A View from Riverside Drive
Commentary by Ed Hynes
January 2005
Manhattan theater shows 'Whore' for the 'holidays'
In the run up to Christmas, the featured film at the Village East theater in Manhattan was something called "Whore." New York Times reviewer Dave Kehr wrote (12/17/04) that, "Prostitution is here portrayed as an unorthodox form of self-empowerment, with its practitioners finding fulfillment in the expression of their sexuality for fun and profit. The world of 'Whore' is strangely devoid of abusive pimps and debilitating drug habits, though the film does include a couple of Eastern European women who complain of being brought into the business against their will."
Mr. Kehr said nothing more about the connection between prostitution and the trafficking of hundreds of thousands of women and girls in the global slave trade. Nor did he mention the destructive impact prostitution has on marital and family relationships, and on property values and personal safety in the neighborhood of brothels.
Four days earlier, the Village Voice reviewer, Leslie Camhi, treated prostitution and this movie about it as nothing more than an interesting phenomenon: "Flip through the back-page ads of this paper and you will find that the business of sex takes myriad forms. Such is the premise behind Whore, a strange hybrid of fiction and documentary. . . . The fiction here seems an afterthought, tacked onto the interviews with practitioners, from streetwalkers to luxury call girls to the Eastern European pimp who claims that 'half the girls in my country are bought and sold.'"
The buying and selling of girls doesn't seem worrisome to this reviewer.
"Whore" was rated R, which means minors under 17 could see the movie if accompanied by a "parent or adult guardian." Perish the thought.
'National Treasure' is another story
New York Daily News reviewer David Hinckley (12/04/04) wrote that he had "watched about half of 'National Treasure,' the new Nicholas Cage adventure flick, when I realized the guys weren't cursing, the gals weren't taking off their clothes and almost everything getting blown up was an inanimate object, not a person."
Mr. Hinckley found it "encouraging… that a slowly growing number of filmmakers may be putting their money on old-school movies that imply cursing, sex and violence rather than make it explicit."
Jerry Springer, the Opera?
Word from London is that a foul-mouthed musical titled "Jerry Springer the Opera" is selling out at the National Theater, and a filmed version is to be broadcast in England by BBC TV at 9 pm Saturday, January 8. The show has been running in London since 2001, has won four prestigious Best Musical awards, has had productions in 60 cities, and is watched by an average audience of 12,000 a night. And, regrettably, it is to open on Broadway in 2005.
This was the story as reported by the The Daily Mail's online information service:
F***! BBC to air Springer musical
By Tara Conlan, Daily Mail
3 December 2004
The BBC is to screen the most expletive-strewn program in TV history.
More than 8,000 obscenities will be broadcast when BBC2 shows a screen version of the musical Jerry Springer The Opera in January.
….
Jerry Springer The Opera also risks offending religious groups because it contains blasphemous scenes.
The show has caused controversy since it opened in 2001. It contains 3,168 mentions of the f-word and 297 of the c-word - recognised by television watchdogs as the most offensive word to viewers.
At BBC2's launch of its winter schedule, the station's controller Roly Keating said the show would "push back the boundaries of taste and decency."
Roly Keating has a knack for the obvious. There was more, but you get the idea.
David Soul, who starred in TV's "Starsky and Hutch," has taken over the role of Jerry Springer. The web site www.davidsoul.com says, with apparent pride, that the musical is "based on America's most lurid talk show…"
Reality-porn TV producer reported to be in talks with US broadcasters
Private Media Group, a large, publicly traded "adult entertainment" company based in Spain, has found a television audience in Europe for "Private Stars," a reality show in which five men compete to see who "performs best" with one of the company's porn "stars." Now the company reportedly has signed a contract with Comcast to launch a Private Latino channel in February for the Spanish-speaking audience in the U.S.
Quote of the month
In Broadcasting & Cable magazine's "Open Mike" feature (12/13/04), "Dave Morrison, WPXI-TV Engineering, Pittsburgh," wrote that some network executives "push the violence, speech and nudity envelope" in order to "compete in today's entertainment environment," then blame the "prudes" at the FCC when they get fined. "Is it possible that the FCC is not the problem?" he asks. "Maybe the FCC understands that people don't welcome being embarrassed watching TV or listening to the radio with their children or their parents. . . . The networks can thrive by producing high-quality shows, by producing shows that don't cross the FCC's line in the sand."
