Why Fear the End of the R-Rated Superhero Movie? 640
brumgrunt writes "Last year, Marvel said that R-rated comic book superhero movies weren't in its future plans. Now, in the light of Watchmen's box office performance, Warner Bros is going the same way, meaning high-profile comic book superhero films will be restricted to the PG-13 rating at most. But is this a bad thing, and should we fear the end of the R-rated superhero movie?"
That's not the real issue (Score:5, Insightful)
We should not fear that Warner Bros is ending the R-rated movies. We should fear the fact that one single company has such massive influence that we even bother talking about this.
Re:That's not the real issue (Score:2, Insightful)
We should not fear that Warner Bros is ending the R-rated movies. We should fear the fact that one single company has such massive influence that we even bother talking about this.
Why? Is Warner Brothers prohibiting independent studios from making their own R-Rated superhero movies?
This is the same mistake the music business made (Score:5, Insightful)
The only movie I saw in the last 12 months was Watchmen. Sure, Spider-man 6 might make a bigger profit, but if you concentrate only on getting the biggest possible slice of the Spider-man 6 demographic, you'll never get any money from people like me, and the industry as a whole will be poorer.
The music business already fell into this trap, churning out countless spice-girl clones in the hope of hitting the jackpot and ignoring the fact that even if they can find a girl-group that outsells the spice girls, there are a lot of potential customers who just don't like that genre.
If the big studios stop making $100m blockbuster R-rated movies, then a smart film company should start leveraging CGI to make $5-$10m ones to tap into that market.
Batman vs Watchmen (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the wwriter is failing to take something into account.
I'd heard of Batman all my life - never heard of watchmen until this movie. I suspect I'm not the only one.
For an accurate comparison, they should do an r-rated Batman.
Re:I can live with it (Score:5, Insightful)
I would have loved to take my nephew (who is 11) to the Watchmen.
Violence was not the issue, the blue schlong was the issue.
For some reasons parents don't mind violence, but show one schlong or some boobies, and that makes the movie off limits.
Pretty screwed up world we live in.
The studios have it all wrong (Score:1, Insightful)
The studios have it all wrong. The reason Watchmen tanked was because it sucked. Badly.
First, you take a half-rate superhero and make a movie out of him. Starting off, it's already disadvantaged: there's a reason s/he's a half-rate comic book hero. He has a crummy story, costume, plot, writers, or what have you which the vast majority of people do not like. They're already striking out before they've even got the storyboard - which is, frankly, astonishing, because it's a comic book, after all.
Second, they don't fix most of the flaws in the comic, but amplify them, in the creation of the movie. That's like strike three, except the third ball hits you in the face and kills you.
(Thankfully, today's PG-13 is, in many ways, as gratuitous and maturely themed as yesteryear's R.)
Blame Dr Manhattan's blue dong (Score:3, Insightful)
Apparently Americans don't want full frontal nudity in their superhero movies.
write a real movie (Score:3, Insightful)
The invisible hand of the free market (Score:1, Insightful)
If you disagree with the studios, then start your own studio and then create an R rated super hero movie. That should be easy since you are so convinced that studios are run by idiots.
Re:I can live with it (Score:5, Insightful)
For some reasons parents don't mind violence,
We are born selfish and violent, lashing out (stomping feet, hitting, biting, scratch, hitting, etc) when we don't get want.
but show one schlong or some boobies, and that makes the movie off limits.
OTOH, we don't even start to become sexual beings until the early teen years. (Later, in cultures that aren't so sex-saturated as the US.)
Pretty screwed up world we live in.
Well, yes, but not for the reason you think.
It's about the money (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd love to live in a world where movies were made how best the story could be told and the ratings were figured out later... but it comes down to simple economics.
The R-rated version of a movie might be the better one, but reducing it to PG-13 is not going to cost as many people as it gains.
IOW. People who want Watchmen as PG and won't go to R > people who want it R and won't go to PG.
It's the same problem in the video game world. It's not that niche' games won't sell... it's that non-niche' games sell better.
