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Somehow I Became Respectable

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Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#31

Post by saxonslav »

pjc50 wrote: post #26
Loughla wrote: post #10

Honestly, inside me it makes me wonder if we're seeing the cultural movement toward more progressive ideals, or if we're just seeing the cumulative generational shift away from what their parents stood for. Meaning - WWII's "the greatest generation" was a relatively conservative generation, and it's gone more liberal in terms of social movements ever since. Are we going to keep seeing this movement toward liberalism,…

Maybe this is where all the young fascists are coming from. To be genuinely outrageous these days you've got to hurt people, or threaten to.

[flagged]

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#32

Post by simonebrunozzi »

> Somehow I became respectable. I don’t know how—the last film I directed got some terrible reviews and was rated NC-17. Six people in my personal phone book have been sentenced to life in prison.

This is one of the most interesting and intriguing "opening" I've read in a long while.

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#33

Post by romaaeterna »

Didn't this man direct the movie with the child rape mattress and the unfeigned consumption of dog feces?

He didn't become respectable. His mental illness became mainstream.

I wish I knew how this happened. Maybe the mechanism was a combination of internet porn and the destruction of real life social spaces. Maybe it's something else. But people should perhaps spend some small fraction of the time that they spend freaking out about the weather, and use it to freak out just a little about how we are going to survive the next 50 years as a civilization with a functioning social and political system.

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#34

Post by mruts »

Loughla wrote: post #10

Honestly, inside me it makes me wonder if we're seeing the cultural movement toward more progressive ideals, or if we're just seeing the cumulative generational shift away from what their parents stood for. Meaning - WWII's "the greatest generation" was a relatively conservative generation, and it's gone more liberal in terms of social movements ever since. Are we going to keep seeing this movement toward liberalism,…

I dunno, it doesn't seem like we are moving toward liberalism. Everyone wants everyone else kicked off a twitter, everyone wants censorship. Tumblr bans porn, youtube bans anything people complain about, cloudflare doesn't want to do business with 8chan, etc etc. These are all incredibly illiberal and having nothing to do with true liberalism.

Liberalism, fundamentally, is about freedom (negative rights), both economic and social. The freedom to offend, to abhor, to hate, to disagree, to keep one's own money, to control one's own body, to decide himself how he should live his own life. This means legal drugs of all kinds, this means legal hate speech, legal death threats, legal sodomy, legal polygamy, legal bestiality, etc.

We are so far away from this world of liberalism and freedom that it makes me sad every time I think about it. In fact, I feel like in the past few decades we are getting farther away still.

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#35

Post by weberc2 »

jedberg wrote: post #18
acomjean wrote: post #8

Compared to our current politics, John Waters is kinda respectable. I saw him at a university auditorium a couple years ago. Entertaining. Plus he was great on the Simpsons. Time seems to take the shock out of things. Maybe its the non-stop access to interesting things on the internet and photos and videos of everything taking the rumor and imagination out of things. GWAR's shows were mythic but now we have a nice wi…

It's funny that you mention the Simpsons, which itself used to be so counterculture that you were a bad parent if you let your kid watch it. Now it's so mainstream that they can't find a plot that offends people anymore, not so much because they toned it down, but because society caught up to the Simpsons.

Didn’t people recently freak out about the ethnicity of the convenience store owner?

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#36

Post by 420codebro »

mruts wrote: post #24
sp332 wrote: post #20

Alice Cooper said years ago that he couldn't shock audiences anymore. Shock just seems not to be a thing audiences do now.

[flagged]

The immigration angle I understand (it does hurt/compete with our working/labor class). The breastfeeding thing has me scratching my head. I've seen plenty of women breastfeeding and it has never bothered me or even caught my attention beyond "oh she is feeding her kid". I suppose some people do get caught up on dumb shit.

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#38

Post by 420codebro »

rogerkirkness wrote: post #25
Loughla wrote: post #10

Honestly, inside me it makes me wonder if we're seeing the cultural movement toward more progressive ideals, or if we're just seeing the cumulative generational shift away from what their parents stood for. Meaning - WWII's "the greatest generation" was a relatively conservative generation, and it's gone more liberal in terms of social movements ever since. Are we going to keep seeing this movement toward liberalism,…

Gen X / early millenials are the last progressive liberal generation for sure. If you really think about what late millenials, etc. are about, it's both conservative and classical liberal, but not particularly 60s esque.

(Gatekeeping intensifies.)

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#39

Post by cgh »

mieseratte wrote: post #6
pwinnski wrote: post #2

I also don't understand how John Waters came to be seen as respectable, but I suppose it might help some people to hear that a lack of respectability, or even acceptance, is not always permanent. Sometimes it is, but not always.

At least among the well-heeled and the culture-class that Waters cites as his markers of acceptance. Should you take his films to a Baptist lock-in you will surely be in trouble. Widespread acceptability of formerly fringe-lifestyles and a rejection of socially-conservative values ranging from widespread availability of high-grade marijuana to drag-queens showing off their twerking capabilities at public libraries. I…

When I was a kid, Metallica was widely seen as completely crazy (this is the Kill 'Em All to Master of Puppets era). "Big kids" who listened to Metallica were vaguely threatening and best avoided. Now even those early thrash monsters are considered to be classic rock. Metallica is eminently respectable.

There is some extreme metal that will never be mainstream or widely listened to but that mainly comes down to the amount of work that's required to listen to it (Deathspell Omega) or the purely misanthropic production quality (Darkthrone's Panzerfaust, an album I adore). This sort of music is "shocking" in the sense that most people assume bands make music because they actually want people to listen to it.

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#40

Post by joncrane »

pwinnski wrote: post #2

I also don't understand how John Waters came to be seen as respectable, but I suppose it might help some people to hear that a lack of respectability, or even acceptance, is not always permanent. Sometimes it is, but not always.

Being respectable means finding a kernel of truth (that isn't necessarily widely known) and working diligently to clear the way for it to come out.

Hard work and devotion to a cause is, in itself, respectable. Having the courage to stick with something even when it was unpopular is respectable.

Heck even Terry A. Davis, late creator of TempleOS, gets some grudging respect on here.

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