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In this day and age, I never fail to be surprised at what a repressed culture we still have, despite all our pretensions to the contrary. It may seem that expressions of the
extreme are mind-numbingly common in our culture, but look again; in all the sex, violence and depravity we see in our media, is there any attempt, through showing us this continual flood of blood and sex, to tell us anything about their meaning, and why we watch when we claim to be offended and repulsed?

Of course not. The last thing a salesman wants is for you to think. At the very least, it fosters an independence of mind that makes his job harder. We are shown the version of our ids Hollywood and Madison Avenue have taught us to respond to like one of B.F. Skinner's rats. Tits(and, the ads establish in our heads, therefore beer or cars or virtually anything)equal sex. Guns equal power. We are shown simplistic, filtered shocks carefully tooled to keep our minds in a relaxed, semi-hypnotized state of being vaguely thrilled, but not too occupied to take in the Volvo ad afterward. Bang. And now this. Smooch. And now a word. And so on.

The purpose of the mainstream media is simply to keep a glorious stream of commerce flowing 'round, and they have the power to enforce this now as never before, because of a stupid, lazy public who go to see Joe Eszterhas or Mel Gibson trash at the theatres, or rent it from Blockbuster in versions edited for their protection. God knows what might happen if they started thinking for themselves. And they exploit these at best tacky and at worst prurient and exploitative versions of bits of our world just to take our money, and degrade the minds of all in the process. One wonderful cycle of buggery.

Thus when a work comes along and uses elements of extreme violence and sex in an intellectual, rather than titillating, way designed to shock you into consciousness, to force you to consider the subjects as you may not have before, it is seen as wallowing in these elements for their thrill value, because that's the only reason mainstream media ever use them. The idea of art as something autonomous and not an ancillary to marketing is fast dying, and it could be argued it's been dead in the U.S. since the early 90s. When a film comes along like that,it's usually shunted right out of public consciousness. It seems that if it cannot be easily advertised or discussed on TV it hasn't a chance in hell. Worse for that film, if it's about something that may undermine the very

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