3 reviews
Decent and fast paced documentary exploring the history and purpose of marriage within western culture primarily. There is an attempt to keep it unbiased but I felt that there were few voices for monogamy that were interviewed. Nevertheless, it thus raise thought provoking questions about it and what it means to our society.
Half-way through it at 47 minutes, a statement blew my mind, that marriage in US part of marriage industrial complex and more importantly, the biggest group in poverty are single mothers, bigger than other groups combined, and the government is often acting as a pimp by trying to get them married off to take them off social welfare rolls. In effect trying to privatize the expense. It doesn't help when that statement could also apply to many community groups and organizations as well. Maybe there is some truth to it all after all?
Half-way through it at 47 minutes, a statement blew my mind, that marriage in US part of marriage industrial complex and more importantly, the biggest group in poverty are single mothers, bigger than other groups combined, and the government is often acting as a pimp by trying to get them married off to take them off social welfare rolls. In effect trying to privatize the expense. It doesn't help when that statement could also apply to many community groups and organizations as well. Maybe there is some truth to it all after all?
Dan Savage has been questioning monogamy for years now, trying to apply the gay standard where it doesn't belong. Citing exceptions doesn't build a case for the norm, elites can indulge in behaviors which the masses cannot survive. Insulated by wealth and high iq, they are not examples to follow. You hear the examples of the exceptions, the inuit, harsh environments necessitating extraordinary compromises simply to ensure survival in order to make more general claims against evolutionary psychology when it doesn't follow.
You see the sex at dawn author brought in uncritically as always, the internet phd who's book is based on the absurd idea that before agriculture there was no jealousy. This is the guy who built a career on misunderstanding the meaning of Bonobo's, a dead end species which doomed itself when the metric for female selection became choosing males they could dominate, and so they became both dumb and small, only existing due to splendid isolation, and protection by humans.
The idea that license leads to happiness has been tested by decades of lifting of social controls and repression. The actual results were broken families, record anti depressant use, and wide spread sterility. There is plenty to explore on this topic but Savage's politics prevent him from exploring anything beyond the usual leftist talking points, always asking about the consequences up to the point of their own favored policies. Things like attacking the social policy of pressuring marriage to prevent single motherhood, never asking what happens when government enables the opposite. What are the dysgenic consequences, government policy is selective breeding of your population whether you wish to admit this or not, this is what is actually happening, Savage can't even begin to touch on problems like this, and so the film has no value.
Let me put it another way, we have rules against cheating in other areas, such as cheating on your taxes. Does the fact that enforcement of the ideal is never perfect justify the opposite of total transgression? of course not.
Its funny watching this now as it was part of the poly push, an attempt to "question" and then normalize certain alternative life styles, a few years later some of its proponents have admitted that it was always fraudulent, the failure was inevitable, little more than monkey branching in plain sight. Topics like these are presented as if they were exploring something new, when its very far from the case, such arrangements have been tried as recently as the 60s with communes, this is the problem when a documentary just ask questions it doesn't want answered.
You see the sex at dawn author brought in uncritically as always, the internet phd who's book is based on the absurd idea that before agriculture there was no jealousy. This is the guy who built a career on misunderstanding the meaning of Bonobo's, a dead end species which doomed itself when the metric for female selection became choosing males they could dominate, and so they became both dumb and small, only existing due to splendid isolation, and protection by humans.
The idea that license leads to happiness has been tested by decades of lifting of social controls and repression. The actual results were broken families, record anti depressant use, and wide spread sterility. There is plenty to explore on this topic but Savage's politics prevent him from exploring anything beyond the usual leftist talking points, always asking about the consequences up to the point of their own favored policies. Things like attacking the social policy of pressuring marriage to prevent single motherhood, never asking what happens when government enables the opposite. What are the dysgenic consequences, government policy is selective breeding of your population whether you wish to admit this or not, this is what is actually happening, Savage can't even begin to touch on problems like this, and so the film has no value.
Let me put it another way, we have rules against cheating in other areas, such as cheating on your taxes. Does the fact that enforcement of the ideal is never perfect justify the opposite of total transgression? of course not.
Its funny watching this now as it was part of the poly push, an attempt to "question" and then normalize certain alternative life styles, a few years later some of its proponents have admitted that it was always fraudulent, the failure was inevitable, little more than monkey branching in plain sight. Topics like these are presented as if they were exploring something new, when its very far from the case, such arrangements have been tried as recently as the 60s with communes, this is the problem when a documentary just ask questions it doesn't want answered.
I like documentaries,especially historic and biographical ones, and putting all the kinda''-gami's'' and diversity of sexual relationships through history under the spotlight,well ,its very difficult to make it work.
this film though,has a wonderful amazing understory, very nice use of visual editing, very good narration, beautiful scenery and filmography, and the best of all ,NO SOLUTIONS.
this is a film with very little adult content,and should be seen by everyone from 12 and beyond