Worst post title. Ever.
I couldn’t decide on a good pullquote, either.
It’s from ancient times (May 20th) but here you go. I stashed this one in the drafts file because it’s a good letter and I thought eventually I’d have something cogent to add to it. I forgot about it until this morning when I started to post something indignent about the Hostel movies. So instead, I’ll just post this link and go drink some more coffee. [tag]Joss Whedon[/tag]’s (guest) post on [tag]Whedonesque[/tag]: “Let’s Watch A Girl Get Beaten To Death” is a letter worth the read.
I agree there was so much in there it was difficult to find just one quote, but I tried.
I’m ashamed to admit that the event which prompted his essay was one I’d heard of and which dismayed me, but not enough to prompt me to write about it.
You miss Joss’s point entirely Mr. Carl. It’s not ok for a large group of bystanders to stand by and watch someone be raped or killed and not intervene. “Better TV” would be footage of bystanders standing up and stopping the killings. Joss’s talks and letters and articles are not condemning the media for spotlighting true horror he is condemning the hundreds or thousands who record and trade this footage with no noble intention. Eli Roth made the Hostel films to highlight and shame sado-masochistic killers? The Captivity Billboard campaign is, according to the filmmaker, an attempt to bring to media light something that happens to 50,000 people a year? That’s what he said in the LA Times. 50,000 young women a year are captured and tortured to death in skimpy lingerie? Golly gee I sure am glad that horrific billboard across from the elementary school went up now, why was I so offended before? Silly little me.
Your defense of these cowardly men who shot and traded this video for fun are misogynistic and crude. They didn’t shoot that video for the common good, and I invite you to attend any number of human rights conferences and get educated into what happens in the world around you.
That’s a strawman to draw parallels to the Civil Rights Movement. That footage was shot and shown expressly to draw attention. These people who use their cameraphones to record and privately trade images such as this are not freedom fighters, not most of them.
As for the first comment about feeling guilt over not blogging it I think we’re all so overwhelmed by these events when bigger blogs or news outlets pick up the story and it’s easy to forget that echoing their sentiments is important. One voice feels insignificant in the wilderness and it’s only in retrospect that we think “should coulda blogged that”
I looked up the L.A. Times article mentioned in the above comment. The link was incorrect in the comment and I had to edit the comment to fix it and hit some sort of glitch when the comment posted, so I’ll post the link here:
“Billboard’s ‘Captivity’ audience disgusted”
Oops. I sure walked into a mine
field on this one. The original
posting touched on so many
societal problems (female
subjugation, herd instincts,
mob rule, etc.), each of which
worthy of an entire book devoted to the root cause, that
it seemed impossible to comment
on everything there in a concise manner appropiate here.
It seemed that CNN was being
tarred with the same brush for
even showing the footage and my
comment was intended only to
illustrate that it takes the
shock and outrage of seeing this to provoke discussion and
reaction. I did not intend to
defend or condone the attack
or the sentiment of the crowd
and photographers. Realize that
potential saviours in the crowd
risk a broken skull from the
religious enforcement thugs that will be present if there’s
an edict from the local imam.
The culture (and poverty) there
can be beyond the comprehension
of most western observers. I
recall refugee camps that went
seemingly to the horizon whose
sole means of survival was
making and selling kitchen fuel
patties made of camel dung and
straw. Street beggars routinely
blinded and maimed themselves
to provoke pity and more coins.
Western diplomats had to be wary of locals throwing themselves in front their autos
in hope of lifetime mealtickets. A popular form of
mass public execution was to
bury the condemned up to their
necks, invite the crowd to stone them, and then have a tank drive over any survivors.
A sport where the ball is a
human head. And an alternative
religious educational system
that indoctrinates boys from the age of seven that what you
saw in the video is OK to do.
The stupid dismember-a-teen movies I choose to ignore and
leave to the film critics and
the marketplace; anything else
smacks of censorship.
To be fair, Linkmeister, I didn’t blog this either. I was probably too busy babbling about squirrels ,or possibly exploding toilets. Or moderating commentspam. *grumble*