 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Olivia Lichtenstein is not a prude. In the same way that Jan Moir is not a homophobe, Richard Littlejohn is not a lazy hypocrite, and Melanie Phillips is not bordering on mentally unstable. No, Olivia definitely ISN'T a prude, in fact she even makes a point of explicitly stating this fact in her most recent article, just in case we weren't already aware. Yeah. Of course, since said article is about how True Blood is "sucking" (hurrrrr) the innocence out of our children, what with all the blood and sex on display, it sort of undermines that declaration. Ever so slightly. Channel 4's latest attempt to seduce us with a mixture of swearing and sex comes in the form of True Blood, the latest in the long line of sexually explicit, violent and vulgar programmes that have, sadly, become the norm on British television.The "norm"? Really? That's odd, because I'm pretty sure swearing is strictly forbidden on TV for about 16 hours out of every 24. (And that's without recent endeavours by the likes of the Mail to make it 17), so I'm really not sure how that could possibly constitute "the norm". Moving on; More offensive than all this is the sheer distasteful nature of the content. There's oral sex, overt discussion of genitalia, graphic sex scenes bordering on the deviant, and foul language.Wow, that sounds pretty bad. Still, at least I won't have to deal with exposure to such harmful ideas if I just avoid the show in question. We see a man having sex with a woman while watching a video of the same woman having sex with a vampire. The excitement engendered in the pair leads to rough sex and results in her murder.Oh, OK, we're describing it in detail. I guess that makes sense. After all, we wouldn't want the inevitable tide of half-wits who will claim to have been offended by this programme to have had to go through the horror of actually watching it. Better to cut out the middle-man and just let them jump straight to the complaints. Sure, it's an hour after the watershed, but I can't help but worry that children will find their way to this programme, which is a massive hit in the U.S.
If only True Blood were a one-off, I wouldn't be so depressed that this is what Channel 4 wants us all to watch.
But a glance at our schedules reveals that sex, violence and vulgar language have become the staples that make up the British TV diet.As I said earlier, that material cannot be broadcast legally for two thirds of the day, so to claim that it makes up any kind of majority within the schedules is ignorant at best and deliberately misleading at worst. However, the criteria for what is suitable for broadcast before and after the watershed is somewhat woolly.
Take sex, for example. Ofcom states that: 'Representations of sexual intercourse must not occur before the watershed, or when children are particularly likely to be listening, unless there is a serious educational purpose.'
The problem today is that, while Channel 4 would no doubt argue that True Blood is screened after 9pm, the watershed is not as effective as it once was.We'll come back to effectiveness of the watershed in a moment, first I think it's necessary to address the first line of that last paragraph: "Channel 4 would no doubt argue that True Blood is screened after 9pm". "Would no doubt argue". What, exactly, is there to argue about that? It IS broadcast after the watershed. There were over a million witnesses. I'm pretty sure that there isn't a case to be made for their somehow having broadcast it at 4pm, calling it "Super Terrific Children's Fun Hour", just in case there were some impressionable youths who were worried that they might be corrupted by a show called True Blood. I really hope that's just some bad phrasing, because the idea that the Morality Police have become so fervent in their desire to castigate that, of which they do not approve, that they're not even going to accept as fact a programme's broadcast time, is too depressing to contemplate. On to the effectiveness of the watershed: First, the breakdown of the traditional family means that many children might not be supervised adequately.
And even if a parent does try to stop a child of 15 watching True Blood on a Wednesday night, the fact that so many have a TV in their bedroom means they can watch it anyway.So then, what difference does it make if the family in question is "traditional" or not? Either they have the one TV, making it rather easy to keep track of what's being watched on it, and by who, or the kids have TVs in their bedrooms, making it harder, regardless of how many parents are involved. Worryingly for parents, one quarter of 12 to 15-year-olds watch television or film content via websites (such as BBC iPlayer, Sky Player or ITV Player).
