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not a spoiler: joss whedon = MY FUCKING HERO
Okay, so apparently there's been a whole thing happening in LA with the ad campaign for a horror movie called Captivity, where ads that the MPAA rejected for being, how do you say, horrible and kinky and violent and wrong, suddenly -- oops! -- turned into like fifteen giant billboards on the freeway, I mean, who knew? Awkward! The theoretical penalty for pissing in the MPAA's cornflakes is that you have your rating revoked, and basically no theater in the nation will show an unrated movie, turning your flick into a de facto straight-to-video and costing you millions of dollars. So there's been a letter-writing campaign with the intent of making the MPAA do its damn job.
[Fannish note: Elisha, sweetie -- wtf? You could've just married Trace and been beautiful and made me happy forever, but no. I don't even feel bad for you anymore that the Fuck You song Trace's boyfriend wrote about you is on my car radio literally every time I leave my house for any reason. There's no shame in a horror career, but could anyone else on the planet find a way to sink lower than House of Wax? Couldn't you just have made a bunch of classy but slightly dull Japanese horror flicks like certain other smoking hot blondes who aren't on tv anymore? Did you have to be all -- like this? No love, Hth.] [Fannish subnote: If none of that made any sense to you, don't worry: I'm not talking about your fandom.]
Anyway, that's all just the setup for this.
From: Joss Whedon
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 10:17 PM
To: Advertising
Subject: CAPTIVITY BILLBOARDS/REMOVE THE RATING
To the MPAA,
There's a message I'm supposed to cut and paste but I imagine you've read it. So just let me say that the ad campaign for "Captivity" is not only a literal sign of the collapse of humanity, it's an assault. I've watched plenty of horror - in fact I've made my share. But the advent of torture-porn and the total dehumanizing not just of women (though they always come first) but of all human beings has made horror a largely unpalatable genre. This ad campaign is part of something dangerous and repulsive, and that act of aggression has to be answered.
As a believer not only in the First Amendment but of the necessity of horror stories, I've always been against acts of censorship. I distrust anyone who wants to ban something 'for the good of the public'. But this ad is part of a cycle of violence and misogyny that takes something away from the people who have to see it. It's like being mugged (and I have been). These people flouted the basic rules of human decency. God knows the culture led them there, but we have to find our way back and we have to make them know that people will not stand for this. And the only language they speak is money. (A devastating piece in the New Yorker - not gonna do it.) So talk money. Remove the rating, and let them see how far over the edge they really are.
Thanks for reading this, if anyone did.
Sincerely, Joss Whedon.
Creator, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
I thought his comment on being mugged was particularly interesting, because you know, the first horror movie I ever saw that made me feel (at the risk of sounding melodramatic) assaulted by the sadism of it was Seven (Se7en? Whatever.), years back. And the thing is that, you know, yes. I've been held up at both gunpoint and knifepoint, and I would a million times rather do that again every day of my life than have to watch that movie again. I never had flashbacks to either robbery, or nightmares related to it.
It's such a weird argument to make, from the perspective of someone who actually likes horror movies -- at what point does my subjective differentiation between good!scary and bad!scary cease to be a question of taste and become an ethical issue, an issue of, as Joss puts it, art/entertainment that *robs* people of something, some piece of our capacity for empathy or compassion and god knows what else. And it's particularly difficult for me, because I'm possessed of this sort of psychotic-grade fair streak, where it sometimes actually seems reasonable to me to say, "Well, I really like zombie movies, and eating people's brains is also gross, in a way, and possibly wrong, so maybe The Hills Have Eyes is just pretty much the same thing, only different?" or "I remember when I was a kid and people said Nightmare on Elm Street would warp my brain and ruin my life, and it kind of didn't seem to have any effect on me one way or another, so maybe it's not that big a deal to rent Saw II for your 11 year old, either, and I just think it is, but I'm wrong like those other people were wrong?" Like, where do I get off judging what other people like to see in horror movies, since there are people who disapprove of my tastes, as well? I mean, I really do hate those snotty old people who are always like, "Well, in my day it was all *classier,* and we didn't *need* all the sex and violence" and blah, blah. Like, of course you didn't need it, and we don't need it now, but we don't need Ben & Jerry's to come out with Willie Nelson's Country Peach Cobbler ice cream either, but it still totally rocks, so shut up, old person.
