Posted on 02/21/2011 10:29:38 AM PST by Gena Bukin
Regardless of whether a judge or jury finds Evan Emory guilty of a sex offense for creating a lewd video with schoolchildren in the background, the case has highlighted a cultural divide between the so-called Millennial Generation and pretty much everyone else.
Many of the Millennials — mostly young adults without children — wonder what all the fuss is about. So Emory made a video with Ravenna elementary children in the background looking surprised and smiling a lot. They say since Emory sang a harmless “Lunch Lady Land” song to the children during his actual performance and subbed in lyrics with sexually graphic references afterward, before posting the video to YouTube, that no harm was done.
These Millennials see the video as a joke and comedy, and even if some admit the video was in bad taste, they believe no crime was committed. This kind of thing is on comedy shows and MTV all the time, they reason. And it’s certainly on YouTube, the social networking site that allows anyone to post a video of almost any kind for the entire world to see.
They are outraged that Emory, who was a good student himself at Ravenna and never got into any trouble, is facing a 20-year felony charge of manufacturing child sexually abusive material. They can’t fathom that Emory, if convicted, is facing the possibility of having to be on the sex offender registry the rest of his life when he didn’t actually “expose” the children to anything.
Then there is the opposite spectrum — those who are horrified that someone would find humor in using children as a backdrop for a sexually explicit song. Whether the children actually heard the lyrics or not is beside the point, they reason, because it was the children’s innocent faces that were shown smiling and giggling when Emory’s nasty words were heard by hundreds and perhaps thousands of people before the video was removed from YouTube.
The parents of the children on the video are especially horrified, and as a parent, I can’t blame them. It would make me sick to my stomach to see one of my children placed in a situation like that. Many of them think the charges fit the crime, though it’s pretty clear that a 20-year felony for something like this is way over the top.
Still, the Muskegon County Prosecutor’s office wants to make an example out of Emory so they went after the “big” charge. And Ravenna Superintendent John VanLoon probably echoed the sentiments of many folks when he said: “If you think that’s something funny, you really need to review and look at your personal values.”
Which brings up a bigger challenge in this age of technology. There was a time when you could limit the kind of garbage kids are exposed to — a time when TV programming didn’t allow even partial nudity and there weren’t hundreds of cable channels from which to choose, smart phones, the Internet and social media. Today there is no place to hide and despite the best efforts of parents, kids are influenced by all these contraptions they can access almost anywhere, anytime.
According to Wikipedia, the Millennials have been shaped by the rise of instant communication technologies and are “peer-oriented.” Reality TV, MTV, YouTube and the like have helped to desensitize teens and young adults to the difference between right and wrong.
Many young folks seek the instant gratification and star quality so prevalent in society today. And they seek it without considering the consequences.
Which, at least, might explain the cultural divide this case has highlighted — even if it doesn’t provide a good way to fix it.
I am convinced that when it comes to matters of morality, moderates and even some liberals will side with conservatives if we present true conservatism.
The problem is the non-conservatives who want to steal the conservative label. Conservatism is fiscal conservatism AND social conservatism AND strong national defense. Without ANY of these three elements conservatism fails.
First there were the "Goldwater conservatives" (they were obviously too dense to understand that Goldwater was a FAILURE) and then they started calling themselves "fiscal conservatives" and now "Tea Party conservatives." These people ARE NOT conservatives, they are leftists who don't like taxes.
Let me guess, the other True Blew trolls were making fun of you for not getting zotted and you figured that coming here and defending pedophiles would give you more credibility?
Thanks for both of your concern of my past.
Sorry if I misunderstood.
Things comedians say on stage are only jokes if you say so.
Perhaps that’ll be the Republicans message in 2012.
We’re making metmom the Secretary of Jokes. Metmom will make the determination of what is funny and what is not.
We had some success in 2010 by being against more government, but metmom insists that what is necessary are more laws and more bureaucracy and more government regarding things that are jokes, or things that become not jokes because metmom doesn’t like them.
Under no circumstances should conservative mean anything except what people who call themselves “conservatives” want at any given time.
If the Democrats like Vanilla, Conservatives like Chocolate, and anyone who thinks we should be silent on the issue of “best ice cream” is clearly a liberal agitator.
