Based on the 2009 album of the same name by lovable musical duo Sparks, Seduction will run as the only live component of the Los Angeles Film Festival July 25th. This will be the show’s world premiere. (Check out the video clip above for background on the album itself.)

“All I can say is I am excited,” Sal says, which is not too surprising, as the actor doesn’t do anything by halves. Though he’s done a little singing in his time, this will be his first big singing role.

The production will take place at the John Anson Ford Ampitheatre near the Hollywood Bowl. More info here.

First up, a review of an odd little Japanese horror flick called Teketeke, which is distributed exclusively in the North America by JapanFlix.com.

“Poor Koji Shiraishi. ln 2009, the Japanese director released two flicks on opposite ends of the horror spectrum. While the Guinea Pig like Grotesque (RM#96) promptly got itself banned in the UK, his more traditional J-horror, Teketeke, languished in obscurity until it was recently picked up for digital distribution through JapanFlix.com. What hamstrings both movies, though, is a stunning lack of originality…”

Pick up Rue Morgue 110 for the complete review, a cover story on the beautifully named Hobo with a Shotgun, and a sumptuous look at Clive Barker’s new Hellraiser comic.

(Oh yeah, and my short review of Zombie Alley for the iPhone.)

Even more interesting than the question is the answers she’s received so far: everyone seems to take this as just one more interesting quirk about Lorelai and Rory, which really surprised me. Yet, this quickly got me to thinking about the context of the question. My guess is that most of the people replying are either from outside the US or under the age of 30, or both. As American culture is the only one I’m intimately familiar with, I must focus on that.

(At this point I should say that if I could get to the heart of, and solve, this problem, I would not be writing books about popular culture.)

America’s Body Image Problems

For as long as I can remember, I’ve heard from people, either in person or through various newspaper and magazine articles, that Hollywood’s overabundance of impossibly skinny actresses and magazine cover models has damaged the self-image, and in many cases the health, of thousands of young women throughout the U.S.

Now as problems go, my knee jerk reaction is to say this is pretty low on the list of irritants that life can throw at you, especially when you stop to consider that people in many countries barely have enough to eat, and the predominant problem in this country is obesity, not its opposite. There is the tremendous urge to say don’t worry about what other people are doing, stop eating crap and get some exercise. And if that doesn’t work, accept the fact that we all get dealt a bad hand genetically in some way; there are worse defects to be hit with.

However, there’s also something to be said for all problems being relative. If the challenge of physical survival has been taken off the table, as it has been for most in the U.S., we’re left with second-tier challenges, within which the problem of body image neatly falls. And if you’re a young girl growing up in a society that worships slender women, your vision of your own body could well be negative if you don’t measure up. And to the little girl throwing up during gym class to meet an unobtainable ideal, her problem to her is as real (and potentially life destroying) as any other.

Yet the problem isn’t necessarily the thin actresses or the magazine covers or even the “worship” of slender women — there’s an argument to be made that the real problem is other young girls.

The Problem: Point by Point

Before we get to the root of the problem, it might be a good idea to take a look at how we got here.

Worship of Slender Women: We should probably say from the outset that this “worship” has been created and perpetuated by the media for the better part of 50 years or so. Many point to “Twiggy,” thought by many to be the West’s first “supermodel,” as the starting point for this obsession.

Yet few ask why print and film have tended to go after thin models and actresses to begin with. After all, you don’t have to go back too far in history to see that more realistic body shapes were all the rage for painters and sculptors back in the day. What happened?

In a word, technology. Painters and sculptors were in absolute control of what their models looked like. However, with the introduction of photography and filmography, the medium itself dictated what they would look like.

We’ve all heard that “the camera adds 10 pounds” or more; thanks to the mechanics of the equipment involved, that’s about right. As a result, women of so-called “normal proportions” tended to look huge on screens big and small, as well as on magazine covers. Since there was no way to tinker with this in the early days of the technology, the Powers That Be tended to look for uber skinny women to photograph. After years of getting used to a certain body type, those who make the images found themselves instinctively searching for women who fit that mold.

