I think you're manufacturing a quandary where there doesn't have to be one. There are two issues here: 1) the billboards, which is what the remove-the-rating campaign is about, and 2) the movie itself, which is what Joss alluded to in his letter. #1 is a gimme. I've yet to hear from anyone seriously defending the billboards, because they are indefensible. The only question yet is whether or not the MPAA will choose to exercise its authority -- not whether the billboards should have been removed (which they have been).
#2 is only an issue of censorship if anyone, anywhere were asking filmmakers to be prohibited from making and attempting to distribute these kinds of movies. Nobody -- so far as I know -- is. Censorship, in this case, is a non-starter, so it doesn't matter that you and I are both opposed to it.
This is about being able to speak back to people who are trying to sell us things. All Joss is doing, all I'm doing, is saying: I hate this, I think it sucks, I think it's bad for people, *whether they choose to partake or not.* Because we all have to live in the goddamn culture created as movies like this become mainstream and cease to be viewed as objectionable in any way. I do object. Lots of people object, and the problem is that people who make this stuff have come to rely on us objecting silently -- so that the public discourse contains only "Saw III had the best October opening weekend ever!" and never "What's wrong with us?" They count on our silence, and they play us by making us feel like censors when we speak, but we aren't. We're citizens.
That's exactly why, in fairness, I don't get overy agitated about politicians and nighttime soap actors and whatnot talking shit about homosexuality. Talk is good. People saying things is good, because I think that when people are allowed to argue, the truth will eventually out -- it always seems to. Tell me I'm going to hell, that I'm ruining your kids, that I'm destroying society. Mount your best argument, gimme what you got. I think it's fascinating that as the years tick by in our national catfight about sexuality, the poll numbers of young people who could give a shit about the subject rises and rises. The paucity of argument on the right is so unbelievably obvious; the more they try to explain what the big fucking deal is, the more it becomes clear that they've got nothing, and it is not, in fact, a big fucking deal.
We can't let ourselves give up our right to make an argument in our own defense, just because other people have made wrongheaded arguments. That doesn't mean all opinions are automatically invalid. The thing is, I didn't magically understand what it is I find offensive about things like this; I just knew I felt uncomfortable in its presence. Someone had to make an argument, someone had to show me how to look at a screen differently than I ever had before. Letting people go to movies like this without comment, on the theory that it's their personal choice, isn't neutrality, it's letting them walk into a dangerous situation unarmed. If they hear everything we have to say and they honestly think we're full of shit, so be it; see the movie. But I'm betting that a lot of people take this crap in because they don't understand what I think is wrong with it, beyond some vague sense that there are people who don't like violent movies (which obviously doesn't even come close to describing my position). It's normal to them, it's been around for years, it's a non-event.
Letters like Joss' are important because he gets a wider forum than I do, and he can say things I can't about how to judge these things with a new and maybe unfamiliar set of standards -- not Disney musical vs. horror movies, but by looking at different kinds of violence and how they're deployed and for what purpose.
no subject
#2 is only an issue of censorship if anyone, anywhere were asking filmmakers to be prohibited from making and attempting to distribute these kinds of movies. Nobody -- so far as I know -- is. Censorship, in this case, is a non-starter, so it doesn't matter that you and I are both opposed to it.
This is about being able to speak back to people who are trying to sell us things. All Joss is doing, all I'm doing, is saying: I hate this, I think it sucks, I think it's bad for people, *whether they choose to partake or not.* Because we all have to live in the goddamn culture created as movies like this become mainstream and cease to be viewed as objectionable in any way. I do object. Lots of people object, and the problem is that people who make this stuff have come to rely on us objecting silently -- so that the public discourse contains only "Saw III had the best October opening weekend ever!" and never "What's wrong with us?" They count on our silence, and they play us by making us feel like censors when we speak, but we aren't. We're citizens.
That's exactly why, in fairness, I don't get overy agitated about politicians and nighttime soap actors and whatnot talking shit about homosexuality. Talk is good. People saying things is good, because I think that when people are allowed to argue, the truth will eventually out -- it always seems to. Tell me I'm going to hell, that I'm ruining your kids, that I'm destroying society. Mount your best argument, gimme what you got. I think it's fascinating that as the years tick by in our national catfight about sexuality, the poll numbers of young people who could give a shit about the subject rises and rises. The paucity of argument on the right is so unbelievably obvious; the more they try to explain what the big fucking deal is, the more it becomes clear that they've got nothing, and it is not, in fact, a big fucking deal.
We can't let ourselves give up our right to make an argument in our own defense, just because other people have made wrongheaded arguments. That doesn't mean all opinions are automatically invalid. The thing is, I didn't magically understand what it is I find offensive about things like this; I just knew I felt uncomfortable in its presence. Someone had to make an argument, someone had to show me how to look at a screen differently than I ever had before. Letting people go to movies like this without comment, on the theory that it's their personal choice, isn't neutrality, it's letting them walk into a dangerous situation unarmed. If they hear everything we have to say and they honestly think we're full of shit, so be it; see the movie. But I'm betting that a lot of people take this crap in because they don't understand what I think is wrong with it, beyond some vague sense that there are people who don't like violent movies (which obviously doesn't even come close to describing my position). It's normal to them, it's been around for years, it's a non-event.
Letters like Joss' are important because he gets a wider forum than I do, and he can say things I can't about how to judge these things with a new and maybe unfamiliar set of standards -- not Disney musical vs. horror movies, but by looking at different kinds of violence and how they're deployed and for what purpose.