The embarrassing Miley Cyrus Vanity Fair photo shows the value of public relations people—and why investing real money makes people more careful about what they do.
Continue reading "Miley Cyrus, Unprotected Celebrity" »
A new ad campaign for Absolut vodka shows open hatred for the United States.
Continue reading "Absolut Radicalism" »
Continue reading "Why Academe Leans Left—And What Can Be Done About It" »
TAC correspondent Michael D'Virgilio analyzes the cultural implications of the political journey of David Mamet, another modern liberal mugged by reality.Continue reading "David Mamet Swings to the Right" »
Continue reading "The Light in "Dark" Fiction" »
Continue reading "What Kind of Culture Should We Want?" »
This Sunday night at 10 p.m EST, CBS attempts to bolster its writers-strike-depleted primetime lineup by bringing over a program from pay cable, Showtime's Dexter.
For those not familiar with the show, Dexter is a limited series based on the first in a series of novels about a Miami police forensic consultant whose expertise happens to be based in great part on the fact that he is a serial killer.
Continue reading "'Dexter' Comes to CBS" »
For those who have yet to understand that multiculturalism is nothing of the sort and is merely cover for the continual denigration of Western Christian civilization in the ongoing internal effort toward its eventual overthrow, the latest news from Europe ought to do a good deal of convincing.
Continue reading "Multiculturalism Gone Mad: "Christian Ramadan"" »
Novelist-journalist Norman Mailer has died at age 84, according to his literary executor. Malier, known for his interesting but often overly dense prose, puzzling choices of story material, combative journalism, "existential" philosophisizing, and aggressive self-assertiveness in his personal life, burst on the scene at the age of 25 in 1948 with a well-written, critically acclaimed, and popular debut novel, The Naked and the Dead.
Intelligent, wily, handsome, charismatic, and highly personable when he wanted to be, Mailer was the embodiment of the "hipster" culture that arose after World War II, in which authors such as he, Gore Vidal, Jack Kerouac, and Stanley Baldwin rebelled against the overly bureaucratized and stifling, government-dominated society that had arisen during the first half of the twentieth century and found its greatest expression during World War II, when nearly everything in American society was under control of the national government.
Continue reading "Norman Mailer and the Hipster Cataclysm" »
One of the most important presumably unintended consequences of the Sexual Revolution of the second half of the twentieth century has been the increasing dominance of male desires and a corresponding diminution of the value of women's ways of viewing sex. The opening of all doors ensures that men, who by nature tend to pursue a variety of sexual partners, will drive the agenda, and women, who are by nature better fitted for long-term partnerships, will simply have to accommodate them.
Perpetuation of the species ensures that men who spread their genetic characteristics widely will greatly affect the gene pool, and women who are able to take care of their children well—which at least in earlier times was much easier if a man was around to help—will be similarly successful. Hence there is an innate tension in relations between the sexes: there are centrifugal forces at work, but at its best human sexuality ties couples and families together.
The development of moral codes pertaining to such matters helped the species thrive. What both men and women give up in freedom they obtain in greater success in contributing children for the future.
Continue reading "The Oppressive Realities of the Sexual Revolution" »
Critic John J. Miller has published a very informative interview with Robert E. Howard scholar Rusty Burke on National Review Online, which merits attention.
The excerpts below provide a good sense of why the underappreciated writer of the Conan the Barbarian stories deserves more consideration. Howard wrote for the pulps in a variety of genres, and modern-day readers are rediscovering his non-Conan writings and realizing that he was above all a master storyteller.
Particularly praiseworthy is Burke's emphasis on the importance of story in narrative fiction, which reflects criticisms made in the prior century by G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and other such luminaries:
Continue reading "Master Storyteller" »
Men read far fewer books than women today. That's a documented fact, and the gap is becoming bigger. Particularly weak is men's reading of fiction. It's pretty much women's domain these days, while men, when they do read, gravitate toward history and biography.
Why this is, nobody seems to know. Men used to read books, but today we are unusually reluctant to do so.
Continue reading "Why Johnny Doesn't Read" »
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has declared that the U.S. television networks are not "gay" enough but that Disney-owned ABC is getting close.