Young Girls and Young Boys: Naturally the elephant in the room here is that we’re talking about women and girls — what about the guys? Why don’t they have a body image problem?

The short answer is they do. While young girls are comparing themselves to the latest roster of thin-as-a-rail CW beauties and the latest Cosmo girl, young boys are trying to live up to the pumped-up dude on the cover of Men’s Health magazine, the latest wrestling star, or Twilight hunk. While girls are constantly hit over the head with diet ads in magazines and on TV,  boys are likewise inundated with Bo-Flex commercials, sports stars telling them what they need to do to be sports stars, superheroes with impossibly muscular builds, and buff action movie stars. (Back in the day, it was Charles Atlas ads in the backs of comic books and even a musclebound superhero toy called He-Man.) Quite simply, both sexes are equally inundated with impossible images.

Young Girls and Body Image: The problem may not be that girls are singled out by media with impossible body images, but that girls are more likely to verbally compare each other to them than boys. While few members of either sex tend to get through school without taking a few beatings, it’s fairly clear after decades of sociological research that American girls are more likely to verbally and emotionally abuse each other than resort to physical punishment.

Boys take their fair share of ridicule (I could tell you stories), but are also more likely to ramp up to out and out violence (I could tell you stories). Girls are more likely to play the humiliation card, be it spreading vicious rumors or name calling, which is where the body image problems come in. If you’re the tiniest bit larger than the rest, you’re screwed. Then again, if you’re not as well endowed as the rest, you’re screwed, too. In other words, you can’t win.

None of this really means much. As rough as things get, this is all part of growing up. The real problems begin if the young girl, pushed to her limits by the dove mentality (real doves, as in dove behavior, not the misbegotten notion of “peace doves”), slips into health-threatening, and in some cases life-threatening, eating disorders to try to change her circumstances.

As in many other cases, it strikes many as being far easier to blame Gilmore Girls and its junk food obsession, and the media as a whole, for causing what is a very complex problem. Nothing is resolved but a scapegoat is found, and increasingly scapegoats are all anybody is really looking for anymore.

Here then, are the two interviews I did for the piece about the Australian crackdown on Bruce LaBruce’s LA Zombie for Rue Morgue issue 108.

Update: MUFF director Wolstencroft was ordered by the court to $750 to Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital in February, which suggests, purposefully or otherwise, a line of reasoning that turns the stomach.

Bruce LaBruce, director, LA Zombie

When and how did you discover that Australia’s classification board had banned LA Zombie from playing at MIFF?
I found out from Google Alerts. I was forwarded an article that was printed in the Sydney Morning Herald about the decision of the Australian Film Classification Board to refuse to extend an exemption to L.A. Zombie for a  screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

Have you spoken with the MIFF director since the news? If so, what did he tell you?
I was informed by MIFF by email that the festival regretted the decision of the Classification Board, and their press release indicated that they were disappointed by the decision. They also told me that it would cost them ten thousand Australian dollars to appeal the decision and that they couldn’t afford to do so.

Has the movie met with any backlash elsewhere?
Not yet, but we live in hope.

LA Zombie’s been promoted as a sequel to Otto, or Up with Dead People, but is it more of a thematic sequel? Do any of the characters actually carry over to the new movie?
L.A. Zombie isn’t so much a sequel to Otto as a companion piece or bookend. Like Otto, it can be interpreted as being a movie about a homeless schizophrenic who has the delusion that he’s a member of the undead, but that’s pretty much where the similarity ends. L.A. Zombie is much more pornographic in tone, and it’s also more about Los Angeles and the situation of increasing homelessness. there. Actually it has much more in common with my movie Hustler White, which I also shot in L.A. in the mid nineties. Both films deal with street people in L.A., and I also worked with some of the same crew and shot in some of the same locations.

