Some sick stuff on IMDB

This isn’t the mirth-filled sophomore blog effort I was expecting or hoping to post, but I’ve just been on IMDB.com and read something that actually quite chilled me.

I’m not sure when it started, but IMDB has allowed users to create lists of movies for other users to view and comment on; the list being whatever the user wants it to be: a list of their favourite actor’s movies, their choice of films from a certain genre or simply, in some cases, for users to post a list of every DVD they own.

Harmless, if needless and geeky, fun.  While I haven’t partaken in the posting of these lists, I have left sarcastic comments on some of the more cringe-worthy lists such as ‘Nicest People In Hollywood’ compiled, probably, by the kind of person who believes every word in Heat magazine to be the truth and who owns every season of Friends on DVD.

This evening, I saw a list I hadn’t seen before and it quite shocked me.  Someone with the username KatchFilm has created a list of movies featuring rape scenes or starring sex offenders.

I’m not shocked by rape scenes in films anymore.  Maybe I’m desensitised.  I can’t think of an 18-rated prison movie since the Truman Capote-scripted The Glass House that hasn’t featured a rape scene, and there were probably some more before that that had the same themes.  After a while it just gets boring.

Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, I Spit On Your Grave, Baise Moi, Scum and even Straight Heads (which stars Danny Dyer whose performances often make me feel violated); I’ve seen them all and (read carefully, Ken Clarke) as serious and ugly as rape is in real life – in a movie it just seems to be the catalyst in a revenge plot.

Attached is a message I have sent to IMDB requesting that the list is taken down along with a few reasons why I believe it should be.  If you feel the same, I suggest you do this too.

From: FiserableMucker

Topic: I have feedback/a suggestion/a problem report (no personalized response required)

URL: http://www.imdb.com/list/Twc0UfdXR6w/

Subject: User List

Dear Sirs, user KatchFilm has added a list of films he/she owns featuring Rape, Sexual Predators/Killers, URL attached. I find this list to be in bad taste and suggest that is removed. While I have seen, and in some cases even own, many of the films listed I feel that publishing a list of them purely on the basis that they contain graphic scenes of illegal sexual situations is an irresponsible act. Stating that a film contains such matter acts well as a warning or deterrent to people who don’t wish to see it or are unfit to see it, be it due to their age or state of mind, but this list seems to glamourise the subject matter, suggesting that the films listed should be primarily viewed as a source of sick thrills. I consider myself an open-minded and reasonably unshockable movie fan and believe that the art form should be censored as little as possible, but I am very uncomfortable with this list on what is an otherwise outstanding website.

I’m not suggested that KatchFilm is a sex offender or that he/she has unhealthy sexual fantasies, but the posting of it was highly irresponsible and should have been flagged by IMDB’s system/administrators when it was first posted.

I’ll post the reply from IMDB should I get one, but I currently expect a ‘freedom of speech’ cop out.

Like you’ve never seen me before – writing in more than 140 characters

Since I’ve been able to talk, I’ve had opinions.  Probably even before that, just not the ability to convey my thoughts and emotions into words for anyone nearby to understand.  I had some thoughts which, as a child, made perfect sense to me.  I decided in bed one night that I could make the world a better place. I remember it well; it felt like a very late night, but it was probably before 10pm as my bedtime was 9.  The plan was so simple it couldn’t fail.  I would love everyone.  That was it; I would love everyone.  People I had met and had not met alike.  Love them, that was, until I knew them well enough to decide in my small boy’s mind whether they deserved love or not.  This seemed like a brilliant idea and some of you might be thinking “What a sweet young boy, so small yet so full of love and tolerance for his fellow man; he reminds me somewhat of that boy off of The Sixth Sense, but when he was in that other film, Pay It Forward, where he found a way to make the world a better place.”

You may be thinking that, but you’d be wrong.  As I said, I’d love everyone equally, those I knew and those I didn’t, until I got to know them.  Unfortunately, it didn’t take much to make the unloved list.

