RAT

The following typical threads that plague martial arts sites will get moved here if not just deleted: 1 - My style is better than Your style" - 2 - "Internal & External" - 3 - Personal attacks - 4 - Threads that start well, but degenerate into a spiral of nonsense.

Re: RAT

Postby Michael on Sun May 20, 2012 3:38 am

My theory is that films are part of culture creation: controlling the direction of society by redefining social norms, mores, what is permissible, especially regarding sex. It's easier to rapidly change a society that is demoralized and I think that trend in media is obvious. There have obvious attempts to make society more promiscuous in the 20's and 30's, not only in the US but in many parts of the world (see the CBC documentary Legendary Sin Cities), but perhaps because of STD's and abortion being illegal it didn't really work until the 60's and 70's. So as the power of media grows the rate of culture creation accelerates to the point that there may only be five years between generations as people experience their culture radically differently from people just five years prior.

For example, the ridiculous, disgusting nonsense being pumped out on the screens looks bizarre to people my age and Chanchu's age, but since preteens and teens have had enough disposable income to allow for a demographic for advertising, they have become even more strongly influenced by media now in film, internet/computer/cell phones than they were by TV ads for sugar foods, comics, and toys in my generation. Therefore, unbelievably trashy films like "MacGruber" (2010) and "Crank" (2007) can get theatrical releases and actually look normal to teens. I noticed this film/media culture gap between me and my grandparents and we were separated by 45 years, but now I think culture gaps can be seen in age gaps as little as five or ten years. I can certainly see Guangzhou changing its mores in less than five year spans.

And get off my lawn! -oldman-
Last edited by Michael on Sun May 20, 2012 3:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: RAT

Postby D_Glenn on Sun May 20, 2012 11:08 am

Family Guy was shocking when it first came out. Something you didn't want your mom to watch.

These days whole family's are sitting down watching Family Guy like it was The Cosby Show.


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Re: RAT

Postby Michael on Sun May 20, 2012 6:05 pm

What I've seen of Family Guy is a pretty good example of demoralization. It has its funny moments, but they're living next door to a man who has a cabin or something with a date rape couch we're supposed to laugh at when it automatically drugs, disrobes, and positions the father of the family prone, ready for penetration. And we're supposed to laugh at this? It's disgusting.
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Re: RAT

Postby Doc Stier on Sun May 20, 2012 9:08 pm

Michael wrote:What I've seen of Family Guy is a pretty good example of demoralization. It has its funny moments, but they're living next door to a man who has a cabin or something with a date rape couch we're supposed to laugh at when it automatically drugs, disrobes, and positions the father of the family prone, ready for penetration. And we're supposed to laugh at this? It's disgusting.

+1. Tell it, Michael. Tell it! 8-)
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Re: RAT

Postby Michael on Mon May 21, 2012 11:39 am

What's weird is how they shove that kind of garbage in your face and the shock value is so great that some people are almost unable to react right off and kind of go along with it for a while, trying to laugh it off like someone told a bad joke and you're just trying to get through it with minimal embarrassment, and then after a while, you get de-sensitized to the trash. Voila, a new standard is established.

The whackier the visuals, the more easily some people can accept it as being so far out or such an extreme parody that it can only have humorous meaning. I think that's just another mind trick that's played on the audience and the reason why cartoons like The Simpson's and Family Guy are kept on the air.

I think I'd have a tough time trying to keep my kids away from that trash if I were a parent. The TV gets time to deliver thousands of psychologically crafted messages per year from expert persuaders/propagandists/salesmen about buying unhealthy foods and trashy visuals like the above, and a parent working all day just gets a fraction of that time. I wonder if I wouldn't go nuts.

Save the children!! -deadhorse-

See? I added a whacky emoticon and now I'm not a prude, I'm a cool dude.
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Re: RAT

Postby Strange on Mon May 21, 2012 5:12 pm

i think they understand that in today's society anything that gets put on screen or public media automatically gains legitimacy, that's what they are playing on
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Re: RAT

Postby Bhassler on Mon May 21, 2012 5:58 pm

Nope. There's big bucks in television and film, and like most things where the stakes are very high, the culture becomes very conservative.

The Simpsons started as a funny niche program, started to go viral, got popular enough to get noticed, and eventually reached a tipping point where someone thought they could make big bucks producing a television show. Based on the success of The Simpsons, shows like South Park got a shot on cable TV in a niche that was too "edgy" for the big networks-- there's always a market for stuff that's too risky for network TV, i.e. the Sopranos and Madmen. South Park got really popular, so some producer was willing to green-light a show that was "like South Park, but cleaned up for network TV." So there's a very visible timeline and progression to how a show like Family Guy can get on TV. There's a similarly visible timeline and progression to how things that push the envelope eventually become absorbed into the mainstream and become commonplace.

There is no conspiracy. Occam's razor applies.
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Re: RAT

Postby Chanchu on Mon May 21, 2012 6:52 pm

American TV is esp GD awful makes me want to fracking barf >:( and I am not a prude don't mind sex and violence in a story- but what they do now is just plain fracking nasty and disgusting.

"The ridiculous, disgusting nonsense being pumped out on the screens looks bizarre to people my age* and Chanchu's age" yep- its horseshit.

American movies are now made for morons, everything is so SOBiching P.C they can't tell a story- its shit..

WTF is my DVD of "The Shootist"!? Oh yeah I forgot about "Hombre" cool!