Re:This is the same mistake the music business mad (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly the frequency of R-ratings have gone up for all movies. I remember when there were countless great movies from the 1980s that were all rated PG. Now most comedies seem to be rated PG-13 and R. I don't personally have anything against R-rated movies being that I use "fuck" as a comma and have nothing against watching on-screen violence, but I'm wondering if the movie industry is hoping to move back to where it was 20 years ago. Hell, we say that they need to change how they do business, perhaps this is a step in that direction--something which they hope they will get back to a time when they feel that they were a little more successful?
Obviously they thought that their core demographic required that they have a movie rated R to attract viewers. Instead of flashy CGI they're moving to over-the-top language and T&A to cover the fact that the dialogue kinda fucking sucks. IMHO Iron Man, while rated PG-13, wouldn't have gained anything by becoming rated R.
Both Nolan/Bale Batmans were PG-13 (Score:5, Insightful)
Batman Begins (2005) [imdb.com] - Rated PG-13 for intense action violence, disturbing images and some thematic elements.
The Dark Knight (2008) [imdb.com] - Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and some menace.
Remember that scene where they bring Joker's "corpse" to Gambol, only Joker jumps up from the table alive and psychotic...?
What exactly does he do to Gambol?
How about those two guys that were standing right next to his "corpse"?
Did you ever actually see what happens there?
A good director can do wonders with PG-13.
Always remember that we never really see the actual stabbing in Psycho.
Why the R-Rating then? Phantom boobs, men dressed in women clothing and even toilets being flushed. [wikipedia.org]
Re:I can live with it (Score:1, Insightful)
I didn't RTFA, but I assume they are saying they won't be making movies for adults anymore. Apparently the adult demographic matters not.
I suspect this has a lot to do with brain-dead parenting over the last 25 years changing society's view of children into mini-adults. Everything marketed on television, even things that children cannot in any reasonable way use (like cars, alcohol, etc), is marketed to children. Television and movies have turned into mass-market-salesperson-training instructions. They are specifically designed to make children the main *advertiser* by filling their little heads up with details and suggestions how to convince their legal guardians to purchase wares.
FFS go see a rated R movie. Tell society to get fucking bent for trying to turn your kids into mini-salespeople, and us adults into children. Tell the movie studios to get fucking bent for not catering to, or blatantly ignoring your demographic.
The ratings exist for a purpose. Just because the movie is about a superhero, doesn't have to mean it's a child's movie! If they ever decide to do another "dark" superhero movie like the Punisher, or Dark Knight, or Watchmen; they'll never be able to do them any justice without being able to utilize the R rating. I will be skipping the new Wolverine movie for these very reasons. Wolverine is an extremely violent comic, and the trailers seem to be showing that aspect completely removed and "tweened" up for the PG-13 rating. Homogenizing the ratings before the films are even made is a terrible idea, and I for one will be boycotting every future superhero movie in a personal protest against these retarded studios.
Re:I can live with it (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, yes. But the very fact that we obsess over being sex-saturated makes it worse. Think Victorian times - child prostitution and deviance went through the roof, due to the repression of something NORMAL.
Re:I can live with it (Score:5, Insightful)
"OTOH, we don't even start to become sexual beings until the early teen years. (Later, in cultures that aren't so sex-saturated as the US.)"
UH, which societies would those be? The ones that allow marriage as young as 12 or the ones that allow it even younger?
There's this thing called biology that ensures that humans become sexually aware in their early teens, it's got very little to do with your society.
Re:Word Of Mouth Kept People Away (Score:5, Insightful)
it was Dr. Manhattan's package that those seven people were turned off by (my sister said it was like watching porn)
Ironic, since the blue willie is about as non-sexual as you can get without explicitly stating "this penis is not meant to be taken sexually". I'd even say it's pointedly non-sexual: he's transcended the human state, his body is really just a convenient shell, and he has pretty much started to lose sight of what the whole point of sex is (as the plot shows you).
Failure? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is Watchmen really a failure? I mean, for an R-rated comic book movie, it's doing pretty well in my opinion. But that's not really the subject of the article.
The problem with Watchmen is not the R rating, at least in my opinion. The problem is the changes made to the ending that really changed the tone of it, and thus changed the meaning of the ending.
