Kids are Evil
I'm playing devil's advocate for gratuitous sex and violence in movies (TV too to some extent though it's harder to defend). They're worried that it'll warp kids, so I'm taking the stance on those disturbing images being culturally beneficial. The journey I've undertaken to understand that argument has been intense.
First off, there is no benefit to it. It's entertainment. If there's no causal negatives, there's no positives.
But there are some personal benefits. Art wouldn't exist otherwise. So where do I go from there...
Altogether, the best I can come up with is that these images force us to debate if we are to understand. We can study, debate, discuss, argue, critique. It gets us talking. One of the most disturbing books ever written, Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, called upon the defense of free speech. Burroughs was almost jailed for ideas alone. They were forced to defend his disturbing images. What they came up with was that the offending content called for a new definition of the sexual psychopath. Mental illness, drug addiction and sexual deviancy were all lumped together in under a few titles which halted a deeper understanding of the conditions they condemned. New definitions and studies were required. That's a good enough reason for anything to be allowed to be exposed to the general public.
But then I think about the kids. I was exposed to massive amounts of violence from an early age. Didn't hurt me any. I'm still a big baby when it comes to seeing people fall of skate boards and hurt themselves. Not to mention evil comes from within -- just read Lord of the Flies.
A friend of mine sent me a link to some blogs for the new Langley scene kids. I was reading one graphic entry by a girl who wrote about being a whore (her words). She said she fucked some guy, had sex with him too, crawled all over him, and finally tonight after getting wasted she kissed him -- because she had inhibitions about kissing and needed booze. That is how a whore talks, oddly enough. Don't kiss the johns.
Always drunk, always talking about being drunk, every entry had to involve boys and sexual tension. But the thing that really struck me was that this from an 18 year old girl. Did TV make her grow up too fast? Probably not. Why would a kid rush to cast off their innocence so quickly. I just can't help but think that there's still time to be young and not give a fuck about these things. Once you've bought in you can't go back.
It just seems sad to go from being an innocent little kid to an all out adult without any idea of what you take on as an adult. You spend most of your life dealing with those problems. It seriously seems worth it to steal a few extra years of innocence if possible. It's so under-valued.
First off, there is no benefit to it. It's entertainment. If there's no causal negatives, there's no positives.
But there are some personal benefits. Art wouldn't exist otherwise. So where do I go from there...
Altogether, the best I can come up with is that these images force us to debate if we are to understand. We can study, debate, discuss, argue, critique. It gets us talking. One of the most disturbing books ever written, Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, called upon the defense of free speech. Burroughs was almost jailed for ideas alone. They were forced to defend his disturbing images. What they came up with was that the offending content called for a new definition of the sexual psychopath. Mental illness, drug addiction and sexual deviancy were all lumped together in under a few titles which halted a deeper understanding of the conditions they condemned. New definitions and studies were required. That's a good enough reason for anything to be allowed to be exposed to the general public.
But then I think about the kids. I was exposed to massive amounts of violence from an early age. Didn't hurt me any. I'm still a big baby when it comes to seeing people fall of skate boards and hurt themselves. Not to mention evil comes from within -- just read Lord of the Flies.
A friend of mine sent me a link to some blogs for the new Langley scene kids. I was reading one graphic entry by a girl who wrote about being a whore (her words). She said she fucked some guy, had sex with him too, crawled all over him, and finally tonight after getting wasted she kissed him -- because she had inhibitions about kissing and needed booze. That is how a whore talks, oddly enough. Don't kiss the johns.
Always drunk, always talking about being drunk, every entry had to involve boys and sexual tension. But the thing that really struck me was that this from an 18 year old girl. Did TV make her grow up too fast? Probably not. Why would a kid rush to cast off their innocence so quickly. I just can't help but think that there's still time to be young and not give a fuck about these things. Once you've bought in you can't go back.
It just seems sad to go from being an innocent little kid to an all out adult without any idea of what you take on as an adult. You spend most of your life dealing with those problems. It seriously seems worth it to steal a few extra years of innocence if possible. It's so under-valued.