In the recent past I was loafing around the city centre when I found myself in the vicinity of the Irish Film Institute. Deciding to check what was on, I wondered in to look at the timetable, absent-mindedly taking a piece of paper that was handed to me by someone outside, assuming that it was some kind of flyer. But inside the time-table told me that the IFI were showing "Deep Throat" that evening. The leaflet was revealed as a document written by feminists condemning the showing, and the people outside who handed it to me were picketers.
It was disturbing to find myself cast as the kind of person who might go to see "Deep Throat", but I was more struck by something else. The leaflet was written from a feminist anti-pornography perspective, and while the arguments might have seemed a bit shrill and (maybe) over-stated, they articulated an old-school feminist argument against pornography that has a long lineage. But what really struck me was how this is a battle that anti-porn feminists have lost, irrespective of whether their arguments are objectively correct or not. Why picket the IFI for showing "Deep Throat", given what is available in any video library, or when half naked non-celebrities stare down from from the covers of a thousand bloke magazines? The leaflet seemed like a document from a bygone era when the horse had yet to bolt, where sexually exploitative images of women were not yet the wallpaper of society.
More recently I had another encounter with the changing tenor of our times, on an internet forum based around indie music and culture. Some guy had posted an image reproduced from the Suicide Girls website, and a debate then ensued as to whether this was the kind of thing that should not be allowed by moderation guidelines. It was interesting how generally non-plussed by the image most people were; I basically ended up looking like a crank for hardlinedly arguing that that kind of image has no place on a tweefuckers website based around Belle & Sebastian fandom.
So what's my point? Not that I'm right and they're wrong (that goes without saying), but more that the world has changed and I've not changed with it. Cue grumbling about the degenerate and depoliticised nature of young people today... it's all downhill till I retire, let me tell you.
I was going to link to the discussion in question, but they've gone and deleted the image, so I reckon I will leave them both to your imagination.
3 comments:
I agree. I remember going round town with DHDC years ago buying porn for some essay she was writing. And not being terribly shocked due to the years and years of Cosmo and Marie Claire covers, which are all about FEMINISM.
And of course, going round to Mac's house to have a bath, after which he would practically force me to look under the bed to find his porn stache. So we could be really modern and he could lend it to me.
God, we were very louche back then, weren't we!
Deep Throat is fairly cut-and-dried, in that Linda Lovelace has repeatedly said that she was forced into it by the Mob (the wikipedia page also mentions that a fair percentage of the $600 million box office is probably the Mafia bumping up the unregulated receipts for laundering purposes).
That said, it is a cultural icon, I would in the abstract be interested in seeing it, though possibly I'd get most of the benefit from the recent documentary (which would be why they were showing the original).
I remember someone at some point about 10-15 years ago seeing a version of it made into an ascii movie, (like these, but smaller, about 25x80), which was great for "D'yer remember when he was trying to take the banana off the other lad? .... Oh right, Ted."
SuicideGirls is more awkward, because with the "made by girls for girls, no c0cks please" angle, you either have to argue that people are capable of acting against their best wishes without realising it, which the kids of today REALLY don't like to hear, or you just look like a prude.
Out of interest, would you have been as against it in the case where someone on the board was posting nuddy pictures of themselves? It wasn't just "think of the children!", I assume?
My new fear is that when I find myself next down in STRING FELL OWS the lovely ladies will all be fully clothed in duffle coats and expect me to pay over money to hear their opinions on "The Life Pursuit"
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