What do I tell people who say Stephen King's are scary and (get this) morally filthy?

[Lily Sawyer]

Peter Straub..."gets his power from Satan....the power to corrupt minds so he can continue his lascivious lifestyle!"
Evidently, Mr. Straub lives a rockstar life. Who knew?

So Messrs. King & Straub are apparently both a couple of degenerates. *sigh* If only people would actually read their collaborative works.

[Moderator]

Or refrain from making comments/assumptions about their personal lives when they have no personal knowledge about them.

[blunthead]

Or refrain from making comments/assumptions about their personal lives when they have no personal knowledge about them.

Or refrain from giving the human race more of a bad name.

[jchanic]

It'is better to keep your mouth shut and have people think you're a fool than open it and prove it.

John

[Ragan]

If someone was to come up to me and say "Stephen King's books are scary and morally filthy" I would have to nod and agree. Yep. They sure are. That's why they are wonderful. They show life without the polish and pretense of ideal life. The stuff he's describing isn't always scary-because-an-evil-clown-threatens-children, it's scary-because-it's-emotional-and-sometimes-uncomfortable. There's life in his pages because of that. Reading Stephen King is not the same as watching a synthetic world embraced in a 50's sitcom. Scary books work because everyone's had a monster under their bed, or a thing in the closet, or a noise in the night. Personally, I don't enjoy being scared. I don't watch movies that I consider scary. But I read everything of Stephen King's, because it doesn't scare me. It intrigues me. It puts you through dark things, and gets you through them, maybe a bit worse for wear though. There's a truth in that, too.

There was a lecture Stephen King gave called "Banned Books and Other Concerns" some time ago. He recounts an interesting conversation there:

A lady who was about sixty-five going on eight hundred stood up and said: "Well you know, I like that story, but I didn't like all the foul language. And I don't know any reason for anyone to tell a good story with all that foul language in it."

And I replied, "Well think of it this way: Think of the way guys talk in the barbershop on Saturday morning."

She said, "Well I've been in the barbershop on Saturday morning, and they don't talk that way."

I replied, "Madam, I am writing about the Saturday mornings you didn't come."

He then goes on to say:

In other words, what I'm talking about is telling the truth...I think that the real truth of fiction is that fiction is the truth; moral fiction is the truth inside the lie. And if you lie in your fiction, you are immoral and have no business writing at all.

It's worth reading that whole lecture if you can find it, along with other things Stephen King has written on the topic of offensive material in literature.

Literature itself is filled with inappropriate material. The King Arthur legends (pertaining a man who cheats on his wife with his own sister and has an illegitimate son, along with endless murders and violence. At one point, a honorable knight kills a woman, and as his punishment, is forced to ride into town with her head tied around his neck. Then he's off the hook.) , the fairy tales (those not sanitized by Disney, that is), Shakespeare. In fact, Shakespeare is often considered the greatest writer of all time, and his works contain forms of profanity.

So of course, I would say all of this is scary and morally filthy. Because life is scary and morally filthy. In how you handle fiction is how you handle reality when it comes. Maybe, when the monsters are tired of living under the bed and come out for a midnight snack, we'll be a little more ready for them, and a little less petrified, because we've already seen fear. Seen it, felt it, and overcame it. And one of the most important things you can learn from the works of Stephen King is that even if someone talks differently, is cruder than you, makes obscene jokes or has behaviors you would never be caught doing, you can still care for them. That's a powerful thing, and a hard thing to learn. It is the great lesson of literature...to understand another person's mind.

[GNTLGNT]

Or refrain from making comments/assumptions about their personal lives when they have no personal knowledge about them.

....that sadly, is the rule now-rather than the exception for a myriad of things....even reality TV can't help.....

[Moderator]

....that sadly, is the rule now-rather than the exception for a myriad of things....even reality TV can't help.....

It's probably made it worse. I just don't understand the whole voyeurism mentality of reality shows in general. Are people's lives really so lacking that they have to either live vicariously through these people or does it somehow make them feel better about themselves by comparing and thinking maybe things aren't so bad after all? I truly don't get it.

[Lily Sawyer]

It's probably made it worse. I just don't understand the whole voyeurism mentality of reality shows in general. Are people's lives really so lacking that they have to either live vicariously through these people or does it somehow make them feel better about themselves by comparing and thinking maybe things aren't so bad after all? I truly don't get it.

The only reality shows that have made sense to me have been contest shows involving either cooking (Food Network, Cooking Channel) or travel - The Amazing Race. There are many people who physically wouldn't be able to do some of the challenges on the Race, not to mention afford getting to some of the countries that are visited, so I don't blame them for being sucked in to each episode. It's fun to be an Armchair Traveler and see a little bit of countries you've only dreamed of visiting, but it's also interesting to see how the teams face cultural, language, and physical challenges, and overcome fear or personal aspects of xenophobia.

[Haunted]

It's probably made it worse. I just don't understand the whole voyeurism mentality of reality shows in general. Are people's lives really so lacking that they have to either live vicariously through these people or does it somehow make them feel better about themselves by comparing and thinking maybe things aren't so bad after all? I truly don't get it.

Hear, hear!!

[GNTLGNT]

It's probably made it worse. I just don't understand the whole voyeurism mentality of reality shows in general. Are people's lives really so lacking that they have to either live vicariously through these people or does it somehow make them feel better about themselves by comparing and thinking maybe things aren't so bad after all? I truly don't get it.

....yeah, my post had the sarcasm layed on with a shovel about "reality" TV...I fully agree with what you statedf...it has certainly contributed to the further dumbing down of a segment of our populace...