May contain adult scenes....

[Azaelia of Willowbottom]

Boy am I ever relieved that this thread is merely about smoking...


Here's an idea. How about parents, who actually know their kids' temperaments and tastes, decide what's okay for their individual children to watch and talk over any issues that arise from that with said kids? I know, asking mom and dad to take an active role in the upbringing of their own offspring is kind of a stretch...but really, now, surely the human race is ready for this step.

Kids/teens/young adults are smarter and stronger than their parents' generations give them credit for being. Sheltering isn't necessary. Trust, understanding, and open channels of conversation are. But what do I know? I'm just some college kid.

I think that the merits of TH and LOTR far outweigh the smoking nonsense. There are lessons there about friendship, bravery, respect, pity, perseverance, hope, the potential of everyone, no matter how small/ordinary, etc. that are far more beneficial than a few scenes of Gandalf and some Hobbits and Dwarves smoking are harmful.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Azaelia of Willowbottom

I think that the merits of TH and LOTR far outweigh the smoking nonsense. There are lessons there about friendship, bravery, respect, pity, perseverance, hope, the potential of everyone, no matter how small/ordinary, etc. that are far more beneficial than a few scenes of Gandalf and some Hobbits and Dwarves smoking are harmful.

But don't you know the hypocrits are having a problem in here....?

And anyway; if it is okay that the females are just butterflies on the wall while men are the action heroes, why wouldn't smoking a pipeful be as fine as well? Those are both remnants of the old culture anyway... So why are we discussing this?

PS: okay, I see davem's point in making a ridicule of that Liverpool -decision... but even more so: what's the problem with our time? Smoking a pipe is bad and should not be shown while in the world bad things actually happen...

[Andsigil]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

And anyway; if it is okay that the females are just butterflies on the wall while men are the action heroes, why wouldn't smoking a pipeful be as fine as well? Those are both remnants of the old culture anyway... So why are we discussing this? :rolleyes

I don't see the females that way in Tolkien. Luthien, Galadriel, and Eowyn all had very important and prominent roles. So, what if they weren't renowned sword-swingers?

I don't see Tolkien as having to contrive some kind of "Tomb Raider" character just to appeal to future generations who think an Angelina Jolie really could slay men by the dozens.

[Morsul the Dark]

Originally Posted by Azaelia of Willowbottom

Boy am I ever relieved that this thread is merely about smoking...


Here's an idea. How about parents, who actually know their kids' temperaments and tastes, decide what's okay for their individual children to watch and talk over any issues that arise from that with said kids? I know, asking mom and dad to take an active role in the upbringing of their own offspring is kind of a stretch...but really, now, surely the human race is ready for this step.
ul.

but the government knows what's good for us better than we do!... hence the mess here in the U.S. too much intervention seriously government go away.

Seriously Violence is Ok but Smoking is bannable?

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Morsul the Dark

Seriously Violence is Ok but Smoking is bannable?

I think the classic comparison is that there is no problem in showing violence to kids, but sex or erotical content, nearness, love, touching other people gently? No that's bad influence unlike violence...

But yes, smoking is a good opponent as well.

[Morsul the Dark]

Of course... the creation of life is dirty... the destruction of it is OK...


Lillylivers in Liverpool

[davem]

Its clearly a much bigger issue than may at first appear, & I think GK Chesterton (a great influence on Tolkien) has a good point:

Incidentally, I must say I can bear witness to this queer taboo about tobacco. Of course numberless Americans smoke numberless cigars; a great many others eat cigars, which seems to me a more occult pleasure. But there does exist an extraordinary idea that ethics are involved in some way; and many who smoke really disapprove of smoking. I remember once receiving two American interviewers on the same afternoon; there was a box of cigars in front of me and I offered one to each in turn. Their reaction (as they would probably call it) was very curious to watch. The first journalist stiffened suddenly and silently and declined in a very cold voice. He could not have conveyed more plainly that I had attempted to corrupt an honorable man with a foul and infamous indulgence; as if I were the Old Man of the Mountain offering him hashish that would turn him into an assassin. The second reaction was even more remarkable. The second journalist first looked doubtful; then looked sly; then seemed to glance about him nervously, as if wondering whether we were alone, and then said with a sort of crestfallen and covert smile: `Well, Mr. Chesterton, I'm afraid I have the habit.'

As I also have the habit, and have never been able to imagine how it could be connected with morality or immorality, I confess that I plunged with him deeply into an immoral life. In the course of our conversation, I found he was otherwise perfectly sane. He was quite intelligent about economics or architecture; but his moral sense seemed to have entirely disappeared. He really thought it rather wicked to smoke. He had no `standard of abstract right or wrong'; in him it was not merely moribund; it was apparently dead. But anyhow, that is the point and that is the test. Nobody who has an abstract standard of right and wrong can possibly think it wrong to smoke a cigar. http://ja-jp.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=104341909445

[Morthoron]

"A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke." Rudyard Kipling

Ah, puritanical revisionism, the innate need for certain folk to impress their missionary zeal on the public! Amusingly, they do not mention prohibiting teens from watching beheadings with swords or gun-toting maniacs spraying crowds with bullets. Even more interstingly, I did not notice a cultural phenomenon such as masses of teens smoking tobacco in pipes after the release of the LotR movies. Perhaps it is because the tobacco companies did not market clay pipes, churchwardens, calabashes or Meerschaums to the teen demographic. They obviously missed out on a product tie-in bonanza.

I still have a churchwarden with a twelve-inch stem I bought in my teens (during the era when pipes were used to smoke anything but tobacco in). I haven't used it for decades, but it looks good on the mantle.

Ummm...what were we talking about again?

[Andsigil]

Originally Posted by Morsul the Dark

Of course... the creation of life is dirty... the destruction of it is OK...

I'm convinced, and have been for a while, that people who equate violence to sex are comparing apples to oranges.

Violence is much easier to explain to children and for them to understand, especially when one views it in terms of self-defense. That's one of the reasons we take children to martial arts class, isn't it? I have four children, and I tell them all of the time that "It's wrong to start a fight, but you're nobody's punching bag, either."

Sex, however, should have more meaning and depth to it- meaning and depth that children simply can not comprehend until they mature.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

So it's an idea being considered. Who would have thought that Daily Mail readers need their daily fix of teeth-gnashing,

Children are highly restricted in most aspects of life anyway; what matter if they're denied a couple of extra films? They'll still have many things to complain about.

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

I still have a churchwarden with a twelve-inch stem I bought in my teens (during the era when pipes were used to smoke anything but tobacco in). I haven't used it for decades, but it looks good on the mantle.

Ummm...what were we talking about again?

Decades, eh?