Let's look at it this way. Watchmen is a source material about which people are passionate. It was a seminal piece of comic book art, a graphic novel before there were graphic novels, and as the first of a genre it has a rather devout following. I know, I read it on first release... and re-read it... and re-read it... and yes, I loved it. However, in the intervening years (decades? OMG... I'm old!) I have not touched the source material and as such somewhat grew away from it. I re-read it last year as an adult and although I still found it to be an incredible piece of art, I found that it didn't resonate with me the same way it did when I was 13 and 14 (when it was first released). I still loved it, but in the way you do an ex girlfriend with whom you had a "soft breakup" because you grew apart instead of a difficult one.
I went to see the movie, and was blown away. 90% of the movie was damned close to the comic book... closer than I would've expected from Hollywood... and it would've been impossible to get that close without an R rating. The original comic book should have had an R rating as well! The ending though, had a different meaning for me than the comic. I won't spoil it here, but it IS different. However, for me it did not fundamentally change the tone of the entire movie... and in fact I think the comic book ending would've been less accessible to a more general audience and probably would've looked somewhat ridiculous on screen.
OK, call me an heretic. I enjoyed both of them but for different reasons. But the R rating is not the reason for the lackluster box office!
Here's my theory; the box office taking are low because of two things; (1) The Watchmen is a comic book that appealed to a niche, and (2) that niche is typically the very technically savvy.
OK, let's expand on that a little:
(1) Watchmen didn't appeal to a wider audience because it had a lot less exposure. Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Iron Man... all highly identifiable characters with a long history in print. All of them are part of the common consciousness that we have in the Western world, and all are characters we can visualize easily. Rorschach, Nite Owl, Doc Manhattan... who? These were all characters created for Watchmen because Alan Moore wasn't given the go-ahead to use the characters he wanted to... those with an history.
The upshot of this is that we have characters that only a small subsection of our society identifies with because they never really got into the social consciousness the way the more "iconic" characters did. This means that Hollywood produces a Watchmen movie, and the characters are new to the average viewer... and the average viewer doesn't want new; they want more of the same.
There's also this idea in the public consciousness that superhero's are always good, always doing the right thing. Watchmen's moral ambiguity on the part of ALL of the characters means that the average viewer won't identify their icons within the context of the movie, and thus won't connect with them. They're looking for simple... black and white. Watchmen is full of shades of grey.
(2) Because the subset of society is mostly tech-savvy, it means that they are going to read reviews of the movie before they go see it, usually written on websites by people with similar tastes... the blind leading the blind in a sense. This leads to one or two slightly negative reviews driving away the very core audience that was most likely to see it.
I refer in part to Massawyrm's review of Watchmen on Aint It Cool News [aintitcool.com] (for which I can't find a direct link right now, sorry!) in which he slammed the movie
Re:That's not the real issue (Score:1, Insightful)
They are if they are buying the rights to make said movies.
Re:I can live with it (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see, aside from the handful of scenes of graphic violence (sawing off of arms, anyone?), how about the attempted rape, the sex scenes and, yes, the "blue schlong" that nobody can seem to wrap their minds around.
This isn't directed at you, but many people today seem to almost WANT to expose kids to as much adult material as possible. Whether it's to prove they're "enlightened", or because they saw boobies in Nightmare on Elm St when they were 11 and thought it was cool, or what, I don't know. "Pretty screwed up world we live in", indeed.
You can take an 11 year old to an R-rated movie, sure... but as a parent or guardian (IOW- an adult), you're supposed to exercise judgement based on your knowledge of the material, and the maturity of the child. Children DO imitate movies, whether you want to admit it or not. Face it, you yourself probably wish you could fight like Jason Bourne or sleep with pretty much any girl you want, like James Bond... but social structures and fear of looking like a moron (probably) prevent you from acting it out. Those social rules are much less effective on a child, which is why you see them acting out their favorite movie characters on the playground.
In short, and I am sure this is an unpopular opinion these days, children are less capable than adults are when it comes to separating fantasy from reality. Hell, my 9 year old still occasionally asks me "did this really happen?" when we're watching a movie that is at least halfway plausible.
The real problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
...is not the age rating, its the dichotomy of trying to produce a movie with "arthouse" audience appeal with special effects that dictate a popcorn blockbuster budget.
