It's hip to be square?
Under a banner proclaiming, "We raise the bar. We push the limits. We make things happen, and Hollywood will never be the same," a group calling themselves the Abstinence Clearinghouse (Rolling Stone last month described them as "The Young and the Sexless") said Wednesday that it will bring together 1,000 supporters in Hollywood next week to urge filmmakers to produce sex-free movies. The Sioux Falls, SD-based group said that it plans to hold its ninth Abstinence Leadership Conference from August 4-6 with the theme "Lights, Camera, NO Action."
In a world (sorry, but that's really the best way to begin this) where a naked woman on screen earns a picture an "R" rating while showing that same woman getting gutshot and bleeding out would only get you a "PG-13," it sounds to me like these kids need to fiind a more productive way of sublimating their throbbing biological urges.
Let me put it another way: Hollywood is already yours, you little assholes. A realistic representation of intercourse is an almost guaranteed NC-17 (The Dreamers, Young Adam), while the only way to get an R for violence is by showing heads exploding or loops of intestines spilling from someone's abdominal cavity (thank George A. Romero for that, at least). Bare breasts used to only warrant a PG (mmmm...Clash of the Titans), and if we wanted to, we could blame self-righteous twerps like you for that no longer being the case.
Except I know the truth: the whole "abstinence" angle is a smokescreen, a front. Bullshit, in other words. Look, I knew plenty of people who weren't having sex in my younger days. It wasn't always voluntary, by any means, but there were certainly people who elected to keep their pants on. But after looking at your web site and the agenda for your Hollywood conference (with such luminaries as Rebecca Hagelin and featuring thrilling seminars like "Every Man's Battle" and "Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage"), it's obvious that no right-thinking human being would want to have sex with a bunch of fatheaded, sanctimonious halfwits like you.
You guys have really hit upon a great scam: distract the public from your humiliating lack of sexual experience and the distaste with which you're viewed by most of the population (1000 supporters? In nine years?) by acting like it's your choice. Nice try. Now, everybody into the hot tub.
Let me ammend that. There is a fifteen minute presentation on the status of a petition to be sent to movie directors.
The rest of the three day conference is about things unrelated to Hollywood and boobies on screen.
I didn't see anything in their agenda that is directed at Hollywood.
"We raise the bar. We push the limits. We make things happen, and Hollywood will never be the same!"
I agree that the agenda seems more focused on legislation, but the location of the conference and the wording of at least some of the sessions on their agenda makes it clear that all the movie-related verbiage has a pretty specific point.
And this organization has made no bones in the past about its displeasure with the amount of promiscuity in movies. The location of this conference isn't a coincidence.
The movie verbage is just a gimmick. Put a movie title in front of your normal title and do your regular schtick.
From every title I saw, this really is just a typical abstinence seminar. I think you're off base about the point.
But you're right, these people aren't shy about wanting Hollywood to portray only fully clothed struggles against evil. And I have the same problem with that as I do with gay marriage legislation, democratization by force, etc. You can't force people into so-called moral behavior or systems of government or heterogenous matrimony and expect it to stick.
From every title I saw, this really is just a typical abstinence seminar. I think you're off base about the point.
Then why conduct a seminar in Hollywood, CA? IF the movie crap is merely incidental, why not save their money and hold the seminar in Des Moines? Or Boise? Or Mobile, Alabama?
I'm not arguing that the sole focus of the gathering has to do with movies, but they're the ones who invoked Hollywood and cinema imagery. Like it or not, that's the association they've chosen.
Sometimes a gimmick is just a gimmick.
Most of the people in the seminar have pretty active lecture schedules. But this seems to be the only one affiliated with this Abstinence Clearinghouse. You have to register to dig around their archives, so I didn't get to check their history. My guess is, they put on a few such abstinence seminars per year.
Then why conduct a seminar in Hollywood, CA? IF the movie crap is merely incidental, why not save their money and hold the seminar in Des Moines? Or Boise? Or Mobile, Alabama?
Or Snook for that matter. Because that is the number one or number two most populous area in the nation? Just a guess. Like I said, most of these lecturers get around a good bit.
I tell you what. If they don't do another seminar somewhere else in the next say, six to nine months, I'll buy you a case of PBR.
And the only reason I'm even talking about this is because I don't want to see you or the IMDB rallying against them for trying to change to the precious movie industry when this conference is really trying to change sex education in America.
And the only reason I'm even talking about this is because I don't want to see you or the IMDB rallying against them for trying to change to the precious movie industry when this conference is really trying to change sex education in America.
Fair enough. I think I've rallied against such things fairly frequently here, but I agree that the larger issue shouldn't be overlooked.
Whew. For a minute there I was afraid it was going to come down to pistolas at ten paces in Rosarito next weekend.
My concern was that the only way to settle this was to blow off Rosarita and go to conference instead.
You know, since we're kind of in the area anyway.
You might have begged for the pistola by the end of that one.
If the words "sexual abstinence" or any such derivation comes up in Rosarito especially in relation to movies or Hollywood, I am going to Lopan both of your asses. This is a weekend for drinking and amoral debauchery. Not that any of us married types will be pressing the boundaries of marital fidelity, but we don't have to wallow in it. Let us not dwell on the non-sexual proclivities of a relatively small percentage of the population, but revel in the fact that we have chosen drunken oblivion and male bravado for a brief weekend knowing full well that our loving ball-and-chains ... I mean spouses ... will be waiting for us at home with mucho chores and little sympathy. Saddle up, muchachos!
I dunno, man. I think IMDB's take on what the program is about is incorrect. I read their agenda. It looks like their typical program retooled with titles to talk about the typical issue (i.e., funding, stds, status of their efforts, etc.)
I didn't see anything in their agenda that is directed at Hollywood. They simply seem to be using movie titles because they are in Hollywood.
Which isn't to say there are people who, as you so rightly point out, would much rather see murder and violence than intimacy. And people are pressuring Washington to remove any and all bare breasts from public view.
But that isn't the agenda of this meeting.