Happy holidays!

Special effects in movies, when well done, are fun.  They help us escape from our lives to enjoy tales of superheroes, mutants or alternate realities.  We travel to faraway or mythical lands and see dragons, dwarfs and trolls, tree-creatures battling orcs, wizards and sorcerers battling.  Oh yeah, and stuff blowing up.  (Thank you Michael Bay)  None of this really exists, of course, but that’s part of what makes it a good escape for the viewer.

It’s kind of hard to imagine a major blockbuster that doesn’t involve some form of death, shock, torture, shooting or explosion.  War movies can bring perhaps the most accuracy to this genre and this is especially true of those that don’t sugar coat it.  Saving Private Ryan was very graphic but not in an over-the-top, gratuitous way.  It brought home the realities of war.  Most action movies, however, take violence to a completely unrealistic level.

Yes, there are gangs in real life, and there is some level of underworld in our major cities. But our movies would lead you to the conclusion that every street corner is a drug marketplace, every precinct is infested by corrupt cops, in every alley lurks an assassin, every bar is a spontaneous kung fu fight waiting to happen and every nightclub is a potential gang warfare site.  Around every corner a secret agent lays in wait for another secret agent. Domestic abuse is rampant and a serial killer lurks in your closet waiting to decapitate you.  Some zombie wants to eat your brains.

The real world does offer some of these adventures (the supernatural notwithstanding) but, again, the point of the story is to provide an escape for the viewer.  One thing to remember, though: violence always has a victim. Very few chainsaw murders are consensual.

Sex in the movies is also plentiful. It’s in our ads and our magazines, it’s on TV, it’s everywhere.  But there are rules. Flash a single breast or hint at a risque sex scene and your movie gets an R rating.  Show anything more and you’re stuck with an X rating – if you get a rating at all.  Movies with gratuitous nudity get R ratings, while others flirt with “the line” and get away with a PG13. In general, the idea is to offer various levels of nudity and sexuality for the sake of appealing to various levels of horny viewers (mostly men) and to make a buck in the process. It’s easy to view this brand of escapism as more positive than violence, mayhem and death.

Then there are more artistically inclined movies, usually independent, that ask us to think about real life.  In these stories, people who don’t have Hollywood-perfect bodies might get together and do the things that normal people do.  Some breastfeed in public.  Some have non-erotic showers.  Some change clothes.  Some kiss.  Some have sex.  They might show some skin but almost every human is nude at least once a day, right? Skin happens.

If these stories are told effectively we will relate to the characters as they tap into experiences that we all share.  They show reality, or some plausible fictionalized version of it.  Sometimes there are heated arguments and even violence, but they spare us the fx. No blood spatter analysis, nobody shot at point blank range, no body parts flying at us in 3D.

With this in mind, let’s think about the Moral Majority and its neo-puritan descendants.  Which movies seem to catch their attention?  What is it that gets under their skin and ruffles their feathers?

Yes, this is a rhetorical question.

While I respect the rights of people to choose what they see, let’s consider some numbers. Last year, depending on your source, between 15k and 20k Americans were murdered.  This adds up to about six people in 100,000.  Each of these murders, by definition, put an unnatural end to someone’s life.  Friends and family mourned, and in many cases incurred physical and emotional burdens that they will never shed.  The suck factor for homicide is 100%.

Last year approximately a quarter billion Americans had consensual sex.  (Okay, I’m making this statistic up but it can’t be far off.)  If the number is close, this comes to about 70,000 people in 100,000.  Each of these instances (by definition) involved two (or more) people coming together and enjoying the company of another for a time.  Whereas being a murder victim is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, many of these people will choose to have repeat episodes with the same person.  In general, then, it’s safe to assert that most of these victims of consensual sex leave better than they arrived.  The suck factor for sex is not zero but it’s a lot closer to zero than it is to 100%. (Obviously I emphasize “consensual” for a reason – non-consensual sex, sex with a victim, is not sex – it’s violence.)

Isn’t this odd?  Movies portray violence on an exaggerated, unrealistic scale. Violence has a very high suck factor. And nobody bats an eye.  Other movies depict natural sexuality (or maybe unrealistic, but harmless sexuality). And sex is an act that almost every adult in the country takes part in on a semi-regular basis (or they’d like to). The suck factor is very small. And this is what gets conservative panties in a bunch.

So to sum up: in art it’s fine to kill, maim and destroy but it’s not okay to portray a satisfying natural encounter or to take a picture of said encounter.

When you think about it, this bizarre dynamic extends well beyond the arts.  The Right has no problem advocating and rushing into real wars, wars that leave a lot of innocents dead along with the baddies we’re supposedly liberating them from. But sensuality, in all cases outside of married Christian sex, is considered bad (and even that isn’t to be depicted or talked about).  A major irony here is that when we consider all of the political sex scandals from the past few years Republicans seem to comprise a large majority of the perpetrators.  They profess to frown upon nudity, upon cleavage, upon homosexuality, upon sensuality of any type.  But behind closed doors this is exactly what everyone seems to seek.  Even some of the loudest proponents of the Defense of Marriage Act have been caught in hypocritical, compromising sexual situations.  Amusing, or perhaps tragic, is the fact that morality police like David Vitter and Larry Craig snuck behind the backs of their spouses for sexual fulfillment, betraying personal as well as public trusts.  Couples who simply acknowledge the realities if normal human sexuality, on the other hand, can explore their curiosities and desires with the full support, blessing and (optional) involvement of their life partners.

Damn, America has it backwards.

