Re: Thats the problem (graphic content)
Submitted by Michael Mejido on 2003-03-5 21:52:58, Wednesday
In reply to Thats the problem submitted by Drifter on 2003-03-5 19:33:09, Wednesday
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World Perfect, thank you for sticking up for me, and Drifter, thank you for doubting and questioning me. When people openly accept, they feel no need to explain themselves. That may be a very good thing in many situations, but in this situation, it is better for me to explain myself. Drifter, the quotes you picked from my script are horrible. You see, I agree with you. They are horrid, and disgusting, and have no place being anywhere. But then again, neither does the selfish molesting that my main character purpetrates on his son. Long before I wrote the script, I started doing research. And my research was not to talk with psychologists, or read books, or watch other movies on the subject. My research was to talk to pedophiles who molest out of selfishness, and listen to what they had to say without judging them. My research was to listen to the abused, and listen to what they had ot say without judging them. I wanted to get honest feeling. And for research, that was the right thing. But for my heart, it was the wrong thing. I simply couldn't take the stories and the pain after awhile, because both sides had much pain to let out. I decided that to be true to the nature of my subject, i was going to have to bring about and reveal that same pain to the audience. Hurt them. I refused to shield them from the vulgarness of the subject out of respect to those who have to live with the pain everyday, and don't have the option of walking out of a theatre to excape it. So yes, what I wrote I meant to write. It is horrible. It is meant to show destruction. The destruction of family, personality, and most of all, innocence. I decided that the story needed to NOT take a third-person perspective, but rather be right inside the aura of the subject. The movie itself needed to be painful and wrong. By doing this, I am not 'preaching' to the audience by saying "THIS IS WRONG". They will simply FEEL it is wrong. Audiences don't like to be preached to anyways. Also, by just sinking into the feeling instead of taking a third-person perspective, the audience will feel it. Even when i don't show them something disgusting, they will feel it. It won't be a light movie to watch at all. In fact, it will be quite... well, painful. And that's how i want them to feel. If i want the audience to feel pain of the characters I write about, I can't use as my weapon a feather instead of a sword. Jokes instead of graphic material. I really must use that which causes pain. Incest is all about hurt. These pedophiles are themselves inflicted with guilt and possibly their own rape as a child. The story is not a Good one. The story is one of horror. I simply choose to use graphic scenes as one of many methods of getting the audience to feel that horror. I don't believe people should walk out of a movie about child rape and have smiles on their faces. Drifter, yes. I wrote that and I will not change them. It is horrible and perverse. And i designed it to be exactly that. I won't change it, and the fact that people are taking offense to it simply means that they KNOW its horrible. That just means my strategy works. On a related note, i realize that the denizens of this board are not the type of pedophiles I write about. Quite the opposite really. But there is no denying that those that I write about exist. Unlike society, I do not believe them to be evil. I believe their ACTIONS to be evil. These are weak, confused, childish adults who ignored the cries of children and selfishly fulfilled what they thought were their needs. These people are desperate and weak. They need help, but yet they are spit upon by society. The goal of my movie is to show this type of pedophile as NOT EVIL, but rather as a human being who has gone through more pain that I or any of us could imagine. But as much as it is important to show them as human, we must also understand the pain they have gone through, and the pain they have caused. Let us look at the quotes you chose: father: Good girl. Father and Daughter kiss, as semen flows from daughter’s mouth and into Father’s. Daughter no longer wears an innocent personality. She is rather passionate about her kiss, as is Father. Semen spills onto Father’s shoe. > The 'father' being talked about is the main character's father. In the timeline of the story, the father has already molested the son many times over, indifferent to the son's feelings. In this sort of family, the disease spreads, with disasterous results, as this scene describes. This is a horrible scene. When I wrote it, I read it, and put my head in my hands. I knew it was horrible, but it was exactly what i needed. FATHER: OK girls, lets try this again. Lights, camera, Action! The girls begin to giggle and kiss, taking their tops off. As we hear their kissing going on in the background, we see... > Now this scene is is loaded with symbolism. No one can watch pain for an entire