Multiple lightning strike image.
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.
Why are the parents names known?
Where is the video?
If the video will be “around forever”, it should be around now, right? Link please. You have no link, because youtube took it down. it’s gone.
I have no personal interest in it other than the fact that the filth and lies are destroying people, that’s why I’m interested. But for you to give a running commentary on the sewage that’s out there as though people on this thread were interested, when it’s obvious that’s the cesspit your live in, is strange.
So you’d have no problem with States passing laws against pornography?
Just because other people aren’t bringing up States Rights doesn’t mean it’s not important to them. I merely brought it up because you trotted out the Libertarian lying crap about we want huge fedgov.
Libertarianism is merely the ultra fringe kook anarchy wing of the Left.
It's pretty shallow thinking to use the *Well, nobody was hurt* line. There are more than one way of hurting people. Physical harm is not the only way.
Granted no child in the video got physically harmed or molested during the production, so no child was harmed in that respect. But no one can say with certainty that the children were not harmed in any other way as a result of their being taken advantage of like that.
All that line is an excuse to justify not condemning this sort of thing.
You are either on drugs or have the mental age of a 12 year old.
Or both...
There used to be laws against contributing to the delinquency of a minor, but if that law is still on the books anywhere, they’d have to arrest hundreds of thousands of public school teachers, for a start.
Now he can brag to his fellows on TrooBlewit.
Excellent comment.
Multiple lightning strike image.
That doesn't mean that someone didn't copy it and have it somewhere. Once it's out, it's out.
Nobody is interested in hearing that nonsense you're peddling and and nobody is believing it.
Do that to one of my kids and you’ll pray to be put in jail just to be safe from me.
The reason we know about this is the parents were complaining is my understanding of this. they sign a release, they get paid, they aren’t complaining. if it was the Hollywood AntiChristians doing it, they’re actors, and it’s a different story.
Filthy and sexually explicit lyrics aren’t the same as pornograhy.
I’m not recommending you view the clip, but you kinda have to to call it pornography.
You just feel like calling things pornography, but it doesn’t work like that.
So according to your morally demented mind, it would be fine if the kids were paid.
The parents were obviously not complaining because they didn’t get offered money or a release. Are you on drugs right now?
I just don’t want the small handful of people who are conservative on some but not other matters to reflect badly on normal conservatives, because I want the Conservative Republicans to win.
What a filthy thing to accuse the victims and their parents of. Not everyone is willing to sell their children into the sex trade.
Nonsense. Words can be porn, doesn’t have to be pictures. Ever heard of a pornographic book? And this video consisted of words and images.
I swear you are on drugs and have taken so many of them for so long you cannot think rationally. Your moral blindness is killing you.
That’s a lie. If you were conservative in reality, you wouldn’t be supporting selling children into the sex trade.
You are not conservative, not normal and probably not a Republican.
How did the kids hear that they were on a youtube clip. I’d never heard of this clip before but I don’t watch too much you tube.
If this clip (like any clip) used bad language it should’ve been in a section where young children couldn’t have seen it.
You’re possibly pointing out a youtube problem, where little kids are able to see clips they shouldn’t.
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