Why did you choose to set it in LA? Are you currently based there or did the location simply serve the story well?
L.A. is my spiritual homeland. I was always enamored with the city from its representation in Hollywood movies, and when I first visited it in the early nineties I immediately fell in love with it. I particularly like its seedy underbelly, and the idea that a lot of people go there to seek fame and fortune and end up having to deal with the harsh reality of this huge, almost apocalyptic metropolis. Many people with huge aspirations end up living on the street or being ground up in the meat grinder of the entertainment industry. Just look at poor Lana Clarkson, the B-movie actress who was murdered by Phil Spector. It can be a very dark place, but it’s also very beautiful somehow in its corruption. L.A. Zombie is about an alien zombie who finds dead people in the city and fucks them back to life. I thought it was the perfect allegory for the Hollywood experience.

Any word on a release date for the softcore version of the film?
It was the softcore version that got banned in Australia, so it’s unlikely that the movie will be widely released. The movie has no dialogue and little plot, so it’s not going to be released in your local multi-plex. I’m really into making movies that are obscure and unmarketable. However, it’s already been programmed at a number of international film festivals, including Locarno, where it’s in competition. Not bad for a hardcore gay zombie gore porn movie!

Do you think there is more value in the publicity generated by the ban than there is if it had simply screened at MIFF?
No doubt. The news of the banning of the film was featured on mainstream websites such as Reuters, the Drudge Report, and the Huffington Post. You can’t buy publicity like that. Censorship always brings much more attention to a movie than it would have normally received on its own. I can only extend my heartfelt thanks.

What was Francois Sagat’s reaction to news of the ban?
Francois is very media savvy, so he realized immediately the benefits of the ban. He’s also in the new movie by French director Christophe Honore, co-starring with Chiara Mastroianni, daughter of Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve, which is also in competition at Locarno, so it’s really a big moment for him as an actor. He’s currently featured on the cover of Les Incorruptibles, the famous intellectual French rock’n'roll magazine, so it’s really a coup for him.

Is LA Zombie still set to premiere Aug. 5 at Locarno and to screen later at the Toronto festival?
Yes, L.A. Zombie has its official premier at the Locarno International Film Festival August 5th, followed by the premier in France a the L’Etrange Film Festival. I can’t officially comment on its premier at TIFF and the Vancouver International Film Festival, but let’s just say there’s a strong probability.

Do you think that LA Zombie is the most extreme work you’ve done to date, or is it more likely that the “zombie” name has brought the movie to the attention of more mainstream audiences who are not used to the gay porn elements it uses to tell its story?
I think the thing that freaked out the Australian censors was a combination of the gay porn and necrophiliacal aspects of the movie. Even though the alien zombie in the movie fucks dead bodies back to life – not as zombies, but as a true resurrection – he is still initially fucking the dead. This is a major taboo in most cultures, and one that is specifically cited as being illegal, particularly when it is represented in a porn context. I have a writer friend, Glenn Belverio, who drew the attention of the controversy to Camille Paglia, and she advised me that necrophilia has been dealt with in romantic and sexual terms in a literary tradition extending back to the late 18th Century with writers such as Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe. It’s not a new taboo, and it’s been addressed in art and literary contexts for a long time, but it never seems to lose its transgressive power.

Will LA Zombie Hardcore premiere theatrically, or be a DVD only release? Is that still set for Halloween?
The hardcore version will be premiered in San Francisco on September 24th during the Folsom Street Fair and then at Halloween in New York. That will be the launch of the hardcore version.

Does the movie actually answer the question of whether the main character is truly an alien or a delusional homeless man?
No, not at all. I’ve deliberately left it open to interpretation. In fact, some people have interpreted it in another way: that the alien zombie has disguised himself as a homeless person in order to fit into human society. There’s lots of room for interpretation.

Can you explain what events inspired the idea of the story of LA Zombie, and when you began writing it?
I had been looking for an excuse to work with Francois Sagat, and I’d been inspired by his YouTube videos, which he made himself and which were very personal and transgressive. He made one, for example, in which he showed himself shooting up steroids, which was subsequently removed by YouTube. He also had a Halloween video in which he made himself up as a vampire, and that gave me the idea to make him into some monstrous creature with fangs. When we started shooting in L.A., I was struck by how many more homeless people there were than I’d ever seen before, so I incorporated more of that theme into the movie. It really ended up being a kind of modern document of Los Angeles.

