D.B. Tarpley's Amazing Ass Blog - Part 4
WARNING!!! TODAY’S BLOG MAY BE FOUND TO BE OFFENSIVE TO SOUTH PERUVIAN SILK WORMS!!!
Greetings people and peoplettes.
As many of you know, I am a writer. And if you are lucky enough to have read one of my stories, then you have been truly blessed. (What? You haven’t picked up any of my work yet? Check out Lick the Razor. It is a good starter kit.)
What I would like to talk about today are warnings and censorship. To all practical purposes, in today’s culture, warnings only exist as a selling point. People see one and they go, "Wait, there is something in here I am not supposed to see…well then I simply must see it."
It is no coincidence that Janet Jackson’s tit slipped out right before her new album dropped. But why is this material found to be "too offensive"?
Usually profanity, just rote – repetitive commonly heard words which serve as a basis for increased sales.
Sometimes it is sex, but it is usually implied and rarely graphic in nature. We are, in general, a fairly puritanical society.
But occasionally the warning is not without merit. Occasionally, the warning is more about the ideas presented, ideas considered dangerous to the average John and Jane Doe. That is what fascinates me: the ideas too taboo to handle.
I am a bit of a film collector - five thousand and counting - and I specialize in films which have been considered too dangerous by society. The holy grail of such films, for my money, is A Serbian Film by Srdjan Spasojevic.
This film is Splatterpunk to the core. It barely found a distributor in the US.
The basic plot revolves around a former porn star, Srdjan Todorovic in a tour de force performance, who is offered a part in an underground porn film by a new hot art director.
The catch is that he doesn’t get a script and is simply presented with scenario after scenario in the hopes that his natural reaction will add to the film’s impact.
As he proceeds, the scenarios get darker and darker; often dealing with subject matter most American films would never dare to touch.
The average critic looks at the sinister nature of these scenarios and screams obscenity. But trust me when I say there is nothing gratuitous or cheap about this tragedy. Each scenario is a metaphor for an atrocity faced by the Serbian people during their recent genocide.
The film is the penultimate example of artistic merit in the face of graphic material. Every single facet of the film is top notch from the performances to the narrative to an Oscar worthy score.
It is a shame most people will never see it.
It is a shame it has been almost censored to extinction.
It is a hard piece of art to recommend but if you’ve got the brass and you want to take a wild ride through rampant depravity which is worthy of deep introspective afterthought, you need to do yourself a favor and watch A Serbian Film.
Some might find the stories in Lick the Razor to be offensive and well worth a warning label.
But just bear in mind that every film, every album, every story should be entered into with a blank slate. And the content therein should be judged individually, relevant to the context of the piece.
Never let commercial "warnings" sway you.
Until next time, thanks, and have an amazing ass day.
SOUTH PERUVIAN SILK WORMS SUCK DONKEY BALLS!!!
D.J. Tarpley's Lick the Razor is available on this website as a downloadable eBook or from other sites such as Amazon, iTunes, etc.
Comments
On Friday, September Sep 2013 Stella said...
“Love that film. Available on Pirate Bay. But not for the fainthearted.”
On Friday, September Sep 2013 Critcz said...
“Nice post DB. I still think Salo beats all comers (no wonder the director was later beaten to death). I still wonder at the efficacity of censorship, given it differs so wildly across countries.”
On Friday, September Sep 2013 D.B.Tarpley said...
“Stella, I would agree about it not being for the fainthearted and I cannot in good conscience recomend it across the board to everyone. But if you can watch it with the understanding that it is fiction and not really happening before you (a trick so few people seem to be able to accomplish these days) then it is worth the journey... especially the heartwrenching final scene. Critz, I love Salo and yes I think it is a worthy rival for the throne. Both movies are very important to me. I think anything dealing with children automatically shoots to the top of the list in most cultures. But I agree with you that it is amazing the disparity around that which is taboo in America, and that which is taboo in England for example, a country where Texas Chainsaw Massacre was banned for many years. Then you look at some primative cultures which marry child brides and wonder how any one idea or concept can be truly 'right' and by whose standards. Certainly there has to be some bar which we as human beings must go by in general and these films are the perfect medium for exploring that. (P.S. - I don't think Pasolini was murdered by the street hustler he chose that evening for his work. I heard he had really stinky toes.”
On Friday, September Sep 2013 Don K. Balls said...
“Wow, I have never even heard of this movie. What can be that bad? It can't be as scary as Jason or Freddy. Looking for the book now. Is it where the movie came from? I am confused.”
On Friday, September Sep 2013 D.B.Tarpley said...
“Don, both the movie and the book are seperate entities. And yes, both are scarrier. Imagine if Jason and Freddy had a baby, then chopped that baby up in a food processor and served it with boysenberry jam on stale triscuits to Miley Cyrus live at the VMA's... it's that kind of scary.”
On Saturday, September Sep 2013 simonsays said...
“Didn't England even ban Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" with Dustin Hoffman? Dustin Hoffman! Madness. ”
On Sunday, September Sep 2013 D.B.Tarpley said...
“Yes, I believe England did ban Packinpah's "Straw Dogs" And then someone went and remade the damned thing and I banned it. I love the original. I love movies from the seventies in general. I like my leading men to not be so pretty or brawny. Slapping a pair of glasses on a model does not automatically make them an underdog. Did you know that Richard Dreyfus was originally slated to play the lead in Total Recall? Imagine what a thinking man's movie that would have been. I mean who doubts Arnold is a sleeper-super/spy? It takes all the mystic of the premise away. It dumbs it down. What a mindfuck that could have been with Dreyfus in the leading role.”
On Tuesday, September Sep 2013 grandboy said...
“Richard Dreyfus hooking up with Sharon Stone? Ya gotta be kidding me. He would've been the bent taxi driver.”
On Tuesday, September Sep 2013 D.B.Tarpley said...
“Bent indeed. I have always been a fan of casting against type... why not have a fat detective, why not have a pretty villain... If I ever get in a place of power on a film project I will demand on all ugly people being in the film. There are far too few ugly people in movies and they are always treated like villains. If I see one more high school film where the kids are all in their twenties, and gorgeous I will vomit blood into a special container and mail it first class to whoever is in charge of Disney studios as they own everything these days with a note reading, 'Drink me.'”
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