On its website, the BBC states that it 'expects parents and carers to share in the responsibility for assessing whether programme content is suitable for their children'.Yes, which is why they offer absolutely no services to assist parents in this matter. It is now far too easy for unsuitable content to slip through the net by becoming available online.Yes, indeed. Perish the thought that the utterly child-friendly playground that is the internet be infected by some of the filth that's on television. I don't know how the world would survive if it turned out that some partial nudity had made it online. Already, our children are far too knowing, and their television viewing has long been sucking the innocence out of them.It is funny because the show is about vampires. There is, it seems, no subject out of bounds and little sense of privacy. I am far from being a prude, but I find myself longing for the days when, in a movie, if a couple were kissing or lying on a bed, they had to keep one foot on the ground.I'm not a prude, but I'm uncomfortable enough with any sort of protrayal of sex in art that I would like to hamstring such scenes with a series of ludicrous and non-sensical rules. For the children. Somebody think of the children. Tags: issues
Current Location: 57.692308%
Current Mood:  predatory
Current Music: Sparks - All You Ever Think About Is Sex.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1. Up your Viva! 2. Taking five hours to write a ten-word sentence about smut. 3. The fact that I'm even vaguely aware of who people are talking about when they refer to "Jon and Kate". 4. The world's lamest vampires. 5. Fearful Symmetry. 6. The world's lamest werewolves. 7. The fact that I'm even vaguely aware of who people are talking about when they refer to "Jon and Edward". 8. Taking five hours to write a ten-word sentence about UST. 9. Up YOUR Viva! Tags: fury
Current Mood:  infuriated
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
→You post a pairing.
→Any character(s) you want from any fandom that you think I'd have a reasonable chance of being at least vaguely familiar with.
→I write 10 different sentences about it, based on the categories below.
→Post as many pairings as you want, but keep in mind the number you post will be directly proportional to how long it takes me to respond to them all.❶. Angst. ❷. AU. ❸. Crack!fic. ❹. Crossover. ❺. First Time. ❻. Fluff. ❼. Humour. ❽. Hurt/Comfort. ❾. Smut. ❿. UST. Ganked from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) starsplinter, on the understanding that it wouldn't really be fair not to let her have some sort of payback for the insane collection I set for her. So yeah, let's see how this plays out. Also, Happy Hallowe'en. Tags: meme
Current Mood:  scared
Current Music: Caesars - Anything You Want.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Date-rape drug? No dear, you just had too much to drink*sighs* I mean look at that headline. Fucking look at it! I don't think I've ever seen anything that patronising and condescending compressed into so few words before. Seriously, what the FUCK is going on with that headline? The actual page title of that article reads "Young women who fear their drink was spiked have often just had too much alcohol". Note that this is much more informative, and about 50 billion times less insulting to basic human decency. Interestingly, this is the version that the url is based on as well, (Young-women-fear-drink-spiked-just-alco hol), suggesting that the headline has actually been altered since it was posted. In other words, some cock-brained sub-editor apparently saw the article with its original title posted and said; "Hmm... No, that's too much like what's in the actual text. Could we maybe change it to something that's a bit less clear and a bit more blatantly misogynistic? Cracking." Now it's worth mentioning at this point that there might well be some merit to the idea that the degree to which rohypnol et al are actually being used to facilitate sexual assaults is not as widespread as is commonly believed. Certainly, it wouldn't hurt for people to just generally learn more about drinking responsibly. However, what this study has found is simply that a majority of female students, out of the 200 surveyed, consider the risk of their drinks being spiked to be a bigger threat than that of drinking too much and being thus incapacitated. From the British Journal of Criminology: There is a stark contrast between heightened perceptions of risk associated with drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) and a lack of evidence that this is a widespread threat. Through surveys and interviews with university students in the United Kingdom and United States, we explore knowledge and beliefs about drink-spiking and the linked threat of sexual assault. University students in both locations are not only widely sensitized to the issue, but substantial segments claim first- or second-hand experience of particular incidents. We explore students’ understanding of the DFSA threat in relationship to their attitudes concerning alcohol, binge-drinking, and responsibility for personal safety. We suggest that the drink-spiking narrative has a functional appeal in relation to the contemporary experience of young women's public drinking.Note how this is not a study of alleged cases of date-rape, but rather how a very, very small proportion (considerably less than 1%) of the population perceive the threat of being drugged. The idea that one could seriously make any of the kind of sweeping "urban myth" generalisations that have accompanied this study, based on that data alone would be laughable if it wasn't so depressingly predictable. This study proves absolutely nothing about how common incidences of drink spiking actually are. But, it can sort of almost be read like it says maybe some rape-victims sort of had it coming for daring to go out and have a good time, and so that's the angle the headline implies, because that's how the Mail sees stuff like this. And for the record, no, drunk women who get raped do not "deserve less sympathy", regardless of what Peter fucking Hitchens thinks. Tags: issues
Current Mood:  frustrated
Current Music: Muse - Knights Of Cydonia.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
NOW MUSLIMS DEMAND: GIVE US FULL SHARIA LAWHoly crap, when did THAT happen? A RADICAL Muslim group sparked outrage last night as it launched a massive campaign to impose sharia law on Britain.Hmm... Interesting... I didn't realise that was how it worked. Hang on, I'll try one for myself: NOW CHRISTIANS DEMAND: TERMINATE GAYS AND ATHEISTSAlso we all know that it's gay to be atheist and gays are not men, their are assheads who should terminated as well as other threats to the society. (like commies, feminists, masons and immigrants)Because, as we all know, if one Christian says it, then obviously that's what they ALL believe. This is awesome. It makes everything so much easier. No need for any of that tedious mucking about with "research" or "facts". After all, it's not as if those are important parts of journalism. Ha, you don't even have to limit it to religions either: NOW WHITES DEMAND: GIVE US ARMY OF COLD-BLOODED, WELL-TRAINED ARYANSLet's move the hardest and purest Aryans and their families to this town. Have them continue this process with the Druggar children and multiplying. Fiercely educated children in growing community in the necessities of preserving lineage. All Aryans armed to teeth. Treat muds like shit upon entrance. If country collapses, erect compound and keep muds, half-breeds and race-mixers out. Let country destroy itself. Repopulate country, by then have an army of cold-blooded, well-trained Aryans to carry out DNA tests and wipe out muds, niggerbloods, octoroons, and any variety of shitskins.
Do this one hundred times in different parts of the country and there may be hope after all.Again; if I can find one white guy who says that, it means that ALL white people think the same. I'm pretty sure that's how logic works now. Or, alternatively, the people responsible for the Express's front page are a bunch of scaremongering fuckwits, who don't mind deliberately misrepresenting the views of over a million people if there's the tiniest chance that it might possibly maybe sell a few extra papers. There is also that possibility. Tags: issues
Current Location: SCARY FUTURE TRAFALGAR SQUARE OMG!!!
Current Mood:  sleepy
Current Music: XTC - Science Friction.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
...By which, I, of course, mean exactly the same: Britain's decision to go against the rest of the Western world and opt for the Cervarix vaccine was made to save money, health charities claim.
They said the decision condemned thousands of young women to an unpleasant sexual infection from which they would have been protected had ministers chosen the rival vaccine, Gardasil.
The U.S. and every single major western European country went for Gardasil, which protects against more strains of HPV, the sexual infection which can cause cervical cancer.
