Posted on 11/28/2017 10:19:35 AM PST by EdnaMode
“Call Me by Your Name,” which opened nationwide Thanksgiving weekend, is about an older man’s affair with a 17-year-old boy. And while the movie is garnering rave reviews from urbane elites, their acclamations about the storyline are not quite accurate.
This is not a romantic tale about the awakening of homosexual desire in and between two men: It is a story about a man and boy whose relationship sparks homoeroticism and flirtation, which then turns romantic and carnal.
Summed up in a single word, the movie is about pederasty.
A secondary message is the suggestion that handsome, together, “straight” men and boys can be seduced and recruited.
The film has received high praise from leftist establishments.
“Call Me By Your Name Just Officially Became This Year's Oscars Frontrunner,” trumpets a W Magazine headline. Rolling Stone declares it “the most romantic movie of the year” and “an instant classic.” The New Yorker calls it an “erotic triumph, emotionally acute and overwhelmingly sensual,” and it is hailed by Entertainment Weekly as “gorgeous and intoxicating.”
Even National Review, way back in early October, called the movie “a charming gay romance” which “will probably mop up” at the Oscars.
It's a wonder Hollywood is thrilled. It shouldn’t be.
Hollywood’s Stunning Hypocrisy
The stunning hypocrisy of the left is revealed in its promotion of this movie as an “Oscar contender,” at a point in history where real-life Hollywood celebrities, Washington VIP politicos and other powerful men find their careers lying in ruins––or on the verge of ruin––for precisely the type of behavior this movie glorifies.
Recriminations from recent alleged sexually inappropriate behavior, or tales sexual indiscretions exhumed from long ago, have resulted in a huge public outcry against men in positions of power who opportunistically seek to satiate illicit sexual cravings.
Alabama candidate Judge Roy Moore is being held up to public scrutiny just a few weeks before the state’s special election to choose a Senator because he has been accused of seducing––or trying to seduce––teenage girls and women substantially younger than him.
Perhaps more apropos, actor Kevin Spacey’s career crashed and burned nearly overnight in a global public spectacle reminiscent of the Hindenburg disaster. Why? Because over the course of his career, many now allege Spacey aggressively sought to coerce teenage boys and young men into engaging in homosexual acts. And according to some allegations, he succeeded.
This raises the question: Why would Hollywood praise a movie depicting behavior which in real-life it now decries and vigorously condemns? Perhaps it’s because Hollywood culture––which is religiously dedicated to the advancement of the ideology of the sexual revolution––can’t help itself. To do so would be heresy.
This movie seeks to mainstream pederasty (not to be confused with pedophilia) in a warm and fuzzy way. And after first being released on the big screen, its message will find its way onto home TV’s, laptop computers, and yes, onto the tablets and smartphones of adolescent children. It is not explicit pornography, but it is overt propaganda.
To understand the strategy which propelled this movie into being, look back to the publication of After the Ball, a 1989 manifesto which presented a comprehensive plan to establish the normalcy of gays and lesbians and to secure broader acceptance and rights. It was followed “to a tee” and it worked. Here are two main elements of the strategy:
“We have in mind a strategy ... calculated and powerful ... manipulative ... It’s time to learn from Madison Avenue, to roll out the big guns. Gays must launch a large-scale campaign—we’ve called it the waging peace campaign—to reach straights through the mainstream media. We’re talking about propaganda …”
“You can forget about trying right up front to persuade folks that homosexuality is a good thing. But if you can get them to think it is just another thing—meriting no more than a shrug of the shoulders—then your battle for legal and social rights is virtually won.”
After scoring win after win in courts across the nation, culminating in the United States Supreme Court’s landmark same-sex marriage Obergefell decision in 2015, the progressive left has moved on to its remaining frontiers: transgenderism and adult/child sexual relationships. Hollywood is now applying the same “After the Ball” strategies which worked so well regarding the mainlining of homosexuality.
First pederasty will be normalized, then pedophilia. And it will come about in the same way that the complete acceptance of homosexuality came about during our lifetimes: By talking about it relentlessly in media and portraying it so frequently in movies and on TV as a good thing that it becomes not only commonplace, it becomes boring.
Objections to Criticism Don’t Hold Water
Many will defend the movie’s subject, saying that criticism of the film overlooks the story’s important cultural moral loopholes, rendering it impervious to moral outrage.
First, they will point to the age of consent in Italy, as did the movie’s star, Armie Hammer, in a Hollywood Reporter interview: “We weren't trying to make some salacious, predatory movie. The age of consent in Italy is 14. So, to get technical, it's not illegal there. Whether I agree with that or not, that's a whole 'nother Oprah, you know? Would it make me uncomfortable if I had a 17-year-old child dating someone in their mid-20s? Probably.”
The second objection is that the movie doesn’t actually portray predatory behavior by a man against a boy. Hammer continues, “But this isn't a normal situation: The younger guy goes after the older guy. The dynamic is not older predator versus younger boy.”
