Do I like this?

I've been exposed to some ambiguous arts and culture lately.

First, Platform a play about a French civil servant who becomes obsessed with sex tourism, falls in love and sets up a travel agency specializing in sex tourism to Thailand. It's sometimes shocking, sometimes titillating and sometimes really boring. Just like porn. In fact there was lots of porn in it which was kind of embarrassing because we weren't in a dark little theatre of the absurd kind of venue but a big velvet-chair, gold-railinged balcony kind of theatre with lots and lots of well-dressed white haired ladies and gentlemen. So the opening...ahem...with 10 minutes of nothing but a girl with legs akimbo and a supporting cast of fingers, fists and other implements (it was on film, thankfully) was a bit funny. Because you couldn't help thinking that most of these people would never, ever have seen porn before. I wonder what they were thinking.

The annoying bit was that the play was in Spanish with sub-titles so you spent a good deal of time frantically reading the many many words and then darting back to watch the actors act the words, or have sex, or give blowjobs or whatever they felt like doing. (Which was mostly to have sex and give blowjobs)

I wasn't sure if i liked it at first. I was fed up with all the reading mostly. But i've been thinking about it and it was quite good actually. Especially the naked woman who, never had sex with anyone, but wandered about delivering poignant soliloquies, playing the piano, singing and sometimes dripping yoghurt down her chin.

I don't think it's anti-Islam, like some of the reviews (a fundamentalist suicide-bomber attacks the brothel). I don't think it's pro-sex-tourism, but it didn't really seem very anti-sex-tourism either. Just made them seem hollow, and pitious. De-sensitizing. So however you felt about sex tourism before, you came out feeling nothing much at all. Like nothing could really shock you anymore.

The other thing i'm not sure about is a new videogame called 'Bully' by Rockstar, the creators of Grand Theft Auto (GTA). You have to run around your school hiding and trying not to get beat up by the bullies who have baseball bats and garbage can lids.

The child groups all think it's atrocious and want the game banned because it mocks all the children who are suicidal because of bullying. So they're going to call it Canis canum edit in Europe, meaning Dog eat dog. But then of course, all the controversy is bound to boost sales.

Basically, i think its shit. Just like its shit that you can pick up prostitutes and murder them in GTA. You could say that it will make bullied children feel empowered because in the game they can win and beat up the bullies with baseball bats. But will it make bullying seem like even more of a game to bullies?

That's too simplistic obviously. People don't do what they see on TV or what they hear in lyrics or act out what they do in videogames. But it's also simplistic to say they have no effect at all. I'm influenced by nearly every single thing i've read or seen. I take it in, internalize it, roll it around in my mind for awhile and view the world a little bit differently because of it.

And if they put it on a stage and we got to watch a bunch of 14-year-olds kick the shit out of someone, maybe even kill them, then would it be art? Or would everybody feel better about it then - bullies, bullied, prostitutes, sex tourists - because its just something that happens all the time. Why are violence and sexual violence so trendy and sexy?

I don't like it. I'm still thinking about why.