Europeans are a lot more comfortable with their bodies than Americans.  Their magazines feature topless women and there are far more topless beaches.  They have movies with unabashed sexuality (you even find live sex acts in respectable theatre presentations).  We always seem to portray Brits as stuffy but in this respect it is us that are the stuffy ones.

I imagine that with most S&R readers I’m preaching to the choir, but I’ll say it anyway.  Sex is natural and it’s healthy to explore. It should be celebrated instead of demonized.

Disclosure: I take artistic pictures of people in edgy sensual circumstances and participate in activities that those offended by this article would certainly frown upon.  I am tired of having the reactionary moral positions of others thrust upon my art, my life and my friends when all of those participating are benefiting from their involvement.  I really don’t mean to sound like a hippie when I say this but…. Make love, not war!

This first picture is of one of my friends shooting pool.  Look for the words: Light, Shadow, Rob, Shirt, Cueball, Cue, Table and Background.

This second shot is another done from the “Dia de los Muertos” art outing we went to, thus the phrase inspiration for this piece.

Reference photo shot on the phone and all work done “in phone” using “Type Drawing”.  Yeah baby….

Cass of the Dead

Dan of the Dead

Crystal as “Heaven”

Tilt-shifted Raver Yeti

Eddie Van Gogh

El Noro

Mar as Jesus on a Dinosaur (reference link)

Matt of the Dead

Tonight, tomorrow you will see people dressed up in their Halloween finest.  For your viewing pleasure I present others who are dressed up in their, well, regular party clothes.  But it might as well be for Halloween, right?

The following content is NSFP/W (what does NSFP mean?).  Click below for more….

Eden Muse in rainbow fashions!

Allen Faulkner.  And yes, those are hooks holding that metal contraption in place.

Ms. Easy sparks it up!

Quill the Clown as a barcode

Here is my next entry in the “Phone Artwork” series.  Again, the theme here is that everything from start to finish (including taking the original picture) was done on a mobile device.  And by mobile device I mean the device you use, amongst other things,  as a telephone.

New technology brings new creative outlets.  If you had told me ten years ago that I would be taking pictures and doing artistic manipulations on my PHONE I may not have believed you.  Yes, this piece (posted in the spirit of Halloween) was shot and fully edited on my iPhone.  It sort of reminds me of the closing scene of the director’s cut of Brazil (not the love-conquers-all version) and that’s okay.

ArtsWeek continues.  Halloween is in the air. So is health care reform. Maybe you can imagine this dedicated health care professional extracting the deductible from your wallet with a hemostat!

[Semi-NSFW]

• mentalswitch.com
• About mentalswitch

Remember the pictures we shared during the DNC last year? Were you wondering what happened to photography contributor Jack Shaftoe? Well, I’m back.

This set is an introduction to some of my studio work. “Jack” was my political persona but as MentalSwitch I’ve been shooting fine art since 2000 and have been published in the USA, Canada and in Europe. Through my art I explore social taboos and preconceptions (and occasionally just shoot a given picture for the hell of it).

As you view these pictures just remember that members of alternative subcultures are people, too, and are oftentimes very active in social and political change movements.

• mentalswitch.com
• About mentalswitch

(More below the cut)

Robert Corey Jr., a prominent Denver lawyer who has offered to defend at no charge anyone busted for pot this week, spoke to the crowd and encouraged them not to light up on the walk and to cooperate. Richard Eastman was the primary organizer of the event and if you heard anyone around town this week preaching medicinal marijuana on a bullhorn it was likely him. (see first picture under the cut for his image)

Walkers numbered in the high hundreds, bordering on a thousand by the time the procession reached Invesco Field. At the time we parted ways with them 30 minutes into the walk there had been no issues with the authorities. They were on their way to the protest cage and we do not have any report about what happened once they arrived there.

Word has it that some of the younger “marijuana is cool” crowd engaged the police and were taken into custody but that nobody who was actually preaching medicinal marijuana was involved.

(click for more pictures)

Here are some pictures of art and signs from the Tent State rally and march.  Make sure to check out the rest of the images in the three March entries.

This image was from Tent State, just prior to the march
(More images below)

Even more pictures from the Tent State march. Part 3 of 3. Look for a post on Signs and Art from the Tent State March in the morning.

Make sure to check out the previous two posts for more pictures!

More pictures from the Tent State march. Part 2 of 3.

Make sure to check out parts one and three!

This afternoon I was at the Coliseum taking pictures of the most serious youth movement of the DNC, Tent State. Towards the end of the show I am told by a participant that there is going to be a march. I see hundreds of people on the road, waiting. She told me that as soon as the Flobots show let out they’d start and that there would be thousands. Rage Against the Machine would be marching with the group. She wasn’t wrong.

I hopped on my motorcycle and made my way to where I thought the first corner they might with police might be, Brighton and Blake. Turns out I was right. In fact, I was so right that the cops weren’t there yet. And I had to wait about 35 to 45 minutes for the march to make its long way down the road. The cops showed on bikes and in riot gear. The media started to show and my anticipation was all for naught. There were tons of photographers there by the time we saw the first demonstrators.

What follows is a four part series: “People of the Tent State March” (3 posts) and “Signs and Art of the Tent State March”. We’ll start with the people. It’s going to be long but there were thousands of people. And hey, it’s the news…

Make sure you click through all three posts to see them all.

Editor’s Note: S&R’s Sam Smith captured some interesting interviews with marcher as the demonstration was happening. For the audio, click here.

Make sure to view the next two articles as well….