Equal Sexuality?

[Seraph]

1970 and a film depiciting a future where people can choose a sexual partner by shopping for them. Further more, people look at women and men. One of the first scenes is the Lead Male, (using some kind of hologram shop/transporter) flicking from female to male.

Nowadays a film shows a man shopping for sex and flicks over a guy - that would be a sight gag. Not from the point where peolple have socially evolved past gender typing to a different kind of liberalism.

In a way it's almost a throw back to Roman decadence in another it feels light years ahead of it's time.

[Splendiferous]

Funny you should mention the Roman decadance bit - a lot of the style and fashion in the film reminds me of Romans. Do you think that was intentional?

[Seraph]

I think it probably was. Rome often gets used as a metaphor in that way (hence helps reinforce certain themes) - and it's the only civilisation that comes close to the social structure of Logan's Run, well minus slaves and women being kept indoors and such. It's also synonymous with the illicit.

[HighWiredSith]

And yet, did you get the overall point of the film, specifically that this so-called enlightened and socially free society was, in fact, a nightmare of social engineering, pure communistic ideal gone terribly wrong?

Logan's Run was the ultimate antithesis to the liberal, sexual revolution and free (and empty) mindset of the 1960's. It's essential message - you want free sex, you want a societ that lets you do whatever your heart desires with zero real world consequences - here you go, it's all yours...only there's a catch!

Great movie.

[Seraph]

Yep, the overall message (promotion of freedom for monogomy, vapid/shallowness of polygomy among the other themes - but what isn't a social construct?), but even so just taking that scene alone pretty damn edgy for a movie of that time that was relatively mainstream.

It's a shame it didn't take this:

you want free sex, you want a societ that lets you do whatever your heart desires with zero real world consequences - here you go, it's all yours...only there's a catch!

to the next level - consequences rather than 'catch', as all the characters were played as subject to/prisoners of dogma and therefore less culpable.

This really is top of my list for being remade, sucks Singer seems to be off it now and they're getting in new script writers again.

[HighWiredSith]

I hear Singer has not ruled it completely out. With Superman fizzling at the box office, it's doubtful Warner Brothers will be holding out a fistfull of 300 million bucks for a sequel anytime soon so who knows. I think Singer is the hands on best choice to remake this film and I do hope it gets remade - great story, lots of potential.

[Seraph]

Given the fact he did seem to get things moving for a bit and he's more than able to deal with complex themes, definately.

Last thing I heard was that he'd bowed out due to S2 and the studio were looking for a new director and new script, been in development hell for a decade apparently - but then the rumour mill is all swings and roundabouts.

[SF_not_Sci-Fi]

Originally Posted by Seraph

In a way it's almost a throw back to Roman decadence.

Bisexuality has nothing to do with Roman 'decadence.' Bisexuality has been an aspect of various societies during periods that were not 'decadent' by any definition. The association of bisexuality with cultural 'decadence' comes from a preexisting external attitude towards it as aberrant. But if a particular historical period was noted for the acceptance of behavior which is considered aberrant today, then everything must have been going to heck in a hand basket, right? Such an attitude is an academic contaminant- a cultural artifact of the historian or anthropologist. It's like finding your own plastic fork at an archeological dig and concluding that it belonged to an ancient Persian king.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexua...ity_in_History

But then the film's creators would think of it as 'decadence' wouldn't they? And when you look at the fact that this movie was released only seven years after Stonewall and that it represented a panicked reaction to the countercultural youth and social movements of the previous decade rather then any kind of celebration of it, the implications become clear.

[Seraph]

Originally Posted by SF_not_Sci-Fi

Bisexuality has nothing to do with Roman 'decadence.' Bisexuality has been an aspect of various societies during periods that were not 'decadent' by any definition. The association of bisexuality with cultural 'decadence' comes from a preexisting external attitude towards it as aberrant. But if a particular historical period was noted for the acceptance of behavior which is considered aberrant today, then everything must have been going to heck in a hand basket, right? Such an attitude is an academic contaminant- a cultural artifact of the historian or anthropologist. It's like finding your own plastic fork at an archeological dig and concluding that it belonged to an ancient Persian king.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexua...ity_in_History

But then the film's creators would think of it as 'decadence' wouldn't they? And when you look at the fact that this movie was released only seven years after Stonewall and that it represented a panicked reaction to the countercultural youth and social movements of the previous decade rather then any kind of celebration of it, the implications become clear.

Funny how you state decandance as being synonymous with "everying going to heck in a hand basket"? Wouldn't that be a social judgement?

Feeling practically repetitive, but (oooh I may have got my snark back) the decadance was in reference to the promsicuity of shopping for a partner. If you want to start up a bandwagon about social norms and bisexuality have fun.

[SF_not_Sci-Fi]

Originally Posted by Seraph

Funny how you state decadence as being synonymous with "everything going to heck in a hand basket"? Wouldn't that be a social judgement?

No, not really. That's just what the word actually means. I believe that it is the original definition. In fact, I believe that it has the same root as the word 'decay.'

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
dec·a·dence /ˈdɛkədəns, dɪˈkeɪdns/ Pronunciation[dek-uh-duhns, di-keyd-ns]
–noun
1. the act or process of falling into an inferior condition or state; deterioration; decay: Some historians hold that the fall of Rome can be attributed to internal decadence.
2. moral degeneration or decay; turpitude.
3. unrestrained or excessive self-indulgence.
4. (often initial capital letter) the decadent movement in literature.

Definitions two, three and four arose out of a certain popular idea about the causes of social collapse, especially in the case of the fall of the Roman Empire. The 'decedent' imagery (def 2 and 3) in Logan's Run is in my opinion used to accent the fact that the society itself was decadent (def 1). Within the context of the film, sexual promiscuity and the acceptance of bisexuality were not shown as an indication of a healthy and 'progressive' society. Quite to the contrary. These things were shown as hyper atrophied aspects of the youth culture of the late 1960's and early 1970's run amok.

You are right about the 'social judgment' of course. However, it is not my judgment. It is a judgment that is inherent in the film and indeed in the English language itself. We associate things that are related through language with one another. The history of a language is the history of the social mores and dominant ideas of the cultures and subcultures that have used and shaped the language. Through language, some very old and sometimes dubious ideas survive for a very long time.

I see now that I have misunderstood your use of 'decadence.' The word is full of implications of the very sort of judgment that you seem to want to avoid. It is thus a rather appropriate word to describe the apparent intentions of the filmmakers. To my eyes, they were obviously making that very social judgment. The film was in fact a rather reactionary critique of the 'liberalism' that you refer to.

In other words, I fully agree with Sith about the intentions of the filmmakers. However, I am aware that their argument rests on the rather unsteady foundation of several blatant logical fallacies; most notably "straw man" and "slippery slope."

If you want to start up a bandwagon about social norms and bisexuality have fun.

What exactly do you mean by this?

[Seraph]

Ok...


a) That's what I get for posting after half a bottle
b) I took all your post as a response to mine, alluding to bisexuality as an abnormality, when quite frankly the sooner gender comes as far as race has managed to we'll all be the better
c) The likelyhood this will make sense is slim as again...just back from out.

Summation: Seraph is likely a dumbarse and will hopefully return to this thread at some lucid future point to understand what the hell is going on.