TV Palma Strikes Back

On September fifth the Chief Editor of the Gradjanin Newspaper decided to have some fun with the television station Palma and its owner Miodrag Vujovic. Having reminded readers that Vujovic was the government cashier in 1993 when a million German marks from election funds disappeared, Tijanic wrote what he thinks of the protective law brought for Vujovic’s television station: "Thus for years this channel (channel in the literal sense of the word) is founded on the very human activity which specialists term "masturbation". Somewhere half way through the night, millions of practitioners of this useful hobby tune in, lower the volume — to not disturb the inquisitive neighbors — and take the matter into their own hands. A peep show is being watched on Palma TV! Just as I wrote this sentence I realized that "a peep show on PALMA" is a redundancy...

There is no program on any domestic television station which has marked a station and become synonymous with that chanal in the way the porn show has become the identifying mark of Mr. Vujovic’s station. A while back there was considerable debate here on whether a public channel, that is to say -one that is not scrambled- should air porn movies. I was in principle against such freedom because I did not wish to come across a descendant or a still-living ancestor playing with their favorite toy in the middle the living room, even though in concrete instances I was "for" out of two reasons. First of all, people just do not have the money to subscribe to scrambled foreign stations, and, second of all, every man who busts a nut, if only manually, decreases tensions in Serbia, contributes to the calming of the situation and a better understanding between the government and the opposition. Thus Mr. Vujovic has taken on the grave task of lowering tensions and preventing malicious people from taking out their weapons against the national regime and the anti-national opposition. As compensation, he received the license for manufacturing garbage..."

The analysis in Gradjanin concludes with the advice to the public to avoid single-handed over-exertion, because it not only wastes their life force, but also creates the danger that Mr. Vujovic might be called a "jerk off" — while Serbia is so indebted to this man [Vujovic] for contributing to peace.

Not even two days passed when Palma gave air time to Tijanic in its most watched program — its porn movie. The loyal audience, already used to commercial interruptions, was offered a TV spot in the middle of the action packed adventure with a photograph of Tijanic and a commercial message stating that Mr. X "never amounted to anything in life", and the little that he did achieved, he did so in two ways.

The porn movie was continued, but in the place of the face of the male artist hired for the oral sex scene with the unidentified female actor, Mr. Tijanic’s faces was mounted.

In the second scene, the TV spot author again showed Tijanic as an incorrigible oral sex addict, except that his partner had changed — this time it was a man. The TV spot, explicitly produced by Mr. Vujovic, concluded with the injunction that "now it is clear why Mr. X has a filthy mouth."

Even though the fans of Palma TV are always someone else and not us, Vujovic’s creation was viewed by enough people for a scandal to break out. The director Vujovic can expect a law suit, considerable expenditures, and perhaps a change into an institution to which the injured Tijanic will give all the money he receives as compensation: "I will demand a million dinars of compensation which I will give for renovating a mental asylum, because I believe that Mr. Vujovic will be in need of such an institution." Vujovic will be offered space in Gradjanin "if he knows how to write" [uncertainty is Mr. Tijanic’s], to respond "why it is he does not agree with Tijanic." If Vujovic does not come out in the purely Gutenbergian, verbal dual, Tijanic promises to direct a convincing porn movie with Vujovic in the title role, and will request that Palma air that creation by way of a correction.

The real authors of the creation in which Tijanic’s face was mounted still did not identify themselves, but, given that the movie is foreign, an international scandal can break out because authors’ and performers’ rights have also been injured — how do the real director and actor feel to have the face of a newspaper columnist mounted in the place of the original?