that those are not VaJayJay bubbles from a ninja… umm kitteh over running her face?

• [sparklemotion]

  I’m glad I’m not the only one who found the kitty picture terrifying.

  And I love kitties.

• [danwarning]

  Holy cow, they did a pretty great job, considering how difficult that type of thing is!

• [danwarning]

  And someone just changed the graphic included in this post! I wonder how to interpret THAT

• [benher]

  Maybe it’s time for the folks at Ralph Lauren to take an internship in Saudi Arabia?