Tuesday, October 07, 2008 Obenieta: Do you see what they say? By Myke U. Obenieta So to speak
TRUE, though some who want to see the right thing may rue: Even pornographers have their own point of view.
In Los Angeles, reputed as America’s smut capital, an advertising executive calling himself a “shock artist” did not bat an eyelash when he admitted having made and sold movies showing bestiality and sexual acts involving feces and urine.
Extremely disgusting, yes. But this, avers Ira Isaacs, is a “constitutionally protected form of art.” There is, after all, a 1973 US Supreme Court ruling, stating that something is not legally obscene if it has “literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”
Blame it on point of view. “It’s relatively simple to paint something as an artistic effort even if it’s offensive,” says Jean Rosenbluth, a former federal prosecutor/law professor at University of Southern California. That renders it rare to prosecute pornography, explains Rosenbluth. And so cracking down on smut, the reason for the creation of the new US Department of Justice Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, is not as easy as rolling one’s eyeballs.
Someone once said obscenity is whatever gives the judge an erection. The problem with porn, concedes Rosenbluth, “is no one really knows what it is.”
She better takes her cue from some women in Cebu who think they know better. Maybe the members of Provincial Women’s Commission (PWC) can show her their magnifying lens. Why, it can even make an Everest out of a breast!
The commission recently passed a resolution condemning alleged pornography in local tabloids such as Superbalita. They want the Provincial Board to see it their way, and passed legislation accordingly. Their anti-porn resolution, according to Superbalita editor Anol Mongaya, harps on some semi-nude women and descriptions of kissing scenes in the Cebuano entertainment column, “Teenage Romance.” Which, I wager, would make for delicious reading if it were an iota as compelling as anything written by Phillip Roth or Erica Jong.
Maybe, my friend Anol can show them a few pages of Penthouse, Oui, or FHM so PWC’s magnifying lens can spot the difference. But if Anol would claim those mags are not his mug of coffee, maybe some PWC members have boyfriends, husbands, and sons who might have some copies stashed somewhere.Or, to make their crusading zeal go beyond poking through an anthill, Anol could guide them at the sidewalks of Colon where DVD vendors don’t sell pirated copies of Raymond Gutierrez and KC Concepcion playing lovey-dovey only.
And what will PWC say about those billboards all over the city so eye-catching these could cause accidents while driving?
What can they say of Francine Prieto and Dingdong Dantes who loom short of letting us know their underwear are more immaculate-looking than ours?
Methinks PWC members do radiate auras enough to take the shine out of Mr. Clean’s bald head. Such energy can set off sweetness and light to zap us into Zen mode. For starters, trying their hands on origami out of some tabloid pages might be something they can do. Come on, ladies, how’s that for another point of view?
