observe and report this

Dear Editor of TIME Magazine:

I will never touch another copy of your magazine. Richard Corliss' review of Observe and Report says that a rape scene in the motion picture is funny. 

"The scene achieves what few American movies even attempt: to pinpoint the grim compromise, the desperation, that can attend the sex act. Don't call it love; don't call it grand; but whatever it is, don't stop. That minute or so is the finest thing in Observe and Report, and if it doesn't strike you as funny-peculiar, you may as well stop reading now."

Does the image of a woman being raped in her own vomit turn you on? Can you actually see yourself laughing with your daughter or your wife sitting in a theater watching a young woman being raped?  Do you not know that one in four women are raped in their lifetimes? You are sitting in the dark laughing at a woman being raped when the woman sitting in front of you might be a rape victim.  Pass the popcorn.

Corliss and his editor should be fired. TIME/CNN magazine is a fascist, anti woman, pro date rape rag. People should cancel their subscriptions. High school libraries should refuse to shelve the magazine. TIME/CNN advertisers should be made aware of what they are buying.  The First Amendment does not protect the advocacy of violence.

It is difficult to pick up a newspaper or a magazine or even sit in a doctor's waiting room without being blindsided by violence against women.  The news has become porno-violence. Oprah started this and Jerry Springer has caused our evening newscast to fill our homes with porn we don't want or need.  The judge porn courtroom shows, the Nancy Graceless screaming for vengeance over dead wives and children is also porn. The Sunday morning "gotcha" porn that used to be public affairs broadcasting is now just so much shouting. Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich are public affairs programming?  When did we concede that there could no longer be quiet, thoughtful life?  

Date rape is comedy and we may very well allow college professors and students to carry guns; our desire for porno-violence has entered the classroom and must always be close so we can be excited by how near death might be. My husband was sitting in a doctor's waiting room a few days ago with the television blaring news of rape and kidnapping while children looked up at the ever present television.  How healthy is television in a medical setting?  Why not broadcast the ER every Friday night? No pesky storyline, just the blood and gunshots and the car accidents.  And the date rapes.