Official - Michael Jackson was scum

[TragicMonkey]

When I was in high school, my English teacher showed some Romeo and Juliet movie, and when Juliet rolled out of bed, she was topless. We freshman all started cracking up, and the movie was abandoned.

And if you were being prosecuted for pedophilia, the news wouldn't report "he had a paper copy of Romeo and Juliet and also the movie version on VHS", it would report "he had books and movies depicting underaged girls in sexual situations".

Hence the danger of forming judgments based on what you read or hear in the news. The news is reported to sell itself and make money, not to distribute unbiased truth.

 

[Checkmite]

You don't own a copy of Romeo and Juliet? She was decidedly underage.

As was Romeo; but while the work certainly gives them a mad crush on each other I don't remember any sexual nude or "love-scenes" in it. Children and teenagers are commonly depicted having crushes or girl/boyfriends in western literature and film; it seems to me that society does not automatically attach a "sexualized" connotation to that kind of relationship.

 

[TragicMonkey]

As was Romeo; but while the work certainly gives them a mad crush on each other I don't remember any sexual nude or "love-scenes" in it.

It doesn't have to happen "on screen", the fact was he banged a child. And no, Romeo wasn't underaged himself, which makes it much worse if you want to slant the description to suit your purposes.

Heck, you could even characterize the Bible as a "gory book full of incest, rape, and murder" and suggest people who own it are perverts for having such a book. Just leave the name out of the article and people will lap that up and be ready to condemn.

 

[p0lka]

Except that the prosecution and the person who collected it and was trained to know, both say that it wasn't.

What it was was a collection of photos created by an artist that had been displayed in a galley and subsequently were published in a book.

This was the same as many of the other books listed.

If it had been a book filled with Renaissance Paintings of cherubs, Greek gods, and other nude and naked people would you think that this was suspicious? If not, then why would more modern versions of this sort of art be so suspicious, especially when these books are fully available to the public and the images had been displayed in galleries around the world?

It wasn't a book filled with Renaissance Paintings of cherubs, Greek gods, and other nude and naked people though?

whats your point?

 

[Checkmite]

And no, Romeo wasn't underaged himself,

He absolutely was.

Shakespeare's play doesn't mention Romeo's age; but the poem that served as the original source for the story says that both Juliet and Romeo are 16. Shakespeare revised Juliet's age to 13 for his play, but there is no reason given to suspect he actually revised Romeo's age upwards at all; at the very most he would still be 16.

 

[Fudbucker]

And if you were being prosecuted for pedophilia, the news wouldn't report "he had a paper copy of Romeo and Juliet and also the movie version on VHS", it would report "he had books and movies depicting underaged girls in sexual situations".

Hence the danger of forming judgments based on what you read or hear in the news. The news is reported to sell itself and make money, not to distribute unbiased truth.

If it bleeds it leads. That doesn't mean the story causing the bleeding is false.

 

[TragicMonkey]

If it bleeds it leads. That doesn't mean the story causing the bleeding is false.

Tell it to Duke's lacrosse team.

 

[banquetbear]

Certainly not?

"The effect of the image is certainly transgressive, and those who are uncomfortable with any sexualized depiction of children will probably have pejorative labels for this work."

Sounds like kiddie porn.

...you better go get your hard drive scrubbed. Better yet: destroy it. Because if the police ever get a chance to review your search history they will discover that you have been looking up "child porn" books on Amazon.

"But but I was doing research! I was debating on an internet forum!"

Do you think the police will believe such a lame excuse?

 

[TragicMonkey]

He absolutely was.

Shakespeare's play doesn't mention Romeo's age; but the poem that served as the original source for the story says that both Juliet and Romeo are 16. Shakespeare revised Juliet's age to 13 for his play, but there is no reason given to suspect he actually revised Romeo's age upwards at all; at the very most he would still be 16.

Why "at the very most"? He's already had an affair with Rosaline before he meets Juliet. He could be up to his early twenties. It's never specifically mentioned, apart from the fact that he doesn't have a full beard yet. That is no reason to assume he's 16, or Juliet's age which was definitely established as 13.

 

[HenryLee]

When I was in high school, my English teacher showed some Romeo and Juliet movie, and when Juliet rolled out of bed, she was topless. We freshman all started cracking up, and the movie was abandoned.

That's Olivia Hussey in the film by Franco Zeffirelli. She is 15 there.

 

[bruto]

As was Romeo; but while the work certainly gives them a mad crush on each other I don't remember any sexual nude or "love-scenes" in it. Children and teenagers are commonly depicted having crushes or girl/boyfriends in western literature and film; it seems to me that society does not automatically attach a "sexualized" connotation to that kind of relationship.

Well, they got married, which is a bit more than a "mad crush" by most people's definition, and the nurse certainly had fun making cracks about Juliet's sexuality. Sure, there were no sexual nude scenes in it, as one might expect given that the play was originally performed by an all male cast, with the female parts played by...uh oh, wait a second....

Better burn your copy of Pride and Prejudice too. Poor little Lydia. She's older than Juliet when Wickham carries her off to live in sin, but not a whole lot.

And of course there's Lolita, and make sure you don't have a copy of Get out Your Handkerchiefs or My Life as a Dog hiding in your video collection, and and and...

Of course times change, and what's appropriate changes and always depends on context. But what a person does or not get off on does not, thankfully, define pornography.

 

[Checkmite]

Why "at the very most"? He's already had an affair with Rosaline before he meets Juliet. He could be up to his early twenties. It's never specifically mentioned, apart from the fact that he doesn't have a full beard yet. That is no reason to assume he's 16, or Juliet's age which was definitely established as 13.

