Writing on the Edge of Propriety Part 4
by Hank Isaac
How interesting would Little Red Riding Hood be if all that happens to her is that she skins a knee or hooks her coat on some plant thorn. She gets to Grandma’s house and it’s really Grandma who’s in bed. Then they spend the afternoon together eating tea cakes.
As old as I am, I’m still trying to understand a culture which is reviled by the possibility of a child getting a glimpse of a woman’s bare breast (or other body part) and yet is somehow okay with that same child watching endless versions of people getting shot, beat up, maimed, mangled in machinery, eaten by aliens or dinosaurs, having their limbs torn off in violent battles… Not to mention hours and hours of various forms of mental cruelty and deeds which that very same culture at least gives lip service to working against.
And yet, show that breast, or, heaven forbid, show a young girl’s bare chest, and everyone goes ballistic. It probably has a lot to do with people being afraid of their own thoughts. But I’m not a mental health professional, so I can’t speak to that with any schooled authority.
