Last night I was able to watch another interesting topic in ANC’s “Media in Focus”. The subject of the arguments rested on the classic debate on pornography in light of the recently released Playboy Magazine in the country. Resource persons were invited as usual, Manoling Morato, former MTRCB chairman, being one of them.
Apparently, Morato seemed rather confused or disenchanted, whichever came first. There he was sitting literally before the media which he for once or many times in his life panned under the glove of his censorship policies. He, too, was gasping figuratively between the two contending sides of the discussion, both of which seemed to drown his wandering position in more ways than one, that position being one which sends signals of schizophrenia for having been able to echo two discordant voices at the same time.
At one time he was arguing that the exposure of a single breast—of a woman, of course—is permissible while the full exposure of both buns is perverse or should be condemned to the deepest cellars of hell. It was interesting to know that there are cases when one weighed more than two in terms of cinematic standards for censorship, or that there were competing variations of what number of breasts is acceptable for the film censors in lieu of public interest. I don't know now what could truly raise a public's interest largely comprised of a male population: a breast or two? Or perhaps it was the other way around, Manoling recalling a certain movie in which he saw to it that the body of a certain actress was bared down to its essentials. He allowed the full exposure of the pair of breasts of an actress whose crowning glories were not that appealing precisely because, as Manoling's measures would have it, the breasts lacked the aesthetics. He chose not to scrap those parts of the film.
Had ‘it’ been such a magnificent sight to behold, enough to hoard tourists by the flock, would he have done otherwise? Therein lies the irony. I'm also tempted to think this way: what if the actress had three beautiful breasts? What in God's name could and would Morato have done? Well, you know what they say. Two's a company and three's a crowd. Maybe Morato just didn't want too much crowd.
Be that as it may, Morato’s swerving position was laughable at the least and malleable at the most. It was a drunken position, one which is distorted to the point of blurring the fine lines between what one is against and what one is for. But that is certainly just the crowning glory of the matter, the tip of it all so to speak. The far more compelling issue lies in the bosom of it all. And it is one which is larger than Morato himself and his flexed and vexed positions combined.
That is the necessity for an intellect for having to clinch a wise appraisal. That is the necessity of the cerebrals supplanted with vibrant information stuffed to the last marrow, if not the entire cellars of the mind. I’ve always believed that this nation is not a nation of 80 million gullible idiots or so. Or closer to home, I’ve always believed that this nation is not a nation of purely brainless Filipinos ignoramus of all the things which mattered the most and concerned them the least. You do not wallow in arrogance and show pity for an actress deprived of Aphrodite's genes and end-up allowing her film land on cinemas just because no sane man, or woman, will get pleasure from watching it. You do not drown yourself in self-righteousness and end-up obscuring from the eyes of your mature audience the things that they normally see—or feel—even in the darkness of the most unholy hours of the night.
There intellect should take the center stage as a precedent for every judgment to pass on. That being said, the question of pornography is one which goes beyond the argument of a relative morality: what's right for you may be wrong for me, or otherwise. Indeed, it goes beyond the question of perception, or of the degrees of stimulation in both the body and the mind and, in some cases, the soul or spirit or what have you. It transcends the thick scales of pleasure if by pleasure one describes it as a wholly satisfying and gratifying experience, apart from being petrifying in some untold stories.
It is one which greatly tacks the question of having the artillery and armory of the intellect in monumental proportions. It is so precisely because the impetus is not to arrive at an anorexic and an extremely defrayed position for or against pornography. Quite on the contrary, the deepest gorges of that intellect ought to summon a firm principle gauged and shaped from the fires of the furnace, swayed not by the confusion of exposing a breast or two. That is the impetus. That is one which cajoles the sensible mind. That is one which restrains the gullible from swerving like a drunken censor. That is one which sanctifies the firm mind, if not the spirit or soul, Manoling not being one of them in certain volumes, if not entirely so.
There are many reasons why the question of pornography demands for answers and resolutions framed from an intellectual standpoint. Which goes without saying that the need for education—one which may not entirely be confined within the fences of the formal learning institutions—is swollen more than ever before. The reason why I am saying this is quite simple yet hardly observed. The moral fibers would have to be harvested from the soils of the intellect first and foremost. Rationality precedes morality much as the rational mind is the mind which elates one to the highest moral pedestals. The absence of the intellect in moral positions or, worse, the abstinence of one from committing the mind to its own function boycotts that moral position with any reasonable substance. One can hardly, if not impossibly, trumpet a moral conviction, let alone a believable one that goes beyond the flush of absurdities, when one is deprived of reasons to do so. Morality without reason can only get as far as being poignant.
The vein of religion has its own ways of intruding the question of pornography, those ways being as ancient as the concept of religion itself. And so the temptation to ascribe first to moral precepts without heeding the call for a reasoned judgment prior to anything else or prior to God—or the godheads in white robes and the censor gods cemented altogether as one—grips the wandering soul by the neck. One can easily be swayed into the bosoms of religion and morality without making much use of the gift of the intellect that God or Allah or Buddha has given first and foremost. But that certainly is another story, albeit one which is worth telling.
Is Playboy Magazine just another way to deodorize pornography into an acceptable visual, and oftentimes sexual, experience, notwithstanding one which is subliminal in the classic order of things?
