Pedophilia hiding in plain sight (Movie: The Butterfly Effect, 2004) [vanity]

I just watched The Butterfly Effect (2004) for the 2nd time, the last being over 12 years ago. Even though Kutcher's on my list of not watching, I couldn't recall some aspects of the movie and opted to watch it again (Netflix); I'm part glad I did, but not for obvious reasons (title gives it away). The first time I thought the displacement concept coupled with paradox was interesting; but I also thought the movie to be bizarre. Now I know why:

If you've ever watched this movie and didn't pick up on the pedophelia from the perverted writers and producers:

Recall that every time Evan blacks out, he's being possessed/controlled by his older self.

Who was controlling Evan when he & 7 year-old Kayleigh are in her father's basement while "daddy" is making the "movie"? Recall that Evan "wakes up" (he had blacked out and does not recall what occurred). They are standing there ostensibly naked; we later find out why.

Kayleigh revisits what happened during the later scene - an alternate timeline - when she's a hooker in the restaurant with Evan. She tells him what happened when he blacked out. The worst part of this is not the perverted father: It is consideration of the fact that college-age Evan was controlling 7 year old Evan when he blacked out during the father filming the naked children.

Hollywood perverts. The writers wrote it & the producers approved it. The movie could have been great without hiding their proclivities for pedophelia in plain sight.

I astonished that I missed it the first time but, then again, I wasn't so keen to the scope of it all until the last few years.

Even with all that we've learned about Hollyweird in over a decade, it's rather disturbing to see it blatantly placed in a movie with no bearing on the plot whatsoever.

Yes - watch again please. And nobody is "stabbing you in the back, either". The comments are for everybody to read.

And read again the comments you're taking offense to. You're still missing it. Lack of punctuation (not yours). The original poster was not implying you're a pedo but was implying that that's all you seemed to take away from the movie. At least that's the way I'm reading this whole mess. No way this flick was championing pedo's. Nor drug dealers. Nor bullies. Nor animal cruelty. The whole movie is based on a ripple effect of life changing choices and if we could or and change anything - would we (even for the "better")? Read Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder".

I dwelled upon the scene for 2 hours before posting this and rewatched a couple of segments. Had the scene later in the movie not included her explanation to Evan for what actually happened, I could ascribe it to an editing/writing error; it seems rather intentional in consideration of how they tied it together. “Gratuitous” is a good way to frame it.

If the scene showed graphic child sexual abuse it would have been gratuitous.

It didn't.

It showed the ravaging after affects of the abuse.

The scene was not gratuitous. It was included to show how horrible the abuse was and it had the desired results. You were outraged.

The writer and director were not glorifying the abuse. They were showing you how bad it was and the horrible consequences.

As I said before, if the purpose was to 'glorify' abuse the movie would have shown a happy outcome for the children and adults.

That you experienced disgust at the scene shows the writer and director got their message across.

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I agree with you on this.

Iirc, sometime before the movie came out, the psych profession produced their diagnostic bible... number 4? with the claim that pedophilia and pederasty were “victimless crimes” and also iirc, “good for children due to the mentoring relationships” and such like. There was also a building drift in the lawfare circles to decriminalize it all.

There was even a slogan to run the efforts under called “intergenerationalism” and any who opposed it were “age-ists”.

I took The Butterfly Effect as part of the pushback against all that, even if the pushback was accidental and just trying to make dollars off the public mood.

blatantly placed in a movie with no bearing on the plot whatsoever.

Thanks for your comments and for posting this interesting vanity, but I do not agree with your take on it. I feel the movie was poorly written, though well acted, and well enough directed.

I thought you might enjoy a link on the movie from TV Tropes:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Headscratchers/TheButterflyEffect

this is an apology for a post that was taken down by the moderator unfortunately I cant revue it because it was removed by the moderator.. My attention was never to call LOG0_cal 1869 a pedophile. at this point because the post was pulled I must assume that is what happened. grammar and punctuation is not something I am good at because of this deficit some time What I type is not what I am trying to say and can take on another meaning. Please except this apology I try never to call people names and am saddened that it looks like I did that. if you noticed the post was done twice with me trying to reedit the post to make it readable all I can think is that while reediting it a sentence got placed where it should not of.

We’re going to have to agree to disagree. If the movie was badly-written throughout, I could concede your point.

However, given that the rest of the movie seemed well-written, the fact that a scene at the opening was tied together with a scene near the end shows intent.

Furthermore, the father was never punished for his deeds, a convenient facet of the story unresolved in this respect and, in fact, messaging which is quite disturbing.

Perhaps gratuitous is the wrong word, but I believe someone got a great laugh for what they did and I’ll be more cognizant of how children are portrayed in future films.

You have the advantage on me of recent viewings, but my impression remains that Evan did all that he could to avert the molestation, including, in the end, deliberately alienating Kayleigh so she would go live with her mother and escape her father’s evil doings.

I agree with your latter, that he saw the futility and that it was him that was the catalyst for everything bad in her life.

Barring unknown editing, if you watch carefully he did go back to that basement scene, but the writers never elaborate on how it was that the movie began with the children without clothes when he snaps out of his blackout.

Once again, it was the benefit of the 2nd viewing which caused me to (for the 1st time) hear the words she whispered to him as she described what happened in the basement and resulted in my takeaway. It’s rather disturbing that the children were left without clothes when it was totally-unnecessary to the plot or the story, coupled with the fact that the blackout meant that older Evan was in control of what happened before he woke up. THAT is the gist of my beef.

I just don’t understand why I’m the only one who saw it that way. Maybe I’m wrong (I can accept that), but no one has made a case to convince me.

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