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Be offended, be very offended

Stoss — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 18:26:43 +0000

30 Rock aired its Season 5 opener last week and it contained within it a 15 second throw-away joke about having sexual intercourse with your wife when she is asleep. The Internet lit up with activists, rape care workers and apparently anyone who knows how to type, expressing their disgust at such an offensive joke and how horrible Tina Fey is for writing it and NBC is for airing it.

Now, I am not surprised about that. What I am surprised by is some of the debates I have read. In one of the debate essentially a Care Worker for rape victims argued that his free speech allowed him to call for boycotts, apologies, and ultimately eradication of something if he doesn’t agree with it.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the idea of free speech is not to limit the availability of potentially offensive things from existence. It is to understand that things exist which you may not agree with. Freedom is choosing what to agree with and what not to. And as long as no one is forcing you against your will to change your opinion, your freedom is unaffected.

Eradicating everything that has the potential to be offensive is absurd! The world would be pretty empty if we removed anything that potentially could offend people.

I am not saying the joke isn’t offensive and isn’t hurtful to a significant group of rape victims and their friends and relatives, but what I am saying is that that doesn’t mean the joke shouldn’t exist.

Recently some American religious fundamentalists decided that burning a Qur’an might be a fun thing to do. And almost everyone up to and including the President of the United States condemned it. I say almost, because one particularly public figure actually made the most sane argument of all:

In a strange way I’m here to defend his right to do that. I happen to think that it is distasteful. … But the First Amendment protects everybody, and you can’t say that we’re going to apply the First Amendment to only those cases where we are in agreement. … If you want to be able to say what you want to say when the time comes that you want to say it, you have to defend others no matter how much you disagree with them - Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City

It is exactly what should have been said of the situation. Finding something disgusting is not a reason for it not to exist. Potentially putting lives at risk is not a reason to not do something. You know what else puts people’s lives at risk? A war in Afghanistan…

Similarly, opposing a mosque being built near the former World Trade Center site because it happened to be Muslims who were responsible for the attacks is like banning black trench coats in Highschools because the Columbine Attackers happened to wear them. It might be considered sympathetic and kind for the church leader to abandon their plans, but it certainly isn’t a necessity.

Without sounding cliché: Can’t we all just get along?

Sometimes there is a compromise. Like censoring arbitrary swear words on shows like ‘The Late Late Show’ which airs at 12:30am! But as far as I am concerned, if you are up at that time of the night and offended, go to fucking bed! I love how sitcoms now use douchebag like it’s a definite article, but we still can’t get over fuck and shit. Who decided a noun referring to a piece of cleaning equipment is somehow less offensive than a synonym for sex and a noun meaning feces? Apparently some douchebag.

If you don’t like 30 Rock, don’t watch it (Similar to my unalterable hatred of the ridiculous waste of 22 minutes an episode that is ‘Two and Half Men’). If you don’t think burning the Qur’an is productive, don’t burn one. But don’t, whatever you do, tell me I can’t watch 30 Rock because you find its content offensive, or tell me that I cannot destroy any object I own, regardless of the meaning it may or may not have to you or someone else, no matter how distasteful or disgusting you find my preferences.

And if you hate the word fuck for some reason other than somehow society is convinced that the devil spawned the word himself, don’t use it.

V is for “Anna Paquin is hot”

Stoss — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:05:18 +0000

As recommended by a friend and source of always different and enjoyable reading/viewing material, I recently started watching “True Blood”. For those of you that haven’t seen it, I will try not to issue too many spoilers, at least none that a pre-pubescent goth freak couldn’t grasp about 12.5 minutes into the first episode.

