I was going to review a movie called Diary of a Teenage Girl, but instead I think I ought to review a review of this movie–this gem written by one Helen Murdoch ( http://www.flickeringmyth.com/2015/08/movie-review-the-diary-of-a-teenage-girl-2015.html ).
The Synopsis tells us everything we need to know: “A teen artist [huh?] living in 1970s San Francisco enters into an affair with her mother’s boyfriend.”
Gee. My mother’s boyfriend was named Dad.
Helen Murdoch turns cartwheels over this movie. Of the girl she writes, “Minnie is unapologetic about her sexuality and her drug use which is refreshing to see.” She finds in this movie “an honest portrayal of what it means to be a teenager discovering sex, drugs and love.” Do those three always go together?
Oops. Forgot to mention the boyfriend is 35 years old. Minnie is 15. In most states, this is against the law.
Okay, movies have always had this certain streak of idiocy. I remember The Summer of ’42, about a teenage boy who gets his first sex from a beautiful woman who takes him into her bed because her husband is away at war. This used to be called adultery. Anyhow, the movie’s advertising slogan was, “In everyone’s life, there is a Summer of ’42.” As a young, single man who never got his Summer of ’42, I felt ill-used.
Gone are the days, I guess, when a 35-year-old man who took advantage of a 15-year-old girl could thank his lucky stars if he wasn’t lynched. And the new virtue is to be unapologetic about living like a moral imbecile.
This is the stuff we pour into our heads. This is a big chunk of our popular culture, which, as Henry Van Til said, is “religion externalized.”
God help us.