From: bew@brahms.udel.edu (Ben Williams)
Subject: violence in movies
Summary:  When is too much?
Keywords: sex, violence
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 00:52:55 GMT

In article <27AUG199211381638@portal.lasc.lockheed.com> le01167@portal.lasc.lockheed.com (Ron Nadel (x2025)) writes:
; In article <24174@oasys.dt.navy.mil>, dlee@oasys.dt.navy.mil (David Lee) writes...
; 
; >I agree 100%.. Our society has become so explicit in everything we do
; >that we have become NUMB to the violence,..etc. Most movies that I have
; >seen recently seems to have the sex and violence merely to try and outdo
; >each other...The bigger and better syndrome; if a little is good, then
; >a lot must better..
; 
; I could not disagree more! ... ...  And with all the space war movies and
; their wonderful realistic special fx, you wonder why all the numb people of
; America were totally distracted and personally moved by the Challenger 
; explosion.  But you know the reason why - that was real people and a real
; tragedy and people can't help but know the difference.
;

This topic never fails to bring out the lamest excuses for film violence.
My god, we can still differentiate between film violence and real violence.
Hallelujah!  WE BE SAVED...  making our way straight to hell, but we ain't
there yet...

; 
; The only people who cannot tell the difference between the screen and life
; are very young children
;

Bzzzt!  Wrong!

; 
; Ron


{Before I begin, I want to make clear that these thoughts are not directed
 at Ron personally, but the viewpoint he is presenting/defending.  The "you"
 is a plural pronoun for "those people holding this view".}

I think each new generation wants to break the traditional grounds of sex
and violence in their films.  The films they see as they "break into films"
as a filmgoer are considered by them to be acceptable.  But as you get older,
you might find that the films you thought of as "ground breaking" in their
explicitness may now seem dull by the latest moviegoers.  And so it goes,
little by little.  My question to the apologists is:  Is there any amount of
screen sex or violence that you think would be going too far?  How about a
very explicit and realistic scene of a very young child being tortured, and
then raped, and then being sliced up into small pieces and pushed down a
garbage disposal?  After all, we all "know" this is only a film.  So what's
the problem?  The problem is that there are still some sensitive people in
this world, believe it or not (whether they have any business in the current
world, well, that's another thing).  Maybe you think these people are just
"children" and should stay away from movies.  Well, maybe you are right.
Do you think there can be a point where things have gone too far?  If you do,
then you are basically agreeing with the original poster.  You just don't
think they have gone too far "yet".  But that's what every new crop of
filmgoers will think.  And the thing is, if I was a teenager just starting
to get heavily into movie watching now, I would probably completely agree
with your viewpoint.  So how does society determine at what point we have
finally gone "too far".  Well, we can't.  There is no objective, solidly-
anchored way to judge.  The norm keeps slipping little by little.  I don't
pretend to know what the answer is, either.  I don't like censorship very
much.  I just wish movie makers were more interested in making good movies
then in making money...

Ben.

ps - I am not making any judgements about the film Single White Female which
     I haven't seen.  I am talking about the issue of sex/violence in a very
     general way only.

pps - This is also my contribution to a discussion that was in rec.arts.movies
      a while ago on this topic.  It began with an article by an Alexander
      Aingworth, I believe (are you there, Alex?).

-- 
Ben Williams
bew@brahms.udel.edu

               What we got here is a failure to communicate... 
Xref: sparky rec.arts.movies:25751 rec.arts.sf.movies:6584