Walkouts at screening of new movie featuring 10-year-old girl playing sex robot (pizzagate)

submitted ago by kestrel9

Related to PG due to normalization of pedophilia in movies

http://archive.is/Uu8dM#selection-453.17-453.96

BERLIN, February 28, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — A sci-fi movie portraying a sexual relationship between a man and a robot that replicates his lost 10-year-old daughter has prompted walkouts and outrage at its screenings at the Berlin film festival.

The film, titled The Trouble with Being Born and directed by Austrian Sandra Wollner, stirred controversy at its February 25 world premiere at Berlinale 2020, reported the U.K. Independent.

It depicts a child-like android, played by 10-year-old Lena Watson (a pseudonym), who calls her owner “Daddy.”

While much is implied, the movie 'leaves little doubt that the man ... has a sexual relationship with the child robot,' the Independent reports.

The movie also includes multiple CGI nude scenes.

The film evoked disgust on Twitter, with one person calling it “paedophile propaganda,” the Independent reported.

That was echoed by FilmGoblin in a review entitled “Pedophilia gets mainstream nod in The Trouble with Being Born.”

“Who are these people actually kidding?” notes the review.

“Let’s not pretend that this isn’t about mainstreaming the last sexual perversion — other than bestiality — that isn’t socially acceptable,” it adds. “And there’s no argument to be made in defense of the existence of this film by using the ‘Lolita’ defense, or even the ‘well it’s just a robot’ defense.”

Wollner told the Hollywood Reporter, which described the film as a “hidden gem,” that the role was originally intended for a 20-year-old.

However, she decided to cast a child after removing some more explicit elements in the script.

“What I found interesting about it is that we have an android whose only desires are the ones you program it to have,” she said. “I found it fascinating to show the perspective of the world through this machine that does not judge and does not care, and doesn’t need the meanings that we do.”

Wollner added that she was initially “scared” about choosing a child for the part and said that when she was casting for the role, she looked for a minor who came from a “healthy environment.”

It was also necessary that the child come from “the sort of open-minded family who would understand the story they wanted to tell and also allow them to do it,” noted The Hollywood Reporter.

In the end, Wollner found Watson because her parents were known by a friend of a friend.

https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review-the-trouble-with-being-born-is-a-chilly-rumination-on-memory/

An android whose deep black eyes and waxily smooth skin—evoking the eerie expressionlessness of Christiane’s face mask in Eyes Without a Face—are the very definition of the Uncanny Valley, Elli was built to replicate the father’s daughter, who disappeared 10 years before.

…"Wollner continues to fill her film with too little story...."

That problem becomes more acute once Elli runs away and the story shifts to another android-human relationship. After Elli is picked up by a passing motorist (Simon Hatzl) who then gifts her like a new toy to his elderly mother (Ingrid Burkhard), still mourning the little brother she lost 60 years before. The ease with which Elli is made into a boy—in the world of the film, reprogramming androids is about as complicated as restarting a smartphone—stands in stark contrast to the violent trauma of abuse that still lingers like a ghost in her flickeringly sentient CPU. But while the setting and the primary human character changes in the second half of the film, Wollner’s narrow view of her story means just more of the same glassy expressions and long maundering silences, like Tarkovsky without the existential pain. At some point, the mirroring begins to feel more like straight repetition without any significant revelation.

In the end, The Trouble with Being Born suffers from the same issue as its moody androids: enervation borne out of repetition. There are some attempts here and there to comment on the replacement of human connection with silicone facsimiles. We almost never see people together.

But rather than truly exploring the ramifications of its futuristic conceit, whether from a broader societal or individualistic and relational perspective, the film just keeps looping back to the same luminously filmed but ultimately blank silences.

Presumably in no small part due Sandra Wollner's error in believing "it fascinating to show the perspective of the world through this machine that does not judge and does not care, and doesn’t need the meanings that we do.”

