Quote from: The Eighth Passenger on Mar 17, 2015, 05:34:07 PM
Not all Thai prostitutes were underage or doing it against their will. Also keep in mind that Aliens was made during the mid-eighties, a different era before political correctness became the buzz word. I don't think the Cameron of today would have done it, but back then - certainly.
I think a majority of prostitutes in the Vietnam War were A) not treated with respect B) possibly underage C) all of it wasn't great at all. Sexual trauma is hardly good, if you can imagine the soldiers getting PTSD from war, well, there you go, you can get PTSD from every single thing those women and girls and boys endured as well. Suicide was probable. It's just such a shitty thing to joke about for the same entire reason it's shitty to openly go up to a Vet and say all the men he saw mangled by mines and strewn across fields of blood, with orange clouds of defoliant spreading past the treeline, and the distant sounds of gunfire, deserved to die and were pigs. Those people endured sexual violence, and very possibly beatings from xenophobic soldiers who would go another hour saying "All asians look the same as a matter of fact all asian pussy looks the same" or maybe traumatized drafted average people broken by what they saw and just used prostitutes as a way to release their pent up tension and energy, slamming them against the wall and slapping them. You could make a terrible person in war, good people can change into things they never thought possible, and might regret for the rest of their life, and the victims never get their stories told.
Saying jokes about the entire subject aren't politically correct is such crap. Because, if we can all put it towards uptight leftists who can't take a joke, what can be said if it affects the psyche of a vietnam vet listening in on that joke, or maybe a family member who knew someone who lived in Vietnam and never saw them again. How does comedy hold accountability for the subtext of jokes that furthers the ideas fully present in the time of the era said joke is about, that were used to distance from the acts done. Also it's just a matter of decency.
If explored in a context of how f**ked up it is, I'm all for it. Jokes about the violence of forced sex in war are not. As a matter of fact, there's reason we are capable of making jokes about the distant Vietnamese prostitutes, but not 240,000 German women raped by red infantry in World War II. Make a joke about the latter, a line is crossed, yet the former, you can get away with among friends.
Jokes about war by people who weren't there are just not fun for anyone, it's not a great thing to talk about.