Holy Cabooses!

So yesterday,Lisa and I ended up watching the whole Matrix Trilogy. Despite popular opinion, I still think The Matrix Trilogy is one of the best pieces of cinematic science fiction. But that's not what this post is about.

You see, me and Lisa were not planning, per se, to watch the whole Matrix Trilogy in one day but we caught the beginning of the first movie on TBS and needed the resolution, so we popped in the DVDs. If we had time, I would have watched the first movie over again on DVD to cleanse my brain of some of the worst language editing I have ever seen.

Ever.

Apparently, in The Matrix, the term "flipper" refers to the middle finger, and when you have a robotic bug inside your small intestine it is not odd to yell, "Jeepers Creepers!"

But perhaps the finest/worst example of keeping the bad words at bay came from Dozer exclaiming, "Judas Preist!" in lieu of "Jesus Christ!"

Judas Priest? I mean I sort of get the biblical connection, but in a time of crisis, I still think it is never okay to take an 80's hair band's name in vain.

At first I was offended, I was outraged, but before I could say "Skid Row." I realized what may be going on. TBS is trying to catch the hip young demographic, airing Family Guy and Friends, so maybe they are trying to create a new language movement. Everybody wins. Parents won't have to chastise their kids for being potty mouths, and at the same time we can deal a death blow to anyone who still thinks these bands are good.

Near the end of the movie, I truly became aware of the ludicrousness of this whole language editing debacle. It happened when Neo walks into a building, pulls out a gun and shoots a civilian security guard at close range. Now, god forbid our children say "fuck", bad language is the mark of the uncivilized. Always say please and thank you before you blow someone away with high powered weapons.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the Matrix movies, and I love the violence in them. I do not think it is okay for a kid to swear, but I also do not think it is okay for them to be exposed to such violent images until they are old enough to understand the context. The message of the media however, is that swearing and sex is a sin, but violence is perfectly acceptable.

Look at movie ratings. Show more than a few minutes of breasts, or god forbid a penis, and you are slapped with an NC 17 rating, but in PG 13 movies like Episode III you can see characters burned alive and beheaded.

What is the big deal with breasts? Most of us spend the first year of our lives attatched to one for a daily survival. I am relatively sure that in my life I will see more breasts than I will bodies riddled with gunshot wounds.

So if you have a angst ridden 12 year old boy flipping channels on a Saturday, what would you rather have him watch? Die Hard or Showgirls?

I'd much rather have him lock himself in the bathroom with some Playboys, than pick the lock to dad's gun locker.

Either way, the phrase: "I was just cleaning it, and it went off," would have two very different meanings.