Lite Beer?

When a guy walks into a seedy bar and every guy already in there looks like ZZ Top's road crew: fight.

With this whole attack on "polluting" images of sadism and violence, I watched "Marked for Death"w/Steven Seagal a few days ago. At issue is not only how, and w/what intentions images are produced, but how and w/what intentions are they consumed. I thought this donnybrook of a film, w/its mandatory barrage of gunfire and gory deaths, was funny. Honestly. It was so inane that I cracked up several times. Some of Seagal's lines went something like this.

His relative: "Oh, no! I think they [the bad guys] are coming to get us."

Seagal: "Somehow, I don't think they're going to get the chance."

Seagal's character doesn't realize that the drug kingpin he must kill is actually a set of twins. So after he kills the first one, he sees the second one and it surprises the shit out of him. Finally at the film's end, when the second twin plunges to his death, our hero muses, "I sure hope they aren't triplets."

The visual and oral images were hilarious. It was like 'Batman' from the '60s, although they didn't intend this movie to be interpreted like that. Which brings me to the point What the artist intends to put across to the audience isn't necessarily how the audience will interpret it. When we view a` vintage 1950s "Zorro" film, do we interpret it the way people did 40 years ago? Do I interpret it the way my father does today, boyish blue eyes and quarter-inch military haircut stalking the set for the next victory over lawlessness? Why are the old Zorro films funnier than "Zorro The Gay Blade," which is supposed to be a comedy, whereas the intention of the old movies was to promote the notion that the only way to preserve the law was through lawlessness? Why do I split my sides over these?If I owned a video shop and had my druthers, I'd stock `Marked for Death' in the comedy section.

Most porn films are funny to me. The dialogue is more or less"Ooh." "Aah." "Ooh." "Aah." "Oh, baby." "Oh, don't stop."Come on, it's funny. The problem w/the antiporn people is to them, there is only one correct way to view participants in smut films and shows: as objectified, degraded, humiliated.... Perhaps many of the actors/actresses do feel that way, but about the best way to explain the feeling of those that don't is, and pay attention because you'll hear this phrase ad nauseam, "They've internalized patriarchy."

For the Christian, sin is the cause of all grief in the known world; for the academic Marxist, residing in their cubicles, it is capital; and for the cultural antiporn feminists, all bad descends unidirectionally from the rubbish heap of patriarchy. Most of Western philosophy from Plato onward puts human behavior and thoughts into two categories: what people did and what they ought to have done. The crusade against violent and pornographic images is the latest unfolding of this idiocy. They say, if people are spiteful, deceitful, violent, sadistic and masochistic, horny, jealous, lazy and generally a `pain in the ass, they don't really enjoy being that way. In their`delusion, they are unaware of their `true' calling. This all-encompassing argument renders cries to do something constructive about the actual acts of violence against women, gay men, lesbians and ethnic minorities in our society laughable. The Dworkin who cried wolf. Is it possible that we could enjoy producing and consuming S&M images while not wanting to be raped or beaten up? This is a reality for some people (perhaps me), but a reality that the Dworkinites will not entertain. D.H. Lawrence derided pornography as an attempt to do dirt on life. Of course, Mr. Lawrence was pristine in every way, and never allowed impure thoughts to run roughshod over his reason. Every sensible person knows that with the right level of moral fortitude, we would never even consider dirtying our lives. That's why I didn't see 'The Last Temptation of Christ,' but tried to get it banned from my town. When that didn't work, I picketed outside the movie theater and tied down some of the scrawny pencil-neck stragglers that wanted to patronize the establishment. After all, I'm the only person who knows what they really want. I wonder if it's out on video yet. . .

HOLLYWOOD - After a barrage of protest against Seagal's Zen brutality, and his persistence to carry on acting only in such masculine roles, the movie company dismissed him. An industry spokesperson said, "The inside word is that Seagal's being replaced by Fred Rogers. The tentative title of his new film is Mr. McFeely's Poisoned my Fishtank, So He's Got Some Warm Fuzzies Coming to Him.