May 15, 2008
Gay porn found on child’s DVD
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JAMES CITY - A mother who bought a discount cartoon DVD for her young children was shocked when the menu screen that appeared on her TV screen was that of a gay porn movie. She had bought the disc from Target at Monticello Marketplace, and she may not be alone.
The woman, who works locally but asked not to use her name, said there was nothing about the packaging or the disc to suggest pornography.
“It was sealed in the package, just like any DVD,” she said. “I opened it, put it in the player and went into the kitchen. I heard my son scream, and when I went to check on him, instead of Batman the screen had three men on it, one of whom had no pants on.”
She recalled seeing the words “Titan Man” or a similar reference on the screen. Titan Media is a company that produces gay porn films.
The mother quickly shut the disc off. When she took it out she noticed that instead of a professionally produced disc with graphics promoting the movie title, it was blank, suggesting it was burned on a home computer.
“It’s not unusual for a discount disc to have very little text on it,” she said. “I didn’t really look at it when I put it in.”
Her husband returned the disc to the store. The mother said a store manager told him it was the third time since Christmas a disc had been returned for the same reason.
A reporter who called the store Friday morning was disconnected after being put on hold by a manager. Target’s corporate office in Minneapolis was surprised to learn of the problem, but after investigating confirmed the incident.
“We are continuing to research this, but at this time we believe this is a single isolated incident specific to this store,” said Target spokesman Anne Rodgers. “We apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused.”
Rodgers said she was not aware of any additional incidents at the Williamsburg
Target. Mike Spearman of the James City Police said that no complaints had been filed with the police department.
The mother suspects that the disc was intentionally placed in the DVD case intended for children, but since the package was sealed she doesn’t think the switch occurred here.
“My hunch is it happened where it was packaged,” she said.
Discount stores have inadvertantly sold porn before. The website Consumerist.com has posts from January 2007 about Wal-Mart and Target inadvertently selling Japanese porn comic books on their websites.
According to the posts, “Both Target and Wal-Mart have pulled the entries from their virtual shelves.”
Wal-Mart issued an explantion and apology.
“These titles erroneously appeared on Walmart.com due to an isolated system filtering issue. We’re taking this matter very seriously, and are working to remove these titles immediately from our website. We apologize to our customers for this occurrence.”
The mother vowed to be more diligent in the future. “You can bet I’ll look at the next DVD I buy before I put it on to play,” she said.
Amanda Kerr contributed.
Copyright © 2008, The Virginia Gazette
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