Richard Wolstencroft,
director of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival

What agency visited you at your home, and what day was that? Did they tell you specifically that they were looking for a copy of LA Zombie?
Victorian (State) Police arrived at my house at around 8.30am on Thursday 11th of November to search for a copy of LA Zombie. As I had committed a free speech action at The 11th Melbourne Underground Film Festival a few months before I made sure I did not have a copy of said film. Our copy had been destroyed. The fact that a festival director has to take these precautions in a free and democratic country like Australia is sad and absurd.

Can you give me a brief sense of how events of that day transpired? Did this visit come completely unexpectedly, or did you suspect that something like this might happen? And just to be clear, you got rid of the copy of the movie you had, correct?
MUFF and myself have a long history of fighting for Free Speech in Australia. We have supported unpopular speech like that of David Irving (attempting to play a controversial speech of his “The Search for Truth In History”) at MUFF 4 in 2003 and playing Pasolini’s Salo when it was banned in 2001 at MUFF 2. We have screened banned films at MUFF before and always gotten away with it. Except one time the Police turned up to a screening of a film by a New York filmmaker Tony Comstock. When the Police arrived we decided after discussions with them not to screen the film. I respect the Police, they did not want to be there and you could tell that. We thought if LA Zombie were such a problem they would have been at the screening to stop it. Or at least called or emailed me to warn us or share their concerns, etc. We heard on the grape vine that LA Zombie was being reconsidered to get an R Rating for a video release in Australia and we thought the screening would be fine because of this. I did not expect to have my House raided two months after the event.

In your experience running the festival, is this the first time a movie has inspired this kind of attention from law enforcement?
Yes, to be perfectly honest. It is a surprise and the outrage from the arts, culture and cinema circles both here and overseas has been most universal and vocal. We have received letters of support from the Toronto International Film Festival who played the film recently, Jack Sargeant created a petition signed by many that is on my blog and Bruce LaBruce himself chimed in, in consultation with Camille Paglia no less, and many others continue to write. The New York Times covered it. The story went global.

You’ve suggested that there are some political overtones to this event, coming as it did on the eve of Australian elections. Has the subject of controversial literature or film come up during political campaigning this year?
No. But, I wonder why two weeks before a State election this happened? I hear on the grape vine that the Head Censor Donald McDonald is behind it. He was an appointment by former Prime Minister John Howard. McDonald is a colorful figure to say the least who used to run the ABC and built a bunker (!) for the ABC heads of staff when the Y2K bug threatened to hit. That’s a bit of a laugh really. Where do these public servants come from?! I am also a fairly controversial filmmaker, provocateur and writer in Australia. I wonder if some of the animus comes from this, also?

Did Pearls Before Swine or your other movies ever inspire such interest from law enforcement circles?
Jon Hewitt and my own first feature Bloodlust was “Banned In Queensland”. Queensland had or still has their own censorship office. That was a badge of honour for us. Jon and myself have always been (or wanted to be!) Australia’s answer to Tarantino and Rodriguez. We have both made many genre pics and championed a return to Ozploitaion filmmaking in Australia since Bloodlust in 1991. I have had no trouble with any of my other films , so far! My film Pearls Before Swine with Boyd Rice, though, was rejected from MIFF (Melbourne International Film Festival) due to its violent and political content and that is how MUFF began. I have made some underground S&M spanking films in the 90’s during my time running the Hellfire Club here. I have only released these in the US and UK as S&M material is considered Violent Erotica here and is refused classification. So, yes, I suppose some of my work is banned here! This is another absurdity. In Australia all porn is technically illegal for sale except in Canberra, where perversely all the politicians can buy it! Our censorship laws date back to the Edwardian era and the1950’s. It’s a terrible situation in need of a major overhaul. There is even talk from our supposedly Leftist government of introducing a universal net filter ala China and North Korea. This is, again, deeply shocking if it comes about.

