From his column in the May issue of reason, Greg Beato looks forward to the ultra-G-rated Character and Morality in Education Awards and shudders at "Hollywood's Decency Epidemic."
Read all about "the onslaught of wholesome entertainment" here.
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Comments to "New at Reason":
The Democratic Republican | April 29, 2008, 12:12pm | #
For that matter, this has been a pretty wholesome morning here at H&R: G-rated awards, concilience between religion and science, outing a plagiarizer. Very squeaky clean stuff around here... for a change. :)SugarFree | April 29, 2008, 12:25pm | #
DR,I think it's the relative lack of trolls. The curse words usually don't start to fly until they skulk out from the shadows.
I can work up some quick obscenity for you, if you'd like.
The Democratic Republican | April 29, 2008, 12:27pm | #
lol...I've been fighting it out on some other blogs this morning, so I've had my fill. But it's very kind of you to offer.J sub D | April 29, 2008, 12:30pm | #
For that matter, this has been a pretty wholesome morning here at H&R: G-rated awards, concilience between religion and science, outing a plagiarizer. Very squeaky clean stuff around here... for a change. :)And I'm not going to sit here and take it. YouPorn, here I come.
Actually I'm all for movies you can take a kid to. It's difficult to make a movie that appeals to a five year old and doesn't make their parents want to slit their wrists in the theater. It can be done, and Hollywood is probably the best at it. For nudity and expletive free adult movies, Bollywood pretty much rules worldwide.
This degenerate isn't too worried about being stranded in a world of tasteful wholesomeness. I don't think the family values crowd is ever going to lack options either. They never did.
The Democratic Republican | April 29, 2008, 12:40pm | #
well said, J sub D. My wife and I went to see Alvin and the Chipmunks at Christmas time (with no kids). She's a kid at heart, but it was funny enough that I could at least laugh at myself for being there.Elemenope | April 29, 2008, 12:42pm | #
The same Hollywood that packs TV’s “family hour” with 4.19 violent incidents, 3.76 sexual references or situations, 0.01 bleeped “cocksuckers,” and 1.08 unbleeped “hells” per hour in a wicked attempt to poison the minds of innocent and impressionable Parents Television Council employees?LOL. So true.
I think it's the relative lack of trolls. The curse words usually don't start to fly until they skulk out from the shadows.
I dunno; I tend to curse like a sailor in my comments sometimes. It's like having H&R Tourette's; I don't curse nearly as much IRL.
Kolohe | April 29, 2008, 12:42pm | #
Reigning Disney Channel poppet Miley Cyrus oozes 100-proof adorableness so relentlessly that one suspects she actually has tiny little paws instead of hands and feet.We call this in my biz, a statement that is OBE.
(and now I will endure the utter shame from knowing who this is and what event regarding her made the 'news' yesterday)
SugarFree | April 29, 2008, 12:50pm | #
Elemenope,I'm pretty much the same in both, except I tell more dirty stories IRL.
Did I ever tell you the one about the girl who got a popcicle stuck in her cooter?
Only three more years till Miley Cyrus is legal, pregnant and in rehab.
Three years, ed? With Jamie Lynn Spears lowing the bar, I would be surprised if Miley was preggo right now.
Elemenope | April 29, 2008, 1:10pm | #
Did I ever tell you the one about the girl who got a popcicle stuck in her cooter?You know Tori Amos? Oh, wait. That was an icicle. My bad.
Mad Max | April 29, 2008, 1:12pm | #
Well, we can add "decency epidemic" to the list of things *not* to have a sudden moral panic about.As Hollywood's business model takes it on the chin (sorry about the violent imagery), who knows what the entertainment scene will look like in a few years? There may well be some morally acceptable fare - although it would be too bad if the marketing people interpreted this as "treaclier than the Hallmark Channel on Mother's Day."
They had boys' adventure stories during the infamous Victorian Era (and some helpful commenter is sure to mention parts of the Old Testament). You can have a moral message and still be creative and even "edgy." Look at Tolkien and (to a lesser extent) C. S. Lewis.
Here's one prediction for how the entertainment scene *will* look in a few years (if the human race survives that long): Those who want explosions, pistol-whippings, and hot girl-on-tentacle action will not be staring at the metaphorical empty shelves. They will be able to get whatever turns them on - legal or not, and most of it will be legal.
Naga Sadow | April 29, 2008, 1:27pm | #
A decency epidemic? This would explain me no longer going to the theaters.Elemenope | April 29, 2008, 1:28pm | #
You can have a moral message and still be creative and even "edgy." Look at Tolkien and (to a lesser extent) C. S. Lewis.I would say that G. K. Chesterton is an even better example of this.
ed | April 29, 2008, 1:45pm | #
Three years, ed?Till she's legal, yes.
Those other things? Tick...tick...tick...
Brian Sorgatz | April 29, 2008, 2:15pm | #
All this wholesomeness is making me sick. Popeye needs his spinach. For some family-hostile entertainment, click here.Geotpf | April 29, 2008, 2:32pm | #
Whatever makes money. And, it's much easier to make money via a PG-13 rated movie than an R rated one, and always has been (because packs of teenagers can see the former without their parents and not the latter). R rated movies has always been the exception, not the rule, and NC-17 movies have always been extrordinarily rare. Of course, once said movies end up on video, the uncut, unrated versions appear.LarryA | April 29, 2008, 3:11pm | #
Does the CAMIE have a nose? Is it under the tent?If you want to seamlessly exterminate the coarse language, blood-soaked imagery, and sexual themes from R-rated titles like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Lethal Weapon 4 so you can more comfortably consume their more positive, character-building messages with your family in a safe viewing environment, there is a device, the ClearPlay DVD player, that promises to do just this.
Plus, you can watch what’s left of both films in under a half-hour.
Alas, even as the floodtides of rectitude threaten to give us all a cleansing soak, the Culture War’s most dogged mercenaries grow increasingly desperate to sound notes of alarm.
Par for the course.
[snark]You also failed to mention all the protesters from the War on Christianity that tried to shut down the CAMIE Awards.[/snark]
(PTC) also employs eagle-eyed lip-readers to decipher and categorize the bleeped-out utterances of reality TV contestants.
Under development: Technology that in conjunction with the bleep will pixelate foul-mouths.
BakedPenguin | April 29, 2008, 4:00pm | #
...conservative pundit Janice Shaw Crouse noted that only two of the top 20 grossing movies of 2005 had an R rating. “This shift in public tastes has yet to be recognized by the Hollywood elites, who continue to promote movies that are less financially successful at the box office,”What Geotpf said. The ratings were winked at a bit more in the past (I got into my first R rated movie at 13, with 3 other 13-year-olds), so R ratings were easier to make profitable. The "shift in public tastes" is a shift for adults away from the theaters in general, but that doesn't fit her neat little scheme.
Also, if all kiddie entertainment was on the level of Finding Nemo or The Incredibles, I would the "wholesome entertainment" people less annoying. But I'd still be in the market for "[a] machine that can make the excruciatingly dainty Miss Potter more engaging by magically deleting Renee Zellweger’s Victorian bodice on occasion..."
jtuf | April 29, 2008, 4:40pm | #
Ah, with freedom to choose, audiences from hardcore to wholesome can be happy.