Quick memo to Inappropriately Surprised People. YOU ARE DUMB.
In our civilized society, we have developed this thing called language. Language allows us to assign names to things. Often, these names will represent or describe the thing that they are attached to.
If a thing, for example, is named "Mortal Kombat", and you are subsequently surprised by the game's contents of death and fighting, then it is your own damn fault, and you need to shut up and pay more attention.
This means you, Canada. When you shell out dough to bring Big American Star Conan O'Brien to your country in the hopes of allaying everyone's fears that they'll catch SARS if they share a crowded bus with a Canadian, and a character named "Insult Comic Dog" insults Canadians, and you are surprised in any way by this... well, thank goodness you've got the universal health care thing to fall back on, because the whole Triumph thing makes you sound like a bunch of fuckin' doofuses.
And it's always the oversensitive, yippy people who don't pay attention to the warning signs. Which makes even less sense. Because if I knew I was the type to fly off the handle every time a vice was portrayed in a videogame, I'd make sure to stay far away from videogames whose titles promise an entire city's worth of vice.
Do people in other industries have to deal with this kind of thing? Does the owner of Shrimpy McShrimp's Shrimptacular Shrimporium get a regular influx of customers who order the Shrimptastic Shrimplatter, wolf it down, go into anaphylactic shock, and then file million dollar lawsuits claiming there's no way they could have known their shrimp allergy would have been triggered?
They probably do, come to think about it. Probably drove poor Shrimpy McShrimp out of the shrimp business entirely. Which is a shame, because with a name like Shrimpy McShrimp, it's not like he can open a law firm.
Nature gave you eyes and a brain. Civilization gave you letters and words. Make the elusive connection, or be forever enshrimped in the annals of the DUMB.