I agree with your friend, the use of language like that should not be allowed by “role model figures.” Everything a kid sees affects them, and believe me, once a kid learns something is ok, or funny, or even that it gets a reaction from adults, even if it is negative, they will use it.

My problem with Swordfish was just how it was adversited, no problem with the nudity just that our society seems soo hungry for a pair of breasts that people would flock just because there will be some exposed. I believe that is just wrong, and that a movie would go that low (in my opinion) as to make its case to go see it because someone’s breast were going to be there… and it does not stop there, even some male actor’s butt’s have sold tickets. To me that cheapens the “art” of the movie and makes it purely a commercial product, that I know hollywood movies are, it just bothers me that we as a society have made that ok.

Now I am not sure where you are going with my complains about Violence, Sex and Drugs with black people appearing in movie. That is just completely out there as far as any comparisons go… I think you have missed my point completely. I have no problem with those subjects being shown on movies, in fact I enjoy many movies and documentaries based on a lot of difficult topics. Movies (except for Documentaries) have little to do with journalism (unless you are making a movie based on facts), to me, movies are supposed to be art. What I am tired of is hollywood using one or all of those 3 things to sell movies and replacing a good story with just cheap (Snort, BOOM, f*ck).

You mention Swordfish. Yeah, Hally Berry appears there naked and yummy. Is that wrong? You said that it was unnecessary, I disagree: given the character she plays in the movie the scene totally fits. Sex happens, nudeness is also part of daily life. Drugs are normal as well, perhaps you’re just a minority. If you show in a movie a gang of young boys it is completely normal showing them smoking pot, if you have as characters a few clubbers, it is impossible avoiding the X factor. If the movie is about violence, someone is gonna be killed.

It is not movie’s responsibility nor intention explaining people how to behave. For that we have schools, friends and families. Fifty years ago, somebody could have used similar argument to the ones you’re using in order to prevent black people from working in the movies. This guy could have said that he didn’t want his kids to be exposed to that. His mistake, and yours, is assuming that movies are the legacy we’re leaving to the future generations and that’s what we want them to see about us. In order to find out how the past was, those hypotetical future generations will watch the TV news from these days and they -without watching any movie- will conclude that we’re in a world full of anger, violence, poverty, drugs, lies and social disparities. Of course, you could also tell the news to stop talking about the bad things that happen and focus only in the good things -so future generations don’t see what we were-, but that’s not the way journalism, nor life, works.

The Matrix for example was a movie where the special effects were so blended with the story that they did not take center stage and steal anything from the movie. At least the first one. It flows and still leaves the story in the center, but the more and more I watch movies I see unnecessary violence, sex and drugs just taking away from the story instead of enhancing it.

If I have not made this point clear I would like to. I am not against the portrayal of sex, violence or drugs in movie, I am just saying that do it in a tasteful manner and know its place. If the movie is not about those topics I don’t think hollywood should feel compelled to show them so much.

Being a Dr Who fan, I was interested a few years ago when the U.S. got to make a jointly-produced Dr Who movie that was shown in the U.S. first. At one point, our hero is shot and killed by a gang. It’s violent, yet but not anything more than you see on American TV. I remember that the UK version was toned down quite a bit and the violence as it were was one of the hardest cut. I remember comments that if it had been some nudity, there’d be no uproar about it in the UK as that was less taboo than the violence.

Anyway, about the violence. I find it interesting that you bring up movies like the Asian cinema where violence is part of it. But I find that level of violence more a choreographed one. It’s almost ballet like. I think of John Woo films that feature great action pieces but they are so far removed from reality that you can easily go–yes, that’s just a movie. Unlike others where it’s a bit more realistic and easier to imitate if you will….

Thank you for the compliment you are too kind. I will look into that book, it sounds very interesting.

Thanks again.

I did note that pot use seems to be commonly accepted and well, X is a club drug but not everyone goes to clubs, and not every person that goes to a club does X either. I happen to be very lucky and a part of several social groups, and I am happy to say that a vast majority of the people that I associate with do not do any kind of drugs. I would venture to say that I really do not know an every day user anymore, even though I did know some in College. Most of the people that did drugs during the college years have moved on from that.

Growing up in Colombia a lot of people might have thought that “drugs were something you saw all the time”, but I can honestly say that on my 16 years there I saw marihuana being smoked once. While I did see a lot more drugs during my college here in the US, it was not as common as some movies portray it. Maybe I was not in a high use major.

My point still stands; the use of drugs is not a common occurrence of every day life for the majority of the population. And it is not the message that I want to send to the kids of the next generation.

Well, I’m sorry to contradict you but those things are extremely common. Perhaps not within your social circle, but if you consider society as a whole you will see lots of drug consumption all over the place. Smoking pot, for instance, is as common as smoking cigarrettes among college students from certain majors. Using X is ridiculously common if you are a regular of electronic music clubs.