Tuesday 9 December 2008

the cockeyed morality of 1950s tv westerns.

Quite often we have to admit that even the stuff we like is bollocks. It's been established in a previous episode of the old Maverick series I'm watching on the museum channel or whatever it's called, that things were pretty wild out there in the west. A citizen was gunned down in the street and there was nothing anybody could do about it. In today's episode, however, a woman's husband has been missing in Indian territory for some time, presumed dead. It's a particularly dangerous location, being the 'graveyard of the gods' to the natives. The woman desires to marry another bloke. And even though this is a near lawless place, it's still a near lawless 1950s America, and blokes and girls can't just go hitching up without due process. So they go into the badlands to establish whether the husband is dead or what, because it would be entirely immoral to remarry without ascertaining said position. The husband is also a condemned murderer, which is another reason he has to be got back, to face justice. In the course of the search Maverick casually murders a native American who is guarding the holy place. The purpose was to avoid bringing the whole tribe down on them so why he couldn't just get thumped on the head I don't know, because in movies getting thumped on the head causes you to slump down silent and unconscious instead of causing you to scream in agony as it does in real life. Next they have to shoot a dozen other native Americans who are justifiably angry about it, all just young chaps with aspirations and hopes and a sweetie back in the wigwam like thee and me. None of this evokes remorse or regret of any sort. It turns out the bloke she was going to marry is the one who committed the murder that the husband is wanted for in the first place, so he gets kilt by the injuns, the sanctity of marriage is preserved and all's well that ends.

related posts: The cockeyed morality of modern day comic books.
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meanwhile in the real world:
Woman loses hearing in passionate kiss
A passionate kiss ruptured a young woman's eardrum in southern China, state media reported on Monday, in what has been dubbed the "kiss of deaf".
The 20-something girl from Zhuhai city in Guangdong province was treated by hospital doctors after completely losing the hearing in her left ear, the China Daily reported, citing the Guangzhou Daily.
"The kiss reduced the pressure in the mouth, pulled the eardrum out and caused the breakdown of the ear," the treating doctor, surnamed Li, was quoted as saying, adding the woman's hearing would likely recover in about two months.

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5 Comments:

Blogger Nino said...

Hi, Eddie!
Two months dumb after a kiss!
Well, I'd gladly go blind in case my "capricho" smiled at me... So in case she kissed me, I'd only have ears for her words, not only for 2 months but during the eternity of her touch.

Hope you are doing fine.
Besos a Ana.
Un abrazo, amigo

Nino

9 December 2008 at 09:25:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Eddie,

I was wondering if you had any comment on the Australian judge's decision that the Simpsons' characters, as portrayed in a bit of on-line cartoon porn (which I admit I have not watched), are 'people' in the eyes of the law. Your thoughts?

It seems therefore that Bunny Wilson is a real person after all.

Ben

9 December 2008 at 10:05:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually, the word "bollocks" is a "bollocks" word. That's so British ghetto...And blogging is "bollocks," it's for nerds.

But "Nevermind the Bollocks" is one of the greatest albums ever. Anarchy in the youuuuuuu-kay!

10 December 2008 at 09:54:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Matthew Adams said...

Playing tonsil hockey with your girlfriend's eardrum is a bit distasteful.

Especially when you end up with a mouthful of earwax.

I read Gangs of New York a while ago (the movie of the same name only covers about a paragraph of the book). In there it mentions that the wild west was nowhere near as wild as it is claimed, and that in fact the big cities like New York were much more wild.

10 December 2008 at 18:42:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

wat did she kiss? [since the question whom is out of place ]

19 December 2008 at 12:47:00 GMT-5  

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