The organization, which has been highly successful at bullying corporations into supporting a radical pro-homosexual agenda, issued its first report on the matter after analyzing "the number of 'impressions,' or occurrences, of gay characters, discussions or themes counted during 4,693 hours of programming examined from June 2006 through May 2007," according to Reuters:
Continue reading "ABC Is "Gayest" TV Network—Study" »
Two stories in the news vividly encapsulate the astonishing gulf between left and right today. First, actor Sean Penn in Venezuela, where he applauded Marxist, America-hating President Hugo Chavez. AP reports:
That's bravery, all right. Penn languishes in prison to this very day, beaten brutally hour after hour, for those statements, as he would in Cuba or Venezuela.Chavez met privately with the 46-year-old actor for two hours Thursday, praising him as being "brave" for urging Americans to impeach President Bush.
Continue reading "Penn and Willis, a Study in Contrasts" »
Summer has become the main season for cable TV networks to premiere new series and specials, as the broadcast networks give themselves over to reruns and game shows on the assumption that nobody wants to watch television on warm summer nights.
That's probably a good bet—and certainly a good thing if true—and it has a further benefit in that the cable networks tend to be a little more creative than the broadcast majors in the kinds of series they offer. Chasing a smaller audience allows them to be more adventurous in what they'll try—and sometimes they succeed. Two good examples are AMC-TV's Mad Men and TNT's Saving Grace, both of which premiered in the past few days.
Continue reading "TV Tackles the Sensate Culture" »
At least two companies have pulled their ads from the upcoming July 25 premiere of the Black Entertainment Television (BET) program Hot Ghetto Mess which is based on the popular website of the same name.
Expressing the same attitude as the website, the program will show viewer-submitted videos of stupid things people do, with an emphasis on the black community. It will also feature comedy, pictures, music, and man-on-the-street interviews to "shine a spotlight on prevalent images in pop culture and examine what role they play in American lifestyle," as the BET web page for the program puts it. It will feature, according to the BET site, "shaking booties, thug life, baby-mama drama and pimped-out high schoolers."
In short, in showing the stupidity and ignorance of many Americans, Hot Ghetto Mess will do precisely what a good many shows directed at a broad audience do, but will be directed toward black Americans.
Continue reading ""Hot Ghetto Mess" TV Program Under Fire" »
In an article ostensibly considering the literary legacy of science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein, John Derbyshire veers off into an interesting discussion of the current American culture. Derbyshire's conclusion is that a great separation of American society has taken place since the 1950s:
America has always had elites, of course, and we have always had an underclass of some kind. Both seem to be much bigger now than they were then, though. Furthermore, if you subtracted off the elites and the underclass in Heinlein’s time, what was left—the great middle—was far more homogenous then than it is now, its members much better acquainted with each other. The social distance between (say) a doctor and (say) a cop, was smaller then than it is now
Continue reading "The Great Disruption—Is There Any Hope of Deliverance?" »
A new wave of movies aimed at young girls is coming, starting this Friday with the theatrical release of Nancy Drew. The director of that film, Andrew Fleming, points out that the recent preteen and teen culture presented models of behavior very different from that of the children at which they have been aimed and which most of their parents would endorse.
The LA Times reports the good news that this is about to change somewhat:
Continue reading "Movies for Good Girls" »
Jenny Morse is an excellent libertarian writer and thinker, with a Ph.D. in economics, who holds to traditional moral positions and points out that government in the United States is a huge factor contributing to the undermining of the moral values that make freedom, economic productivity, and social progress possible.
Jenny has written a very pointed and correct letter to the editor in response to a syndicated cartoon by Berk Breathed. I reprint it here for your edification:
Continue reading "Anti-Male, Anti-Marriage "Humor"" »
Former National Review editor and journalist extroardinaire John O'Sullivan has frequently offered his maxim that every organization that is not already on the left tends to move steadily toward it.
He's right, of course, and that's even true of TV channels that show old movies, which one might think a natural province of nerdy fuddy-duddies nostalgic about the way movies used to be and relatively critical of today's offerings.
