NEWS RELEASE FROM MORALITY IN MEDIA
NEW YORK (Oct. 31, 2008) – In conjunction with the annual Pornography Awareness Week and the White Ribbon Against Pornography Campaign, which run Oct. 26 through Nov. 2, The Weinstein Company has released “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” a comedy about two young adults who are financially and morally broke and who decide to make a pornographic movie to make ends meet.
Morality in Media President Robert Peters commented:
Unlike the Broadway musical “The Producers,” which was intended to make fun of the Nazis, the film “Zack & Miri Make a Porno” is just intended to be fun, like a comedy about football.
This raises a question, “Is it morally acceptable to have fun about any subject, when it comes to sex, whether it be making pornography, prostitution, trafficking, molesting children, or rape?”
I would assume that The Weinstein Company wouldn’t make a film that portrayed in a sympathetic light the Nazis who murdered Jews in Auschwitz or the men in Texas who dragged an African American behind a truck until he died There are some standards in Hollywood.
Perhaps the excuse is that Hollywood is just reflecting reality, and there is some truth in that because young adults (and some not so young) are making their own pornography to make a buck.
But despite what Hollywood tells us, sympathetic and nonjudgmental portrayals of moral evil also encourage copycat behavior among vulnerable youth and even among some old enough to know better.
Not too long ago a media outlet contacted me about the tragic phenomena of individuals, young and older, willing to disrobe (and often to do more) on the Internet for all to see. I commented in part that popular culture has normalized pornography for many Americans, especially younger Americans.
Earlier this year, I wrote the following in a letter to a U.S. Senator, criticizing the Justice Department’s record of enforcing federal obscenity laws, “to date the Department has not lost one obscenity case; but the ‘victories’ have been so few and far between that commercial distributors of pornography are more worried about the glut of free porn hampering sales than they are about obscenity prosecutions.”
And finally, why is this film rated “R” rather than “NC-17?” Does the MPAA honestly think it’s OK for kids to view an indecent film about making porn, as long as a parent is along for the ride?
Author: MIM 10/31/2008
