So, Son Austen – just now coming to the age of 15 — told me that he wanted to see “Hot Tub Time Machine” – because he’d heard that it was pretty funny. I should have known better: after all, we had just seen “She’s Out of My League.” Both movies specialized in the “F” word; nudity and insipid sex (can there be such a thing?); sex talk; and, what I have to describe as: anti-family values.
Hollyweird’s assemblage of characters that are “supposed” to function as family – don’t display any comprehension of what values and behaviors truly carry families through time (even though there is a time machine in ‘HTTM’): instead – characters consistently insult each other, and, are generally cruel to one another…and THIS is how I believe Hollyweird has facilitated the destruction of the fragile fabric that was once Mom, apple pie and Chevrolet — Hollyweird seems to delight in pandering to nihilism and human absurdity.
Should any teenager (this side of Freud) watch his mother having sex with, well, in ‘HTTM’ the fellow ended up being his father – but aside from growing up in a “Dances with Wolves” teepee – is this really an image (or value) that we should ingrain in a generation of sexually aware adolescents?!
Should bowlers start picking nonsensical fights with bowlers in the neighboring alley — as depicted in “SOML”? It still seems to me (SEE a post-Superbowl essay) that Hollweird is trying to fuel the legal profession – by consistently proffering nonsense on the silver screen that would engender lawsuits in the here-and-now.
Speaking of the here-and-now, I heard reports of a study that suggested that “children” who view R-rated sex and violence at too early an age — are predisposed to start drinking alcohol earlier and heavier than those “children” shielded from such films. I tried to keep Tyler away from “Saw”; “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”; “Friday the 13th”; “Halloween” etc., but it might have simply been securing a copy of “Grand Theft Auto” at-such-a-young-age. To be sure (SEE earlier essays) – I was slow-to-the-punch – not realizing that Tyler interfaced with so many of his peers who were also as unsupervised as he was (though I really did try!).
So now I wonder about Austen – I mean, he also “conned” me into taking him to “The Hangover” (which my readers know I loved until the final 2 stills on the missing camera) – and whether or not all the sex and violence he’s been exposed to will undermine his potentiality (can we sue Hollywood in a monstrous class-action suit for their mindless destruction of values and standards?).
I guess I’m living-in-the-past, thinking that an “R” rating these days means some cursing and brief nudity (instead of the soft-core porn and indecency to everything sacred that it seems to have become). And the Tipper Gore types that I thought were serving on the Board of Censors – are probably so “beaten down” by the constant stream-of-shit spewing forth from Hollywood – that they can’t even make the appropriate decisions for the viewing public.
Hollyweird! You are outta control, and I can only hope that Karma’s gonna gitcha – when all roads come undone.