One would be wrong. Ever since it fired its movie hosts a few years ago, American Movie Classics has been showing original programming presenting thoroughly antinomian points of view on movies and culture.
Turner Classic Movies, which shows movies of the entire past century, commercial-free, has icnreasingly been doing the same sort of thing in the past couple of years.
Continue reading "Classic Movie Channel Goes Gay" »
Ann Coulter's thoughts on the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, from her most recent column, are impressive. She is unbounded in her admiration for the man, saying, " Let me be the first to say: I ALWAYS agreed with the Rev. Falwell."
Her comments provide a powerful tonic against the toxins spread by the press both during Falwell's life and in the wake of his death. Here is an excerpt:
No man in the last century better illustrated Jesus' warning that "All men will hate you because of me" than the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who left this world on Tuesday. Separately, no man better illustrates my warning that it doesn't pay to be nice to liberals
Continue reading "A Strong Defense of Jerry Falwell—And an Appreciation of Ann Coulter" »
The Motion Picture Assoociation of America has announced that portrayals of smoking will be considered in rating movies, along with depictions of sexuality and violence. Glamorization of smoking will bring on a more restrictive rating, and tobacco use will be added to the increasingly elaborate descriptions of movie content the industry's rating system is incorporating.
Given that nobody is allowed to smoke anywhere in the previously free United States, simple realism would seem to require filmmakers to stop showing people smoking. Of course, reality hasn't been an interest for Hollywood for several decades.
Witness, for example, Hollywood's support for global warming myths and leftist politics.
Continue reading "Hollywood to Censor Smoking" »
One result of such a lack of shared values is identify politics and its insane consequences. Hence it shouldn't surprise us that an estimated 150,000 Chicagoans marched in support of crime , criminality, and criminals yesterday.
Continue reading "Chicagoans March to Support Crime, Criminals" »
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads as follows:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The Federal Communications Commission, created by Congress and administered by the President, seems to think that this does not apply any more.
To wit, as The New York Times reports:
Continue reading "FCC Urges Congress to Ignore Bill of Rights—So What's New?" »
A student in a Chicago suburb has been arrested for writing an essay that allegedly frightened his teacher.
No, it was not the grammar or word choices; it was the content.
Continue reading ""A" Student Arrested for Essay" »
.jpg "A typically gloomy image from Batman Begins movie")
[I ran across a DVD of the movie Batman Begins recently and was reminded of how representative it is of much of today's movie culture. So, for your enlightement and delectation, the following is reprinted from my review for Crux.]
What Batman Begins says most powerfully is how bad the earlier films in the series were—and how crippled by stylistic cliches today's Hollywood action films have become.
The best way to experience Batman is still to read the original DC comic books from years ago and watch the TV cartoon series. This one ain't bad, but they're the real thing.
Continue reading "Batman Begins . . . Again" »
The mass shooting at Virginia Tech University will certainly bring a long and laborious discussion of causes and suggestions for averting such incidents in the future. That is necessary and good, but if history is any guide, most of the suggestions will be thoroughly ineffectual.
Continue reading "Why Madmen Kill" »
One of the most important trends of the past half-century was the self-esteem movement in education. The idea was that students learn more if they are told that they're smart and capable of learning more.
In theory, it made sense to a lot of people. Unfortunately, test scores tumbled, and students are doing more poorly than ever on standardized tests, even though the tests have been made easier than before. Meanwhile, U.S. students have rated themselves as doing just great academically. Students in Japan and Korea have been scoring much higher than U.S. students yet do not rate their achievment as high as Americans ratethemselves.
Now we find that this wonderful self-esteem movement has been fostering a narcissistic culture, a society in which people increasingly feel aggressive, unsympathetic, and disconnected from one another. Anyone looking at contemporary American culture, especially that part of it which is geared toward and inhabited by the young, could easily see a rising tide of narcissism, of course, and now there is scientific evidence to back it up. The Associated Press reports:
Today's college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society. . . .
[The study's lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University] and her colleagues, in findings to be presented at a workshop today in San Diego on the generation gap, examined the responses of 16,475 college students nationwide who completed an evaluation called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory between 1982 and 2006.
