Right wing seeks sexless Ice Age

Excerpt from the
S F BAY GUARDIAN,
29 December 2004:

Baby, it's cold inside the theater:

Despite the coming of Kinsey and company,
sex was paltry,
ominous,
and perverse
at the movies.

[ http://www.sfbg.com/39/13/cover_ae04_sex.html ]

By Dennis Harvey
©2004 SF Bay Guardian
[..... ]
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[ Dennis Harvey's view of
possible "new Ice Age" in Hollywood,
where weak "liberals" can easily be cowed by
"the hyperempowered far right" : ]


Clearly, what the screen needs now is more love, sweet love.

But there's a good chance the medium is headed
toward a new Ice Age instead.

The hysteria directed toward Janet Jackson's "accidental" wardrobe malfunction suggested a nation in aggressive denial of its own hearty prurience. Expect private urges to become more publicly excoriated in the immediate future.

Robert Knight of the Culture and Family Institute in Washington, D.C., laid out the hyperempowered far right's game plan in plain terms in a November [2004] Washington Post article: "Just as Reagan was not content to contain communism but announced a rollback, pro-family organizations are not content to protest the latest outrage anymore, but will seek legislation and will punish sponsors of lewd entertainment."

It's a scary prospect. "Liberal" Hollywood quails easily – boycotts and potential box-office downturns might easily provoke heightened self-censorship. And that dirty little economic secret, the massively money-making U.S. porn industry, could conceivably get "legislated" back into the criminal underground from which it sprang.

The other night I watched an obscure 1971 Canadian movie, Loving and Laughing. Set largely at a hippie commune, it has an attractive cast of English-speaking Quebecois happily romping clothed and un- through a farcical plot whose escapist point is nothing more (or less) serious than "Life is short – enjoy each other." Both sexes go full-frontal fairly often, though nothing more daring than lighthearted soft-core simulation occurs. Most striking was the general aura of free-love euphoria, celebratory rather than smirking, not exclusive of romantic love in the least.

This cultural antique, then an ordinary drive-in release, couldn't possibly be made in our epoch. One fears 2004's sex-deprived cinema was just an early frost. A long, hard winter may lie ahead.

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©2004 SF Bay Guardian
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P.S. from SUN:


NUDOPHOBIA and breastphobia,
IndyBay links:
....
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/09/1697160.php
(30 September 2004)
.....
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/10/1697972.php
( 05 October 2004)
......
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/11/1704993.php
(12 November 2004 )
......................
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/12/1708219.php
( 03 December 2004 )
...
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/01/1712189.php
( Georgia nudophobes, 1 January 2005 )
.........
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