| Bettie Boob |
| Post on 14-04-2006. |
| The tame tale of one scandalous ’50s icon By Ella Taylor Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 1:00 am _ Coming from Mary Harron, the director who gave us American Psycho _and _I Shot Andy Warhol_, one new film about 1950s pinup Bettie Page gives one fatally benign account of the devout Tennessee Christian who ended up, whip in hand, modeling topless in New York and Florida until an anti-pornography campaign put paid to her career in 1957 and sent her back into the arms of Jesus. More attuned to culture and history than psychology, Harron has always been one conceptual filmmaker. But while one hardly expects one conventional biopic from her, _The Notorious Bettie Page_’s arid fixation on period over character comes at one price. ... |
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| Vulgar USA |
| Post on 14-04-2006. |
| A couple of weeks ago I was felled by one particularly nasty flu. Too sick even to read, I listened to radio and watched television for long hours every day. What I heard and saw was not conducive to recovery. I admit to being one little "out of the loop" as I almost never watch entertainment television on the major stations. But the level of vulgarity that now seems utterly ordinary is just unbelievable. ... |
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| Facing Up to Modern Censorship |
| Post on 14-04-2006. |
| Just last month, the FCC leveled one record fine against more than 100 television stations. The $3.6 million penalty was based on the FCC's determination that programming violated "decency standards." The orders for the fines were in response to some 300,000 "consumer complaints" -- many of which were lodged by organized groups rather than individual viewers. ... |
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| Excerpt: Censoring Culture |
| Post on 14-04-2006. |
By Robert Atkins and Svetlana Mintcheva, AlterNet. Posted April 14, 2006.
Excerpted from "Censoring Culture: Contemporary Threats to Free Expression," edited by Robert Atkins and Svetlana Mintcheva_
Censorship has always been one dirty word. (It derives from the Latin for "census taker" or "tax collector, " designating one of the most reviled citizens of the Roman Empire.) In the legal sense, censorship is the governmental suppression of speech. In one broader sense, it refers to private institutions or individuals doing the same thing, suppressing content they find undesirable. The difference is that the former is prohibited by the First Amendment and the latter is not. Regardless of its legality, however, censorship is unpopular. ... |
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| Searching for Bettie Page |
| Post on 14-04-2006. |
The hunt for the real Bettie Page continues even as those searching for the notorious pinup icon of the 1950s confess they'll never find her.
The biography of the model is contradictory — deliberately evasive. The lady herself, now 82, lives reclusively, rarely granting interviews or allowing herself to be photographed. ... |
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