It always confuses me how violence and death is more acceptable than pornography. Show an 8 year old pictures of gruesome death and destruction, but no dont show him a picture of a beautiful woman nude. I ask this because a good friend of mine(who happens to be of French origin) was never allowed to see movies or programs of a violent nature. But his mother didn’t mind him watching a movie with nudity or a movie explicit with sexual content. He wouldn’t be allowed to see a movie like “Saving Private Ryan”, but “Debbie does Dallas” was ok. Not that his mother necesarily approved of pornopraghy. but it was more acceptable than death and violence. I understand this country was founded by a group of prudes but what gives.
dont get me wrong–i dont think there is anything wrong with any kind of entertainment.
This country was founded by two groups, the “puritian” crowd and the “Don’t Tread on Me” crowd. We now call them conservative and liberals.
Our country has a very violent history, children used to be taken to hangings (good for them to see). But sex has been traditionaly taboo (Do it, but don’t talk about). The staus quo is tough to change.
watch what you say
or they’ll be calling
you a radical,
a liberal,fanatical
a criminal…
This is probably gonna end up in Great Debates but there are three things I think I know for sure,
1.Being liberal is not for everyone.
2.Most kids are smart. Don’t ever underestimate them.
3.My two boys looked at the TV from day one and put these two things together.
TV…not real.
Everyday life…real
“I’m the best there is Fats. Even if you beat me, I’m still the best.”
(Paul Newman in The Hustler)
Plus a lot of the violence on TV is fake. After all we see a lot of murders and stabing on TV but we KNOW no one was killed.
But the sex we see on TV was real. Two people kiss, they may not like it but they still are kissing.
Thus sex=real , violence = fake
Now, let’s see:
; but:
Ergo:
Violence is real, because it is unreal on unreal TV, and
Sex is unreal, because it is real on unreal TV.
Oh, well, if I did this wrong, it’s because I was TV-deprived in my primary years, due to it’s not having been around at the time. And then I looked at logic once in awhile when I should’ve be reading those story books in English classes. But hey, in English they told me that double negatives made things positive.
Ray (and so then, when you mix sex and violence. . .)
Let’s forget TV and go to a Saturday movie matinee. It’s a Steve Reeves costume play with pirates and bags of gold and bad guys.
Us boys knew it was a movie. And good movies had good effects. So when that sword went in, by golly it better come out glinting RED! Otherwise the hapless projectionist would watch a sea of popcorn flung at the screen with a BOOOOOO!
Sex, on the other hand was mush.
So was producer Joseph E.Levine following the agenda of a Puritan conspiracy?
Or playing to the known audience?
aha “TV…not real. Everyday life…real”
markxxx “Thus sex=real , violence = fake”
I understand alot of the content on TV is fake as you watch it. And that there are special affects and editing. Thats not the point. Death is very real. There are kids and most adults who understand this, but I’m sure they also understand that what they see on TV is not live and that death and destruction occur in a “real world”.
Let’s not forget there are a few hundred messages on this already here.
In short, in the USA, violence is okay, sex is not. In Europe, sex is okay, violence is not. IF you don’t like it here, go to Europe.
“Men are like parking spaces, the available ones are handicapped.”
At risk of reviving an old argument:
That is true in mathematics. It is true in logic. It is not true in the English language. (FWIW, they told me the same garbage in school.)
Double negatives may be undesirable or gramatically incorrect, but did anybody really think that Mick Jagger was complaining about his inability to avoid satisfaction?
And which is which? I’d like to see you expound on this theory a little bit.
Here’s mud in yer eye!
Yer pal, UncleBeer.
Well, the board is back up. Let’s see if it transfers things to Great Debates.
Livin’ on Tums, vitamin E and Rogaine
Television and the cinema has not yet come close to depicting a shadow of the reality of the bad things people do. Therefore, anything you see in the media is only hors devours (sp?) for real life. Sex is good. It’s stupid the way the US has stigmatized sex. Many women I have met feel like sex is bad and that only bad people enjoy sex. It just makes me sad. It’s almost as bad as African female castration, except these women are being brainwashed into doing it to themselves.
That’s not quite true. If you see two people making love on TV, they aren’t really making love. They might be having sex, but they aren’t making love. I think that teaching kids that making love and having sex are the same thing can be detrimental to their development. Not that all sexual content does so.