The past two nights I've watched two movies:
The Price of Pleasure and
The Constant Gardener. They were both pretty depressing but at the same time thought provoking. Here are some of my thoughts:
The price of pleasure was about pornography and it's impacts. The aim of the documentary was not to provide a bias or be preachy, but rather its aim is just to get people talking about it, something we usually do not do, no more than the "porn is bad" or "I like/watch porn." The movie included a lot of quotes from porn "users," producers, and actresses. It described a study done to analyze some of the top rented flicks - from the violence in it to racial content. I wouldn't have guessed this but about 90% of the films they analyzed had violent content. (Though I don't know their working definition of violence.) The movie included several porn clips as well, and nothing out of the ordinary, as far as I can tell. It was certainly interesting to see it removed from its normal context.
Seeing the clips out of context, it was even more clear how big a role male dominance is in the scenarios of standard porn. The movie pointed out that when sex is attached to these socially unacceptable (politically incorrect) ideas they can be extremely overt and we don't seem to care as much or at all. The male dominance is one facet, but race (gendered) is also a factor. Extremely over-sexualized black men, docile Asian women, demanding white men, etc., the standard racial stereotypes, but on steroids and very obviously tied to gender. These politically incorrect ideas are overlooked and more acceptable in porn. Why is that?
To me the most interesting phenomenon is how the concept of "normal" is completely altered by watching pornography. For many men*, porn (videos and magazines) is one of the first and perhaps only source for information on sex and relationships. (*I say men here because they are the overwhelming majority of porn consumers.) How then will they ever develop a frame of reference on sex outside of that? In other words, their views on sex are created by the world of porn, and these ideas are too often brought into the world of the bedroom.
With no anchor on normality outside of porn, this fundamentally changes what will register as violence, or as rape, in a man's mind.
I do not blame the men who watch porn. Though I think there are healthy alternatives to using porn (like not using it), I find it hard to place blame on the individual men. How so? I think it has something to do with how the concept of normal is altered - it's not conscious. They're not thinking "I'd like to see violent porn and change my perception of violence and then act violently toward my significant other." Furthermore, demonizing or shaming men for doing this would tend to make them more resistant to change. So, though I do not think these individuals are to blame,
I do think they are the ones who need to change. Once they realize that their views of sex and relationships are affected by porn, they should question that.
It is their responsibility as a part of an intimate relationship to be aware of their ideas of sex and what they bring to that relationship.
And in a free market system where we are not allowed to blame a company for producing porn, I believe we shouldn't put the responsibility on them either, i.e. ask them to censor themselves. I do think it is the responsibility of individuals to have control over themselves.
Men need to find a masculinity that is not derived from a dominance over women, and their free market demand should thus requisite less supply.
OH, and HERE'S the bibliography. (It's a PDF file from the Price of Pleasure website.) (There's a lot else at the website, including a trailer and interview w/ Noam Chomsky.)
Ok, well I've been rambling a bit more than I thought I would so I'll come back to the other movie another time.
Let me know what you think.
Klein built upon arguments presented at her main lecture last night (I was unable to attend) and in her book, Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Her project is to promote a counter-narrative to the unquestioned neoliberal responses to disasters. Lately, see: 9/11, Katrina, and the bailout "plan." The government has responded to these catastrophes by capitalizing on public shock and fear to push an agenda (war in Iraq/Patriot Act, racism/commercialization of NOLA/overlooking of basic infrastructure problems, free reins with $700B). Additionally, we haven't done a good job at remembering history as it happened either. Thus, we're shocked at the shock...and during this our freedoms are stolen right out from under us, without question.
