#400: Jesse Decker's EnWorld embarrassment...

[pemerton]

I think it demonstrates maturity to be able to appreciate both Beavis and Butthead and Citizen Kane. To enjoy only the pruerile and sniggering is to deny the idea that one thing could be better than another, or one way of living preferable to another; but to deny that that there is soul in vulgarity is to look the Universe in the eye and say, "You must not."

And yet the universe will.

I don't know that I entirely agree with this, but I think I like it better than the alternative being promulgated on this thread!

A couple of movies I recently saw on DVD were Brother to Brother, and The Itty Bitty T*tty Committee. Both were rated MA15+ (an Australian censorship classification that I think resembles American R-rating). Neither was a masterpiece, but neither would be what it was - including its interesting stuff - if the child-innappropriate content was removed.

My 5 year old daughter was curious about Brother to Brother, and I showed her the first 5 minutes or so - she liked seeing a train trip in New York, and disembarkation at a NY subway station - but then had to turn it off as the interesting stuff started to kick in!

Very different films that are much more absurdist in their use of "mature" content are Pedro Almodovar's. Many of these are truly brilliant, and part of the essence of that brilliance is the absurdism and the vulgarity. In Australia they would all be rated MA or R (which is similar to US NC-17, I think).

I don't think that the Book of Vile Darkness is all that good, but not because of its "mature" content. It's just because a lot of it is not very clever or interesting such content. (And the 4e Manual of the Planes has a much better attempt at making the Dread Emperor an interesting NPC.)

EDIT: Drawn Together - especially the first series - is another example of something clever and sometimes powerful where the absurdism and vulgarity is integral to the overall work.

 

[RedTonic]

While I bet a lot of us here might want to indulge in a heroine or two, or maybe a whole harem, the drug is "heroin." If we're gonna discuss an editor, let's respect the difference between women and substances.

I have to admit, when I picked up a BoVD as a teen, I was pretty underwhelmed by the content behind that warning. I'd read YA novels with a better treatment of skulduggery. BoED was even less exciting. Given, there were a few nifty things here and there, but netbooks I found later and other guides were more useful (and cheaper! Probably because they had no art budget).

I find it interesting when creatives defend censorship and self-censorship like the CBC. I'm still not sure what it means. The Code makes me uncomfortable, personally; I'm glad I don't have to dance around anything like exactly that in my professional life.