When you have an entire festival geared toward showing truly challenging films, an outsider would expect that MUFF would attract a certain level of scrutiny from the Powers That Be. Yet when it comes to getting that “knock at the door,” do you welcome it for bringing publicity to works you’re trying to promote, and to the festival itself, or is it truly not worth it?
“Freedom is a double edge sword” Jack Parsons the Crowley following occultist and Rocket Scientist once famously said. I agree with that. I welcome the debate, publicity and discussion of the issue. I hope it will lead to change in Australia’s absurd censorship laws. But, I do not welcome the possibility of a charge. The fact a film festival director should be harassed in this way in a Western nation does Australia’s reputation and our local film culture no favors.

Do you have any sense of what happens now? Do you believe this is all over?
No Idea. I am waiting to be charged. As it may alter my ability to travel to the US I am concerned about it. It is a depressing thing to think about. But, if charged I will fight it and attempt to raise public attention and awareness on the serious and repressive issue of censorship in my country.

Have you heard from Bruce at all about this event?
Bruce has sent a letter of support and emailed me privately assuring me I have his full solidarity. Bruce is an authentic and stand up guy. We hung out, got drunk, had dinner, etc., while he was a guest at MUFF a few years back. He is a person who stands by his comrades and his convictions, as am I.

“While many view the movie remake as an idea lifted from the Devil’s own cookbook, some see remakes as an opportunity to rescue deserving films from cult movie exile. Consider director Sandor Stern, who’s taking a second swat at the pinata with a forthcoming remake of his own 1988 film Pin (aka Pin: A Plastic Nightmare), a creepy Canadian masterpiece that was driven into cinematic obscurity by the failing fortunes of its distributor…”

Pick up this issue of Rue Morgue for a candid interview with Stern and Jack Reher, the screenwriter for the Pin remake.

Apologies for the length of this entry, folks. To cover the creation of a program with Soap’s controversial history, sooner or later you have to start getting to the bottom of why these controversies arise in the first place, which is what I’ve tried to do here.

These are, of course, only one person’s view. I would love to hear what you think, too. Please post your ideas in the comments to this entry.

Until a few days ago, I had never heard of the forthcoming ABC pilot Good Christian Bitches. Yet now that it’s entered my mind, I think it’s an interesting opportunity to see first-hand the type of controversy that so plagued Soap during its initial run. Though the two shows are separated by more than 30 years, it’s the same old factions at loggerheads.

Um, ‘Good Christian Bitches’? Really?

First, some background. The TV pilot — which hasn’t actually been shot yet — is based on the novel of the same name by Kim Gatlin, which tells the story of Amanda, a woman who returns to the affluent Dallas community she’s from after a divorce, only to find that the ostensibly good Christian women there are content to let “love thy neighbor” slide when it gets in the way of a good, vicious gossip.

And that’s really as far as I can go with that, as I haven’t read the book, and to the best of my knowledge, few of those who’ve voiced their outrage have either; certainly none have seen the pilot script. Unfortunately, nature abhors a vacuum, so there have been plenty of people rushing in to fill it.

‘GCB’: The Complaint

The Parent Television Council was the first out of the gate with its objections to Good Christian Bitches, or GCB as it appears to have been “rebranded,” with President Tim Winter putting the group’s case this way:

“ABC’s decision is not only an affront to women, it blatantly attacks the world’s largest faith. The ‘b-word’ is toxic and is used to degrade, abuse, harass, bully and humiliate women. And the ‘Christian’ element only adds insult to injury. Regardless of whether the title ultimately makes it to broadcast, ABC has publicly proclaimed its values and it has tarnished the Disney brand.”

However, in the context of Soap, it is the Christian-based American Family Association that I find most interesting. Naturally, the AFA is pretty steamed, too, and has even set up an online petition to encourage people to voice their concerns to advertisers and their local ABC affiliates. What few may realize, however, is that this is one of the few groups that has a direct lineage to those that challenged Soap all those years ago.

The Summer of ’77

The AFA was started in 1977 by Rev. Donald Wildmon after he became disgusted by what he saw on television the previous Christmas, he told AFA Journal. He started his effort by advocating a “Turn the Television Off Week,” which garnered a fair amount of publicity, just as he thought it might. Pretty soon, he used that publicity to found the National Federation for Decency. (It was renamed the American Family Association in 1988.)

