Nolte: Play Portrays Pedophiles as Sympathetic, Victim as Whiner

The far-left Washington Post reviewed a “scintillating new play” called Downstate that “ruminate[s]” on the idea that “punishments inflicted on some pedophiles are so harsh and unrelenting as to be inhumane.”

Now, I’m an adult who understands and appreciates nuance and the complications of the human condition. I also appreciate how dramatizing complicated, and even painful, subjects can teach us something about our fellow man.

I’ve seen and appreciated movies like Short Eyes (1977), The L.I.E. (2001), Lolita (1962, 1997 versions), and Happiness (1998) that dare to portray child abusers as human beings. In my mind, this approach — in the same way Downfall (2004) humanized Hitler — makes the crimes even more horrific. It reminds us that real people are capable of monstrous acts. Instead of separating us by way of a one-dimensional portrayal as though evil emanates from a separate species, we’re humbled by the knowledge that people like us are capable of unimaginable obscenities.

So a play that portrays a half-dozen or so pedophiles struggling in post-prison life doesn’t make my knee jerk. Relax. Let’s see what the playwright has to say.

Then I read this: The playwright has “loaded the dice to some degree … as the predators … are depicted not as monsters but rather as complicated, troubled souls.”

There’s a word missing there: remorse.

And then it gets worse, much worse… [emphasis mine]

Andy [the victim] arrives … to confront Fred [the man who molested him]. The playwright cannot hide his scorn for Andy, who has made a successful life for himself as a Chicago finance guy and now seems intent on some kind of purging reunion with the man who molested him as a child on a piano bench. The meeting seems to be part of Andy’s therapy, which “Downstate” implies may be advisable but at this point also suggests that it is an indulgent marinating in self-pity.

We are meant to note the chasm in Andy and Fred’s circumstances and the perhaps overlong gestation of Andy’s desire for that suspect experience, “closure.” Fred’s loss of mobility came about after he was set upon and beaten brutally in prison. Context is all, for as Andy stumbles through a recitation of his psychic pain and suffering, we have the physical evidence of the price that Fred has already paid [beaten into a cripple in prison]. Norris’s juxtaposition in this regard feels cheap. There was a way, I think, to acknowledge the damage that’s been done to Andy without judgmentally minimizing it.

So, according to the Washington Post, the playwright wants us to sympathize with the molester and see the victim as “an indulgent marinating in self-pity.” The playwright also portrays the victim’s “psychic pain” as something less than the physical pain the molester lives with after being beaten in prison.

• Drag queen story hours.
• Homosexuality in Disney movies and TV.
• Government-run schools encourage your kids to mutilate themselves on the altar of the sicko trans agenda.
• Grown men in high heels share locker rooms with your young daughter.
• Tony-winning playwrights portray child molesters as sympathetic and their victims as self-indulgent.

This is what the left’s embrace of “gay rights” has always been about. I’m not condemning gay people. Plenty of gay people are disgusted by this stuff. This is about Democrats, leftists, and the perverts who have captured the dominant culture. The goal is twofold…

To destroy traditional religion and have sex with your kids.

That’s what the left wants. This play is not just about seeing child molesters as human beings. It’s about normalizing this behavior and sympathizing with the abusers while we shake our heads in disgust at the crybaby who can’t get over being abused.

Hey, I warned you. Fifteen years ago, I repeatedly said same-sex marriage had nothing to do with fairness or tolerance. (I’ve supported same-sex civil unions for more than 30 years.) Instead, it was about hijacking a movement to put us on a slippery slope that would enshrine sexual behavior as an identity, which could only lead to…  Destroying the (“bigoted”) Church, sexualizing kids in the name of equality, and normalizing other horrors. For that, I was smeared as an alarmist and bigot.

Now try to imagine a play that portrays heterosexual male rapists as victims and their female victims as crybabies.

You see where I’m going here… That would never be acceptable. But the dominant culture is okay with wrist-flicking the pain of a child molester’s victim while asking us to sympathize with the molester. Well, that’s not complicated or nuanced. That’s not even good drama. Why? Because it’s a lie. Drama comes from truth. You can’t lie about human nature and create good drama. And when you tell the audience the victim’s pain is silly and that the child rapist’s pain truly matters, you are lying.

That’s not drama. That’s propaganda.

Believe them when they show you who they are.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.