The standardized inventory, known as the NPI, asks for responses to such statements as "If I ruled the world, it would be a better place," "I think I am a special person" and "I can live my life any way I want to."
The researchers describe their study as the largest ever of its type and say students' NPI scores have risen steadily since the current test was introduced in 1982. By 2006, they said, two-thirds of the students had above-average scores, 30 percent more than in 1982.
This is a very bad trend for the society, the study's authors note. Narcissism has numerous awful consequences, says study co-author W. Keith Campbell of the University of Georgia, according to the AP story:
"Unfortunately, narcissism can also have very negative consequences for society, including the breakdown of close relationships with others," he said.
The study asserts that narcissists "are more likely to have romantic relationships that are short-lived, at risk for infidelity, lack emotional warmth, and to exhibit game-playing, dishonesty, and over-controlling and violent behaviors."
Twenge, the author of "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable Than Ever Before," said narcissists tend to lack empathy, react aggressively to criticism and favor self-promotion over helping others.
The study's authors say that this trend is traceble directly to the self-esteem movement:
The researchers traced the phenomenon back to what they called the "self-esteem movement" that emerged in the 1980s, asserting that the effort to build self-confidence had gone too far.
As an example, Twenge cited a song commonly sung to the tune of "Frere Jacques" in preschool: "I am special, I am special. Look at me."
"Current technology fuels the increase in narcissism," Twenge said. "By its very name, MySpace encourages attention-seeking, as does YouTube." . . .
"Permissiveness seems to be a component," he said. "A potential antidote would be more authoritative parenting. Less indulgence might be called for."
The article notes that the authors do not have any prescription for turning things around quickly: "Campbell said the narcissism upsurge seemed so pronounced that he was unsure if there were obvious remedies."
Obviously, rethinking our national obsession with building kids' self-esteem through artificial measures—and returning to the common-sense habit of praising them for real achievements and simply treating them both kindly and fairly—is the most likely remedy for the long term. That is Twenge's conclusion too, the story notes:
"We need to stop endlessly repeating 'You're special' and having children repeat that back," said the study's lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. "Kids are self-centered enough already."
As Carl Olsen noted in our comments section, writer and radio host Michael Medved has weighed in on the Tim Hardaway controversy, agreeing with the points I've made here.
Independently arriving at most of the same conclusions I have outlined in my analyses on the subject on this site, Medved agrees with my point that Hardaway was correct to apologize for using the word "hate" in describing his feelings about homosexuals, and with my observation that most people feel fundamentally uncomfortable with the presence of homosexuality:
Hardaway appropriately apologized for his harsh remarks, but many (if not most) Americans no doubt share his instinctive reluctance to share showers and locker rooms with open homosexuals. That reluctance also explains the controversial Defense Department policy that prevents out-of-the-closet gays from serving in the United States military.
Medved also points out that Hardaway's discomfort at the idea of being undressed around homosexuals is a perfectly sensible attitude:
In the wake of the nearly-universal condemnation of Tim Hardaway’s statements to a radio interviewer, the substantive issue remains. Is it a reasonable for an NBA basketball player (or a soldier in basic training, for that matter) to feel uncomfortable sharing intimate quarters with a homosexual, or does this represent an outrageous, irrational fear? In response to the Hardaway controversy, several sports columnists compared his resistance to the idea of playing alongside gay teammates to the racism of previous years when white players tried to avoid competing with (or against) blacks.
The analogy is ridiculous, of course. There is no rational basis for discomfort at playing with athletes of another race since science and experience show that human racial differences remain insignificant. The much better analogy for discomfort at gay teammates involves the widespread (and generally accepted) idea that women and men shouldn’t share locker rooms. Making gay males unwelcome in the intimate circumstances of an NBA team makes just as much sense as making straight males unwelcome in the showers for a women’s team at the WNBA. Most female athletes would prefer not to shower together with men not because they hate males (though some of them no doubt do), but because they hope to avoid the tension, distraction and complication that prove inevitable when issues of sexual attraction (and even arousal) intrude into the arena of competitive sports.
