I came to an interesting revelation today while I was naked in the the shower: nudity isn't the last straw for obscenity. Instead, it's actually much, much worse. We just simply don't think about it because we assume it'll never happen (our parents all thought the same thing), but as shows like Fear Factor have proven to us, nothing is too disgusting for America.
We have an interesting road ahead of us that is filled with poop, rape, incest, and death.
... and you thought that naughty language and boobies were the worst of it. Let's examine history to see why.
(continued)As a nation, we're addicted to novelty— so much, in fact, that we've already started mainlining it. Every decade is a new fashion, a new music, a new style, and a new form of obscenity. On the latter, it seems that a particular trend has developed: the most heavily censored, most "obscene" things are the things that are most natural to being human.
Some of the first black and white pictures were about violent gangsters doing violent things on innocent people, even though actual criminal violence is a rarity among humans in the western world. Yet, it was one of the the most permissible things to show in celluloid. Early cartoons are exceptionally violent but exceptionally unlikely; hence, we seemed to be okay with them— even though they were inaccurate depictions of humanity. After all, who wants to see on-screen what happens every day?
So, violence is okay, but say naughty words and instantly the censorship is increased. Yet, almost everyone, at some point their lives, will use naughty language, but the overwhelming majority of people will never shoot, stab, or kill someone. Likewise, we can't show sexual genitalia— even though
everyone is born with them. Show sex, and you're instantly in the R or even X (now NC-17) rating— even though
everyone that is living is a byproduct of sex. Pretty much everyone has sex in some form or another, and still it's one of the most taboo things to show on television or in movies.
On the other hand, there is a constant trend toward decensorship in multiple realms. It's now perfectly fine to say the word
bitch on national television, and we have violence as well as mild sex on television. The
Saw movies and
Hostel franchises are becoming increasingly violent, while the sex is becoming raunchier, younger, and more overt. What was once X-rated is now a mere R.
... but what's next? We're still in relatively virgin territory when it comes to poop, for example, because the FCC goes batshit insane on bodily function references. Rape, as we saw with Dakota Fanning, is apparently an emerging and touchy subject. We saw incest in
Cruel Intentions and a handful of others.
Gay sexuality, as far as I know, has only involved kissing and vague references; however, it's only a matter of time before the soap operas (and their female viewers), desperate for novelty, end up resorting to two hot guys getting on the good foot and doing the bad thing. I mean, I've heard that they've already tapped the horribly implausible vampire story line, so you know it's gotta be getting hard.
Finally, we have yet to see televised death. Nope. No death. Though, I'm sure that'll be there eventually, only because as of today, we think it's so unlikely to happen. It takes practically no imagination to look back at Jim Crow 1930s and realize that the Whites back then could never imagine happy interracial couples, people eating pig tongues covered in flies, or even successful gay guys making fashion decisions on television. Movies like
Hostel and
Sin City were unimaginable, and they probably would have rioted over
Rent,
Brokeback Mountain, and/or
Crash.
So, believe it or not, death is around the corner. Feces and urine are up there too, as we already see urine when normally depicting extreme fear or embarrassing moments. Feces will soon follow, but since it's #2 in line, it's had to remain off screen for the time being. We're slowly getting into rape, and it's mostly conveyed in an artistic series of camera shots as opposed to overtly depicted. Naturally, that will change, too— much like
The Departed depicts some of the most brutal murders by simply shooting dead on, as if the audience were there witnessing it.
Kind of makes obsessing over a boob at the superbowl seem trivial, doesn't it?
Welcome to the future. You might consider printing this page out so that 50 years from now, when you've turned into your mother or father in response to "the [literal] shit that kids these days are watching on tv," you'll think back to me and the once-free internet and go, "oh wow, that Kurt must have been psychic or something." After that, you'll jump start your ancient CD or mp3 player just so that you can listen to the light sounds of Hip Hop, which will doubtlessly be classified as oldies by then.
Weird, huh?
Cheers.
