Join Roger's Crusade To End Censorship

"By Daniel J. Wakin

"In October, a film student at New York University pitched an idea for her video-making class: a four-minute portrayal of the contrast between unbridled human lust and banal everyday behavior.

"Her professor approved. The student, Paula Carmicino, found two actor friends willing to have sex on camera in front of the class. The other students expressed their support. But then the professor thought he should double-check with the administration, which immediately pulled the plug on the project.

...

"In Ms. Carmicino's view, the university was censoring a work about how people censor their own behavior. She said her video, titled "Animal," was supposed to depict the contrast between public and private behavior: 'The whole concept of it was to compare the normal behavior of people in their everyday lives versus the animalistic behavior that comes out when they are having sex.'

"She planned to intersperse 30-second clips of passionate sex with scenes of the couple engaged in more mundane activities, like watching television and reading a newspaper.

"Simulating the sex would have defeated her purpose, she said. 'That's censoring the sex part. My thing is how we censor ourselves during the day when we're not having sex.'"

That's one interpretation. I see it as a thing about how we censor ourselves during the day when we have sex instead of simulating sex. Others might see it as a thing about how we censor ourselves by filming others having sex instead of filming ourselves having sex.

Meanwhile, Carmicino's fellow auteur, Lisa Estrin, was greenlighted on a clearly derivative work "showing simulated sex between two stuffed toys, Minnie Mouse and Lamb Chop." If that doesn't simultaneously arouse and disgust Brent Bozell, nothing will.