Tipped off by media reports about what would be shown in Soap prior to its premiere, Wildmon’s Federation launched a letter-writing campaign against the series, joining similar organizations such as the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church and others. The result: thousands of letters each week, and an advertiser backlash that Soap never truly recovered from.

‘Soap’: The Complaint

Today, Soap has withstood the test of time, and is regarded as a classic work of American television by most, though some will never forgive its irreverence.

Yet in the summer of 1977, the furor over Soap was even worse than the gnashing of teeth inspired by GCB.

Many railed against the story line in which Father Tim harbored unresolved feelings for Corinne (and vice versa), though no one had actually seen the show. Yet that same year, the English speaking world made the Australian novel The Thorn Birds, a clear inspiration for Father Tim and Corinne, a bestseller.

What few admitted at the time was that though Soap had its share of screwball scenes and suggestive material, it also possessed a gentleness and humanity that enabled its characters to tackle subjects seldom discussed on the airwaves.

Burt’s impotence and his brush with mental illness after the murder of his son, Jodie’s anguish in a world that told him his sexual orientation made him unworthy of love, the loneliness that drove Jessica to cheat on her philandering spouse — this was not some torrid burlesque for its own sake, but the perils and heartaches of which life is made.

In some ways it did what all good art does, it told people wrestling with similar issues that they were not alone. For the truly devout, it is enough to answer these situations with a “thou shalt not,” but for most, the world is not so black and white. Most virtue is untested virtue, some embrace faith, and the rest must find their own ways to cope.

‘GCB’: A Different Case

Which brings us to that other ABC show.

While there is something decidedly Biblical about a rush to kill the first born before it has the chance to grow up to become a problem, these campaigns hardly bolster the image of the maligned party. The fact remains that, in America at least, protests over mere words has always carried with it the scent of the crybaby. There are exceptions to this, naturally.

As the AFA rightly points out, replace “Christian” with “Jew,” “Black” or “Gay” in Good Christian Bitches, and people would be furious. Unfortunately, you cannot simultaneously claim to be the largest faith on earth and a put-upon minority. Not only is it disingenuous, it further wounds the reputation. Just as not everybody voted for the same president, not everybody worships at the same altar. While some blow off steam by complaining about President Obama’s socialism, others may question the devoutness of the devout. Just as the Obama opponent pays taxes to aid the common good, the Hindu, agnostic and other pay the taxes that the churches, temples and synagogues do not.

At this point, we must address exactly who has been most vocal about GCB, and about Soap, for that matter. Groups such as AFA and PTC and many others exist to rally the faithful when something offending is sighted. Doubtless all give alms to the poor, but protest is, itself, their industry. There is no shame in this, but it does dilute the value of the indignation.

I still remember my first job at a small newspaper — the fax machine was kept busy several days a week pumping out protest press releases from groups that blasted plays, TV shows, films, companies, magazines, politicians, celebrities — to their ire there was no end. I think that is what shaped my view of these things. Bristle at one thing and you may have a case, or two, or three. But when your ire with the world can fill a fax paper roll, the fault may lie in the bristler.

Seriously Though, What WERE They Thinking?

Though those inclined to do such things have fired off emails and spammed their friends with cut-and-paste complaints over GCB, these messages predictably have joined the cognitive dissonance of the Internet populated by cute kitty videos, Farmville requests and Viagra solicitations.

The irony is that in 2011, when getting 24 million out of 365 million people to watch your show is considered a “hit,” the majority of those still watching network television today are predominantly of the demographic most likely to be appalled by a title like Good Christian Bitches.

How did producers think it a good move to keep that title? No doubt it describes the type of people that the lead character must endure in the book, but you are dealing with a different market the moment you set foot in network television. A curious person can pick up a book in the store, flick through a few pages, and have some idea of what they’re getting themselves into. When all you’ve got going for you is a title, you have a lot riding on a few little words.