![]() Martin Scorsese’s 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ was based on Nikos Kazantzakis’ 1955 novel in which Jesus appears as a tormented, fearful young man confused by sex and uncertain of his path in life. Though the critic Simon Karlinsky declared that the publication of Lolita signalled at last the “collapse of the Victorian moralistic censorship that had persisted in Western countries till the end of the 1950s,” it appears his pronouncement might have been premature.Īs efforts to reverse the trend toward a lax society clearly gains ground, it may be worthwhile to look back at an earlier skirmish”one in which, I believe, the battle lines may have been drawn erroneously. ![]() Arguments over government funding of offensive art, renewed efforts to restrict pornography, initiatives to curb violence on television, and attention to smut in cyberspace all indicate a backlash against the ongoing “liberalization” of our allegedly puritanical society, manifest from the founding of Playboy to the controversy over Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. ![]() When presidential candidate Bob Dole castigated the entertainment industry for excessive and graphic use of violence, it was only the latest salvo in a culture war that has been raging for some time. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |