Fifty Shades of Grey Related to the Ethics of Romanticizing Abusiveness for the Sake of Fantasy

September 22, 2012 By 14 Comments

According to Laci Green, the book Fifty Shades of Grey celebrates an abusive relationship rather than healthy BDSM practices. This raises many questions for me about the ethics of art that eroticizes literal abusiveness. Is it bad in itself to enjoy the idea of abusiveness? Is it bad only if it creates, contributes to, or reinforces unhealthy attitudes, whether in oneself or in one’s broader culture? Can we indulge our dark sides at all morally through roleplaying? Can we indulge them even more in art than even through roleplaying? I have lots of questions. I need Your Thoughts.

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Arts, Arts, Autonomy, Culture, Cutural Criticism, Ethics, Pop Culture, Rape, Sex Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 14 Comments

Justice, Order, and Chaos: The Dialectical Tensions In Batman Begins and The Dark Knight

July 20, 2012 By 29 Comments

In this post I am going to explore the moral themes from the first two films of the Dark Knight trilogy. This post gives away nothing about The Dark Knight Rises but assumes knowledge of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. In a subsequent post I will explore how The Dark Knight Rises picks up, advances, augments, and culminates these folllowing themes from the first two films of the Dark Knight trilogy.

Filed Under: Arts, Comic Books, Ethics, Film, Morality, Nietzsche Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 29 Comments

On The Themes and the Quality of The Dark Knight Trilogy (WITHOUT Plot Spoilers)

July 20, 2012 By 19 Comments

I just watched Christopher Nolan’s entire Dark Knight trilogy at the theater. In this post, I discuss the quality of The Dark Knight Rises and pay specific attention to how well it handles its broad themes. I reveal nothing specific about the plot. Those who like to go into a movie spoiler free in terms [...]

Filed Under: Arts, Comic Books, Comic Books, Film, Film Reviews Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , 19 Comments

The Key of Awesome’s Dark Knight Parody

July 19, 2012 By 15 Comments

In just over 12 hours, The Dark Knight Rises! I’ll be seeing the whole trilogy in the theater tonight and reporting back! Your Thoughts?

Filed Under: Comedy, Comedy, Comic Books, Comic Books, Film, Film, Hilarious, Parody, Parody Tagged With: , 15 Comments

True Blood Season 5 To Focus On Religion and Politics

June 9, 2012 By 1 Comment

In interviews, Alan Ball has explained: “We wanted to play with the politics/religion angle, since that seems to be something that never stops,” he told USA Today. Recalling the moment he first imagined such storyline, he shared to Entertainment Weekly, “My first instinct about going into religion and politics was from watching Michele Bachmann, who [...]

Filed Under: TV Tagged With: 1 Comment

Catholic Icons For Super Heroes?

June 6, 2012 By 1 Comment

I enjoy super heroes on a mythic level, so in principle I was open to this idea and thought it an interesting prospect. But Igor Scalisi Palminteri’s art presenting super heroes in Catholic hagiographic poses and dress highlights that it is not only the distinctively Christian imagery I like so much in normal Catholic iconography, it’s the [...]

Filed Under: Arts, Comic Books, Comic Books, Comic Books, Novelties, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

The Walkmen's "Heaven"

June 4, 2012 By 2 Comments

Below is the new video from The Walkmen for the title track of their new album Heaven, which came out last week. The song basically sounds like every other Walkmen song. Which means it sounds fantastic. I got to see them live in the winter of 2010. A real treat, don’t miss them if you [...]

Filed Under: Indie Music, Indie Music, Indie Rock, Indie Rock, Music, Music, Music Reviews, Music Reviews 2 Comments

Beach House's "Zebra" (Camels With Hammers Blogathon Insomniac Theater)

May 25, 2012 By 2 Comments

I saw Beach House at the Pitchfork Music Festival in 2010 and they were incredible. This song is from the excellent album Teen Dream [CD + DVD] Your Thoughts?

Filed Under: Indie Music, Indie Music, Music, Music 2 Comments

Banksy Against Advertisers

May 24, 2012 By 8 Comments

    A paper on the ethics of advertising from one of my students this semester featured this interesting argument attributed to the graffiti artist, Banksy (supposedly from a book called Cut it Out): People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Arts Tagged With: , , 8 Comments

I Can't Forget, But I Don't Remember What

May 6, 2012 By 3 Comments

An old friend and loyal reader misses the old days on Camels With Hammers when I regularly posted about music—even going so far as to get 70 or so entries into what was supposed to be a yearlong daily top 365 artists countdown at one point. So, when I discovered this cool old Leonard Cohen [...]

Filed Under: Music, Music 3 Comments