InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Who do you love? ME ME ME"

babydraco (babydraco) wrote,
@ 2009-10-10 19:45:00

Roman Polanski:

A lot of Hollywood types are arguing that he should be treated differently, excused, because he's a Great Artist, he survived the Holocaust and his pregnant wife was brutally murdered by a gang of crazies. But they seem to miss the point, that he was already given special consideration due to those special circumstances. His original sentence was that he was to pay the girl's family for their suffering. I think most people convicted of rape would love to get off so easily in court. But instead, he flees the country, and now he's in as much trouble for running away as he was for raping a 13 year old girl. Even in Hollywood, no one should be allowed two second chances for something like that.

Speaking of things like that, the "why didn't Mackenzie Phillip's father pick her much prettier sister" jokes are really cruel and tasteless. It's not always about who is prettier, maybe it was *because* she wasn't the prettiest one-more easily manipulated, more open to victimization... Anyway, anyone who knows about The Mamas and Papas knows that John was not such a great guy to begin with, one of his sons even came out and said "I hated my dad".

I'm ticked off that Southland was cancelled before their second season even started. It would've been better just to cancell it at the end of last season and not get everyone's hopes up. And why were they cancelled? It wasn't because of low ratings, or poor reviews, it was a great success. They were cancelled because the network decided that it was not family friendly enough to be a lead in to the new Jay Leno show at ten p.m.

Uh...what? But nine or ten p.m is when all the more mature shows are scheduled, so won't this mean they'll have to shuffle the entire schedule now? I know Southland is a little graphic but to dump a wonderful show that had a chance of being a big success, in order to placate an aging talk show host who wants to drag his dated act out for a few more years?

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threeoranges
2009-10-11 08:03 am UTC (link)

Agree 100% on Polanski: it really is about how he acted all "PERSECUTED! I'm being PERSECUTED!" when the rest of the world was, "Dude, you did a really shitty thing, now deal with the fallout properly".

About the Mackenzie Phillips thing - "it's not always about who is prettier" - right on. It's not about physical attraction, it's about finding a weakness and exploiting it. There's a documentary I plan to watch eventually called CHOSEN, where the victims of child abuse in boarding schools talk about the process of being "groomed". It does sound like abusers have a sixth sense on this, letting them identify which of the children will be too isolated or frightened to "tell".

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babydraco
2009-10-12 01:06 am UTC (link)

I mean, a pretty person might find themselves abused too but there'd have to be some other easily exploitable issue involved. And in the kind of setting where the abuser has the leisure to pick and choose victims, they are definitely more likely to reach for the low hanging fruit. One of the people I know who was abused by her middle school teacher, she wasn't anything more than average looking, he got to her by pulling the "you're so smart, you're my favorite student" schtick (sometimes when I regret not working harder in school, I think about how he always picked the best female student in the class-being a bad student in that case was a blessing).

But OMG is that creepy, when someone confesses that they had semi non con incest with their famous dad, and the first response of a lot of people is to make jokes about how her father obviously has bad taste in young girls.

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threeoranges
2009-10-12 10:22 am UTC (link)

sometimes when I regret not working harder in school, I think about how he always picked the best female student in the class - being a bad student in that case was a blessing.

That is a horrifying thought, that academic success in your school would come with a side-effect like that. (Please tell me this guy got caught and charged and put away?)

But OMG is that creepy, when someone confesses that they had semi non con incest with their famous dad, and the first response of a lot of people is to make jokes about how her father obviously has bad taste in young girls.

I think many many people, when faced with a choice of making a bland sympathetic comment or a cool edgy provocative statement, will go for the latter. "It's fine as long as it makes people react" is the whole point of modern art, right?

I once remember getting into a internet debate-slash-war when I disagreed on the taste of 9/11 jokes. The opposition viewpoint was, basically, "I'm allowed to laugh at what I want to laugh at, and don't you go judging me for it!" So bring issues of taste into it, and you'll find these people pulling the "free speech" argument to justify their callousness. (Not that the "good taste" argument has much to recommend it on logical grounds - it being quite arbitrary in the last analysis - but still, I think it's fair to say that if people died in a horrible way you shouldn't make jokes about that, or at least not until every single person who was emotionally affected by said atrocity is six feet under.)

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sorry, I don't know where I've been the past few days

babydraco
2009-10-14 11:46 pm UTC (link)

That is a horrifying thought, that academic success in your school would come with a side-effect like that. (Please tell me this guy got caught and charged and put away?)

Unfortunately, I can't use it as an excuse for being a bad student-I just was, it's only later that I realized that it was the only time my sheer abject failure at academics had been a good thing. Anyway, he did get caught when I was in eighth grade, and charged with a whole bunch of stuff but he was never convicted because like most small rural towns, this place is more corrupt than Prohibition Era Chicago and the LAPD combined.

I think many many people, when faced with a choice of making a bland sympathetic comment or a cool edgy provocative statement, will go for the latter. "It's fine as long as it makes people react" is the whole point of modern art, right?

Well, to be honest, it is a very awkward situation, yeah. And some people don't believe her, because she's so messed up already, and people think that just because he was a hippie, he was a nice guy or something.

but still, I think it's fair to say that if people died in a horrible way you shouldn't make jokes about that, or at least not until every single person who was emotionally affected by said atrocity is six feet under.)

Oh yeah. Or at least, until the people who suffered the most from it feel comfortable making jokes about it. And even then, they're really the only ones allowed to do it.

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