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Thursday, January 25, 2007

Hey, Charles! You Pissed off the Concerned Women!

posted by on January 25 at 11:58 AM

Well played, my friend. Well played:

A spokeswoman for America’s largest conservative women’s public policy organization says the Sundance Film Festival’s premiere of a sanitized documentary on bestiality and a movie featuring a sexual assault on a 12-year-old may have earned the popular film showcase a new title — the “Sundance sleaze festival.”

Jan LaRue, chief legal counsel for Concerned Women for America (CWA) … says another movie being premiered, the documentary Zoo, tries to make the serious issue of bestiality — which is illegal in many parts of the United States — “artistic.”

“I doubt that either one of these films deals with the reality of the subject, which would include all of the harms to the individual and to society,” LaRue says. She feels the effort to shock people with sexual exposure in movies works hand in hand with the porn industry’s desire to achieve mainstream affirmation.

“This is part of a desensitization process, when you can get movies like the two I just mentioned premiered at a legitimate film festival,” the CWA official contends. And were it not for the shock value, she adds, such movies as these would not merit the passing grade of even a high school drama teacher — which she believes is why they end up at a forum like Sundance.

That kind of shock value, as presented in films such as Hounddog and Zoo, may actually support the efforts of the porn industry to legitimize deviant sexual behavior, LaRue warns. While Zoo features no graphic scenes, she admits, she believes the film — with its humanization of its subculture subjects and its artistic scenery — still has a subtle but very harmful effect on audiences.

According to the CWA attorney and pro-family activist, what the film festival is doing with movies like these is taking the worst parts of human behavior and desensitizing the general population to them. Showing these kinds of films at Sundance under the guise of artistic freedom, she insists, only serves to move American culture in a perverse and dangerous direction.

When one can get movies like Hounddog and Zoo screened at a legitimate, even prestigious and well-known event like Sundance, “you’ve taken society further down the slippery slope,” LaRue asserts. And American society as a whole, she suggests, will be forced to pay the price.

RSS icon Comments

1

Damn you Charles and your artistic scenery!

Posted by elswinger | January 25, 2007 12:08 PM
2

Finally the slippery slope is nearly complete!! Not only can I marry my boy friend but now I can marry my dog too!!! And hey! I can take my dog out dancing with me at the Cuff !!!

Posted by Andrew | January 25, 2007 12:12 PM
3

Oh Charles! I'm so happy for you!

Posted by Ari Spool | January 25, 2007 12:13 PM
4

The porn industry is trying to go mainstream? Who knew?

Posted by Monti | January 25, 2007 12:20 PM
5

I like how this bitch "believes" stuff rather than "know" it.

Posted by elswinger | January 25, 2007 12:20 PM
6

It will be glorious day when Concerned Women stop annoying the rest of us with their unasked-for concern.

Someone needs to slip some Buspar in their coffee.

Go Charles! \m/

Posted by Ann | January 25, 2007 12:21 PM
7

“I doubt that either one of these films deals with the reality of the subject, which would include all of the harms to the individual and to society,” LaRue says.

So she hasn't seen them. I'm not surprised because these types never see what they boycott and protest, but that still makes my blood boil.

It probably wouldn't matter if they did actually see these films. They've made up their minds and would see only what they already think.

Posted by Matt from Denver | January 25, 2007 12:21 PM
8

folks, can't you see? she's just, like, "concerned" with defending the "prestige" and "legitimacy" of a "well-known event" like Sundance. we should be thanking her for, um, her very genuine and well-intentioned concern.

Posted by bing | January 25, 2007 12:36 PM
9

Does "American society as a whole will [...] pay the price" mean these movies will be showing at a theater near me soon? What are we talking about here, nine bucks? I can live with that.

Posted by Fnarf | January 25, 2007 1:27 PM
10

If you're going to bitch about a movie, at least watch it first. Holy shit what a biatch.

Posted by seattle98104 | January 25, 2007 1:32 PM
11

is jan larue an alter ego of chi chi larue? it is ODD you never see them together...

Posted by michael strangeways | January 25, 2007 1:47 PM
12

Charles, you lucky bastard! If CWA condemned me in a press release, I would send it to all my friends and family with tremendous pride. You've really made it.

Posted by Gitai | January 25, 2007 2:40 PM
13

We're going down a slippery slope, eh? Well, it's better than a slippery chute, which, if perforated, can KILL you.

Posted by him | January 25, 2007 2:47 PM
14

I doubt that either one of these films deals with the reality of the subject, which would include all of the harms to the individual and to society

What is the point of making a movie about child rape (unless it's kiddie porn), if it doesn't deal "with the reality of the subject" including "the harms to the individual and to society." It's this head-in-the-sand mentality toward sexual abuse that perpetuates the problem and shames the victims. Fuck right wingers.

Posted by keshmeshi | January 25, 2007 3:26 PM
15

The only part that pisses me off here is her complaining about the "humanization of its subculture subjects." A person isn't a legitimate human being if he also happens to have an abnormal fetish? Maybe we should start some concentration camps to send all the paraphiliacs off to?

Posted by KS | January 25, 2007 4:57 PM
16

The joke is on her. "Zoo" has been getting great reviews, "Hounddog" terrible ones. Guess which film is less graphic than the other? (I haven't seen either, but I did interview Devor last fall & can't wait to see "Zoo.")

Posted by Kathy Fennessy | January 25, 2007 10:28 PM

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