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MaxBlock50 ago

In the near future we'll likely have realistic sex bots. What do we do when people order sex bots that appear 10 years old? Should that be illegal?

kestrel9 ago

Child sex dolls are already available in the world but not legal to be imported into some countries. I would ask if people would care if someone made it look like their dead 10 year that they were molesting. Is that where society is at, no one gives a shit what degenerate people do. Then society is no better than mindless programmed bots.

MaxBlock50 ago

Giving a shit and making it illegal can be 2 different things. If an act or item can be illegal without a damaged party, then anything can be made illegal.

Vindicator ago

Child sex robots are damaging to all children, because they feed the perverted addictions of pedophiles, increasing the demand for child pornography that harms real children.

kestrel9 ago

^^That is why it's illegal to import them in some countries, because while they don't legislate what a pedo feels, they still care enough about the children to recognize the broader societal consequences of CP in all forms and enabling the behavior/addictions. (Although in the UK that's a bit problematic and untrue considering their record of protecting elite pedos/murderers)

Otto- ago

Similar for regulations around viewing CP, or "simulations" of CP, like cartoons, CG, comics. It's illegal in some countries to "obtain" or store them as polaroids or files, in other countries by viewing or searching terms, and it's largely ambiguous/unspecified in the rest of countries. I know the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy, but this is one case where it seems pretty pressing; the more people opt for realistic depictions of child abuse via literature, drawings, computer animations, physical models, interactivity, AI, the more degraded and pertinent the lines of the crime become, and so the obligations to regulate it.

Honestly, thinking about the extent to which people increasingly simulate things in their reality, the more my mind implodes with distorted frustration & confusion. I'm finding it harder to comprehend now, like I'm from an older generation despite being from the 90s.

kestrel9 ago

Great comment thank you.

In the US the simulations and cartoon depictions of CP, rape, gang rape, sex trafficking, are not regulated. That's why parts of Voat have it and there are people here who have no issues sexting each other over this shit. (I reported it but never went back to see if anything became of it). There comes a point where people need to wake up from their wicked ways, there's no law to babysit them into doing the right thing by condemning the sexual exploitation of kids, even in forms that they don't believe "hurt anyone". This includes trans movement and Drag Queens.

Angelis_Solaris ago

There are laws against what they are doing, but they haven't been enforced in many years. Pornographic depictions are not protected under the Bill of Rights or the Constitution of the United States and were illegal in the founding era. These people are outside of the law and justly belong in prison.

kestrel9 ago

I'm adding this info which supports the illegality of loli cp

Note that the person had a prior conviction of having cp

A 53-year-old Richmond man yesterday became the first person convicted under a 2003 federal statute that makes obscene cartoon drawings as well as photographs an illegal form of child pornography.

Dwight Whorley could be sentenced to more than 1,000 years in prison because a jury found him guilty of 74 counts of child pornography charges in U.S. District Court. Those counts include the obscene cartoons and charges of sending and receiving obscene e-mails describing sexual abuse of children.

Whorley used a computer at a Virginia Employment Commission office in Richmond on March 30, 2004, to view obscene Japanese anime cartoons that depict female children being forced into sexual intercourse with adult males.

The new statute is "designed to increase protection against the sexual exploitation of minors," the U.S. attorney's office said. It makes it a federal crime to produce, distribute, receive or possess for distribution "obscene drawings, cartoons, sculptures, paintings or any other obscene visual representation of the sexual abuse of children."

Whorley was under court-supervised release after serving time on previous child pornography convictions when he was charged under the current indictment. Authorities said he was arrested in April 2004 after he printed out some of the obscene cartoons in the VEC office and someone noticed.

The indictment accused Whorley of 20 counts of receiving obscene materials, 20 counts of receiving obscene visual representations of sexual abuse of children, 14 counts of receiving child pornography and 20 counts of sending and receiving obscene e-mails describing sexual abuse of children.

Whorley's maximum possible sentence is 1,160 years in prison and a fine of $18.5 million. Judge Henry E. Hudson scheduled sentencing for March 10.

Besides viewing the cartoons on March 30, Whorley used a VEC computer on two earlier dates in March 2004 to receive digital photographs of children engaging in sexually explicit conduct, the U.S. attorney's office said. The 20 obscene e-mail messages described, among other things, parents sexually molesting their children.