He "could be", but since Shakespeare did not specify, it's rather arbitrary to insist there was any likelihood that the playwright must have intended such a specific alteration of the source material and just forgot or chose not to mention it, without something more definitive than that. A presumed age of 16 is perfectly consistent with the character as depicted in the play. We know Shakespeare changed Juliet's age from 16 to 13 because her age is actually mentioned in the play; we "know" Shakespeare changed Romeo's age from 16 to...23 or something, because...no particular reason, it just sounds good to us?

Shakespeare didn't intend Romeo and Juliet to be a satire; people of that time period married in their very early twenties, and both the immediate source for the story that Shakespeare used, as well as the actual Italian folk-story that was based on, always had Romeo and Juliet as age-mates. It would've been injecting unnecessarily scandalous undertones for Shakespeare to change Romeo into an unnecessarily older adult character having an affair with child, even in Shakespeare's time. In fact the going theory as to why Shakespeare even lowered Juliet's age at all was because he knew the part was going to have to be performed by a young teenage boy and wanted the character's age to be a bit more credible vis-à-vis her physical appearance.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Certainly not?

"The effect of the image is certainly transgressive, and those who are uncomfortable with any sexualized depiction of children will probably have pejorative labels for this work."

Sounds like kiddie porn.

Sounds like a typical Fudbucker cherry-pick hatchet job. How about you bold that differently, since you neglected to mention that the bolding is yours?

The effect of the image is certainly transgressive, and those who are uncomfortable with any sexualized depiction of children will probably have pejorative labels for this work.

See how that changes it? You snipped one line from a rather decent analysis of the book and the artist's work.

 

[DragonLady]

That book is different from the two discussed earlier. Those two contained actual nude photographs of boys; this book on the other hand seems to have taken children and photoshopped various things onto them (including nude adult parts, apparently).

Yes; I've seen some of the images on Google. I admit they're weird. I don't see them as very sexual in nature, but that might be only because I find them disturbing.

To me, Johan's work is some kind of horror? But that's me. Art is very much in the eye of the beholder, so I won't try to judge. I guess I could argue he was trying to make some kind of statement about continuity of consciousness -the child is the parent (noun) of the adult to come after, but that later adult is unable to provide any kind of parenting to the child that was before. There's a strange mix of elements I think may represent time, and the distortion of childish fantasies.

I think I consider it horror. There's something really dark, to be sure.

But I don't think I see it as evidence of the artist being any kind of sexual predator himself, and I don't think the owner(s) of this book should be accused of such without further evidence.

 

[HenryLee]

Posted before seeing previous DragonLady post


If you do a google image search for Simen Johan you will see some examples of his work especially the ones talked about in those reviews. Yes they are disturbing but...are they "kiddie porn"? I'm gonna say no.

Especially since they're available to purchase on amazon.

 

[DragonLady]

Posted before seeing previous DragonLady post


If you do a google image search for Simen Johan you will see some examples of his work especially the ones talked about in those reviews. Yes they are disturbing but...are they "kiddie porn"? I'm gonna say no.

Especially since they're available to purchase on amazon.

I'm gonna say: he should stick to his epic animal photos. They really are epic!

 

[HenryLee]

I'm gonna say: he should stick to his epic animal photos. They really are epic!

Oh yeah, the animal stuff is really quite nice but the others are just...gah. I mean you're not "grooming" anybody with those but future serial killers.

 

[DragonLady]

Oh yeah, the animal stuff is really quite nice but the others are just...gah. I mean you're not "grooming" anybody with those but future serial killers.

Agreed!

 

[Fudbucker]

Sounds like a typical Fudbucker cherry-pick hatchet job. How about you bold that differently, since you neglected to mention that the bolding is yours?

The effect of the image is certainly transgressive, and those who are uncomfortable with any sexualized depiction of children will probably have pejorative labels for this work.

See how that changes it? You snipped one line from a rather decent analysis of the book and the artist's work.

" Many of the manipulated photographic pictures portray sexualized young children. For example, "Untitled #81. 1999" is a black and white photo of a young girl in a bare room except for a rudimentary Christmas tree in the corner. The girl is holding up maracas in both hands and, with a large toothy grin, she seems to be enjoying shaking them. Judging from her face, she looks about five years old, but it is hard to judge, because she has a very high forehead, which makes her face look more baby-like, and she has long fine windswept blond hair flowing down from her head in supermodel fashion. Her arms are short, again those of a young child. But her torso, which is nude, has budding breasts of a pubescent girl."

The blond boy looks about four years old, and is wearing a wet tight fitting pair of swimming trunks -- he seems to have a rather large penis for his age.

Yeah, I think what I wrote holds up pretty well.

 

[Foolmewunz]

" Many of the manipulated photographic pictures portray sexualized young children. For example, "Untitled #81. 1999" is a black and white photo of a young girl in a bare room except for a rudimentary Christmas tree in the corner. The girl is holding up maracas in both hands and, with a large toothy grin, she seems to be enjoying shaking them. Judging from her face, she looks about five years old, but it is hard to judge, because she has a very high forehead, which makes her face look more baby-like, and she has long fine windswept blond hair flowing down from her head in supermodel fashion. Her arms are short, again those of a young child. But her torso, which is nude, has budding breasts of a pubescent girl."

The blond boy looks about four years old, and is wearing a wet tight fitting pair of swimming trunks -- he seems to have a rather large penis for his age.

Yeah, I think what I wrote holds up pretty well.

If you're a prude, yeah it does.