I'm sure Watchmen could have been made PG-13 by cutting a few minutes. Giving Dr Manhatten a thong might lose a minor point about his diminishing humanity, but its hardly going to ruin the movie; and it should be possible to establish that Rorschach was Not a Nice Person without employing an angle grinder.
However... would that have stopped 13-year olds (who might not "get" the politics, psychology or the artistic application of comic-book visual styles to cinematography) from being absolutely bored to tears after an hour and a half? Doubt it.
Ironically, when I watched it, the cinema was plugging their latest wheeze: by popular demand, over-18s-only screenings of PG/12A movies. So, obviously no market for 18-and-over-films.
Of course, this is in the UK where Watchmen was certificate 18, and most cinemas do at least try not to let in anybody holding a teddy bear; There's also a 15 cert which gets used for things like Serenity, V for Vendetta and the DVDs of the new BSG. "Watchman" could almost certainly have been trimmed down to a 15.
Sounds like the US could do with something between PG-13 and R (spurious precision, of course, but this is a political game, not a practical one).
Re:That's not the real issue (Score:2, Insightful)
What we should fear is the fact that they completely missed the reason why it was a box office failure.
As if a PG-13 rating would suddenly cure the fact that it's a way too complex and nuanced story with far too many characters to translate into a satisfying movie to anyone who hadn't already read the comic books.
Always the simplest reason.. oh it must have been the R-rating!
Re:I can live with it (Score:5, Insightful)
OTOH, we don't even start to become sexual beings until the early teen years.
It is the product of a sexually repressed society that someone could consider the sight of female breasts or a limp schlong a sexual thing.
People go around naked in many cultures, and I've never heard that it encourages sexual behaviour in children.
In fact, it's the most repressed cultures which tend to exhibit more sexual devian behaviour. Case in point: the catholic church.
Re:I can live with it (Score:5, Insightful)
We are born selfish and violent, lashing out (stomping feet, hitting, biting, scratch, hitting, etc) when we don't get want.
No, we're born babies. Then we're socialized.
OTOH, we don't even start to become sexual beings until the early teen years. (Later, in cultures that aren't so sex-saturated as the US.)
The average 8 year old could probably teach their parents some new things about sex. Precisely because it's a sex-saturated culture.
9
Pretty screwed up world we live in.
Well, yes, but not for the reason you think.
Eh? Tell me again, how is seeing boobies going to scar a 6 yo kid for life? They already saw some shortly after birth. ZOMG THEY EVEN TOUCHED THEM! Think of the children! Ban breastfeeding!
Contrast that to the disappearing pencil act in The Dark Knight. That's pure Nightmare Fuel.
WTF is the problem with the penis? (Score:5, Insightful)
Heck, I agree with you: Watchmen is not suitable for an 11 yo. There is too much gratuitous violence (some of it from the HQ, some from the director), people being blown up to pieces, sexual violence, children being beat (and beating other children),murders, realistic sex scenes, complex themes that most 11 yo won't understand.
But it has nothing to do with Dr. Manhattan's penis. It appears because he doesn't care about clothes, not because he is about to have quantum sex with anyone. It is as sexual, in the context of the movie, as his arm or leg - he walks around naked just as a child would. I doubt any children would care about the penis - it's the fucked-up adults that instantly associate it with sexual perversion. Get over it, 50% of the human population have penises.
Besides, it is not even big. Heck, what size are yours to be so obsessed with his?
Thank God I'm not alone (Score:4, Insightful)
Watchmen was the first superhero movie I've voluntarily watched since "Mystery Men" (which was pretty funny). I despise most comic book movies (unlike Watchmen, their source materials don't DESERVE to be called "graphic novels"). They're cookie-cutter, predictable, trite pieces of FX-driven shit. I had a girlfriend who forced me to watch the first Toby Macquire "Spiderman" movie and it made me almost physically ill. God, poor Willem Defoe and the indignities he had to endure in that turd (I think he actually shakes his fist in the air at one point and yells "I'll get you Spiderman!"). Sure, that kind of candy crap is fine for kids (and those with the maturity of kids), but I'm an ADULT. Watchmen was the first superhero movie in a long time that was actually geared toward me, and not just my 13-year-old nephew (who rates the quality of movies based solely on how many cool FX shots they contain and honestly doesn't see the "bad guy vanquished/good guy wins" ending of every Batman/Superman/X-men/Shitman movie coming long before the first frame even clicks).