The show overall is enjoyable. I can willing suspend my belief that in this world vampires exist and Anna Paquin can read thoughts as a relatively good plot device, between her periodically losing her fake southern drawl that is. But, I do have to admit Mel Gibson did a better job using such a talent to his benefit, I mean banging Helen Hunt & Marissa Tomei in one movie? Good for him…. I digress…

A few things I find interesting:

For a religious small town in New Orleans, these people not only have crazy amounts of sex, the sex itself is more wild and elaborate than most Private releases. However that isn’t the disturbing part. what disturbs me is that before many of these sexcapades that would make Jenna Haze blush, they make it very clear to each other that they have had plenty of sex ,with plenty of people, and sometimes even state that it was just earlier that day. In fact, when our heroin Anna Paquin finally gives up her cherry, in what can only be described as the best display of breasts on television in 2008, she feels it necessary to scream it out loud… to a bar full of people… where she works… which the guy she just went on a date with a couple nights before owns…The few days after she discovered two loved one’s murdered bodies… But,hell, she had great hooters though, eh?

And then there is Jason, the brother, who I can only picture as an homage to Ellis’ Patrick Bateman, who fucks a girl doggy style behind a bar, while covered in garbage. I am all for adventure, and exhibition… but seriously? I am pretty sure I saw his truck in the background of the shot, it was 20 yard away… trade-offs, man, trade-offs…

Now, for a country that has been fighting the war on drugs so long that the girls they initially were targeting now have more problem with their nipples touching the ground, than with excessive marijuana use, they certainly are promoting the hell out of “V” (aka Vampire Blood). This apparently is a miracle drug! It saves a person’s life by miraculously healing her and giving her a dog’s smell and a bat’s hearing, then in one episode it acts like Viagra on Ecstasy and pumps up a guys cock in the most fake erection through the pants seen in TV history, and in the very next show it makes fireworks shoot of some guest star girl’s tits. Well, truth be told I see fireworks every time I see tits too, that has less to do with drugs… It also has this magical power of making you fuck up everything in your life. But then again, don’t all drugs? Don’t do drugs kids.

The other thing that is interesting about this town is that everyone seems to have a job (or 2) and they never need to go. I think the phrase “ isn’t coming in today” is uttered once per episode. But, I mean I guess there are more important things to do, like getting arrested for every girl you sleep with dying, but then getting let go after the cliffhanger, or trot around town with a vampire who you have more of a Ross/Rachel relationship with than me and my constant love/hate affair with Tostitos.

Now, what is missing from this review? Oh yeah, the VAMPIRES! For a show that has a premise of vampires, they are really nothing but a subplot and allusion to the black/white race issues of the southern US. It isn’t even an allusion, actually. It is referenced in the damn title sequence!

The references to this are not poetic and are not subtext-ed at all. The characters bringing up segregated bars, a main character comments, after her daughter notes how white a vampire is, “No honey, we’re white”. The continuous assertion that a “few bad apples are making all vampires look bad” and even the utterance that once you go vampire you never go back (Doesn’t really have the same ring to it, does it?)… Do they really need to spell this out anymore?

In the end, entertaining. Not my favourite show, but I find myself caring a little bit for what happens, and when sitting alone in a hotel it makes for good watching… wait, did you just say there is porn on the Internet? umm… bye…

In the Beginning…

Stoss — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 20:50:12 +0000

Today I had an Earth-shattering revelation. I have discovered who God is…
Yes, after much thought and analysis I have deciphered the age old mystery that has plagued mankind and religious sects for all eternity.

God is Asian People.

Don’t believe me? Think about it. God is Omnipresent right? Well… Asians are everywhere! There are a couple billion in Asia alone! They are now a majority in TO and have ownership of convenience stores on every corner…

Also God is Omnipotent.. Well Asians are known to be smarter than us. They have a better education system, make better cars, electronics, and anyone that can make Communism work, must have a good head on their shoulders.

Also, they invented Godzilla. Now it stands to reason that Godzilla is a monster that eats Gods. And in the movies, he eats Asians. hmmm….. maybe Godzilla movies were meant as a hint to us whiter skinned folks.

Anyway, now that I am sure I offended all Asians, all religions and probably a few God eating monsters, I am going to end this blog.