I don't know, maybe I am that old person. Maybe Joss is, too. But it's still nice to have someone smart and good and someone who honestly does love the genre come out and say, No, you know what? This time it is different. This time it's *actually* different, and it's okay to say so. Just because some people in the past have been wrong about all horror being evil and warped doesn't need to mean that some of it isn't actually evil and warped, right? On the same principle as, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
Of course, this is all in reference to the movie. The billboards are *objectively* awful, because they're on (were on) the fucking freeway. A lot of things that are only questionable when you provide it to people who ask for it are heinous when you subject random strangers to it without their consent.
[Fannish note: Elisha, sweetie -- wtf? You could've just married Trace and been beautiful and made me happy forever, but no. I don't even feel bad for you anymore that the Fuck You song Trace's boyfriend wrote about you is on my car radio literally every time I leave my house for any reason. There's no shame in a horror career, but could anyone else on the planet find a way to sink lower than House of Wax? Couldn't you just have made a bunch of classy but slightly dull Japanese horror flicks like certain other smoking hot blondes who aren't on tv anymore? Did you have to be all -- like this? No love, Hth.] [Fannish subnote: If none of that made any sense to you, don't worry: I'm not talking about your fandom.]
Anyway, that's all just the setup for this.
From: Joss Whedon
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 10:17 PM
To: Advertising
Subject: CAPTIVITY BILLBOARDS/REMOVE THE RATING
To the MPAA,
There's a message I'm supposed to cut and paste but I imagine you've read it. So just let me say that the ad campaign for "Captivity" is not only a literal sign of the collapse of humanity, it's an assault. I've watched plenty of horror - in fact I've made my share. But the advent of torture-porn and the total dehumanizing not just of women (though they always come first) but of all human beings has made horror a largely unpalatable genre. This ad campaign is part of something dangerous and repulsive, and that act of aggression has to be answered.
As a believer not only in the First Amendment but of the necessity of horror stories, I've always been against acts of censorship. I distrust anyone who wants to ban something 'for the good of the public'. But this ad is part of a cycle of violence and misogyny that takes something away from the people who have to see it. It's like being mugged (and I have been). These people flouted the basic rules of human decency. God knows the culture led them there, but we have to find our way back and we have to make them know that people will not stand for this. And the only language they speak is money. (A devastating piece in the New Yorker - not gonna do it.) So talk money. Remove the rating, and let them see how far over the edge they really are.
Thanks for reading this, if anyone did.
Sincerely, Joss Whedon.
Creator, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
I thought his comment on being mugged was particularly interesting, because you know, the first horror movie I ever saw that made me feel (at the risk of sounding melodramatic) assaulted by the sadism of it was Seven (Se7en? Whatever.), years back. And the thing is that, you know, yes. I've been held up at both gunpoint and knifepoint, and I would a million times rather do that again every day of my life than have to watch that movie again. I never had flashbacks to either robbery, or nightmares related to it.