Interestingly, Hammer nonchalantly employs the term “boy,” to describe his costar’s character.
What Hammer fails to recognize and address is that it doesn’t matter who initiates the seduction: A morally mature man would never succumb to such flirtations, no matter how enticing or flattering, and no matter the gender of the initiator. For some reason, the gay world is not held to the same standards as the straight world, where mature men engaging in sexual activity with a seventeen-year-old girl would be condemned. Real men do not entertain sexual relationships outside of marriage, let alone sexualized relationships with boys and girls. Rather, they protect children and young people, treating them with dignity.
Most Troubling
Perhaps the most problematic component of the movie is that seventeen-year-old Elio’s father expresses his approval for his son’s sexual relationship with an older man. He laments with regret having forgone similar opportunities when he was his son’s age.
This is meant to establish a new baseline of normalcy for parents, nudging them to second guess their natural protective instincts to save their kids from men who would happily and without conscience invade and end their sons’ and daughters’ innocence.
A Classic?
Is the Call Me By Your Name “an instant classic” as Rolling Stone proclaims?
No.
An adult male standing up to the seductions of a boy (or girl) or to one’s own inclinations and not giving in would make for a far more poignant story of human kindness, respect, and dignity—one that would stand the test of time and speak to generations. Truth has a way of outliving lies, and stories of virtue eclipse tales of debauchery.
Hollywood: The New Charlottesville
After our recent Charlottesville summer, the Virginia city where statues and monuments erected in the honor of historic figures which society no longer deems appropriate are torn down, and when formerly celebrated movies such as Gone With the Wind are blacklisted, one wonders when an equal outcry of disapproval will demand that stars embedded in Hollywood’s walk of fame––honoring Hollywood’s celebrity predators––will be jackhammered.
Watched portions of Broke Back Mountain on a plane once. I had an identical reaction to when I watched Lawrence Taylor sack Joe Theisman on MNF back in ‘85.
I didn't see BB Mtn, but I did see that football game. Never seen a single play replayed so many times! "Don't watch this if you're squeamish!" As they play it 20 times in a row.
I dunno, I seem to have hit the chastity triple with father, husband, son. All three waited for sex until they were well and truly married -— saved themselves for their one-and-only.
Seriously.
Maybe this is unusual. Does it show up in the SEICUS survey stats??
Guess it depends who you hang out with.
I think maybe I ought to "nuance" or second-think my last comment.
I don't mean to come off as morally smug.
Let me say I think chastity is a very difficult virtue --- very difficult --- especially because of two factors:
I do think it's rare to find a male (or female) who's a virgin at marriage., The astute reader my notice I did not include myself in that list.
But God, the Master of Mercy, has led me to the good.
Totally agree. Plus, people who were employed at the restaurant where the woman (15 year old girl, at the time) claimed Judge Moore flirted with her, said she got many things wrong about the restaurant, and don’t remember her working there. That woman is lying.
How many states allow sex under the age of 18?
Armie Hammer’s grandfather was a hardcore communist and a close personal friend of Algore’s daddy. I guess the fruit didn’t fall far from the rotten tree.
NAMBLA Studio produced? Sick...
I haven’t counted them-but from what I’ve read/heard there are more who use 16-17 as the age of consent. I don’t think “allow” is the best word to use-having sex can be can be statutory rape if one party is under the age of consent and the other is over it-but that has never seemed realistic to me since I’ve never met a teenager who asked anyone’s permission to have sex-especially ranch kids. My parents enforced the 2 year rule for dating-I was not allowed to date a guy more than 2 years older-my 1st hubby and I did the same with our cub-lessens the chance of the kid being led into what they are not ready for by someone too much older. Yes, I violated that rule and lived to regret it, too...
My Brit neighbor thinks the age of adulthood should be 16, as it is in England-I think she is right-but that would mean parents would actually have to teach their kids personal responsibility...
I stood in line to get a seat in a movie that was running in the same complex as “Brokeback Mountain.” As we slowly approached the ticket counter, an employee announced loudly that “Brokeback” was sold out for that showing.
Later, I needed a ‘break’ from the movie I was watching and I had to walk by the auditorium “Brokeback” was showing in. Out of curiosity, I looked in to see how many spectators were actually in attendance.
The auditorium which could hold about 500 viewers had only 30 (thirty!) I assumed remaining seats had been paid for by the distributer.
An interesting way to decide Academy Awards, eh?
That is beautiful, Mrs. Don-O. I have no idea about my father’s sex life nor do I expect my sons will inform me about theirs, but your guys and you are lucky.
Aw, I didn’t take it that way. But even in semi religious families, or rural areas, trying out one’s sexuality tends to be happening before marriage. So your family is luckier than most.
Similar situation for me with my first husband as you hint at with yours. <3
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