Charles wrote:
"It's a commonplace to lament the degraded state of popular
culture and to complain about increasing vulgarity,
sexualization and so forth -- but based on at least some of
the evidence I've seen, in some ways people are more uptight
today than they were fifty years ago."
True, complaints have certainly increased, but a lot of them
are about things that could not have legally seen the light
of day a few decades ago. Not even going to extreme material,
sex scenes in books put out by mainstream publishers are
sometimes more graphic than those in books once prosecuted
for obscenity. However, there is a very vocal rearguard that
is trying to return culture to a, largely mythical, purer
time. And they seem to be incensed by what's easily seen. So
you can put whatever you want IN a book, but watch what you
put ON that cover -- kids might see it.
And we seem to have developed rules about WHO can present
certain depictions. For instance, racial depictions that were
once commonplace, partcularly stereotypes of the highly
sexed, bad black men, now only seem to be acceptable from the
mouths of black rappers.
And context seems to make a big difference. We seem to have
returned to a Victorian notion that as long as there is an
easily read (as in, it hits you over the head) moral message
at the end, it's okay to include graphic material along the
way. But without that message, everything is read as
endorsement -- so Stansberry is promoting, even applauding
certain acts; of course, that book also won an award and sold
better for the controversy.
Then again, the moral crusaders are more than happy to pull
things out of context, so a candidate is accused on being a
pornographer for some sex scenes in a book about Marines, and
CBS is given a record fine for a hazy, not terribly graphic
scene of a teen orgy (admittedly, too graphic to be put on
the air even a decade earlier) in an episode of Without a
Trace, even though the complaintants (Brent Bozell's Parents
Televsion Council, whose click-on forms account for something
like 98% of all FCC complaints), fully admitted that the
overall message was that this orgy was a terrible thing and
everyone involved in it paid by the end of the show -- so
much for a socially redeeming message ruling out indecency
charges (as is stated in the FCC guidelines).
Maybe that's what's going on here, a symbolic politics where
a portion of the population is very uncomfortable with the
slippery slope of cultural acceptance of explicitness and a
government that is happy to make grand public gestures to
reassure them, and ensure their votes? Certainly would go a
long way in explaining the seeming contradiction of some of
the most popular culture being said to violate the standards
of the community that supports it.
Okay, I'm stepping off my soapbox now.
Mark
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 20 Dec 2006 EST