Oh my God! Cleavage!!??? Sew Johnny’s eyes shut! Until the scenes featuring
But no ta-ta’s.
I think the subconscious motivation for women who make that absurd distinction: breasts are bad, but violence is fine, probably don’t want to think about how their own breasts compare to the ones they show in movies.
This reminds me of the whoe Doll and Gun show thing. There are these events where you can go and buy both items, sometimes from the same vendor. Isn’t that just a little wierd?
I think my parents did a pretty good job of deciding what was and wasn’t appropriate for me and my brother. They were always open about the “facts of life” and such, and breasts weren’t really taboo, but movies with strong sexual content were not appropriate for us when we were younger.
Neither were violent or scary movies. I grew up never having seen the Friday the 13th type movies, and my parents didn’t permit us to watch what they viewed as violent cartoons such as G. I. Joe.
The number of six-year-olds I saw being taken to Jurassic Park and Gladiator was astounding.
That’s it, right there. Sex is just a more immediate and pressing (so to speak) concern than violence for 99% of the audience. It’s not just kids, either – I consider myself to be a rational, fairly intellectual adult man. And still, if I see a pair of breasts on a movie, my first thought is “Hey, I sure would like to touch those.” When I see a character in a movie shoot someone else, I never think, “Hey, I sure would like to shoot that guy.”
The kind of violence that goes on in movies is automatically more fantastic and removed from everyday experience than the kind of sex that goes on. And you know, you can lock up a gun so that your kids can’t get to it, but you can’t keep a horny 13-year-old boy’s hands off of his privates. The audience for that kind of movie is a lot more at risk of causing havoc with their genitals (unwanted pregnancy, STDs, who knows what else) than they are with heavy weaponry.
The argument always comes up, “What are we saying to our children, that violence is fine but sex is bad?!?” but that’s overly naive and simplistic – you’ve got to give children some credit for being able to distinguish fantasy from reality.
And when you append the argument with “Only in America!” it’s just doubly naive and simplistic. To hear some people talk, you have to wonder how Sigmund Freud ever established a career for himself, since the United States apparently invented sexual repression and dysfunction. And, of course, we’re the most violent culture there ever was, too.
Now, I have to sit in my SDMB throne and pass judgement on the woman from the OP: Yes, I agree that a violent war movie, especially one that is attempting to be realistic, isn’t the best thing for a bunch of 12-13 year olds to be seeing. Unless, the parent makes some attempt to explain the violence to the kids or at least put it in its proper context. But is it wrong for her not to want her kids to be looking at ta-tas or hoo-has or ying-yangs? Not at all. They’re far more likely to have access to a loaded penis than they are to a loaded musket.
I’ve just had a very long argument with myself about whether the kind of violence that goes on in movies is, as SolGrundy says, more fantastic and removed from everyday experience than the kind of sex that goes on.
I’m pretty sure it depends on which movies you’re seeing.
I just want to know what kind of sado-masochist takes six kids to a four-hour Civil War movie! I could see it if the kids were, as you say, around 12 and interested in the Civil War to begin with, but what were the odds of that?
For what it’s worth, the CAP Alert guy gives it a 75 (out of 100), fully three times what “Chicago” got. He also commends it for having the “courage” to mention Christ, rather than some vague religious notion. (See his “Gangs of New York” review for more details, including some astounding commentary on the Crusades.)
Dr. J
Perhaps they’re studying the Cival War in school, and it was required. Hey, I was supposed to watch that shitty Romeo and Juliet movie with Leonardo in it for my Senior English class, so stupider shit’s happened.
But I have to agree with SolGrundy and those others that point out the fantastic distinction between movie violence and movie sex. Say what you will, but people do pick up some aspect of interpersonal relationships from movies and television. The way people talk to one another, the way they react to certain situations, the simple way conversation has evolved over time is mirrored in movies and by the audience. Violence is seen as less of a threat, because honestly, how often is someone going up against a drug cartel in a one man army? Or fighting terrorists in a high rise buisiness office? The chances of a thirteen year old kid being thrust into scenarios like this is astronomical.
