Humbert is pleasantly entertaining =S
We’re able to paint a clear picture of the world’s sexual history with what we’ve seen in the Museum of Sex and read in Peiss this past week. I’ll get to Humbert later on.
I spent a lot of time in the first room of the museum reading about the gradually increasing push in the limits of what could be seen and said in film. I was surprised when I realized how lewd critics perceived slight sexual verbal innuendo in early black and white films. I always thought its reactions were to similar to when a child cusses in today’s moral standards, a minor slap to the wrist. But at the museum, I got the impression that soft dirty talk was comparable to a Christian taking the stones of the Ten Commandments and pounding them with a sledgehammer. After I read the Filipino’s impressions of America in Peiss’ first document I realized, though it’ll sound close-minded, that a significant number of people who lived in the nineteenth century have also lived in the century after. But with this obvious fact comes the realization that the values of the Victorian Era did not fade immediately. Just see the guidelines for an acceptable movie in document four.
As we all know, sex sells. And the world has pushed the envelope in terms of what is considered ‘sex,’ or morally not for eyes of young innocent children. We’re now in the age of being able to watch celebrities have sex. Imagine Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio filming themselves having sex and having it ‘accidentally’ leaked to the public? It’d be absurd. The image of both public figures would have been permanently skewed forever.
But that’s the point. Sex figures today are not the sex figures of the past. And sex figures today will be considered G-Rated according to the standards/limits of the future. It’s just the course the world has been running on. A dramatic, history defining, social conservative revolution may not even have the power to change that. Why, because sex sells. There will always be that big part of the population facilitating this idea.
Now onto Humbert. For an odd reason, I’ve been listening to the audiobook version of “Lolita” instead of actually having a tangible book in front of me. And the reader, actor Jeremy Irons, makes me feel like Humbert is successful in justifying his attraction to young girls. He’s pleasantly psychotic to me. I enjoy how modestly arrogant he is about his attractiveness. It’s like the few cards that are missing in his deck contributes to a firmer grip of reality, or his reality based solely of his experiences. Either or, it creates a logical stream of consciousness. And I’m fascinated.
Is this was goes through the minds of the majority of people with cases of pedophilia? I see Humbert as a helpless victim of his biological makeup. But should I, along with people with similar views, then sympathize for those convicted statutory rape, though the sex was claimed to be consensual? I’m at odds with myself, while being entertained at the same time. It’s something I feel that I should be ashamed to admit.
Tags: Guilty pleasure, Helplessness, Heterosexuality, Humbert, Lolita, Museum of Sex, Natural, Obsession, Twentieth Century
