Thursday 14th January 2010, 10:16
Hey Prude, don't make it bad...
Am I getting more prudish in my old age? Earlier this week I watched Disney's 1940 film of Pinocchio, and balked at how the levels of mild horror in it (it's a U). Plus I picked up a DVD of Poirot free with a paper (I know it was the Daily Mail, but Poirot's Poirot. Besides, I live in Surrey, it helps me blend in). And that DVD is also rated U, despite containing blood, murder and some near-xenophobic taunting of a Belgian.
Then in HMV this week, in their sale section I found two porn films: 'Giant Breasts 3' (bucking the trend of many recent trilogies by making the 3rd film in 3d) and 'Student Girls Gone Wild' (I'm not sure just how feral they get, although the picture on the back does involve a harness, so I'm presuming they go rabid or something). These weren't just light adult naughtiness - I could tolerate Doctor In Trouble or Wild Things 2 in the sale section - but these were proper, pornographic nakedity on front and back covers, without I presume plot, characterisation, subtext or even that many deleted scenes or an audio commentary (let alone an alternate ending).
I then dubbed myself an activist for moral decency, and took it on myself to remove these offending items from being sat pride of place in the sale section. Yes they were in the sale, but I don't think that means they should be sat, cover facing outwards, opposite the chart CDs for all sorts of kids and nuns to see. So I picked them up to carry them to the adult section of the store.
I couldn't find it straight away, and then got distracted by the complete boxset of The West Wing (Jed Bartlett would have approved of what I was doing), so suddenly realised I'd been walking around clutching two porn films in a shop frequented by a lot of my friends and neighbours, and both DVDs couldn't be turned around to hide the crotch-out front-and-back cover photos. I briefly tried to conceal the images from passing children by hiding the DVDs in my jacket till I could find their rightful home, but then quickly stopped that when I realised the difficulty of convincing a security guard as to my moral stance. "No officer, not stealing - just protecting the youth."
I couldn't find the Adult section in the end - I don't think they had one, which is probably why they ended up out by the front doors in the sale section. I thought of just dropping them off at the nearest section, but that was Children's Animation, so thought that just makes thing worse. In the end I buried them in Horror. That's not an indication that I think the female naked form is something to be terrified of (I hope), but just because if you're of an age and mindset to be looking through horror DVDs, I think you can take the image shots of Giant Breasts 3 and Student Girls Gone Wild. Or if you're a curious 11 year-old, you'll have think you just struck gold. Even though they should be at home watching Pinocchio.