Kiss my ancient derrier- modern Hollywood. You mo fo's better not- do a remake of the wild bunch- ya sacrelidgious bastards!! ;D

* ;D
Last edited by Chanchu on Mon May 21, 2012 9:37 pm, edited 8 times in total.
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Re: RAT

Postby Michael on Tue May 22, 2012 12:07 am

Bhassler wrote:Nope. There's big bucks in television and film, and like most things where the stakes are very high, the culture becomes very conservative.

Generally speaking, the US govt pumps billions per year into TV, movies, and other media. It's called behavior placement where they insert plot lines that are designed to influence the audience to approve of what the government is doing. The GAO called one particular case involving fake news stories illegal and it was definitely a plan by several people in the Bush, Jr. admin, so it could be called a conspiracy.

Here are some examples:
Buying of News by Bush's Aides Is Ruled Illegal
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/01/politics/01educ.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Mock News on Medicare Called Illegal
The General Accounting Office says viewers of the segments played by 40 TV stations weren't told they were produced for a government agency.
http://articles.latimes.com/2004/may/20/nation/na-gao20

GAO Says HHS Broke Laws With Medicare Videos
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41077-2004May19.html

I believe that the total money spent by the govt, regardless of which particular administration is currently in power, this money is simply to purchase influence over the media that is needed for culture creation. Culture creation is the idea that those in power use media in all its forms in order to strongly influence the direction of society and to change its values and norms according to a plan, and the plan is always to achieve more power to benefit those in power, the specifics of which can vary quite a bit.

Over 90% of the media is owned by five corporations that form a de facto cartel. These corporations are intertwined with the government and there is the revolving door of corporate officers moving in and out of government regulatory positions. Is the merging of the institutions of the Fortune 100 and the governments not apparent to all?

Over time, dominant institutions accelerate their intolerance for any opposition to their power, one of those oppositions being the family, who are loyal to and support each other. The government would rather try to dominate a man who is totally alone and dependent upon it for all his needs than to deal with a man who has a support structure providing physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual sustenance. So, the family must be gradually displaced, rendered obsolete by government and media taking over the role of father and mother as the time children spend under their influence increases so that the ideas of the government are transmitted by direct or indirectly controlled media that shape people's minds until they become amenable to total dependence on the government, resisting loss of independence and freedom less and less.

The Simpsons started as a funny niche program, started to go viral, got popular enough to get noticed, and eventually reached a tipping point where someone thought they could make big bucks producing a television show.

I remember the first two or three seasons of The Simpson's, when Homer was based on a benevolent Walter Matthau father figure and the show was a good satire. I think you're right about how it played out and I think the exact same thing happened with "Married...with Children". After they stopped attempting a realistic and funny satire, the show was just used to push the envelope of what's morally acceptable further and further.
Last edited by Michael on Tue May 22, 2012 12:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: RAT

Postby Michael on Tue May 22, 2012 12:13 am

Chanchu wrote:Oh yeah I forgot about "Hombre" cool!

"Hombre" is excellent. Throw in "Hud" while you're at it. Martin Ritt and Paul Newman were a good combo.
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Re: RAT

Postby river rider on Thu May 24, 2012 8:41 am

and each dead soul
soaked with sin

is condemned to hell
ignites with a scream

become a star
for the universe of things

tricked from the start
impossible not to be damned

as lights go out
new lights are needed
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Re: RAT

Postby mixjourneyman on Thu May 24, 2012 11:52 pm

ember hews dusk darken our morning walking into ephemeral blessed sunset,
for after the throngs of unwilling men worried themselves into a repartie of frenzied terror,
we stronger last ones who were encouraged not to doubt,
we held out the embers of your burnt and charred thoughts, washing outselves in the water which you made with your fears.


washing out into a field of dancing stars, I burried my face in her hair,
with the strawberry clouds of smoke so thin, they were barely even there.
out in this field, we soon would know, what it was meant to be,
that under the grasses tall and laid low, it would be just my baby and me.
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Re: RAT

Postby mixjourneyman on Thu May 24, 2012 11:54 pm

Bonnie prince billy says:

"there is no god,
there is no god,
except that which surrounds the tongue,
and that which finds love in the chest,
and that which puts mouths on cocks and vaginas,
that, that is best."

and also

"out that evening it makes me sick to think, you put your hands up as if to say "I won't be part of what you do. Life aint war, at least not today"."
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Re: RAT

Postby klonk on Fri May 25, 2012 10:50 am

There are those who delight in tearing down the moral standards bequeathed us in the cultural tradition. They see this as progress against an unfairly restrictive culture or, if not inclined to pretentiousness, simply admit they enjoy the work.

There is an up and down cycle in public morality. Otherwise we would have bottomed out centuries ago. We are currently in a down cycle. You may look for the new Victorians to be along by and by.
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Re: RAT

Postby Bhassler on Fri May 25, 2012 4:21 pm

klonk wrote:There are those who delight in tearing down the moral standards bequeathed us in the cultural tradition. They see this as progress against an unfairly restrictive culture or, if not inclined to pretentiousness, simply admit they enjoy the work.

There is an up and down cycle in public morality. Otherwise we would have bottomed out centuries ago. We are currently in a down cycle. You may look for the new Victorians to be along by and by.


Nice one. Does personal morality change according to societal norms, or is it only what's acceptable to expose publicly that changes?
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