How are you defining morality? To me, something is immoral if it harms someone else. No one is being harmed in the making of these films, so there’s no moral issue with them. What we’re left with is the fact that people are enjoying something you don’t like. Which brings us back to apricots.
Ummm…
Where in your cite does Kubrick ban the film for the copycat crimes.
In fact what your cite does say is this.
{bolding mine}
It does not say the Kubrick himself was convinced that seeing A Clockwork Orange caused that crime, nor does it say that he thought his film caused any crime.
What you said in your OP was
Which is clearly incorrect. There was a controversy due to the violene in the film. The British press claimed there were copy cat crimes. It seems to me that Kubrick thought that the British movie going public were being a bunch of babies and ‘took his ball and went home’ so to speak.
Fine, make me moderate in a thread I’m also posting in. This is a personal insult and is not allowed in Great Debates. Don’t do it again.
It’s not nearly as brutal as when they shake dat puddy tat like a throw rug to bring him back into shape…only to stick a firecracker up his butt, explode him, and make him chase his own eyeballs around on the floor.
While I don’t like torture porn films and actually avoid almost all horror or suspense unless somebody makes me watch one with them, I don’t see how watching such a thing means that a person enjoys torture. If I watch a romantic comedy, 90% of the movie will involve the people being single, miserable, and pining for one another while making utter idiots of themselves. That doesn’t mean that I want to be single, miserable, and pining for someone while making an idiot of myself, or that I want to inflict this state on someone else.
In a romantic comedy, just like in torture porn, the pleasure for the watcher is primarily in sympathizing with the struggle. The majority of filmgoers don’t want to experience that struggle or inflict it on someone else, but they vicariously thrill in it while watching the movie. No one wants to be Ben Stiller’s characters or marry them, yet for some reason people watch his movies.
I wanted to marry Zoolander.
But you’re right. Watching something doesn’t mean endorsing it or enjoying it or anything like that, necessarily. There does seem to be something about fetishizing that part of the experience that makes it seem like that’s the most enjoyable part, though. The reason why I differentiated “Saw” from movies where it’s mostly about the torture (say, that awful French movie “High Tension”) is that in the former, it’s about a serial killer who makes people do awful things and most of the movie is the protagonists trying to figure out the game. “High Tension” constructs a ludicrous and poorly plotted narrative as kind of an excuse to throw in random and horrid acts of torture. It’s less incidental in the “torture porn” ones.
But that being said, I don’t think it’s psychologically a sign of Something Bad if someone enjoys the gorier, “pornier” varieties. Just personal taste.
Point taken. Now let me alert you to something. This OP itself is a personal insult.
Bolding mine.
This is the OP saying that all of us are sick perverts. If you are going to warn me, you had better warn the OP to, because that’s a personal insult against me and anyone else in this thread who enjoys the type of movies he is condemning.
You have to be consistent.
I thought “House Of A 1,000 Corpses” was just a modern revamp of the likes of “Chainsaw Massacre” and “Hills Have Eyes”. And I also thought it was an entertaining exploration of what goes on ‘‘off the beaten track, and behind closed doors’’, and how criminal and law-enforcement methods can converge…but then again, I’m a bit of a weird fucker, so I’m told! 
I think this comes back to that saying, something along the lines of “A slut is anyone who has more sex than you.” You think these people are sick perverts. I’m sure there’s someone out there who thinks something you do is sick & perverted. It’s all relative. I’m not a huge fan of the genre, but I’ve watched and enjoyed some slasher films in my day. I don’t think that makes me a sick pervert.
The OP is a statement about a general group, which isn’t the same as a personal (for emphasis) insult to an individual poster. It’s inflammatory, but he’s making a strong statement to promote the debate. That doesn’t apply to your post.
Alright alright, fair enough. Sorry, won’t happen again.
Some people say that Obama has never commented on his views of “I Spit On Your Grave”.
What’s he hiding?
-Jo
I’m trying to spot where, exactly, I claimed that *all *porn is good, even snuff and kiddie (to name but two).
Could you point that out for me, again?
Loved that movie :o
You didn’t. You said porn is good. I made an assumption, which I shouldn’t have done. I also recognise that you were probably being slightly flippant. I overreacted. I’m sorry.
Which, for the record, is what triggered by sarky comment upthread. My point was that, surely, people don’t actually have to say “except child, snuff and animal porn” when expressing their appreciation of porn in general. Given that all of those are illegal and (to the vast majority of people) hugely offensive I’d like to think it’s kind of a given.
“I think porn is great, love the stuff, can’t get enough. Oh wait, of course I’m not referring to child porn because I can see how you would assume that that’s what I’m talking about. But I’m not. Really.”
See how ridiculous that sounds?
Sensitive lot round here. I have apologised to Lightnin’. As you’re obviously feeling left out, I hereby apologise to you.
But, for me, there is a scale of porn, from the almost completely innocuous to the child/snuff end. I would place (fictional) torture way down close to the snuff end. In my world (and for safety’s sake, I emphasis I’m not being judgemental) torture is not happy stuff.
I’ve just thought of another point. The importance of fictionality has been emphasised here. Does that mean if child or snuff porn was simulated, it would be OK? (Bear in mind, all three are illegal activities (if that is relevant.)
Fortunately, your world is not the world, which is full of adults who can make their own determinations.
There are plenty of movies in which characters are killed and various “coming of age” movies in which underage characters (albeit typically played by adult actors to varying degrees of plausibility) are in sexual situations. At what point does a drama turn into “porn” ? Three deaths? Thirty? One sex scene? Five? Where does, say, A Clockwork Orange fit?
In my post you quote from, I say
I’m constantly saying this: it’s the debate and others’ opinions I’m interested in. I have stated my position, and I keep on trying to say that it’s not my world that’s relevant here. I know where I stand. I’m interested in others - including your - world.
You say “Fortunately, your world is not the world”. I haven’t tried to impose my world on anyone else’s world; but I don’t seem to be getting that message across. Because I don’t know your world, I want to understand it. (Fighting ignorance and all that.) Persuade me; educate me (this being Great Debates.)
I think it depends on the enthusiasm with which it is depicted, the detail shown, the length of time it is concentrated on, the justifacation for it and the setting in which it is displayed.
What’s your view?