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Controversy or a move to normalize the sexualization of children? Some claim the latter. Generally speaking, film is a powerful medium through which things are
by bobthechef 6y ago
Controversy or a move to normalize the sexualization of children? Some claim the latter.
Generally speaking, film is a powerful medium through which things are normalized. Think of the shows and film that helped normalize homosexuality or promiscuity and shaped attitudes toward sex and sexuality (often through humor; levity is a powerful tool). They worked. There doesn't need to be a conspiracy to make this happen, just a cultural trajectory. The backing of powerful and moneyed industry figures helps grease the wheels and deliver the same message very cheaply to millions, or billions, of people. The education system also plays a role, of course.
It's just a shame that people aren't aware of how their attitudes are shaped by their environment, for good or for ill. Things we grow up with are merely taken for granted.
- pavlov 6y agoDuring the Hollywood Code years of 1934-68, American movie productions were strictly regulated on moral grounds to ensure they don't present positive views of homosexuality or promiscuity. Look at how well that worked. Anyway, that's irrelevant here because the French movie in question is fundamentally critical of the existing normalization of sexualization of children. A lot of fault must be put on Netflix for jacking up the controversy in their US marketing.
- bpodgursky 6y ago> Look at how well that worked. That's a pretty thoughtless view. Maybe it did work, and it delayed gay marriage for two decades. Maybe it did work, and marriage rates would be 10% without a top-down media campaign, instead of the 50% it is today. Clearly it didn't WIN completely, but that argument's like saying "Well we've banned murder, and look at how well that worked!"... it's really hard to find natural experiments to test a thesis that these initiatives work or not.
- cutitout 6y agoYou cannot seriously mention homosexuality between consenting adults and sexualization of children in the same sentence. > because the French movie in question is fundamentally critical of the existing normalization of sexualization of children. By engaging in it.. this isn't even a fig leaf, that's like posting insults and slurs to criticize insults and slurs, or saying "no offense, but $incredibly_offensive_thing". Even if that actually is the intention, that is irrelevant, the actions are what matters. > A lot of fault must be put on Netflix for jacking up the controversy in their US marketing. Nobody but the defenders of this even care about the marketing; it's about the content, about the minute long close up shots of children "grinding". Regardless of the attempts to frame it that way, "thinking of the children" isn't just a monopoly of hypocritical, puritan "outrage", it's also what any healthy adult does by default. Even (non-predator) animals in some cases treat the young of other species that way.
- pavlov 6y ago> "it's about the content, about the minute long close up shots of children 'grinding'" This is not the right criterion to evaluate a film's intent. Action movies spend most of their screen time showing killing. Horror movies contain extended torture scenes. Gaspar Noé's "Irreversible" has a 10-minute extremely realistic rape scene, but it would be absurd to claim that it's a pro-rape film.
- cutitout 6y agoI said the intention is irrelevant. As I said in the bit you quoted, it's about the content.
- croes 6y agoI guess you have never seen the film Pretty Baby with Brooke Shields. Cuties is harmless compared to it.
- EricE 6y agoJust because Hollywood has been doing this crap for a long time still doesn't excuse it. If anything one would hope it would make people less inclined to make excuses for them :/