The Excorcist

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Tuesday, 10-27

• 9:30

Cult Classics

The Exorcist

Arguably the scariest motion picture ever made, William Friedkin’s THE EXORCIST was unleashed on an unsuspecting American public in 1973. The film quickly became a nationwide sensation, leading to religious boycotts, fainting, and a huge box office return. Oscar nominee Linda Blair beat out hundreds of other child actors to land the role of Regan MacNeil, a 12-year-old who is possessed by the devil. After exhausting all other practical options, Regan’s mother, Chris (Ellen Burstyn), acknowledges the supernatural nature of her daughter’s condition and recruits Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) to stage an exorcism. Aided by the mysterious Jesuit exorcist Father Merrin (Max von Sydow), Father Damien must confront not only the supernatural phenomena in front of him, but also his own inadequate faith and displaced guilt over his mother’s recent death. Friedkin brings William Peter Blatty’s Oscar-winning script to shocking life by establishing a realistic, everyday tone before allowing the terror to creep in. The performances of Burstyn and Miller further help to ground the supernatural events. Like THE GODFATHER before it and JAWS shortly after, the breakout success of THE EXORCIST helped to transform Hollywood into the blockbuster behemoth of American culture.

Stupid Sex Laws

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/naked-justice-man-arrested-for-being-nude-in-his-own-kitchen/

I will, once again, preface this with a disclaimer that really shouldn't need to be said. But it does, so I will.

I am not opposed to proper legislation and punishment for actual sexual offenders. Rapists (violent and non-violent), child molesters, sexual harassment perpetrators, etc. do, indeed, need to be both punished and prevented from harming society. That's not what I'm talking about here.

What I'm talking about is the criminalization of any activity that even remotely involves the genitals with complete disregard to whether or not the activity is sexual in nature, whether it's participated in by consenting adults, and whether it's performed on private property. I'm talking about the punishment not fitting the crime, and about labeling all of these people with the same label, as if their offenses were equal, and about the punishment for sharing a label with a rapist or child molester resulting in otherwise decent human beings being denied their basic rights as citizens after completing their time served, such as housing and the ability to work a legitimate job and contribute to society after their debt has been paid.

In this case, a guy has been arrested for being naked in his own kitchen.

Yes, you read that right.  It wasn't a typo.  He was ARRESTED for being naked in his own kitchen.  Should he later be convicted in a court of law, he will have to serve jail time, probably pay a fine, and only be allowed to live in certain places, take certain types of jobs, and be denied for all other jobs because of his felony record, all because he was NAKED IN HIS OWN KITCHEN.

The article I'm linking to provides some questionable points in the case.  And I think these are reasonable points to question.  But the really important points in the case are:

1) HE WAS IN HIS OWN KITCHEN.  
2) She was trespassing on HIS property
3) If the genders were reversed, the lookiloo would have been arrested as a Peeping Tom

OK, so maybe it wasn't in the best of taste to leave his blinds open, but c'mon, it's not reasonable to expect a person to shut himself off from sunlight on the off-chance someone might be illegally on his property and peeking through his windows to catch a glimpse of his bare chest and call the cops for it.

Oh, did I mention that she only saw him naked from the waist up?

But really, if you don't want to see what people are doing inside their homes, DON'T FUCKING PEEK IN THEIR WINDOWS!

And I have to agree with the author of the article I linked to about the gender bias.  I think this says some very dangerous things about our society, including how we have sexualized and objectified women to a pathological degree.  A man looking at a naked woman is the criminal.  A woman looking at a naked man makes the man the criminal.  No matter how you slice it, the man is always at fault when it comes to exposing a woman to sex.  Because men are all sex maniacs and monsters (and, by extension, it's OK that they are), and women are delicate flowers that must be protected from all things sex-related at all costs.  Or something.  There are just so many things wrong with this that I think it deserves its own rant just on the gender bias ... but now now, I'm running late.

The criminalization of everything genital-related is absurd.  People, I have a newsflash:  It's not going to scar your kids for life if they know what a penis looks like, or where babies come from, or even that adults sometimes do silly things like walk around naked in their living rooms.  In fact, it probably WILL scar them for life if they don't know this.