movie. Therefore, I use symbolism alot. I wish you had posted more for everyone to read, but I can set it up for them. I wanted to symbolize the main character's molestation, because being hit again and again with graphic perversion is ineffective. So, to show main character's molestation, i chose to symobolize him as a camcorder. A camcorder is alot like a child - open eyes to see and record the world it is now learning about. Well, the main character's father happens to buy a camera (again, the camera is a symbol for the son). In fact, it is a camera designed especially for kids. It has nice bright colors and comes with colorful packaging. The father brings the camera home and immediately takes it apart. He removes some of the covers from the camera to check the circutry. He takes out a screwdriver to start to take the camera apart and 'modify' it to his specifications. As he does, he scrapes the brand new camera, but doesn't care. It's just a camera anyways. We see the lens of the camera begin to turn from a nice innocent light blue, to darker and darker shades of purple as the process continues. Finally, the camera begins to leak a thick, blood-like liquid. He checks the batteries and notices they are leaking. The father swears and changes them. He finally brings the camera upstairs and puts it on a tripod in front of a bed where two girls sit. The father is going to make a porn. As he directs the girls, we are going to see the lens get darker and darker... not as a symbol of evil, but as a symbol of pain. "ManChild walks into the door, and into the living room, hearing a strange sound. He turns the corner and sees Wife sexually straddling LEON, a black man in his late 20’s. A toy train goes around on the floor, while the Santa letters that once spelt NOEL now spell LEON. ManChild looks over to his left, and sees that the milk and cookies have been eaten and drank. Wife, who has her back to her husband, turns around to see ManChild, and has a milk mustache. She turns to look at him, and then slowly turns back and the two begin to have sex again." > ManChild (the main character) is a emotionally a child, so I really push this theme in this scene. Throughout the latter stages of the script, it is obvious he cannot sustain any sort of adult emotional or sexual communication with his wife. So his wife begins to stray. It is now christmas eve, and the main character has just set up a table of cookies and milk for santa. But when he walks in the door he is hit with absolute horror: his wife cheating on him in his own house. His immature mind cannont handle the situation. I show this in two ways. A toy train is running around on the floor, and we see the wife on the couch from the train's perspective. Also, the main character looks over to the trey he set out for santa and sees that the milk and cookies are gone, and the wife turns around to show a milk mustache. She has done something bad by eating the cookies. He can handle that. His mind cannot handle being cheated on though. There's alot of symbolism in the project. And there is the exact opposite: graphic content. Everything in balance. Drifter, i would ask that you read the script again, and see if you can see the symbolism. Remember that I am talking about destroyed people. People so far from healthy that you'd never could imagine. I'm not surprised at your reaction. Maybe you're just surprised that I am not as horrified as you are. Fact is, I know its horrifying, and that's why i leave it in the script. ...Drifter, you're actually the only one out of any of the message boards i posted on to have actually read a decent amount of the script, and for that I thank you. I caused me to explain my characters more. It caused me to defend it. But your primary arguement was that it was horrid. I agree with you. I'd much rather you pick the main character apart and tell me if he's belieable. Could such a person exist? Does the story make sense? These are things we talk about in class all the time. I've presented this script to the class and they always question the script. Many don't understand it, or don't like it because it doesn't 'work' for them or doesn't 'keep their attention'. Maybe that says something about the youth of today that none have said 'this is disgusting'. Well, you and I and the rest of this board know it's disgusting. I invite you to look past it and understand why the horror is there and look at the character. Does this character have any depth, or does he seem just a character a simple college student wrote: flat. Do you understand each decision he makes? I didn't say 'agree with', i mean 'understand'. Meaning 'given his background, and given this choice, I can see him making this decision'. Or maybe you don't. And that is why I came to this forum, to get opinions from a very different crowd then who would usually be reviewing such a script. Drifter and World Perfect, thank you for your responses. Drifter, I apologize for upsetting you. I did not wish for you to get angry. Disgusted, yes. But angry, no. Michael Mejido mmejido@gti.net |
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