Yes, in the past couples of weeks Russell Brand made headlines for a posting on his You Tube Channel The Trews. In his channel, Brand offers commentary on the current headlines, and in this episode, he discusses detrimental affects of the “commodification” of sex in his own life and in our culture. Yes, Russell Brand, who to many is a sex symbol in our culture, sees pornography as dangerous and problematic.
Some of the highlights from the video embedded below, which I recommend you watch, include how pornography shows too little, meaning it shows the lack of love, how it exaggerates the prevalence of sex in society, decreases productivity, and how we lack awareness of how these “icebergs of filth” coming into the home via the internet will affect young minds in the future. I think his point that the opposite of dealing with porn is not to create it from a woman’s prospective, as in Fifty Shades of Grey, for that would be like dealing with racism by coming up with equally offensive language for white people as the offensive words that describe black people. Rather, dealing with pornography is getting at the heart of the issue and the lie used to make space for movies like Fifty Shades as “empowerment” to women.
To delve further in, take a look at Brand’s video. I also recommend his follow up segment responding to questions and comments from the first video. One excellent point made in the follow up is how the movie Fifty Shades objectifies men as needing to have good looks, wealth, and power to be worthy of love from a woman. For more on the subject of pornography and it’s influence on culture, check out my previous blogs The Conceit of Porn, The Cruelty and Compassion of Porn, The Construct of Porn, as well as my response to Belle Knox, a Duke student paying for school by making pornography.
I also recommend checking out Covenant Eyes, as a parent or young adult, for information on making your home as safe as possible and a recent blog by XXX Church’s Craig Gross as he reacts to seeing the movie Fifty Shades of Greyand a post from their website about what they have learned from Brand's post.
Warning: Video contents some offensive language and content that may not be suitable for young audiences. Viewer discretion advised.