Film censorship Theo van Gogh following column in Het Parool of 28 June 1989. Van Gogh wrote a column about what he saw as the hypocritical expressions of condolence regarding the recently deceased journalist Simon van Collem. This did not go down well with Canon and United International Pictures. In their view the article was 'extremely tasteless' and they decided to institute an advertising boycott. Van Gogh in turn decided, against the wishes of the editor-in-chief of Het Parool, to end his column. He felt that a loss of 20.000 guilders per week because of a harmless column was too great a sacrifice for a newspaper in a difficult position such as Het Parool.