And it’s amazing how many people have never seen South Park.
Remember, those are CHILDREN on South Park.
And it’s not a joke. Did anyone see South Park a few years ago, Kenny and Mrs. Crabtree? Kenny Died! Died! He was dead. Parker and Stone need to be put on sex offenders lists. Because it’s a slippery slope. First it’s a cartoon depiction of Kenny crawling up ..., and then Parker and Stone will take actual kids and do that. And for you who think that South Park is a joke, IT’S NOT. It’s a sex crime. Parker and Stone are sex criminals. </s>
I have no clue if he’s a pedophile or not. He may be. But
usually doing pedophilia makes one a pedophile, and making a video makes one a video maker.
And lots of people here just think, just like Democrats, that things they don’t like are the same thing as crimes, and if they’re not crimes, they should be.
AMEN!
Show me one post, one word of defending peodophiles that has ever been written or iterated by me. One.
Just one.
It gets a bit scary around here sometimes doesn't it?
_______________________________________
A. It's encouraging how many people have seen South Park and decided for themselves not to watch it again...it's that moral fiber of society thing.
B. Remember, those are CARTOONS on South Park.
Goldwater and the tea party are not country club Republicans, or RINOs who are liberals who don’t like taxes.
The phrase “fiscal conservative” does not match tea party and does not match Goldwater.
Limited Constitutional Government. The Federal Government must do much much less. That is not the fiscal conservative position, and it is the tea party position.
Bush was weak on National Defense (see 9/11) but excellent at pointlessly spending Billions or Trillions halfway around the globe on Military Offense. There is no 3 legs anymore.
Socons should be louder at making it clear that gay marriage is 100% unacceptable. The elites, the BushRinos, have been filling the RNC with fags and they’re there now and apparently we can’t just get rid of them. We should explain how Limited Constitutional Government means socially conservative outcomes. Get rid of Roe v Wade, that’s a big government solution.
Limited Constitutional Government. The pole affixed to the floor. try knocking that stool over.
I believe it is and so do those involved. He created a video that represented the children as enjoying music that was porn. Do you know how many actual pedophiles viewed it? Of course not. It’s another step down the slippery slope. Representing children as sexual objects and enjoying sexual content is dangerous. This kind of thing isn’t a joke and it isn’t funny. It portrays children incorrectly.
Are you saying that the Children on South Park did not actually have the storyline happen to them? Right, and nothing bad happened to the Children in the video either.
I thought that the argument was that the kids did not know that anything bad was happening, but it was still bad.
Yes. It does. That ANYONE would think it's fine to portray elementary school age kids as enjoying explicit sexual lyrics is very scary.
No, I am saying that the “children” on SP are not real. I am also shaking my head in amazement that you are actually using cartoon characters in an argument about real children...and that you think it’s somehow clever.
You can work with metmom. She’s the Secretary of Jokes.
You can be Undersecretary of portraying children correctly.
Overall, there’s a lot of depravity out there, but I basically give joe blow local a slide.
Watch some tv if you’re interested in popular culture post 1970. You’ll get really really mad.
Try these shows, and get back to me on this.
Jon Dorn Television Show. IFC
The Whitest Kids You Know. IFC
Funny or Die presents. HBO
Eastbound and Down. HBO
People are making a lot of money from those shows. Bad people are being influenced to do bad things by the stuff the see on TV.
And faggotry is depraved and it’s all over network TV. Watch network TV and report back with all the instances of profag you see in a week.
And don't forget scary. How anyone can compare cartoons to real children that can be harmed is beyond me.
The parents were upset because their childrens faces were clearly shown. There is NO way of knowing if that video was viewed by pedophiles and if they thought the children were actually enjoying explicit lyrics.
In neither case did bad things happen to Children.
True or False?
The other issue is that nobody needs to be encouraging pedophiles to be molesting children.
This video could easily incite or encourage someone to act on the message.
There is no such thing as a victimless crime. If (or more likely when) some child is molested because of the content of something like this, the guy who produced it is ultimately culpable.
We CANNOT destroy the moral fiber of this country and expect it to survive. It will not happen.
Yes. There is. Which is why we shouldn't countenance more. There's a loooooong fall at the end of that slide.
Btw, I don't have TV. There is NOTHING on there but garbage.
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