The fact that so many supposed adults, when asked about the quality of Watchmen, responded with "OMG, they dared show a penis!!" shows how brain-dead and immature the average moviegoer really is. But for those of us who've matured beyond the mental age of a 14-year-old schoolgirl giggling at a Jonas Brothers video, it was a amazing anomaly--the first, and sadly probably last, adult superhero film.
Re:I can live with it (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to make too much from your choice of phrasing, but, "won't even have a chance to gun people down"!?
May I suggest, "won't ever have reason to gun people down," or "won't ever be caught in a firefight"?
Re:The thing that has made great superhero movies. (Score:3, Insightful)
What makes Dr. Lecter the second last villain? That word doesn't mean what you think it means.
Re:I can live with it (Score:5, Insightful)
It didn't fail (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The invisible hand of the free market (Score:1, Insightful)
"If you disagree, start your own" generally doesn't work that well as an argument, once "start your own" costs more than a hundred million dollars. Just saying.
Re:I can live with it (Score:3, Insightful)
Pretty screwed up world we live in.
I'm not sure why I clicked on this story, because (ok you can suspend my nerd card) I really don't like very many comic book type movies. I just watched Batman and X-Men for the first time, and Batman was ok, maybe because I always liked the comic when I was a kid, but the suspension of disbelief is too hard to maintain. Because of this I wan't going to comment in this thread, but I saw your comment and it's not just comic book movies, it's all movies.
The suspension of disbelief is a problem with the Die Hard movies, but that's not the problem I had with Die Hard IV.
It was cut down for a PG-13 rating (i.e., you could show it on TV without further cutting) and unlike the previous three, it was a miserable failure at the box office. When it came out on DVD one of my girlfriends (well, they're not really MY girlfriends) rented it and brought it over, and I thought "what a shame, this could have been a fucking great movie instead of an OK movie".
The shame was that it was a perfect nerd movie -- both McClain's sidekick and the bad guy were computer nerds, the bad guy a black hat hacker and the sidekick a former black hat who had turned white hat four years previous. There was lots of blood, violence, shooting, explosions, car chases, unbelievably lucky escapes... but absolutely no vulgar language. Not even "asshole".
In the previous three DHs, every other word was either "fuck" or "shit" (or "fucking shit! Motherfucker!"). I can't for the life of me understand why it's OK to show a bloody murder, but uttering "shit" gives you an R rating.
I picked it up at Wal Mart for seven bucks, and it contained both the theatrical version and an "unrated" version.
The theatrical version was like one of the other three if you watched it on TV. The unrated version KICKED ASS! If they had submitted that one to the MPAA for rating, it would have been rated R for the language, and it would have been a box office hit.
For comic book movies I can understand it -- after all, they're really for kids (I'm not trolling but mod me down if you think I am; I'm old, damn it). If I was the age when I enjoyed Batman and Spiderman I'd really have been disappointed if I wouldn't have been able to see it.
Re:I can live with it (Score:3, Insightful)
Sex scenes are just more offensive and/or disturbing than violence when a family is involved, I can't explain it, its just the way it is
My theory is that this is because of our intense taboo against any kind of sexual activity between family members. We tend to view our family members as almost the opposite of a sexual being, so when we are exposed to sexual content around our family members, we get extremely uncomfortable. In my experience, this happens whether anyone in the room is a minor or not.
Watchmen was a film - not a movie (Score:3, Insightful)
As in it was a work of art - not a commercial for toys.
I thought it was perfect. Everything about it was gritty and sublime. Super heroes, super problems. An alternate timeline where superheroes destroy the VC in vietnam and with as much ignorance and lack of humanity as was present in our own timeline? Then as a result Nixon is hailed and re-elected 3 times? Wonderful social commentary on what could have been.
