Comrades of the European Internet Forum,
enough is enough!
For decades, we have placed ourselves in the cultural shadows - well-behaved, conformist, as if we were the ill-educated child of the great American moral uncle, who must not be too loud, not too naked and certainly not too independent. While half-naked shoulders are censored at high school graduation ceremonies in the USA, heads are thrown around like bowling balls in TV series. All normal, all ‘entertainment’. But woe betide you if you see a nipple - then the censorship hammer screeches louder than a Trump on Truth Social.
I ask you: What has become of Europe?
We, the continent-born of the Enlightenment, the revolutions, the renaissance of nudity on canvas, in stone and on film - we have allowed a country that bottles cheese in cans, of all things, to tell us what is ‘moral’!
It’s not moral, it’s demurely stupid.
Why are depictions of violence in mass media allowed to flow freely like American fracking oil, but natural, aesthetic, tasteful nudity - which has been part of European art and culture for centuries - is algorithmically filtered out, demonetised and labelled with warnings as if it were uranium?
No more prudish double standards!
We need a cultural return to what we have to offer:
- Enlightenment instead of transfiguration.
- Pleasure instead of violence.
- Nudity as an expression of naturalness - not as a moral offence.
I call on you: Banish pixelated prudery! Let’s tear apart the corset of American moral dictatorship like a badly programmed DRM protection! Save the freedom of the breast - for Europe!
Stop aligning your films, games and series with a market that beeps ‘fuck’ five times but completely waves ‘shoot him in the face’ through.
We are not Hollywood’s post office box. We are Europe. We are culture. We are naked! - So, metaphorically. And sometimes literally. And that’s okay.
Thank you for your attention!
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They rarely serve a plot purpose, and getting pulled into a woodchipper is in fact worse and less normal than having sex.
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I agree. The only people that can claim the violence doesn’t serve a purpose with any intellectual honesty are the tiny number of anarcho-pacifists.
However, a superhero punching out a bad guy, or even a realistic depiction of a recent-ish war like in the opening of Saving Private Ryan, is very different from the kind of gratuitous onscreen gore that’s all over the place now.
They’ll claim the woodchipper serial killer stuff establishes who the badguy is or whatever, of course, but I don’t buy it, and I definitely don’t believe the producer is paying out that much on special effects for the sake of artistic integrity.
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Really? Just since I posted this, I saw Mikey Madison getting shot into a lit stove and catching on fire.
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I actually have no idea what it was in originally - it was just a clip shown in the intro to Saturday Night Live. Which goes to show how normalised that sort of thing is.
europe’s mojo has always been there
in fact i think we’re leading at the moment
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I’m surprised to see your little tricks got upvotes this time. Your pro-russia content is usually too obvious to stand a chance. This comment did not fool me however
Don’t get fooled buddy we are clearly not all human beings living in the same planet…
Nice 😏
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It’s a funny post, but a serious point. The Europe of my childhood was different countries all very different from the US. But over time American media and algorithmic dominance are eroding things toward being America with accents. And what will you get for throwing away that cultural identity? Americans will still sneer at Europe.
I think a trickier question is: if Europe ought to retain its own identity, then shouldn’t each European country retain its own identity instead of banding together as “Europe”.
Why stop there? Go back to the breakdown in feudal times! Which duke do you owe fealty to?
I find identity tends to be like an onion, in that it has layers.
Also in that picking it apart is an unpleasant experience that frequently ends in tears.
I agree. I like the post and its message, but in general everyone needs to focus less on identity and more on community. People have really lost the plot these days. What are we doing all of this for? So our families will have a good life, right? Everyone the world over is mostly just looking for that.
…Now that you actually put it that way, it’s kinda weird to think of identity as something separate from belonging to a community.
My view is that it’s not necessary to pit regional identity vs European identity. I think it’s possible to have them side by side. I appreciate many things in my region that make up our identity, but at the same time as a European I can also appreciate many cultural aspects of other regions
I took my clothes off I don’t know what else is going on but I’m having a good time thanks for inviting me I really appreciate it
Username checks out?
