The Catholic Church and Sexuality Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

The Catholic Church and Sexuality - Essay Example This is because the catholic still enjoins and enforces though in a subtle way complete obedience and docility on the principle of Roma locuta causa finite (Rome has spoken no more debate). The church has went ahead and imposed sanctions to members who have expressed divergent views on its dogmas and doctrines. In the recent times it has been observed that many Westerners, scholars, Catholic priests and nuns around the world have rejected the Catholic Church stand on sexual morality because of what they consider as lack of conformity with reality concerning sexual situations. Because in real situation if we go by the Catholic Church’s stand then incidences of unwanted pregnancies, procured abortions, sinkers and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) will spontaneously shoot to uncontrolled levels. Discussion The Catholic Church is considered as the most conservative force with respect to attitudes towards the accepted codes of social behavior. This requires that none of the Cat holic faithful goes against its doctrines. On the understanding of the Catholic Church that it is run by humans, some human traits can not trail it. Among them is the tendency to mask the freedom expression which curtails the freedom of those who want to give their views on sexual related issues like use of condoms to prevent spread of HIV virus, transgender persons and marriage. This is based on the fact that the Catholic Church loves and upholds absolute obedience as opposed to objection, contradiction, and independent opinion to those who oppose the views taken by the church. According to Abioye (4), basically the Catholic Church perceives that any form of sexual act outside marriage is a sin according to the doctrines therefore is excluded from sacramental communion. Besides, the church regards the usage of any form of artificial contraceptive equally as a sin. Though in contrast, the church insists that life must be respected and protected completely from the moment of concepti on. The church stipulates, â€Å"A person who procures an abortion a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae senteiae, by the very commission of the offence.† This stand taken by the church is supposed to be followed without too much questioning. Many scholars disagree with the Catholic stand on sex before marriage. This is because it lacks conformity with reality. St. Augustine of Hippo says on Church doctrines, â€Å"†¦..dramatizes the fear of sexual pleasure, equating pleasure with perdition in such a way that anyone who tries to follow his train of thought will have the sense of being trapped in a nightmare.† Their have been intensive research done and it has been observed by Hardon that, â€Å"neither the Jewish Talmund no the Moslem Quran and Hadith forbid polygamy, contraception or abortion.† The Catholic Church objects with zeal that the use of contraceptives and abortion. But on medical grounds abortion is allowed so as to save the life of the mother if it is in danger. According to Abioye (6), the ecclesiastical belief is that the use of contraceptives should not be encouraged because it creates room for sexual permissiveness. To some extent the statement is justifiable but

Multicultural Film Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Multicultural Film - Essay Example A good definition of film noir was given by Borde and Chaumeton (1955), who refer to film noir as a purely affective phenomenon in the sense that it disturbs viewers, disorients them and produces a profound uneasiness. And it does this by whatever means possible. The historical nature of film noir derives, in large part, from its attempts to disturb. Film noir succeeded in creating a malaise in its audiences by refusing the stylistic and thematic conventions of classical Hollywood cinema. That is, noir arose in the 1940s as a response to and rejection of 1930s Hollywood cinema. In certain films, this refusal of 1930s cinema takes the form of a single scene or shot that violates the norm, such as the tight close-up of an unidentified hand firing a gun at Sam Spade's partner, Archer, near the beginning of The Maltese Falcon movie in 1941 (Belton, 2005). The majority of those who explored the darker reaches of the noir experience were American, born and bred. The source material for the bulk of noir narratives came from the underworld of American pulp fiction. Nearly twenty per cent of the film noirs made between 1941 and 1948 were adaptations of hard-boiled novels written by American authors. Film noir deals with a uniquely American experience of wartime and post-war despair and alienation as a disoriented America readjust to a new social and political reality. Film noir was discovered and christened in postwar France. In 1945, after the Allies liberated Paris, France, an enormous backlog of American films, which had been made during the war but had not been seen in Nazi-controlled territories like France due to the ban made by Germans, reached French screens. A succession of extremely downbeat films is shown in France. This cycle began with a Hammett detective film entitled Maltese Falcon (Huston, 1941). It was an observed that in this cycle of films has subversive strain of behavioral deviance in American films, which at this time became dominated by crime, corruption, cruelty, and an apparent unhealthy interest in the erotic. The French believed then that American film had suddenly turned grimmer, bleaker, and blacker. II. Analysis of the Movies "Maltese Falcon" and "Basic Instinct 2" as Film Noirs The adjective "noir" aptly conveys not only the films' antecedents in the "romans noirs" or black novels but also the essential nature of experience that audiences have in watching the films. These films unsettled audiences. Through their violation of the traditional narrative and stylistic practices of classical Hollywood cinema that oriented and stabilized spectators, these films created an uncomfortable and disturbing malaise or anxiety in their viewers. Film noir is a specific emotional reaction produced by certain films in an audience. In the "Maltese Falcon" and "Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction", film noirs can be seen as a purely affective phenomenon such that it produces some emotional responses in people. Not every film noir needs to be noir from start to finish. It needs only to be noir for a moment or two. It requires only a single character, situation or scene that is noir to produce the disturbance or the disorientation that is necessary to give the audience an unsettling twist or distressing jolt. In