There was a girl living a few doors away who we’ll call Tracy.  A good name to call her, as it is what she was called.  Tracy was a year above me in school but due to it being a very small school, two school years would share one classroom.  Tracy didn’t do anything particularly unpleasant to me, she just lied a lot and I’ve never had any tolerance for liars, even eight year old liars 22 years ago when I was seven.

“One night,” Tracy once claimed “I went to my bathroom and it was full of jewels.”

She was questioned at some length by myself and the boy who sat next to me as to the whereabouts of the jewels and why, if her family could afford to fill a room with precious stones, were they living in a 3 bedroom house in what can only be described as the backwater, middle of nowhere, arse-end of Wales.  We started off pleasantly enough by humouring her, then grew a little bored so we went into good cop/bad cop mode.  I imagined myself as the bad cop, sat on the edge of a desk, swinging one leg, a revolver in my shoulder holster, loosening my tie and ready to let my fists do some talking.  Finally we resorted to showing Tracy the kind of compassion shown to Gerry Conlon by interviewing officers in In The Name Of The Father.

One thing I’ll say about Tracy, she never broke.  I admired that.  She said the jewels were gone, but wouldn’t say where.  Her parents had sold them, but the buyer was anonymous and we had to respect that.  Soon enough, it was twenty past three and we all ran home. It was a friday; Knightmare would be on CITV.

I decided that day I couldn’t love Tracy.  She was the first upon the unloved list.  I think I put her family on there too, to keep her company.  I wasn’t a complete monster.  Soon more names were added.  A little girl who bit the nose off my brother’s Spitting Imagine Stevie Wonder puppet was one.  Not all of the unloved were female, they’re just prime examples.

A few months on, I realised the system was flawed.  There were people out there who had commited murders.  I couldn’t love them,could I?  I’d heard of Hitler and his ghastly goings on, so he was on the list.  Then there were also the people I would never meet who would go on to commit murders.  Raoul Moat would have been a ruddy-faced scamp in short trousers.  Harold Shipman was a local GP his patients would look forward to visiting (yes, he was probably killing them at this point, but nobody was wise to it yet).  Could I love them?  Should I love them until they commit murder?  Osama Bin Laden was out there, wandering around doing whatever he was doing back then, completely unaware that a small boy in Swansea had a heart full of love for him.  Maybe if he knew, the world would be a different place today.

Eventually, I scrapped the ‘love everyone’ system.  It was a dark time for me, but I decided my small mind couldn’t handle the concept of it. I’d stick to playing Paperboy on the Sinclair Spectrum and watching the Goonies on a weekly basis – I watched The Goonies at least once a week for some time – and just put the scheme on the backburner until I was old enough to handle it better.  Twelve or thirteen, maybe.

So, where is this story going?  I won’t lie to you, I don’t know.  I just think you need to know a bit about me and that was one of the bits of my childhood I often think about.

It might give you some insight into me and my actions on Twitter.  I’ve got a good number of followers that I’m thankful for but I only actually follow a small number of people.  The reason is, I’m not a You-follow-me-and-I’ll-follow-you chap and I don’t want my timeline rammed with hundreds of people, tweets upon tweets, forgetting who said what and have people blur into people.  The few I follow are all individual little diamonds more beautiful than the sort Tracy claimed filled her bathroom that fateful night.

I don’t mean to say the people I don’t follow aren’t all lovely and interesting and sexy and funny.  There are a few un-followed tweeters I keep an eye on who make me laugh.

Also, if someone takes a few seconds out of their day to mention me in a tweet, I’ll try to do the same in return.  If they suggest that others follow me, I always thank them.

I don’t follow anyone whose timeline is full of replies to other people, retweets or links to obscure or self-promoting sites.  I don’t follow major celebrities – although I do like to see the tweets people send them in an attempt to get a reply, such as teenage girls begging Paris Hilton to follow them. She really should, I’m sure she’d love to know what bargains they picked up in Primark or how Craig fingered them outside Wetherspoons.

I saw Tracy recently.  She has a few kids now.  I’m glad she’s managed to move on and build a life for herself without my love, even if it is erected on a foundation of lies.

I’ll finish this now, but remember; while I may not follow you on Twitter I still love you.  Unless you’re planning on killing anyone.