I can see your nutsack!
thanks
so… Why are we naked?
I don’t know, but there’s very chilly weather here and my pee pee is shrinking. Maybe we could try again in the summer?
hmm, that’s unfortunate, have you considered putting clothes on? I hear that helps.
Because there is nothing wrong with it.
fair enough i suppose.
Because it’s artistic and natural.
I assume that you haven’t watched any American TV shows for the past couple of decades. Nudity and gratuitous sex scenes are a staple of the American entertainment industry.
Eh. Violence is still way more prominent. If feels like the whole point of the first 5 minutes of every cable show is presenting in vivid on-screen detail a new and unheard of way a person can be horribly hurt. Nudity is unusual and worth remembering, though.
Funny, I was under the opposite impression: nudity has almost disappeared from US shows.
But note that that’s about nudity and sex being the same, and the sex is pornographic (that is, the intent in showing it is to arouse the viewer). The OP is about non-sexual nudity. In fact, OP doesn’t mention sex at all, but I feel like it’s reasonable to extend the argument to non-pornographic depictions of sex.
That’s also true. Actually, I think they’re (edit: sex and violence) both intended as pornographic in their own way.
I think, there is a strong difference between pornography and artistic nudity and those should not be viewed as the same.
From Wikipedia on Nude (Art):
Kenneth Clark noted that sexuality was part of the attraction to the nude as a subject of art, stating “no nude, however abstract, should fail to arouse in the spectator some vestige of erotic feeling, even though it be only the faintest shadow—and if it does not do so it is bad art and false morals”. According to Clark, the explicit temple sculptures of tenth-century India “are great works of art because their eroticism is part of their whole philosophy”. Great art can contain significant sexual content without being obscene.
Ah, to be clear, gratuitous sex and gratuitous violence are both pornographic in their own way. Sorry, my bad.
I’ve been to a bunch of nudist events in Australia, naked bike ride, nude beach, life drawing events, confest hippie festival and some gallery openings. I’ve also studied anatomy. People need to get their head right about what it means to be naked. Everyone has a body, and should be more comfortable with it.
Edit: Chatting with yanks on deaddit, they largely seem so afraid of nudity that they’ll be calling the police if there’s an adult naked around a child where in many other parts of the world it’s completely normal, eg modest family bathing scenes in anime.
I think it is an interesting subject.
I can’t answer for all of us, but I can ask another question.
Before USA became a superpower and took over the world, we were many countries and we were at war most of the time.
Now, EU started in the '90s. It delivered some good points, yet our countries still defend their own interests. (see Denmark, fighter jets and spying for instance. No specific hate to my danish friends) German people défend their industry before anything else, Luxembourg fucks up with taxes, etc.
Then, will our future really be built on a very centralized EU ? Have we really a common identity and interest ? All I can see is every country backstabbing another.
So, should we go on ideolazing US culture ? Of course not. But I don’t see a European culture in front of that. I ‘d prefer we cherish our particularities but I don’ t think european countries count for ‘’ 1 ‘’ voice.
The closest we can find if an european common culture is that we share a mass of land and our ancestors have been lusting after eachother since… well, just pick a date.
The EU can be strong by finding common ground where we can agree and respecting we will never agree on others. And that is fine. If we find the strenght to emulate what is made well in other countries and slowly push towards a better, negotiated, future.
“A reliable way to incapacitate Americans” @GenosseFlosse
Are we the hippies now? ;)
Peace and love, my friends.
Trust me, no one wants to see me take my clothes off.
I disagree, you were just taught to be ashamed of your body. Just as you shouldn’t be ashamed of your face or hair or height, you shouldn’t be ashamed of your nipples or butt or genitals.
Nudity is okay, your body is yours, and your nudity is not for others pleasure if you don’t want it to be. Just as I wouldn’t look at your face and be disgusted that you have a nose, i wouldn’t be disgusted that you have other body parts.