It is understood that Britain chose Cervarix after the Health Protection Agency advised that it would save more than ÂŁ18million a year.Wow. That's shocking. They potentially jeopardised the lives of millions of people for the sake of what is in all honesty a relatively small amount of money. I just cannot understand the mentality that would put cost-effectiveness ahead of safety concerns. There is no suggestion that Gardasil is any safer than Cervarix.Oh. In fact there have been 30 deaths following reported adverse reactions to Gardasil in the U.S., plus a number in Germany and Austria.Which, ironically, means that the cheaper vaccine is apparently safer, since the one death that had been attributed to it turned out to have been caused by something else entirely. Man, it almost looks as though the Mail is taking advantage of the tragic loss of a young life for the sake of something new to berate the government over. But I can't picture them doing that. Oh, except there's that whole putting lives at risk by scaremongering over vaccines thing they've been doing for years and years for pretty much that very reason. Guess they really are just that awful then. Tags: issues
Current Location: 56.5217391304347826086957%
Current Mood:  aggravated
Current Music: David Bowie - Life On Mars?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1. Having been the 999,999th visitor and DEFINITELY WON A PRIZE OMG CLICK HERE RIGHT THE FUCK NOW OMG three or four times an hour. 2. THE FACEBOOK OF SEX!!! 3. THE YOUTUBE OF PORN!!! 4. THE [popular website] OF [adult material]!!! 5. That thing where you click onto a page and it starts trying to give you some new anti-virus software or something. 6. Having an app for that. 7. Having a sub for that. 8. Really, just advertising in general. 9. Posting to this journal every day. Tags: fury
Current Mood: infuriated
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In lieu of something worth reading about, here's a list of seven things I've never done: 1. Been to the USA for more than eight consecutive hours. 2. Finished A-Level Biology. 3. Seen the video for "Thriller". 4. Eaten a Big Mac. 5. Sung "My Way".6. Watched an episode of Big Brother. 7. Set foot inside St. Paul's Cathedral, despite having lived in London for over two decades. I guess we would call this a meme; even though I haven't seen something like this posted anywhere, I figure someone else must have thought of this before. Tags: meme
Current Mood:  lethargic
Current Music: Frank Sinatra - My Way.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
...And sometimes they mock themselves for me: Michael/Adolf - Tehir luv is so canon. I mean really. Is there any point to this story? MICHAEL JACKSON IN "SAYING SOMETHING A BIT STRANGE" SHOCKER!!! Yeah, because he never did anything at all unusual in his life. This was something well out of the ordinary. Except, of course, that nothing he said was actually that odd. "Hitler was a genius orator!" Oh Em Gee, how could you say that, Michael? Hitler wasn't remotely smart, all he ever did was take over most of mainland Europe in less than a decade. And I've certainly never heard anyone mention his speeches as being particularly good before. Nope, not ever. Oh, and well done, "DAILY MAIL REPORTER", for putting those vaguely similar shots of them next to each other like that. I'm sure a lot of people would have been deeply confused without that visual aid. You Are Serious Journalism. Tags: issues
Current Location: 55.5556%
Current Mood:  recumbent
Current Music: Michael Jackson - Bad.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Woke up at 4am today. This was unusual because I've recently tended to only be getting to bed at about that time, but lectures start again next week, and I need to re-establish a sleep-pattern that is at least approaching sanity. Anyway, it soon became apparent that I wasn't going to be falling asleep again anytime soon, so I instead found myself looking out the window. Much to my surprise, there was something worth seeing out there. See, I live in London, which means that a: the skies are often overcast, and b: there's a lot of light pollution. As a result, there's usually not a whole lot to see in the night sky, but for whatever reason, it was incredibly clear this morning, and there was an immense number of stars visible, more than I can ever remember seeing living in this city. I'd forgotten how enjoyable looking at stars can be. Astronomy's something I was really into as a child, but in recent years I've kinda drifted away from it. Nonetheless, it still has its appeal, and I still had some pretty good binoculars handy. There's something about zooming in on those points of light and just knowing that that there is something else out there. And even though you can never get any closer to it, it's still there and you can see it. The feeling is even more pronounced with neighbouring planets, where there is a real chance that someone might get to go there one day. Jupiter in particular is fascinating to observe, as it's large enough that you can make out a lot of detail on the surface. The first time I saw it through a telescope I recall an overwhleming sense of "Holy crap, it's really out there, they didn't just make it up and fake some photos", made even more pronounced by the fact that I could make out four tiny points of light around it, just like Galileo did. I didn't see Jupiter last night, but a few of the things I did see were; Sirius, Rigel, Betelguese, the Pleiades (which, even at that relatively low magnification, looked amazing), the Orion Nebula, and, though I couldn't be certain, I think I caught sight of Andromeda, which is something I'd never managed to do before. Good Times. Current Mood:  contemplative
Current Music: The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Starcleaner.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Previous
SQEAKY???
peaceful
enthralled
lonely
rushed
optimistic
silly
unwell
knalb