JITS

So I went to watch the Watchmen the other day, and I gotta say, it’s a brilliant movie. The pace may have been a little slow at times, which may be in part to the excessive use of slow-mo and narratives, but the atmosphere was spot on and the writing was thought provoking (although I guess that should be credited to the novel.

Now, with that out of the way, I gotta voice my annoyance. Blue penis, or rather, people’s reaction to it in the movie. Personally, I had no problem with it. I think the director was quite brave for including it and for that I must applaud him. However, it seems when I talk with most people about this movie, they’re all like “HAR HAR, u like blu penis. Ur am teh gay!”

An otherwise brilliant movie seems to have been undermined because simple-minded people can’t look past a cg phallus. Like as if they’ve never seen one before. How old are they?

Which then brings us nicely to the other reaction (and the other point to this rant): “OMG! Why aren’t they censoring this?! Think of the children! Ban it!”

I’m not entirely sure who to be upset with more here. Are we so delicate that this kind of imagery would scar us? Are we really so fragile? It sounds like as if we’re a nation of virgins and the foul thought of sex rapes our minds. How much you wanna bet these people then go home and watch porn with their mistresses? (Personally, I think we all should be having MORE sex. My feeling is that a lot of what’s wrong with this country has to do with the fact that we just don’t have the population mass…. But that’s another rant for another time)

If the movie offends you so much, then don’t watch it. But of course, for that to work the cinema operators should be putting out the proper warnings and age restrictions for movies. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think they even put the warning at the beginning of the movie. Even if they did, the very fact that I failed to remember is already an indication of how badly they are failing at it.

Then there are the parents. As a parent, it’s your responsibility to look up what you’re exposing your kids to. It’s called “good parenting”. I once sat in a cinema behind a family who brought their child (who couldn’t have been more than 5 years old) to watch Hitman… HITMAN. That’s a movie about a guy who is trained to kill people, then saves some hooker from political conspiracy (if I recall). The name “Hitman” should’ve been enough to clue people in that they shouldn’t bring their kids to watch it.

Personally, I think the cinema’s need to be stricter with the age restrictions. They should probably introduce a “child fare” which would be substantially cheaper, but of course, not available to the more mature movies. This way, the ticket vendors have a means to enforce the age check and inform people of what movies contain potentially explicit content. Also, when people go to buy tickets, they would have to make a conscious decision about whether to bring their kids or not.