boozledorf
Lament of the Blue Bird
30s, M, NJ
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When I was a very suicidal trans activist in Texas, Benjamin Sisko saying “sure, you would [die for your people]. Dying gets you off the hook. The question is: are you willing to live for your people?” changed and possibly saved my life. It’s up there with “if we are going to be damned, let us be damned for who we really are” from Picard. Star Trek not only shows us a better world, it teaches us how to make it there
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“Do you think that your 16 year old daughter hasn’t masturbated already? Like, do you really think there’s anything in that scene that this chick hasn’t already tried when the lights go out at night, or in the bathroom, or in the tub, or with the shower head or something like that? I’m telling you, man, I’m not teaching this broad anything new. If I were to create a rating system, I wouldn’t even put murder right at the top of the chief offenses. I would put rape right at the top, and assault against women. Because it’s so insanely overused and insulting how much it’s overused in movies as a plot device, a woman in peril. That, to me, is offensive, yet that shit skates.”
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Kevin Smith (director) on the ridiculousness of movies about sex receiving NC-17 ratings while extremely violent movies get by with R ratings. (via inxfileshell)
Fun fact: Kevin Smith is one of the very few filmmakers who has appealed a film’s rating to the MPAA and won, and he’s done it twice.
(via onceandfuturekiki)
I’ve watched two documentaries about the MPAA and in both of them, at least one MPAA member explicitly stated that they can’t in good conscience give “cleaner” ratings to movies with positive, healthy portrayals of sex because they’re afraid it would give impressionable young minds ideas. You know, like the idea that sex can be an enjoyable act for all parties regardless of sex, gender, or sexuality. God forbid impressionable young minds not grow up scared to have sex until they’re married to the person they will stay with forever and ever because sex is a huge scary thing and your virginity is a prize you should give to The One™!
Oh, but wait! Those things only apply to women. Because in the movies, just like in real life, young men are patted on the back for their conquests and the girls they sleep with are the ones who should be ashamed of having sex (and we’ll just ignore the fact that those young men could not, in fact, have those conquests of young women if women didn’t agree to sleep with them because BOO LOGIC!). Because it’s a dude’s right to enjoy sex without guilt or consequence and any woman who goes and gets feelings for him when he just wanted to have some fun is the butt of the joke.
But, I digress. Sorry about that.
The point I was actually going to make here is that they don’t apply that same logic to violence. American children (I’m unqualified to speak of children in any other country) are quite literally raised on a steady diet of violence on some level in a huge chunk of their media. This means that, in a very real way, American children spend their formative (impressionable!) years being desensitized to violence. We are teaching them that violence is an acceptable fact of their everyday lives and also it’s a way to resolve conflict.
Even things with the lowest ratings almost always have some violence. A G-rated movie may only have cartoon violence and of course it’s not really super comparable to real violence, but think about it this way:
G-rated movies have very minor and/or cartoon violence
PG-rated movies have more violence, not generally cartoon-ish but also not graphic
PG-13-rated movies can have extended scenes of violence or a lot of instances, but generally not graphic (Avengers, anyone?)
R-rated movies can, of course, have graphic violence and/or extended graphic scenes
NC-17-rated movies.. I would honestly be really surprised if a movie got this rating because of violence alone (except /maybe/ A Clockwork Orange?)
The rating system in this case essentially serves as training wheels to introducing children and young adults to more and more violence. To building them up to be able to tolerate higher levels of ever more graphic violence. (Here’s an interesting study on violence in G-rated movies done at Harvard and published in 2000.)
So, while the MPAA feels as though they are best serving the community by keeping children and young adults in the dark about the fact that sex doesn’t have to be a big, scary monster; they are more than okay with feeding those same children and young adults ever more violence because that’s somehow more acceptable.
What’s worse is that the sex that does get into movies is all too often sexual violence, not sex. A movie with a non-graphic rape or an attempted rape scene can easily get a PG-13 rating. Divergent, anyone? If you want a recent example. There are others. Let me put that another way: A movie that the MPAA feels children under the age of 13 may need parental guidance to see can have an attempted rape or non-graphic rape scene, but children 13 or over can probably deal with it.
Thirteen-years-old is considered the threshold that’s acceptable for a person to see overt sexual violence; to see a woman being brutalized (because it’s almost always a woman, isn’t it?) and the person or people who hurt her are brought to justice even less often in the movies than they are in real life! And yet, that same MPAA feels that if they show people enjoying sex (or masturbation or anything sexual - and especially if they show a woman enjoying it), they are making those exact same thirteen-year-olds want to emulate that behavior.
So, 13 is when you are old enough to see someone being sexually violated - or threatened with being so - and see the attacker face no consequences for those actions; but you’re not old enough to see people who love (or even just really like) one another engage in pleasurable sexual activity. Especially if they’re not straight. Because that might warp your impressionable mind! It might make you think that sex is fun! It might make you want to *gasp* have sex before society has deemed you ready!
And yet, and yet, and yet; despite the obvious absurdity - and arbitrariness - that goes into rating Hollywood movies based on puritanical sexual values rather than what might actually do the most damage to those impressionable minds they care oh-so-much about, there’s this constant chorus of outraged voices asking, “Why has our culture become so violent?”
I wonder.
(via inkblackwings)
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Had to explain to my therapist what fireplay was today. She had thought it was a metaphor of some kind.
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My one friend group can't stop saying, "See you in hell!" in a cheerful voice instead of, "Talk to you later!" and my other friend group can't stop calling things "penis" instead of "cool" or "good", so I just unironically uttered the phrase, "Sounds penis, see you in hell," as I got off the phone.
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in my sophomore year of college this guy made these items which quickly became a craze across campus. i myself bought one of his sweaters, which says “GOOD AND DEAD” across the chest and “ARM PAIN” along the sleeves. he showed up at 11 pm on a bicycle to deliver the goods in the dead of winter, wearing a metal t-shirt tucked into khakis. his facebook screen name is an indecipherable series of symbols. i have no authentic way to credit him but i want to share his art with you.
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fucked up that my mutuals live in other states & countries and i cant just go to their houses and lay on their laps
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they used to make smackable technology. you used to be able to hit your tv when it didn't work good.
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