Watchmen was about a real scenario where people have super-powers, all the ignorance and corruption and pettiness mixed up with noble intentions, fear driven obsessions and moral paranoia which would affect our society if this was the norm.
You want a story that matches up with this and is kid safe? Watch The Incredibles. It has a similar timeline but leaves out all the confusing parts. Want something more adult but still sanitized.. watch that Will Smith movie (at least he's a drunk).
The Watchmen did very well in it's opening weekend when all the fans went out to see it. No it did not appeal to the masses... did it have to? There are a lot of films that don't convert into blockbusters but are considered to be incredible works that stand on their own merit (rather than how much money they bring in).
Pop culture can have it's heroes, just let those of us who aren't afraid to experience a different reality have a few of our own.
Re:WTF is the problem with the penis? (Score:5, Insightful)
In the meantime, you reminded me of a few more scenes that only the most irresponsible person could assume would be acceptable viewing for an 11 year old:
Cold-blooded murder of a pregnant woman
The entire child killer scene
Young Rorschach biting another boy's cheek off
Not to mention, how is a child supposed to understand the whole theme of Rorschach's mother being a prostitute?
How about Sally having gone back and willingly sleeping with the Comedian AFTER he tried to rape her (and knocked her around)? If a kid is old enough to understand the attempted-rape scene, but not really old enough to grasp just how fucked-up people can be, then that whole theme will confuse the hell out of him (or, worse, her) and maybe plant a terrible seed that will bloom into some warped perceptions.
Let's be honest with ourselves here... kids today, despite being coddled and sheltered from the outside world, are getting more and more fucked up. IMHO, that's because parents aren't paying enough, or the right kind of, attention to their kids. They assume, incorrectly, that there's nothing in their homes that can damage them, and that all the danger is outside, lurking the streets with a trench coat and a bag of lollipops. Meanwhile, they let their young children watch grown-up movies, TV shows, play M-rated video games, and surf the web unsupervised. Nobody wants to lord over their children the way we perceived that our parents smothered us... but, sorry, giving them free reign is a recipe for disaster. The new-age parenting techniques of constant praise and minimal discipline are failing. We've got 12 year old girls dressing like whores. If you let your pre-teen wear a pair of sweatpants with ANYTHING written across the seat, or a t-shirt that says "sexpot" or similar, you are a failure as a parent.
Of course, this is my opinion, and I'm sure I'll get modded down and probably a hundred responses of "my partner and I let our 6 year old use the computer unsupervised and she has never looked at porn and is a polite and independent little treasure!" Great, good luck with that in another 6 years.
Re:I can live with it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Thank God I'm not alone (Score:3, Insightful)
I saw the Watchman at the midnight showing when it came out, without having read the comic. I thought the movie was brilliant (Somewhat glad, due to Dr Manhattan that the IMAX showing was sold out, but it was no more offensive than when I went to Florence and saw the statue of David).
Frankly, sex and violence aside (both of which are super bad-ass and keww'), I quite enjoyed the ambiguity of who is a good guy/bad guy. Adrian nukes a bunch of cities in order to stop a nuclear war, and he's supposed to be the villain -- but is he any worse than Rorschach, who does the same stuff on a smaller scale? Dr Manhattan could have stopped the whole thing, but just sort of let it happen, and then at the end goes "oh yeah, I guess this makes sense..."
I'm really not sure that I can think of anything I've read or watched that was like it, except maybe 'Platoon,' which is probably the strangest comparison that anyone is going to make about this one.
Re:The invisible hand of the free market (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't like Porsches to be free market. I'd rather have a Porsche than a Dodge.
Re:I can live with it (Score:5, Insightful)
About half of us were also born with schlongs.
You may be overestimating the size of certain demographics here on /.
Likewise, among audience for the comic book movies.
Re:WTF is the problem with the penis? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of what you say I'd agree with. The movie isn't something I'd take my kids to see, though to be honest as soon as it's out on video they'll probably watch it at johnies house after the parents are asleep. Easily gained from a torrent download and watched specifically because you forbade it.
But kids getting worse? Really. Alarmist much? It was only in recent history that kids could even reasonably expect to be sheltered from seeing violence, sex, etc. like this in real life. And even now, the vast majority of children in the world are still exposed to things like this.