Think outside the box for a while. Then progress to the moral aspect of it, or any other aspect for that matter. Then and thereafter, unfurl your position like a grand schema. At the end of the day, I’m quite certain one would not be confused with a breast or two.
Or three, perhaps.
Apparently, Morato seemed rather confused or disenchanted, whichever came first. There he was sitting literally before the media which he for once or many times in his life panned under the glove of his censorship policies. He, too, was gasping figuratively between the two contending sides of the discussion, both of which seemed to drown his wandering position in more ways than one, that position being one which sends signals of schizophrenia for having been able to echo two discordant voices at the same time.
At one time he was arguing that the exposure of a single breast—of a woman, of course—is permissible while the full exposure of both buns is perverse or should be condemned to the deepest cellars of hell. It was interesting to know that there are cases when one weighed more than two in terms of cinematic standards for censorship, or that there were competing variations of what number of breasts is acceptable for the film censors in lieu of public interest. I don't know now what could truly raise a public's interest largely comprised of a male population: a breast or two? Or perhaps it was the other way around, Manoling recalling a certain movie in which he saw to it that the body of a certain actress was bared down to its essentials. He allowed the full exposure of the pair of breasts of an actress whose crowning glories were not that appealing precisely because, as Manoling's measures would have it, the breasts lacked the aesthetics. He chose not to scrap those parts of the film.
Had ‘it’ been such a magnificent sight to behold, enough to hoard tourists by the flock, would he have done otherwise? Therein lies the irony. I'm also tempted to think this way: what if the actress had three beautiful breasts? What in God's name could and would Morato have done? Well, you know what they say. Two's a company and three's a crowd. Maybe Morato just didn't want too much crowd.
Be that as it may, Morato’s swerving position was laughable at the least and malleable at the most. It was a drunken position, one which is distorted to the point of blurring the fine lines between what one is against and what one is for. But that is certainly just the crowning glory of the matter, the tip of it all so to speak. The far more compelling issue lies in the bosom of it all. And it is one which is larger than Morato himself and his flexed and vexed positions combined.
That is the necessity for an intellect for having to clinch a wise appraisal. That is the necessity of the cerebrals supplanted with vibrant information stuffed to the last marrow, if not the entire cellars of the mind. I’ve always believed that this nation is not a nation of 80 million gullible idiots or so. Or closer to home, I’ve always believed that this nation is not a nation of purely brainless Filipinos ignoramus of all the things which mattered the most and concerned them the least. You do not wallow in arrogance and show pity for an actress deprived of Aphrodite's genes and end-up allowing her film land on cinemas just because no sane man, or woman, will get pleasure from watching it. You do not drown yourself in self-righteousness and end-up obscuring from the eyes of your mature audience the things that they normally see—or feel—even in the darkness of the most unholy hours of the night.
There intellect should take the center stage as a precedent for every judgment to pass on. That being said, the question of pornography is one which goes beyond the argument of a relative morality: what's right for you may be wrong for me, or otherwise. Indeed, it goes beyond the question of perception, or of the degrees of stimulation in both the body and the mind and, in some cases, the soul or spirit or what have you. It transcends the thick scales of pleasure if by pleasure one describes it as a wholly satisfying and gratifying experience, apart from being petrifying in some untold stories.
It is one which greatly tacks the question of having the artillery and armory of the intellect in monumental proportions. It is so precisely because the impetus is not to arrive at an anorexic and an extremely defrayed position for or against pornography. Quite on the contrary, the deepest gorges of that intellect ought to summon a firm principle gauged and shaped from the fires of the furnace, swayed not by the confusion of exposing a breast or two. That is the impetus. That is one which cajoles the sensible mind. That is one which restrains the gullible from swerving like a drunken censor. That is one which sanctifies the firm mind, if not the spirit or soul, Manoling not being one of them in certain volumes, if not entirely so.
There are many reasons why the question of pornography demands for answers and resolutions framed from an intellectual standpoint. Which goes without saying that the need for education—one which may not entirely be confined within the fences of the formal learning institutions—is swollen more than ever before. The reason why I am saying this is quite simple yet hardly observed. The moral fibers would have to be harvested from the soils of the intellect first and foremost. Rationality precedes morality much as the rational mind is the mind which elates one to the highest moral pedestals. The absence of the intellect in moral positions or, worse, the abstinence of one from committing the mind to its own function boycotts that moral position with any reasonable substance. One can hardly, if not impossibly, trumpet a moral conviction, let alone a believable one that goes beyond the flush of absurdities, when one is deprived of reasons to do so. Morality without reason can only get as far as being poignant.
The vein of religion has its own ways of intruding the question of pornography, those ways being as ancient as the concept of religion itself. And so the temptation to ascribe first to moral precepts without heeding the call for a reasoned judgment prior to anything else or prior to God—or the godheads in white robes and the censor gods cemented altogether as one—grips the wandering soul by the neck. One can easily be swayed into the bosoms of religion and morality without making much use of the gift of the intellect that God or Allah or Buddha has given first and foremost. But that certainly is another story, albeit one which is worth telling.
Is Playboy Magazine just another way to deodorize pornography into an acceptable visual, and oftentimes sexual, experience, notwithstanding one which is subliminal in the classic order of things?
Think outside the box for a while. Then progress to the moral aspect of it, or any other aspect for that matter. Then and thereafter, unfurl your position like a grand schema. At the end of the day, I’m quite certain one would not be confused with a breast or two.
Or three, perhaps.
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