What Will They Call This Video Franchise?

I blogged about this elsewhere almost a year ago, when Joe Francis was the focus of an article in which the reporter painted him out to be a complete jerk. Had the article been written with a judgmental, priggish attitude, I would have considered it more of the media creating their own stories to fuel the news, but the incidents she described were believable specifically because I have seen such behavior in others and even participated in such myself... when we were all in our teens. I remember blogging then as to how Joe Francis was a textbook example of "arrested development."

True to form, Francis broke down in tears when sentenced to 35 days in jail for contempt of court.

But that's not exactly fair. Joe Francis has a lot to cry about: he's being investigated for tax evasion in Nevada; he's facing sexual battery charges in LA; and has been fined $2000 and ordered to community service for filming underage girls in explicit sex situations.

I've seen one of these videos only once and it literally made me feel dirty - and not in the good way. I wanted to shower after watching just a few minutes of it. The level of opportunism and the outright dismissal of the filmed girls as human beings was so obvious and blatant that it was shameful. I felt like an accessory to a crime. I'm not the only one who sees it this way, either.

Teenagers are not adults, they just try to act like adults. That's part of being a teen. In Medieval times, children were married-off at age 12-13, but they lived in hovels (dirt holes dug into the ground) and had literally been doing hard labor from early childhood, but that is now a matter of History. With civilization comes a sort of shelter from such hard lives - hell, that's the very definition of the word! - and we can't expect young people to be capable of making adult decisions at the magic number age of 16 or 17 or 18 or 21 when they've led relatively sheltered lives over cellphones and in chatrooms up until then. In fact, it's been proven that their brains are biologically unformed at these tender ages and we can all agree that even the most streetwise amongst them lacks the wisdom needed to make firm, responsible decisions.

More than one person has suggested that the vast majority of the guys and girls who appear in these videos want to. They are happy to bare their bodies and drunkenly cavort about with others on film, whether seeking fame or simple acceptance, and this is very true. But that speaks directly to the values of modern society, which more or less agrees with such a sentiment! The way I always illustrate this is with an analogy:

You're in a stereo store and the salesman says, "Go on, take it." You're not sure, but you're slightly amused, and he urges you again, "Go on! I get 200-300 of these a week. No one will miss it and I'll just write it off on my taxes. Take it!" You balk, you tell him he's joking, he's crazy. "No, man! I'm telling you! Just take the stereo!" After several minutes of this, you pick up the stereo and as soon as you walk out the store, the salesman starts screaming, "THIEF! STOP THAT MAN WITH THE STEREO!"

It's a more direct allegory, but the underlying issues are the same. People like Joe Francis and Mike South use every trick in the book to get these young people to do what they want them to; they deceive them, seduce them with promises of money and fame, get them inebriated, talk soft or talk hard (whichever works best on the mark), use the guise of "liberation," and so much more. And, so sorry, but the actual fact of the matter is that you cannot enter a contract when inebriated - a very basic tenet of American law which pretty much everyone overlooks under the guise of "got what you deserve," "should've thought about it," "shouldn't have been drinking, anyway." That damnable double-edged sword philosophy they call "Christian," which neither forgives nor forgets and has far more to do with judgment and Judas than Christ or any of his ideas.

No matter how mainstream American society views these young men and women, they are truly victims - victimized not only by bottom-feeding trash like Joe Francis and Mike South, but also by the American culture, society, and legal system. These kids are lured into doing things on camera they would otherwise never do in front of a stranger, period.

It makes me wonder how Joe Francis will get along behind bars. There was a time when his stay would be marked by abuse and sexual humiliation - truly a case of the punishment fitting the crime - but in Francis' case, many of the men he's likely to meet are probably hardcore fans.