The parenthetical expression "though some of them no doubt do" is pricelessly funny.
Medved also alludes to the argument that revulsion toward homosexuality is a common human trait that may well have a genetic component, though he only glancingly treats the issue:
Many gay activists suggest that this near-universal straight male repulsion at the idea of sex with another man is merely the product of cultural conditioning: a learned prejudice that ought to be unlearned. This represents the core message of gay pride parades and even the drive for same-sex marriage: an effort to persuade all of society that gay sex is as beautiful as straight sex, and to “cure” men of their visceral disgust at the very thought of what two (or more) male homosexuals do with one another.
According to the “enlightened” advocates of gay liberation, this disgust gets to the very essence of “homophobia” – an altogether unjustified fear and distaste for male-on-male physical intimacy. When Hardaway says “I hate gay people” what he suggests at the deepest level is that he feels revolted by the very notion of same-sex eroticism and that he’d prefer not to face the distraction of such thoughts in the locker room or on the court.
Unfortunately, Medved never suggests any natural, noncultural reason why people have this revulsion. Hence he doesn't offer any real refutation to the notion that a discomfort with homosexual behavior is a mutable characteristic, a "product of cultural conditioning, . . a learned prejudice that ought to be unlearned," as he aptly summarizes the argument. My suggestion, that this atitude is genetically coded into human beings, adds the necessary element to the mix: a theory of human nature, a hypothesis about natural laws, that makes it possible to argue against the "homophobia as purely cultural artifact" thesis behind modern elite attitudes toward homosexual behavior and reactions of heterosexuals toward it. Medved usefully argues about the power of the sexual urge in adult human beings, and observes that denying the impact of this reality creates foolish and insane ideas:
Those who insist that basketball teams or submarine crews must welcome gay recruits must, for the sake of consistency, argue for the same welcome to teammates of the opposite gender. That notion – that a male player could, for instance, join a WNBA team without serious problems – shows the way that political correctness now seems to deny the obvious, often overwhelming potency of human sexuality.
Those who suggest that a guy could shower with young female athletes without risk of arousal, or that a gay guy could shower with young male athletes with[out] problems or discomfort, don’t merely defy common sense. They ignore human nature.
It's great to see Mike Medved join the fray, and it will be interesting to know whether this will broaden the discussion further, at least on the right, to consider more of the important implications of this serious news event.
As we noted yesterday, in the post immediately below, most of the intellectual-political-culltural publications on the right have been curiously silent regarding the Tim Hardaway controversy. Interestingly, the most forthright defense of Hardaway's position from any writer other than your intrepid correspondent has come from ESPN.com's Chris Broussard.
Actually, Broussard's column was posted on his ESPN blog on the very day Hardaway made his comments, before the controversy broke. Hence, Broussard defended Hardaway's position without actually mentioning Hardaway, for the very good reason that Hardaway hadn't made his comments yet.
Broussard opens the piece by saying that he thinks the NBA is ready for an openly homosexual player. He doesn't believe that all players will embrace the reality by any means, but that they will "tolerate" it. He notes that most of the comments by NBA players about former NBA player John Amaechi's disclosure of his homosexuality have been very cautious and politically correct.
This publicly welcoming attitude, however, is not what the vast majority of players, or American males in general, really feel, Broussard observed:
Go talk to guys at an open gym in your neighborhood, and lots of the comments won't be so polite.
But America has become so politically correct -- not to mention that, in my opinion, much of the media and Hollywood are promoting the idea that homosexuality is a normal lifestyle -- that many players are afraid to voice their true feelings publicly.
His observation about players' fears would be proven all too true later than day when the attack on Hardaway flared up.
Broussard then offered his own thoughts about homosexuality:
I'm a born-again, Bible-believing Christian (no, I'm not a member of the Religious Right). And I'm against homosexuality (I believe it's a sin) and same-sex marriage.
But before you label me "homophobic," know that I'm against any type of sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman. That includes heterosexual fornication (premarital sex).
Some cats in the NBA run around, sleeping with different women in every city -- I don't agree with their lifestyles.