So I guess you mean children raised in the Western world and only compared to the last couple of generations. Perhaps since the last World War/Depression. So that would be the 50's onward. But wait, that was right around the Vietnam erra. An erra where news was not sanitized for the masses to protect us from being directly exposed to the gore, death, and destruction that war causes. Unless you locked your 9 year olds in the basement, they were plenty exposed to real violence.
So yeah, definitely not something I'd willingly expose a young child to, however this "We're all going to hell in a handbasket" routine is tired and completely unfounded.
Re:I can live with it (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I think the point is there really isn't anything super about them.. they are just people in costume. Also, why do you care if they show graphic sex but not graphic violence? People have sex... just like people hurt each other. Sex is a part of everyone's life... always excluding it seems more odd to me.
I can ask your same questions; why do we have to see the violence, why can't they just imply it? Should they just have implied rape, or was it ok that they showed that because it was violent enough for you? For me it was the violence that ruined it for me, because I wasn't expecting it.
Re:I can live with it (Score:5, Insightful)
Plenty of Europeans sacrificed their lives too and it's incredibly offensive to their descendants to imply that the wonderful Americans just turned up and saved us all while our ancestors just cowered in fear. I don't remember too many American pilots involved in the Battle of Britain for example. Now fuck off and stick your "OMG THE UNGRATEFUL YOOROES" up your ill-educated Yankee arse.
Re:I can live with it (Score:3, Insightful)
we don't even start to become sexual beings until the early teen years. (Later, in cultures that aren't so sex-saturated as the US.)
Spoken like someone who has *no clue* about sex. (Insert joke about "typicall /.'er here)
We are sexual beings from the day we're born. My daughter started masturbating in the bathtub before she was three years old. 99% of parents will tell you the same thing - infant boys get erections, and little girls figure out pretty early that it "feels good" when they touch their genitals. It's just nature.
Re:That difference is easy to explain... (Score:3, Insightful)
More likely, the grandparent has actually read Watchmen and the great-grandparent hasn't. I mean, seriously: how could anyone expect a movie based on that comic to be anything but brutal ?
Re:I can live with it (Score:3, Insightful)
We (Americans) live in a society where graphic violence is pretty much OK, but show breasts, a penis, or even (OMG!) sex between consenting adults and everyone gets their panties in a wad. Our values are so screwed up.
Re:I can live with it (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong emphasis (Score:2, Insightful)
Americans, Brits and the French massively overemphasize the west front in WWII, and tend to ignore the East Front. A more fair assessment is that the Soviet Union defeated Germany, with significant logistical and material support from the USA (the most important of which was trucks and food, IIRC). Germany was already losing against the Soviets by the time of the Normandy invasions.
I always hate this argument. (Score:5, Insightful)
I always hate the "X army did more than Y army" debate of WWII.
There was one overriding thing that dictated the outcome of WWII.
America's manufacturing centers were basically untouchable.
In the end, we simply made material faster than it could be destroyed.
Re:I can live with it (Score:4, Insightful)
You've never been outside the US then have you? England after watershed. The rest of Europe all the time. Nudity is kind of a fact of life everywhere but the censor happy US....
I would love to see a study on it, but it seems from looking around that there is a correlation between a willingness to censor sexual behavior and low birthrates. Places like the middle east that have lots of censorship also have very high birth rates, while places like Europe and Japan that put few limits on what is shown in movies or TV have very low birthrates. the U.S., which is in between but closer to Europe and Japan is also in between in fertility with a birthrate closer to Europe and Japan. Anyone ever considered that watching sex may not be conducive having sex?
Re:I can live with it (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, hiding info about sex isn't productive in my opinion; it doesn't reduce the temptation. Better to be open about it. I just wanted to point out that it's not hypocritical to draw a distinction between sex and violence.
Re:If Watchmen is the example I'm not impressed (Score:3, Insightful)
They could have, indeed. Why would they want to?
Schindler's List: Now with Less Sad Stuff!
American History X: Now with less nasty racism and no curb stomping scene!
Full Metal Jacket: Did they really have to use racial slurs against Asians? No, in this new imagining!
