Some thoughts on extremist "art"

On hearing about the new shock film: 'A Serbian Film" - which I must state I have not seen but relied on several reviews and reports -  I shared my thoughts on Facebook thus:

The problem I have with rubbish like this is that it so often works as a substitute for talent. A rubbish film or album this controversial will attract controversy, people watch/listen because of curiosity, therefore the makers get money and that motivates the next bunch of talentless tossers to do something even worse. I always hold Roy Chubby Brown up as one such example of controversay trumping talent.

The real answer to such nonsense is to ignore it and shrug our shoulders at people trying to get our attention by being obscene, but for some reason the human race struggles to do that.

This is, of course, not to suggest that every offensive figure lacks talent. Eddy Murphy is a great comedian and Marilyn Manson are a good band. 



I've just read the "reception" section on wikipedia for this film. I think one reviewer made a good point and one that I forgot to mention - rubbish artists, actors and producers who make obscene rubbish always turn it into a) a battle against censorship or b) some pseudo-allegorical nonsense about politics, society or human psyche
It looks like the producers of this movie may have done both.
When told a piece of art has undertones, we try to find them, but it's often a case of 'The Emperors New Clothes'.
Necrophilia is not an allegory for the Sebian independence movement or a cry for freedom of speech. It's just bloody sick.


To be fair, imdb does have some intelligently written reviews defending the film.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1273235/usercomments

Cleric uses police to censor a blogger

This article is from pubphilosopher

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I've been jolted out of my recent lethargy by this story. It appears that an Anglican vicar complained to the police about an article written by blogger Seismic Shock, which the vicar claimed had associated him with terrorist organisations . The police then paid a visit to the blogger and to his university, demanding access to his computer files and strongly suggesting that he should delete his blog.
The vicar, Stephen Sizer, apparently left this comment on a Christian blog that had linked to Seismic Shock:

Dear Vee,
You must take a little more care who you brand as anti-semitic otherwise you too will be receiving a caution from the police as the young former student of Leeds did recently. One more reference to me and you will be reported.
Blessings
Stephen

A number of bloggers have picked up this story and many are asking how the hell the police came to be involved in this. Surely an allegation of libel is a civil dispute not a matter for the police.

However, as regular readers of this blog will know, over the past few years the government has passed a number of laws which effectively give religious fanatics more rights and protection than the rest of us. They only have to utter the phrase 'religious hate speech', or something similar, and the police are obliged to follow the complaint up. Seismic Shock isn't the first person to have a visit from the cops after writing an article criticising a religious viewpoint, and he will not be the last.

Seismic Shock has been the victim of censorship by intimidation. Worse still, this was done using the taxpayer-funded forces of the state rather than the civil law. Regardless of where you stand on the Zionist vs Anti-Zionist conflict, or the various Jewish-Christian-Muslim arguments, this is a vicious attack on free speech.

If you have a blog, please publicise this story as many others have this weekend.

If you would like to email Stephen Sizer and tell him what you think, his address is here.

Hat Tip:Modernity Blog