In January 2003, he had served his sentence and was on supervised release when he violated the terms of his probation and was taken back into custody, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

He was sentenced to an additional 12 months to serve and was released in January 2004. Whorley again violated probation and was arrested in April 2004, which led authorities to the current prosecution.

Whorley was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara E. Flannery and Damon A. King, a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section. The case was investigated by the FBI and the justice department.

"With this conviction, we have removed a dangerous repeat sex offender from the community for a long time," said Paul J. McNulty, acting deputy attorney general as well as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the criminal division in the U.S. Department of Justice called Whorley "a relentless trafficker of child pornography."

She said the justice department "will continue to protect citizens from obscene pictures of child pornography by punishing those who violate our law and engage in these abhorrent offenses."

Whorley's previous conviction on federal child-pornography charges was in 1999. He was sentenced to 46 months in prison to be followed by three years of court-supervised probation.

@puttitout All these behaviors (except for the prior convictions to our knowledge) are/were taking place on the loli cp subs on voat. This appears to be illegal behavior (at least in Richmond Virginia). Providing a platform for illegal behavior is a violation of voat's own rules. I haven't checked the subs to see if anything has happened since I reported many of the posts as violating voat rules (nor do I intend to as I've seen as much of that sick shit as I can tolerate, even for reporting it.) In addition there are subs where written cp fantasy also is posted. I don't know if the case in Richmond is isolated but it is something to consider.

@crensch @Vindicator

Angelis_Solaris ago

"This appears to be illegal behavior (at least in Richmond Virginia)."

As a federal crime, it is applicable to all states, yes?: "first person convicted under a 2003 federal statute that makes obscene cartoon drawings as well as photographs an illegal form of child pornography."

kestrel9 ago

In Whorley's case he broke the conditions of a prior charge (he was under court supervised release and was a repeat offender regarding cp, not cartoons.). So his case involves violating probation and 14 counts of receiving child pornography, so it's unknown whether the possession of the cartoon depictions alone (without possession of cp as well) would have resulted in a prosecution.

I found this too https://io9.gizmodo.com/manga-collection-ruled-child-pornography-by-us-court-5272107, where there was a conviction despite there not being any cp involved, but that is because his lawyer advised him to plead guilty.

Nevertheless, Handley entered a guilty plea. According to Threat Level, it was simply because his attorney had exhausted all other options:

"It's probably the only law I'm aware of, if a client shows me a book or magazine or movie, and asks me if this image is illegal, I can't tell them," says Eric Chase, Handley's attorney.

Chase says he recommended the plea agreement (.pdf) to his client because he didn't think he could convince a jury to acquit him once they'd seen the images in question. The lawyer declined to describe the details. "If they can imagine it, they drew it," he says. "Use your imagination. It was there."

The manga collector faces up to 15 years in prison for possessing comic books.

Handley is the first person to be convicted under the controversial Protect Act, which makes drawings of fictional characters into potential child pornography.

How did this happen?

In 2002, the Supreme Court struck down the so-called Morphing Law, which held that fictional cartoon or photoshopped images depicting minors having sex would also be treated as obscene (Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition). Under that decision, last week's conviction of Handley could not have happened.

But in 2003, the Protect Law passed, which held that "a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting" showing children in sexual situations could be ruled illegal if local community standards consider it "obscene." This is particularly relevant given that Handley was tried in an area, Southern Iowa, where average community members may not be aware of the styles and content of typical manga.

So 'community standards' play a part in determining the legality of the images? How does this translate into an online community such as voat? I would say that one could argue that the attacks of trolls and lolicon cp collectors against subs where the vast majority of users are AGAINST the images and consider them obscene, those actions, those images, could be considered illegal and one would think would be enough to get a sitewide ban of those users. Since the 'community' of perverts that have their depicted cartoon child rape subs isolated from the rest of the voat, they could argue that the same images are legal unless those users are in possession of cp or have prior records/convictions of possession of cp. (no way to know). That's how I'm reading the case cited in the link.

@puttitout