Tagged “Blog & Mablog”

“Gritty Realism”

Gritty Realism

‘To the extent that women have begun to appear in this shooter world, they do so as caricatures — with cartoonishly erotic bodies. The characteristic pose of Laura Croft from Eidos’s Tomb Raider is a straight-on view of her scowling face, skinny waist, pneumatic breasts, and two huge guns that she’s aiming directly at you. Like other female shooter games, such as Perfect Dark (Nintendo, 1999) and ONI (Bungie, 1999), the Tomb Raider series wants us to see the incredible buns and boobs, connected by a fragile Barbie waist, in motion’ (Lawrence and Jewett, The Myth of the American Superhero, p. 217).
Douglas Wilson

“On Not Being Scabrous”

A second issue has to do with the common assumption that anything that is lawful in one medium is lawful in another. But I don’t believe that this is the case at all. Some things should be strictly limited in how they are communicated. Trevin Wax said this in one of his posts: ‘If a movie version of the book of Genesis were made, it wouldn’t be for minors.’ This is quite true, and this means that to write a novel that contained the same level of description as Genesis does would be lawful to do. ‘And behold, it was Leah.’ The same with the Song of Solomon. Writing and publishing erotic poetry is clearly within bounds for believers. But do we get to make Song of Solomon: The Movie? Not a chance. Do we get to film those portions of Ezekiel where we see the Assyrians who are hung like a donkey and ejaculate like horses (Eze. 23:20)? We don’t just look at the content of what is said — we must also take care to learn how it is said. The media matter. Ezekiel can do what he does with words, and we can imitate him in our use of words, everything else being equal. But if we made a movie out of it, then we are clearly being scabrous.
Douglas Wilson

“you can get high and get laid in a 6′ × 8′ prison cell”

The parody of liberty is found in the libertarian image of the fornicating pot smoker — but you can get high and get laid in a 6′ × 8′ prison cell. There is one who defiantly cries out that he wants more liberty — so that he can enslave himself ever more tightly in chains he has forged himself. But no tyrant has ever been successfully resisted by cluster of lotus eaters, however big the cluster might be. Virtuous people cannot be kept as slaves, and an effete and self-indulgent people are made for slavery. It is their native habitat.
Douglas Wilson

“DuPont’s Finest”

We like the word authentic, but we detest the reality. A fading beauty in Beverly Hills walks into an upscale bistro, her skin stretched out with botox, her breasts as fine a pair as DuPont could make them, her hair the color of nothing found on earth, and yet she double checks with the waiter (twice) to be sure that her salad will have hormone-free chicken. Why? Either because she is committed to going all natural, which would not seem to be the case, or because her table is only big enough for one hormone queen. She is insisting that the chicken be the authentic one.
Douglas Wilson

On Repentance: The B.T.K. Killer & Steven Sitler

A Corruption of Justice Primer

Idaho’s Execution Chamber

“A repentant man who had done these things would evidence his repentance in his whole-hearted desire to be executed. . . . If he does not do these things, if his declared repentance is only an emotional sorrow that does not bear the marks of true repentance, then he should be excommunicated from his church.” —Douglas Wilson

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Saturday, January 23, 2016 |

“The whole point is to shock and insult those who don’t know that they are being played.”

Anyone who has not seen people getting their essential kicks out of offending white bread suburbanites really needs to get out more. Rap artists do it with what I shall call the enword, and homos do it with the effword, but they are all junior high boys wanting to startle the cute girls into a shocked round of giggling. The rap artist wants to be a bad ass, and the catamite wants an ass that is bad, but it all amounts to the same thing.

Imagine a hipster washed up on a desert island — no scope for irony at all. Imagine Lady Gaga washed up on a desert island — how long do you think those outfits would last? Imagine Miley Cyrus washed up on a desert island — think she would be dancing up and down the beach with that foam finger? No. The whole point is to shock and insult those who don’t know that they are being played. Take that away and the whole game collapses.
Douglas Wilson

“An Apology for Feminine Modesty” Projection

We also have to deal with the young man who needs to get a life. There is a type of young man who falls in love with the models in a Sears catalog. He has his sensibilities affronted by the fact that young women are built differently. He thinks women immodest simply because they bother him, but what he doesn’t know is that he is a piece of work.
Douglas Wilson

“Just Plain Greasy”

And the Roman Polanski affair is beyond creepy. All of Hollywood — including Woody Allen, who should have thought about it some more before lending his support — has come out in support of the talented perv.

The problem in these situations is not the individual hypocrisy or the individual capacity for sin and deception. I mean, as far as that is concerned, welcome to earth. The problem is the full-throated and open support for these men from a sub-culture that had previously raised moralistic posturing and ethical preening in front of the mirror to an art form.

In short, our entertainment culture is openly and unabashedly . . . greasy.
Douglas Wilson