Last weekend, for a friend's birthday we all watched a movie we had been dying to see since we saw the ridiculous looking trailer On Demand. The movie was entitled "Hobo with a Shotgun". The film exceeded our expectations of absurdity. Because of the inappropriate nature of basically any video giving you the idea of the plot I will write a brief summary. Basically a Hobo comes to a crime ridden, no lawed and corrupt city that is run by a sick murderer and drug dealer named Drake and his two sons Slick and Ivan. The city lives in constant fear due to Drakes monthly shows where he demonstrates his dominance by savagely killing a random citizen and threatening to do the same to anybody who refuses to watch. The hobo takes it upon himself to clean up the streets with a shotgun and kills anyone who does anything wrong. After I watched the movie, I started thinking. I remembered some scenes that just seemed wrong to me. I think the rating system of movies is a great step to limit what film makers publish, but after seeing that film, I think there should be a line that is not allowed to be crossed. In the film, there was a scene where the two sons burned a school bus full of toddlers to send a message to the community. This scene was clearly meant to only stir up a shock value that sells tickets. There are several other scenes that I could describe in all the bloody, gory detail. But to me, they seem too unethical to even describe for the purpose of this post. I think there are certain things that just shouldn't be allowed to be published and this movie was full of those things. This was an especially interesting idea to me since we have been talking about limiting civil liberties in class. I understand that this is protected under the first amendment, but I have trouble understanding why. Much of this movie was simply for shock value. There was no artistic point to it. It got so over the top violent that it just felt unethical to watch.
What do you think? Do you think there should be a limit to what moviemakers can publish?
I too am a fan of absurd movies. However, I don't think there should be a limit to what film makers can and can't do. Our moral code may be different than that of the director's, but he is technically allowed to set a school bus on fire for his movie if he chooses to do so. If we limit some parts of the first amendment ans not others, the whole system would fall apart.
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