It's such a weird argument to make, from the perspective of someone who actually likes horror movies -- at what point does my subjective differentiation between good!scary and bad!scary cease to be a question of taste and become an ethical issue, an issue of, as Joss puts it, art/entertainment that *robs* people of something, some piece of our capacity for empathy or compassion and god knows what else. And it's particularly difficult for me, because I'm possessed of this sort of psychotic-grade fair streak, where it sometimes actually seems reasonable to me to say, "Well, I really like zombie movies, and eating people's brains is also gross, in a way, and possibly wrong, so maybe The Hills Have Eyes is just pretty much the same thing, only different?" or "I remember when I was a kid and people said Nightmare on Elm Street would warp my brain and ruin my life, and it kind of didn't seem to have any effect on me one way or another, so maybe it's not that big a deal to rent Saw II for your 11 year old, either, and I just think it is, but I'm wrong like those other people were wrong?" Like, where do I get off judging what other people like to see in horror movies, since there are people who disapprove of my tastes, as well? I mean, I really do hate those snotty old people who are always like, "Well, in my day it was all *classier,* and we didn't *need* all the sex and violence" and blah, blah. Like, of course you didn't need it, and we don't need it now, but we don't need Ben & Jerry's to come out with Willie Nelson's Country Peach Cobbler ice cream either, but it still totally rocks, so shut up, old person.
I don't know, maybe I am that old person. Maybe Joss is, too. But it's still nice to have someone smart and good and someone who honestly does love the genre come out and say, No, you know what? This time it is different. This time it's *actually* different, and it's okay to say so. Just because some people in the past have been wrong about all horror being evil and warped doesn't need to mean that some of it isn't actually evil and warped, right? On the same principle as, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
Of course, this is all in reference to the movie. The billboards are *objectively* awful, because they're on (were on) the fucking freeway. A lot of things that are only questionable when you provide it to people who ask for it are heinous when you subject random strangers to it without their consent.
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.
no subject
As much as I abhor these kind of films, what I'm saying is if the demand and market weren't there, those films wouldn't be made. Instead, there's a horrorfest going on. I think the question people should ask is, why? Why do people, especially young men, flock to this kind of movie in the first place?
And, sure, debate is a good thing. However, telling someone he/she is damaging society by creating a horror film or any other work of fiction sounds like the same kind of argument the book banners used to have. Granted, like you said, no one said they couldn't make the films. Some people are just saying they don't like them.
I get that.
However, I think this kind of film is just a symptom of the complex societal problems we have, not the cause.
Joss, bless him, can rant away about artistic and cultural responsibility, but that's really just opinion. We're all entitled to that.
As for politicians, I do get riled when they demonize homosexuals and want to pass laws to limit civil rights. I get upset because they've got more than words. They've got power to impact my life a lot more than any film maker does. Polls don't mean much when all around I see states lining up to pass constitutional amendments to make gay couples second class citizens when it comes to equality and benefits.
To bring this back around to Joss, his letter, and hating horror films that degrade women with sexualized torture, I agree he has a right to lead a parade to try to modify that kind of entertainment. I might even build a float and tag along. However, none of that comes close to the impact of politicians limiting women's rights to control their own bodies or gay couples to marry. We do live in a society where we do need to talk more about what's important, what we value. It's just a really difficult thing when so many people have such diverse opinions about what's wrong and how we can fix it.
no subject
In either case, the mechanism we have to exert control on the shape of our society is at some remove from us individually, so our control is tenuous at best, and hampered by established ideologies (one of which, for both the movie industry and the political industry, is that their "product" is a response to the demand of their consumers, the majority of the public).
MHO, telling someone I think they're doing wrong by me and by society (directly in words and actions or indirectly through the operation of established mechanisms I support or don't oppose) is the only way I have to work towards shaping society. I don't say I have a right to do this (the idea of rights is getting vastly overused, IMO), but I do say that many other people are shaping society without a thought for me--so if I want some representation, I'd better do it myself. It doesn't matter whether any particular action (a film, a law, a statement of opinion) is a cause or a symptom, an initiation or a responsive action--even, to a certain extent, it doesn't mattter whether it seems to be a "big issue" or an insignifacant one: all contribute to the overall experience, the assemblage of interactions that is our culture, and interactions affect one another in ways too complex to understand.
Maybe the question is not how to balance individual-freedom against social-responsibility, "what I want" versus "what is allowed/required/expected". The later is based on the former.
In summary, I might be using a lot of words to agree with your basic ideas.
no subject
I figure I protest against horror by not watching it, either in the theater or buying any DVDs/products that promote it.