Aestheticizing the sleaze
Get ready for the spindles on the American moral compass to go bezerk again. The Sundance Film Festival is premiering "Zoo" a film about bestiality. The Florida Sun-Sentinel offers the following review:
"Zoo" is a documentary about what director Robinson Devor accurately characterizes as "the last taboo, on the boundary of something comprehensible." But remarkably, an elegant, eerily lyrical film has resulted.
"Zoo," premiering before a rapt audience Saturday night at Sundance, manages to be a poetic film about a forbidden subject, a perfect marriage between a cool and contemplative director (the little-seen "Police Beat") and potentially incendiary subject matter: sex between men and animals. Not graphic in the least, this strange and strangely beautiful film combines audio interviews (two of the three men involved did not want to appear on camera) with elegiac visual re-creations intended to conjure up the mood and spirit of situations. The director himself puts it best: "I aestheticized the sleaze right out of it."
The description by reviewer Kenneth Turan (LA Times) is frightening. "Elegant", "lyrical", "poetic" and "beautiful". Even more disturbing is the characterization by director, Robinson Devor who desribes sex with animals as "on the boundary of the comprehensible".
What ought to send shivers up the spine is is that Devor admits that he hid the disgusting nature of his subject by shrouding it in good cinematography. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die... Half truths, the domain of the devil, aren't even needed in a society like ours where Devor feels confident in acknowledging the lack of true disclosure and presumably justifying his work of "art". Not that I'd want to see bestiality live and in color, mind you. But I won't be seeing "Zoo" either.
So, will Zoo do for copulating canines what Will and Grace did for homosexuality? Time will tell I suppose. After all, bestiality has been around forever and I suppose there is a definable percentage of the population who practices it (even three guys in Montana make up some kind of minority, right?) Next thing you know, it'll be in grammar school history texts and grad students will be writing dissertations about how DaVinci was inspired by antics in the barn. Only one word can describe this horrifying glorification of bestiality: sick.
From Brokeback Mountain to mountain goats... what's next?
UPDATE: Nevermind, we already know what's next: Broadway.
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Forget it- it was bad enough when graphic mutilation became "normal" with the whole horror genre. Now folks are trying to press stuff like this as art? The de-sensitizing of America has reached a new low.
Comment by Michael— 2007/01/25 @ 08:09 AM — (Reply)
Nothing is worse to a tween/teen girl than to be called immature. They all live to be older than they are.
Reviews I heard yesterday reveal that Dakota spends nearly the entire film in underwear - severely underdressed.
My honest opinion is that this is titilation for the child porn lovers out there. And for a completely desensitized Hollywood crowd. Any adult can visualize/comprehend the horror of rape without having to watch it live and in color. These kinds of films are not about 'exploring' and 'exposing' anything! They are about shrouding indecency in the cloak of "art" and "expression".
Shameful.
Comment by Cate— 2007/01/25 @ 11:16 AM — (Reply)
Your honor, the victim here may only appear to be 12 years old, but she has an old soul, and so my client ought not to be convicted of 'child molestation.' They were both consenting adults... on a spiritual level, at least. In fact, my client has long been known as acting young for his age- perhaps he is the real victim here!
I haven't seen Hounddog, and I'm not planning to. Not out of moral outrage, but because the storyline sounds majorly depressing, and I don't go to movies to be depressed. But based on what I've heard (which, admittedly, is not the same as having seen the film), I'm siding with you Cate.
Message to Hollywood:
The envelope has been pushed. We get it. No need to go any further, thankyouverymuch.
Comment by Michael— 2007/01/25 @ 01:04 PM — (Reply)
Comment by aza spade— 2007/01/25 @ 07:39 PM — (Reply)
Comment by aza spade— 2007/01/25 @ 07:43 PM — (Reply)
Was Jody Foster too young (at 13) to play the prostitute in Taxi Driver?
Was Brooke Shields (at 12) too young for Pretty Baby? Or at 14 to be baring parts in The Blue Lagoon?
Hollywood seems to make it's girls grow up too quickly, and we wind up with things like Lindsay Lohen or Drew Barrymore. Sure Drew has seemingly grown into a semi-responsible adult, but she had a hell of a tween/teen years.
Bleh.
Comment by Michael— 2007/01/26 @ 07:59 AM — (Reply)
In between cartoons on the Disney channel, they show videos aimed at the tween viewership that show scantily clad young people simulating sex in their dance and singing about mature themes.
This depraved and demeaning garbage is ubiquitous.
It's been going on for far too long and it is far more damaging than Hollywood would have us believe.
Comment by Cate— 2007/01/26 @ 11:36 AM — (Reply)
Comment by jim— 2007/01/26 @ 11:47 AM — (Reply)
Thank you Religious Wrong for pointing this out to me. I am afraid, as a Sodomite, I am too dense to know that beastiality is NOT another sexual orientation but rather a fetish. I think I must run right out and burn my copy of Heather Has Two Mommies (which my kids LOVE, by the way---damn me for introducing them to a book that might make being a Sodomite acceptable!), Brokeback Mountain and my Will & Grace DVD collection. I would not want someone to come across those in my home and just automatically assume I am also into animals. We can never be too careful, can we?? *snort and rolls eyes*
Comment by Missy— 2007/05/10 @ 07:56 AM — (Reply)
What is in question is your ability to read and comprehend the English language. This post condemns the intentional aestheticizing of a single depraved behavior and queries whether such a characterization will normalize bestiality in the same way that popular shows about homosexuality have normalized that behavior.
In fact, scanning the comments, I don't even see any references to Soddomites but yours.
So tell me Missy, why are you projecting your knee-jerk self-defense of lesbianism onto a post about bestiality?
Comment by Cate— 2007/05/10 @ 08:50 AM — (Reply)