Some players run around, cheating on their wives -- I don't agree with their lifestyles.
It's all wrong to me and against the biblical teachings I believe in.
Does that make him intolerant? Far from it. Broussard gives examples from his own life to show what tolerance really means, regarding an amateur basketball teammate of his, nicknamed LZ:
LZ and I know where each other stand and we respect each other's right to believe as he does.
I know he's gay, and he knows I believe that's a sin. I know he thinks I get my moral standards from an outdated, mistranslated book, and he knows I believe he needs to change his lifestyle. Still, we can laugh together, and play ball together.
That's real diversity. Disagreeing but not being disagreeable.
Broussard thus goes right to the main point of this whole affair, which is that disagreeing about some issues is no longer even possible, as power will simply be arrayed against those who don't reflect current opinions as to what constitute's enlightened thinking:
Since Amaechi came out, I've read lots of columns about being "progressive." The implication -- or outright assertion -- is that anyone who believes homosexuality is wrong is not progressive or enlightened.
That's where this thing becomes problematic, because those who hold to that view are saying I must change my entire belief system/religion because of your belief system.
Where's the diversity in that?
Those folks don't want diversity. They want everyone to agree with their "enlightened" opinion.
Broussard says that just as he does not (as he surely cannot) expect the pro-homosexuality forces to change their minds on this very basic issue, they have no right to try to force him to alter his opinion, either. That's part of tolerance, too:
Look, I'll accept your right to have your own belief system and to live as you please, but I'm not changing mine. Diversity is not just accepting alternatives to what has long been perceived as normal, but it's accepting the significant number of people who hold to long-standing "traditional" beliefs as well.
Millions of Christians who follow the Bible -- and Muslims who follow the Koran and Jews who follow the Torah, as well as many nonreligious Americans -- believe homosexuality is wrong.
That doesn't mean they're unenlightened. That just means their moral code doesn't fluctuate based on society's ever-changing standards. As long as we're not being violent toward one another, as long as we can be civil, everything should be fine. We don't have to agree.
Brossard calls for simple acceptance that some people think differently from oneself, a premise that should be a given in any decent society:
I'm not trying to get into a religious or scientific discussion here, I'm just saying that some people will accept homosexuality as fine and others will not.
Some will write me off as a bigot for this article, but folks, this is real talk. Unfortunately, we can't have real talk in America nowadays.
Whites can't voice their real opinions -- no matter how legitimate -- about race for fear of being called racist, and everyone's afraid of offending anyone. It seems the only person who can be openly criticized, or disagreed with, is the President.
How crazy is that?
Until we can honestly hear each other out -- and be civil while doing so -- we won't get anywhere. One thing I hope this article does is encourage people to have frank discussions about sensitive issues such as this one.
Here's the bottom line: If I can accept working side-by-side with a homosexual, then he/she can accept working side-by-side with someone who believes homosexuality is wrong.
If an NBA player can accept playing with a homosexual, then the homosexual must accept playing with guys who don't agree with his lifestyle.
The reaction to Broussard's article strongly confims my observation that the great majority of Americans today (like the great majority of people throughout human history) are very uncomfortable with homosexuality and prefer not to have it pressed into their lives, greatly wishing to be allowed to have at least a "live and let live" attitude toward it:
I received nearly 1,000 e-mails, some of them coming from as far away as Australia, Italy, France, New Zealand and Japan. And believe it or not, I read every one of them.
I had many reasons for writing the blog, one of them being my belief that I represented a viewpoint that was widely held but going largely unheard.
I figured there would be a lot of support, but also a lot of hate. I thought there would be roughly a 50-50 split.
I was wrong.
More than 90 percent of the responses I received were positive.
The responses could be broken down into three categories:
1. Those who were in complete agreement with my viewpoint. About 65 percent of the e-mails fell into this category.
2. Those who disagreed with my thinking on homosexuality but loved the overall tenor of the article. This group included several homosexuals. About 25 percent of the e-mails fell into this category.
