Running scared and ignorant
Gamecloud are reporting that New Line Cinema have removed a sex scene in its interactive promo for the movie Running Scared. This is in response to pressure applied by the “who will think of the goddam children” organization, National Institute on Media and the Family.
From the “Parent Alert” issued by NIMF:
to the [Running Scared demo] site has doubled nearly every day since
the game became available. No doubt New Line
Cinema is counting this low-brow marketing
ploy a success - at the expense of thousands
of children across the nation.
(Emphasis theirs)
You know what else affects “thousands of children across the nation?” Parents who can't be fucking bothered to know what their children are doing on the internet; parents who rely on a political action committee to assuage their guilt, keeping them in a state of perpetual fear of the big bad internet, without ever truly understanding why they are afraid.
Not long ago I had a post deleted from a gaming forum because my signature in the post had a link to my blog. The reason for the deletion? The moderator discovered you could click 3 levels of links to reach a chess game where the animated pieces have animated sex. Seriously. The moderator went on to explain that there are many younger members of that particular site, and they must be protected from harmful content. Uh-huh. My theory is that said moderator is actually a time-traveler from 1985, because I'm pretty sure everyone from this particular space-time continuum knows that 3 clicks can take you from the official
“Mother Teresa's All That is Holy and Good” website to “Moose and Mona's
Anal Fisting Emporium.” * And when you reach MMAFE, the measures in place to keep minors out aren't going to be near as good as Newline Cinema's meager efforts, who at least required a drivers license for validation. (because your 13 year-old boy is too innocent and puerile to lift mom's purse for just a few minutes I guess)
So why don't we see Parental Bulletins about Moose & Mona's? Well first, because I made it up. I think. It might very well exist, but I'm not going to check. Knock yourself out. But it's also because these Parental Bulletin things are not there to protect your children. They are for promoting political agendas. They are so politicians and self-important people can express outrage, thus ensuring continued political contributions.
Better and brighter people than I have tried to hammer this point home, so I won't bore you with a tirade on how it's parents' responsibility to know what their children are doing on the internet. Not that it would do any good. Parents who look to NIMF to protect their children don't read this blog, and they don't read or listen to advice from people who genuinely want children protected from inappropriate internet content. They want to know that it's not their fault, and that the liberal fucking devil worshipers in Hollywood will stop at nothing to corrupt their children's' very souls. So they let groups like NIMF keep them in a perpetual state of misdirected outrage and fear.
The issue of minors being exposed to adult content is a very real problem. Someday we as a society may even choose to address it.
* You should know I'm not particularly
proud of that sentence. But then have no shame.
February 27th, 2006 at 9:24 am
Kids of a certain age need some exposure to the human reproductive process. Otherwise they may have two vaginas and not realize this is abnormal.
http://www.tuckermax.com/archives/entries/the_jez_chronicles_part_1.phtml#613
February 27th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
This is a topic that has been bothering me for a long time, at least since the great wardrobe malfunction of 2004. Just what is it, exactly that we are protecting our children from here? What damage, exactly is likely to befall a child (and this is defined as anyone less than what, 18? 16?). By prohibiting a youngster from having access to such things, we are only strengthening their resolve to get access to it!! This is all about sex, which is a normal bodily function, unlike graphic violence, which is not a normal bodily function, and exposure to which could prove genuinely disturbing to younger (as well as older) people.
On the subject of better and brighter, people, this is worth watching. A great American Hero, Frank Zappa, appeared on Crossfile 20 years ago to discuss this same point. (Warning. Big file download).