Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ncsu.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!decvax!mcnc!ncsu!mauney
From: mauney@ncsu.UUCP (Jon Mauney)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: More Real Dirt on Porn
Message-ID: <2526@ncsu.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Mar-84 10:32:18 EST
Article-I.D.: ncsu.2526
Posted: Wed Mar  7 10:32:18 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 8-Mar-84 08:46:35 EST
References: <2520@ncsu.UUCP>, <7183@watmath.UUCP>
Organization: N.C. State University, Raleigh
Lines: 34

> Did you really understand ``A Streetcar Named Desire'' to be advocating rape
> and wife beating or are you saying that you did as a debating technique?  I
> found the movie to portray an extremely undesireable hellhole of violence and
> insanity.

I must admit that my actual reaction to "Streetcar" was not that described
in my previous article.  However, if everyone thought the way I do, there
would be no more rape, no more war, no more FORTRAN.  I deduce that not
everyone thinks the way I do.  I therefore postulate the possibility that
somewhere a latent Stanley Kowalski sits down before the tube, and says
to himself "Hey! this guy on the tube hits his wife and throws her radio
out the window,  and she loves him all the more!  I'll have to try that."
A priori (and without a psych degree) I would have to wonder about the
desirability of showing "Streetcar" on TV.

> I am not suggesting rules to distinguish ``porn'' from serious movies.
> I am suggesting distinguishing between movies with negative social value
> from those that aren't terribly damaging.

In a word: How?  One could have a screening board that makes judgements
before a film is released. Can you be sure they would pass "Streetcar" ?
Can you be sure they would only judge violence, and never ban something
because it promotes other undesirable activities, such as homosexuality
or socialism?  One could send a team of scientists to observe the audience
at sneak previews;  said team would, of course, have to follow the audience
home.  That is the choice: unreliable a priori judgment, or preposterously
expensive empirical data.

The simple question is "Who will decide?" The simple answer is "No one group."
Treat the disease, not the symptoms.
-- 

_Doctor_                           Jon Mauney,    mcnc!ncsu!mauney
\__Mu__/                           North Carolina State University