What happened to "It's My Opinion"
Casuistry is a word in the New Webster's Dictionary that means: "The application of general ethical principles to particular cases of conscience or conduct; hence, oversubtle or quibbling reasoning or teaching upon such matters."
I believe I fell for the oldest trick in the book. The following link brings you to the description of Casuisty: The Art of Killing a Cat. The information here is nothing like the information that I had been reading on the internet (from the Toronto Star newspaper website).
www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2004/filmsschedules/description.asp?pageID=filmlist&id=54
I am also including a link to a Toronto Star entertainment reporter who has seen the film and critiqued it...
I believe I, and everyone else who expressed an opinion about this film, was manipulated (myself quite easily, I am embarassed to say and like a carrier of a virus I mutated it and carried it through bogland, sorry) into protesting this film and giving the Toronto International Film Festival exactly what they wanted, "something to talk about" at this year's festival. If you do a search on the Toronto Star 7-day site search you can find some interesting articles about this controversy and basically what it boils down to is money. The Star was selling papers, the festival is selling tickets and the directors are selling their names. I am concerned with the fact that the reviewer insists that the documentary does not try to sympathize with the attackers of the "cat torture" film but if you check the Star (his own newspaper) web site there is an article in which one of the co-directors does indeed say that the trio who tortured the cat are remorseful and feel really bad about what they have done, so if the director believes that then I cannot possibly see how that attitude could not pervade in her documentary.
I still disagree with the film being shown and it is still for the same reasons, it is wrong to gain from the pain of others, period. It does not matter whether it is financially or to increase your own status and I don't care if it is an animal or a person. I think by allowing ourselves to become desensitized to the violence that is so prominent in every newscast is the worst thing that we can do as a society. I think that it is dangerous to allow pain and suffering for the purpose of entertainment to become acceptable. I do not pretend to understand the dark side of humanity that has to try to look under the tarp at the accident site or watch with bated breath as the airplane crashes into the tower over and over but I for one am not ready to give up society for lost just yet. To stay within that code I will be deleting this blog.