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3-2-98 KABC Radio AM 790 Los Angeles. Noon. Dennis Prager said that only five films in his life have kept him thinking as much as Dangerous Beauty. "It is a film for adults only. I am generally turned off by what Hollywood thinks is sexy. This however was an ode, a life-affirming, sex-affirming, female-affirming film." Prager did not want to overly raise our expectations for the film, for that would ruin the experience. He says that we should generally lower our expectations. But this view recently backfired on him. He admits that he gets the LA Times Saturday night to check to see if his book is on the best seller list. Saturday night he found it was not there. Sunday morning his assistant Laurie said, "Congratulations, your book is still on the best seller list." Fran, Dennis' wife, said, "Who is nuts here?" And Prager's book on Happiness was number four. Dennis had only looked on numbers five through fifteen, because he did not expect it to rise above number five. Prager praised the piece by William Raspberry in the Washington Post, a neo-liberal black columnist. When it comes to race in America, "nothing's changed." This is an assessment I've heard from scores of serious-minded people -- people who must know, at some level, that it simply isn't true. I'm speaking, for example, of people who were involved in the struggle to enfranchise blacks in the South, who won that struggle so overwhelmingly that a state as segregated as Mississippi once was leads the nation in black elected officials, and who still will say with great earnestness and sadness: Nothing's changed. Press them, and they'll acknowledge that blacks who once were denied the right to vote are now holding electoral office. But then they'll point to the Supreme Court's congressional districting decision that makes it harder for blacks to elect members of Congress and tell you that, while it may have become more subtle in recent years, racism is racism and beneath the civil surface, nothing's changed.
Prager compared the overstatements on racism, to feminist overstatement on rape. When they couldn't find as much rape as they needed, they changed the definition of rape to any sex that a woman later regrets. And with sexual harassment. It used to mean, "sleep with me or you are fired." Now it means creating a "hostile work environment," such as by posting a poster of a woman in a bikini. DP calls it the March of Dimes syndrome. The organization was started to fight polio. A vaccine was found, but the March of Dimes did not go out of business. They moved on to the general issue of "birth defects…" Same problem with the NAACP and the ACLU. Civil rights and racism are not big problems in America, says DP, but the organizations have not gone out of business. Language is distorted so the activists can stay in business. Dennis mentioned that Penthouse magazine offered Monica Lewinsky $2 to pose, noted DP. If she was your friend, what would you recommend to her? Most people believe that she had something with the President. She has not come out of this with much of her dignity intact. She has enormous legal bills. DP quoted Bernard Shaw, who once said to a woman, "Would you sleep with me for a $1000. Yes. For $5. No, what do you think I am? A whore? We've already established that. Now we're just haggling over price." DP said that many women have posed nude and gone on to respectable careers. It has not the stigma that it used to have. A man with five daughters, said that he would recommend his daughters to pose. Next caller gave a more nuanced response. He said that he had a low view of her for sleeping with a married man. He thought that adultery worse than posing nude. But if she refused the Penthouse offer, he'd have more respect for her, for it would show that she had more moral backbone than he thought. Sex is the most powerful biological drive in the human being, notes DP. He wants to write his next book on the issue. DP: Why is she being offered this? Does she have the greatest body? A female caller remembered how in the 1960s, she was asked to pose nude by Playboy. And she refused, for she did not want to have her children view her that way. A caller said that multiplying one's income 57X (Monica's example) would make it worth it to pose. If the nation could increase its standard of living 57x, what would it be prepared to risk? DP points out that she poses a bigger price for posing than does an anonymous girl from the Valley. No one will recognize that girl. DP finds it a difficult question. She is already the butt of many jokes. Would posing for Penthouse diminishing her chances of marriage? A past issue of Penthouse featuring Tonya Harding, sold many extra copies. The current issues features naked pictures of Paula Jones. Prager claimed that Paula did not pose for publication. A caller raised the case of Europe…which has destigmatized most sexual sins, and has few sex crimes. But Prager calls the continent morally bankrupt. DP: How many women would refuse $2 million to pose? She is single. A caller said both posers and consumers of porn are weak. "Porn is designed to weaken men to react physically." Prager talked about his father Max, who while president of an Orthodox synagogue and an honorable man, and still subscribe to Playboy. "My father had more integrity than any other man I knew, while growing up. Few of us are meant to be saints, but we can still be decent and honorable." Prager pointed out that every prostitute in the Hebrew Bible is depicted positively. Prager rejects the line, "She's sunk so low it doesn't matter." DP: "We judge sexual matters more harshly than we should. You know my argument with putting out signs, "We forgive you Mike [a murderer]." But where is the forgiveness with sexual sins? "For someone to turn down $2 million dollars, when she needs the money, she deserves respect. Would she deserve contempt for posing Penthouse? I don't know. But certainly not admiration. A female caller said Prager did not understand how women feel about sex. "That women have sex because they want love. While men use love to get sex." DP says male-female sexual desire is different. Men get more stimulated by pictures of anonymous body parts. Women do not get aroused that way." Caller said she wanted sex just for sex, and did not need all that lovey-dovey stuff. Caller said woman should get help from a mature woman. Prager says he is writing his book on sex with a mature woman - his wife Fran. He says she is the biggest supporter of his writing his next book on sex. DP says that he feels sorry for Monica. The punishment is greater than the crime. She did not deserve to be made a national joke. Prager wondered if the news media, with its preoccupation with Monica, helped cause her to pose, if she does, for Penthouse. Prager read some jokes from Mad magazine about not discriminating against folks with disabilities. P. says that the religious telling kids they will go to hell for masturbating is far worse than Penthouse magazine. He disagree with the licentiousness of the left, and the aversion to sex (except in the case of marriage), of the right. A female caller got a "good point" from Prager when the caller said that Monica should've known that she was playing with fire when she played with the President of the US. Movie Review Bawdy Silliness Reigns in 'Dangerous Beauty' By JACK MATHEWS, FOR THE TIMES Los Angeles Times Friday February 20, 1998 The movie that arrives in theaters today under the title "Dangerous Beauty" has been on and off Warner Bros.' release schedule for nearly a year, having tested and rejected such names as "Courtesan," "The Honest Courtesan," "Indiscretion" and "Venice." None of the titles smacks of brilliance, but the studio's confusion is at least understandable. The movie, both blessed and cursed with inspiration, defies simple description. Based on the biography of a 16th century Venice courtesan named Veronica Franco, "Dangerous Beauty" is all of the following: a "Tom Jones"-styled period sex romp; a bordello version of "Romeo and Juliet" set against war, plague, political collapse and the Inquisition; a costume drama; a peep show; a heretical argument for guiltless passion over church doctrine; and a rousing call for women's lib from the Joan of Arc of post-medieval call girls. |
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