Now, the chances that a kid is going to end up alone in a house with his girlfriend while his parents are away and work and presented with the question “So, what do you wanna do?” are a lot more realistic. Sex in movies isn’t all sweet and nice and between two people in a long term relationship (forget about waiting for marriage, most movie sex takes place after two days, if even that). Many parents fear their child growing up too quickly, and thus don’t discuss sex with them as early, or as involved as they should. Thus, the child gets most of their knowledge of sexual relationships from media, and that can help lead to hasty decision making. I’m not even talking about pregnancy or STDs, I’m just talking about maturity. Honestly, what thirteen year old boy is ready for a sexual relationship? (Shit, what 30 year old boy is ready for a sexual relationship?) Sure, it’s fun, and if one can handle the occassional one night stands and whatnot that happen in life, that’s great, but the emotional drama and whatnot that come with sex is something 99.9% of teenages can’t handle. So, in their fear of having to keep from discussing the topic with their children, parents feel the need to “protect them” from sexual situations presented in media in order to keep them from getting “the wrong idea.”
The only true solution for this is for parents to suck it up, start dealing with the idea of their child and sex at an early age, and explain it to them so that they can identify that, whereas jovial conversation between friends in movies may be similar to real-life conversations, sexual relationships are NOTHING like the movies (honestly, who out there’s ever had movie quality sex? Honestly).
SolGrundy has overlooked one detail, a lot of the violence in movies and TV is plain old bare knuckle punch-outs and knife fights. Kids have fists, frustration, and a ready supply of annoying peers that they may want to pound. Since this kind of violence is easilly emulated by anyone then according to that logic it shouldn’t be shown either.
Annie, your link didn’t mention the scene where a male singer and a female dancer entertain the Confederate troops, and the woman raises her skirt to show her ankles! :eek: 
When I was a kid, my parents did indeed try to shield me from violence. I remember my dad flat-out refusing to let me see The Godfather and its sequel. They had less of a problem with sex: I wasn’t allowed to see actual lovemaking scenes, but they didn’t freak every time a breast bounded across the screen.
Funny thing is, it was usually the Hays-code era films that prompted my mom to offer Parental Guidance[sup]TM[/sup]. “In real life,” she often said, “a man and woman don’t fall in love the instant they meet. And ‘Let’s get married’ does not necessarily make it a happy ending.” She insisted that I watch Annie Hall with her when I was twelve, so that I would understand that relationships don’t always go smoothly, and often don’t pan out at all. OTOH, she despised the Rock Hudson/Doris Day oeuvre.
is that almost any violence one sees in a movie is fake while the nudity is real. Thus, if you believe that nudity & sex are only appropriate in marriage or committed relationships, then any nudity or sexuality are out of place, while special-effects violence is different.
Then again, if somehow, movie-makers used computer-graphic of actors for nude/sex scenes that could flawlessly sub for the real actors, I still don’t think the anti-nude/sex-in-films crowd would relent L
Interesting point. I wonder if men would object to nudity more if the nudity in question were 11" shlongs instead of perfect c-cup breasts. <ponders>
Yeah, Rhum, let’s ponder that for a while. Hmm…
OK, I’m back. I think the smartest thing the TV ratings people did was to include a category called “Fantasy Violence”. That probably turned a lot of heads around: “There is such a thing? Oh, yeah, I guess there is.” As a kid, I must’ve watched thousands of made-up incidents of violence, with no more reaction than that of rooting for the good guys; the first time I saw footage of a real shooting, the shock went through me like a lightning bolt. I can’t have been twelve when that happened, but I knew that one was real, and it horrified me.
I dunno… I recall Newt Gingrich making a big deal in the 90s of stuff that appeared in popular entertainment. You know, the whole thing about “Let’s look at how they did foster care in ‘Boys’ Town’ and see if that approach would work in today’s America.” And then there was Dan Quayle going after “Murphy Brown” as an inappropriate role model, and the huge numbers of people who looked at one another in puzzlement, going, “He does know it’s fiction, doesn’t he?” Do we have a whole set of decision-makers and policy-setters who can’t tell the difference?