‘TIS THE RE-FIX

Thank you to Jona for the amazing redesign of CnP, and indulging my interest in silhouettes of cell phones.
Two seperate dudes emailed me Claire Hoffman’s piece from the LA Times within a span of an hour: I once saw a very thorough docudrama on Joe Francis, creator of Girls Gone Wild, so I knew he was the type of hustling industry-capitalist douchebag aggressors that I try to avoid at all costs, but I never thought he’d go so far as to inflict violence on a reporter. Still naive even after all I know, I spose. Dumb. One of the most important points the writer makes: that kids who’ve grown up on the internet has different boundaries than prior generations:
Francis has aimed his cameras at a generation whose notions of privacy and sexuality are different from any other. Nursed on MySpace profiles and reality television, many young people today are comfortable with being perpetually photographed and having those images posted on the Internet for anyone to see. The boundaries that once contained sexuality have also fallen away. Whether it’s 13-year-olds watching a Britney Spears video, 16-year-olds getting their pubic hair waxed to emulate porn stars or 17-year-olds viewing videos of celebrities performing the most intimate acts, youth culture is soaked in sexuality.
And then there’s the end:
When I think back on that night, our very public scuffle isn’t what seems the most revealing. Instead, the moment I saw Francis most clearly—his charm, his rage, his cunning and even his regret—came later, when no one was looking. I was waiting, still shaken, outside the club for a cab to take me back to my hotel. Francis, who had disappeared inside the bus, returned.
Ignoring the two policemen who hovered a few yards away, he tiptoed past them to stand over me. He rubbed my shoulder. His gestures were oddly gentle—even fond. I felt sick.
“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching over to tousle my hair. “We love our little reporter. Don’t we guys? We love our little reporter.”
I stared down at the dirt as he whispered in my ear, “I’m sorry, baby, give me a kiss. Give me a kiss.”
I hope Claire Hoffman gets a Pulitzer.