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To:
politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk Date: Monday 22 November 04 |
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Dear Sir/Madam,
Having heard how good it was supposed to be, I watched the highly rated British film, Four Weddings and a Funeral, last night on the box. I found it mildly entertaining, but with much to be criticized for. Most of its humour (for the half-hearted chuckle it was worth) was at the expense of the odd and sexually unattractive members of the cast, who were contrasted, deliberately, no doubt, against the dazzlingly attractive hero and heroine. A far more serious criticism is that it glorified casual sex. The hero and heroine meet for first time at a wedding, after which they spend the night together (no indication of them using a condom either). The second time they meet is at another wedding; the heroine, however, is in the company of the man she has become engaged to marry; but no matter, her fiancé has to leave early and she betrays him by spending a second night with the hero. In one scene the heroine lists the number of men she has ever slept with: 6 before be age of 18, with a grand total (in her early 20's) of 33. It is just a comedy and not meant to be taken seriously, one might object. Then why do so many young (and not so young) people nowadays behave just like that, with little or no sense of impropriety or shame? Now, would someone please tell me how, with any credibility, I can advise my teenage niece not to jump straight into bed with a boy she fancies the first time they meet, when on the TV and in films, not just anybody, but the glamorous role models too, are doing just that?! She is just going to laugh and call me old-fashioned. Young people, along
with the rest of us, have it
imbibed into them that casual
bonking is the normal,
accepted thing to do, and no
amount of parental or
avuncular advice is going to
convince them otherwise. The
way things stand at the
moment, it is a lost cause.
They are left to learn (or
not) from painful and perhaps
very damaging emotional and (in view of
AIDS, possibly deadly)
physical experience. Not that this is a new phenomenon. I remember films from the 70's (and perhaps earlier; I'm not a great film-goer), in which the hero (James Bond, for example) would go to bed with a beautiful woman he'd only just met, usually without any suggestion that it was any more than just casual sex. It may have been done tongue-in-cheek, but was nevertheless devastatingly effective in undermining the sexual morals that had been in place, among responsible people, for generations. I don't think many people realise just how far we have fallen. I remember people saying, as they still do, "Where is all this going to lead us?" I think we are already there, but the extent of our corruption, and being immersed in it, blinds us to it (see Uncommon Sense vs the Insanities of Normality). The film and TV industries (along with advertising and the media in general) attract not just some of the most "talented" people in the world, but also some of the most corrupt, irresponsible and immoral (or perhaps just amoral in respect to making money). From their privileged and uniquely influential positions they have succeeded in corrupting us all. |
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