From: Fred Camper (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Aug 01 2009 - 14:34:22 PDT
Quoting Tony Conrad <email suppressed>:
> This IS pornography -----------Fox style.
....
> That this "coverage" is dangerous is not enough to say; it is charged by an
> unstoppable and continually renewed erotic impulse, and can only be
> thwarted by bringing the deprived to the brink of fulfilled sexual
> gratification....
Very good analysis, Tony.
I did make the point that the American Family Association had become
pornographers in their extracting of Wojnarowicz's work. Wojnarowicz,
whose family history has much to each us about American "family
values," was never a pornographer.
Perhaps you have in mind that Murdoch and his reporters should
themselves perform in a shot-for-shot re-enactment of "Thundercrack"?
That would be fine with me, as long as I don't have to look at it...
There was generally a wonderful feeling of freedom in much classic
avant-garde film treatment of sexuality, and I have even felt that in
films I didn't much like as films. One could make an interesting
contrast with the Pat Robertson "montages" I mentioned, which had
their own repressed, voyeuristic, leering quality. But also, the way
that the Fox clip treats the allegedly salacious material has its own
odd fetishism. You can almost feel as if the reporters feel they have
found some "money shots" in their presentation of things like
"Thundercrack" -- "money shot" in the sense that the journalist has
found something she or he doesn't actually care about, but can trade
for actual money.
In some accounts of his life, Senator Joseph McCarthy actually didn't
give a f*** about communism, but was a drunk who had found what he
thought was a career-making routine, and never mind how many lives he
ruined.
I remember an interesting distinction Ken Jacobs once made with regard
to sexually explicit films. He thought it was fine for a filmmaker to
film whatever he or she wanted if following his passion, but that it
was wrong to film things he didn't care about that he thought would
make him some money. I can't believe that the Fox reporters, or the
Republican congressman, are actually upset about "Thundercrack," or
are truly disturbed that a few Federal dollars are supporting an
institution that showed it, an institution that ALSO got grants under
Bush, when it was presumably showing films just as "perverted."
Fred Camper
Chicago
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