3. Those who bashed me. Less than 10 percent of the responses were like this.
Broussard's article and the reaction to it confirm that the American elites who are trying to force open approval of homosexuality on the entire population are pushing against a very powerful and prevalent discomfort with the subject and are becoming increasingly nasty and forceful in their efforts to indoctrinate and coerce the public to accept the elites' point of view.
It also confirms that the great majority of Americans just want to be left alone to think what they think about the subject, and that they will surely tolerate the existence of this thing they don't like if they are allowed simply to go on with their lives without having to pretend to approve of it.
That's not too much to ask of a civilized society.
Too bad we don't live in one.
A comment on our Academy Awards post below asked our opinion about the controversies regarding this year's Sundance Film Festival, Robert Redford's annual forum for what Hollywood types see as quirky and interesting films and what usually turns out to be a collection of rubbishy postmodern cliches. It's a good question.
First, some background, from a Chicago Tribune article on the festival:
Child endangerment is nothing new to the movies; it's just that audiences are more accustomed to shameless emotional peril and physical but non-sexual scenarios.
But the kids are definitely not all right at this year's Sundance Film Festival.
Prior to its world premiere screening Monday, "Hounddog," starring 12-year-old Dakota Fanning as an incest and rape survivor in 1950s Bayou country, drew intense if uninformed criticism, mostly from pundits who hadn't yet seen the film. . . .Objections to "Hounddog" have focused on the drama's theme of dangerously sexualized pre-teens; a rape scene, in which Fanning's Elvis-loving Lewellen (shown only from the shoulders up) is assaulted by the local milkman, and the question of whether Fanning should have been allowed to participate at all.
"Hounddog" is one film among many in this year's festival roster dealing with child and teen endangerment, mostly non-sexual but persistently grisly. In "An American Crime," based on a true story, Catherine Keener plays Gertrude Baniszewski, the Indiana mother who imprisoned the daughter of carnival workers in her cellar, burned her with cigarettes and allowed her children to participate in the torture. The film isn't exactly tortuous, but it isn't revealing, either: Despite valiant work from Keener, who keeps us guessing about the depths of this hard-luck woman's capacity for viciousness, "An American Crime" settles for a drab visual and narrative recounting of a very, very bad situation.
"Weapons," a drama in which disaffected teenagers enact a chain of revenge killings while looking for something to do, may have been one of the festival's early non-favorites, but it sold for a modest sum to Sony Pictures Classics.
Tuesday evening brought the world premiere of "Trade," a fact-based story like "An American Crime." It is described in the Sundance festival program notes as "an undeniably disturbing film set in a sinister world where young, virginal children are kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery."
In addition to these interesting prize-seekers, Catholic League president William Donohue cites a film the Metromix writer didn't mention (please skip the following description if you're over sixty years of age):
Now that officials of the Sundance Film Festival, and those associated with the movie Hounddog, have been blasted for exploiting 12-year-old Dakota Fanning, they have tried to blunt the attacks by saying that the film contains a "carefully choreographed rape scene" that was done in an "artistic way."
Simulated child rape, then, is okay as long as it doesn't offend Hollywood sensibilities. The problem is that no one knows what offends Hollywood save for a movie about the death of Jesus.
It certainly doesn't bother Hollywood to feature a movie about a man having sex with a horse, which is what the Sundance entry Zoo is all about. Indeed, this movie was deemed by Sundance judges as a "humanizing look at the life and bizarre death of a seemingly normal Seattle family man who met his untimely death after an unusual encounter with a horse."
To be blunt about it, the movie tries to sanitize the sick death of an obviously deranged Seattle pervert who perforated his colon after he molested a horse.
Kenneth [Turan] of the Los Angeles Times was unhappy with Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ because of its "almost sadistic violence," but he loved the bestiality in Zoo, calling it "an elegant, eerily lyrical film."
Well, I haven't seen any of these films, but the descriptions here don't surprise me at all. This is what all too often passes for wit these days, and everything happens in the Omniculture.
What I think is significant is that our culture has room for both Sundance explorations of depravity and the Heartland Film Festival's celebration of "filmmakers whose work explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life," as the annual event's organizers express it.
I am not at all impressed by most of the films that garner ador