Quote for the ages
Sin is not hurtful because it is forbidden
But it is forbidden because it is hurtful.
Nor is a duty beneficial because it is commanded.
But it is commanded, because it's beneficial.
-- Benjamin Franklin, in "Poor Richard's Almanac."
It's much the same with morality, a word that currently rings hollow with liberal cultural pundits in the media. Here's how Poor Richard might make the point in today's parlance:
Immorality is not hurtful because it is forbidden
But it is forbidden because it is hurtful.
Nor is morality beneficial because it is commanded.
But it is commanded because it's beneficial.
Video Game Report Card lists ten to avoid and ten that are okay
The National Institute on Media and the Family issued its Ninth Annual MediaWise Video Game Report Card in late November, listing ten games that are recommended "for children and teens" and ten to avoid.
Recommended:
- ESPN NFL 2 K5
- Pikmin 2
- Sly 2: Band of Thieves
- Karaoke Revolution Volume 3
- Madden NFL 2005
- Jak 3
- Prince of Persia—Sands of Time
- Myst IV: Revelation
- RollerCoaster Tycoon 3
- SimCity 4
Games to avoid:
- Doom 3
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- Half Life 2
- Halo 2
- Resident Evil: Outbreak
- Psi Ops: the Mindgate Conspiracy
- The Guy Game
- Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude
- Mortal Kombat Deception
- Rumble Roses
2004 marked by positive developments
There's no end to cultural rot, it seems, but 2004 was marked by hopeful signs and tangible progress in the fight for a decent society. Here are a few of the highlights:
Wirthlin Worldwide's latest survey for Morality in Media again found over 80% of Americans want federal Internet obscenity laws enforced vigorously.
The 2004 Republican Party Platform contains the following language in support of obscenity law enforcement:
The Republican Party shares the position of the United States Supreme Court in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), that obscene material is "unprotected by the First Amendment" (413 U.S. at 23) and that "to equate the free and robust exchange of ideas and political debate with commercial exploitation of obscene material demeans the grand conception of the First Amendment and its high purposes in the historic struggle for freedom." Miller, 413 U.S. at 34. We therefore support vigorous prosecution of obscene material by the U.S. Justice Department.
The Justice Department's 2005 budget included $150,000 to support the Obscenity Crimes Project, which is Morality in Media's web site (www.obscenitycrimes.org) through which citizens can report hardcore "adult" pornography on the Internet.
The U.S. Attorney in San Antonio successfully prosecuted a large-scale interstate distributor of hardcore pornography. The lead defendant pled guilty to various charges (including obscenity) and agreed to forfeit property (including 20 "adult bookstores") valued at almost $10 million.
FBI Director Muller assigned a team of FBI agents to investigate obscenity crimes.
Attorney General Ashcroft assigned Bruce Taylor, an experienced obscenity prosecutor, to advise the Justice Department's Child Exploitation & Obscenity Section.
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed a decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that had allowed a City of San Diego police officer to sue the city claiming his firing by the city violated his free speech rights. He was fired after making and selling videos of himself masturbating, in violation of departmental regulations.
The Doha International Conference for the Family in Doha, Qatar, which ended November 30, proclaimed that the "family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to the widest possible protection and assistance by society and the State." The Conference also called upon all nations to "uphold, preserve and defend the institution of marriage." The Conference was convened by the State of Qatar to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the UN's International Year of the Family.
The United Nations approved Morality in Media's application for "special consultative" status as a non-governmental organization. This will help in our work toward the adoption of a treaty to deal with the trans-border distribution of obscene material.
Police in Durham, N.C., are posting names and pictures of "Johns" on the Internet in an effort to crack down on prostitution in the city. Police Cpl. David Addison said, "The more we can advertise these Johns on the Internet, hopefully these people will stop coming to Durham and stop soliciting for prostitution."
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