What a load of shit.
Re:I can live with it (Score:3, Insightful)
Some things are simply self-evident. Books that are mostly pictures with few words are, in a word, unserious. No matter how much people wish it to be otherwise. Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but to pretend otherwise is foolish.
All movies are trash because American Pie was trash. All art is trash because Andy Warhol was a hack. All of the internet is trash because 4Chan is trash.
Your example is more laughable, since you use one example in one form of media, and then claim a WHOLE genre is expression is trash based on some mythical a priori judgment, that you don't share.
Comic books are a means for expression, merely another means for expression, nothing more, nothing less. 90% of them are trash, but this is true for ALL media.
Re:I can live with it (Score:3, Insightful)
Cowered in fear? I'd say the brit's were going to hold that island of theirs down to the last man =)
However, calling someone a Yankee and disavowing our help in getting your troops off of that island is kind of cold. There were a few American pilots at the battle of britain, but what relevance does that have? How many British pilots were at Pearl Harbor?
A lot of Europeans died in World War 2. So did a lot of Americans, the primary difference in my eyes is that you were fighting for your way of life, your pride, your countries. We were there to help friends.
I'm fully aware of anti-american sentiment these days as an American citizen with many foreign friends, and much of it is justified. But when you call one person a Yankee in a derogatory fashion, you do us all the disservice, and we are not all ignorant.
agreed but what about fur and mating once a year (Score:1, Insightful)
I agree with your views mostly - the day we are able to (individually, socially impossible) go around without clothes, see another woman (or man) naked, but not get sexually aroused, that day will be great. BUT that is extremely difficult and dangerous too. Mahatma Gandhi used to recommend something like this for people known to have integrity, whom he trusted had the inner ability to stand such temptation.
(Hint: Dont even think of trying this - irreparable damage will almost surely result in multiple disastrous ways.)
But, there is a counterpoint: Darwin proved that man evolved from animals. Nature gave the restless thoughtless minds hair and fur and colorful coats, but man being intelligent has not much hair. Probably expected to be intelligent and evolved enough to be clothed everywhere except in solitude, that too for a short time (bath, toilet). Nature schedules specific mating seasons for most species, but man is at the mercy of his weak will while fighting the urge throughout the year. Man can control - turn off or turn on his urge by mild suggestion - and that is the dangerous aspect. Seduction is easy in humans as compared to animals. Manipulative beliefs can make males harbor strong desires to "satisfy the urge whenever possible". That's not how animals are, and not how Nature probably expected higher beings to behave.
So clothes are a pretty good thing - they're, as incredible as it may sound, *natural*.
Animals and birds have fur, hair, scales, thick skin and mating seasons.
Corporate America has studied many human societies and zeroed in on a formula to convert your reproductive systems into a form of crack that you have to carry around with you without choice.
Don't cut them out yet!
You'll grow tits and you can't fix/screw them back again.
But handle this sex thing like nature does - once per year in mating season. Not more.
and live a relatively doubt-free/worry-free life.
It's this crucial statistic - once a year - that everyone in the media skips - they need you to screw and get into trouble - to sustain profitable business models.
This is also why the Church does not like Darwin - evolution implies sex is a much lesser crime - so they cannot taint you with eternal sin - and at the same time, they cannot urge you to do more because nature, again, says "once a year only".
Re:That difference is easy to explain... (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed, I still cannot explain why all of the Star Wars movies except for Episode III are rated PG, despite depicting a war where thousands were killed (what, you think those Deathstars were empty when they exploded?). Yeah, there was no blood, and the lead role was fighting for good, but that doesen't make it any less meaningful.
Dark Knight pushed the PG-13 rating to an entirely new level that I've never seen before - it was almost as violent as Watchmen. If they're going to give movies like Dark Knight a pass for PG-13, then it's obvious to me where the R-rating for movies has gone. What's the point of getting an R-rating if it automatically removes half your audience, and doesn't add much intensity?
And what about the sex and nudity you get to sell with an R-rated movie? It's kinda worthless in the age of the internet. It's even more worthless when you produce a steaming pile of crap that was the Watchmen sex scene.
Re:I can live with it (Score:3, Insightful)