Note: I am not re-opening this moribund blog. But I want to get this off my chest.

As of this posting nothing I have written has been criticized or attacked by Common Sense Media. I wanted to be able to write this post without reference to my own work or any possible criticism of same.

Yesterday I took my two kids to see a movie called Kick-Ass. I have a 10 year-old girl and a 13 year-old boy. I loved it. I admired it. It was — to use that horribly overused word — awesome. My kids both loved it.

Common Sense Media rates Kick-Ass as unfit for children, “Not For Kids,” despite the fact that the main characters are teens and a pre-teen girl. Why should it be unfit?

Well, here is their take on language in the film:

The movie features almost constant swearing, including some from the mouth of an 11-year-old girl. Words include all the variations on “f–k” and “s–t,” as well as “c–k,” “c–ksucker,” “dick,” “balls,” “t-ts,” “p—y,” “c–t,” “ass,” “asshole,” “Jesus,” “Christ,” “retard,” and “douche.” (Not to mention the title itself.)

Let’s pause for a moment and enjoy the fact that CSM is complaining about the use of the word “asshole” by using the word asshole.

It’s okay for Common Sense Media to use the word “asshole” but not, apparently, okay for use in the movie. CSM says “asshole,” that’s no problem. Kick-Ass says “asshole” and that’s a problem. Evidently we cannot say “t-ts” but we can say “dick.” No to “p—y” and yes to “balls.” No to “s–t” and yes to “douche.”

Who decides these things? Why the good folk at Common Sense Media decide. They decide that their site can use the word “asshole” but not the word “f–k.” Do they have specific guidelines for the number of dashes in a given word? Would it be much worse to write “fu-k” or “f-ck?” How about just “f—?” Or “the F word.” Or “the word beginning with F followed by two dashes and ending in K?”

Is the director of the movie entitled to make those decisions? No. Common Sense Media doesn’t want a director — the person creating the work of art — to make those fine distinctions. Those important distinctions are to be made by Common Sense Media.

Because they know best.

Here is their paragraph on the issue of the film’s message:

Despite the movie’s main theme of taking action and doing something, becoming involved, rather than simply standing by and watching horrible things happen, the methods by which the characters “do something” are questionable at best. And the inclusion of the young girl spewing extremely strong language and gunfire sends a confusing and disturbing message. But nestled in among the violence and foul language, there are also issues of trust, and working together, and the question of whether bravery and recklessness alone can make one a superhero.

“Confusing and disturbing message.” Ah, yes. Because messages should never be confusing and disturbing.

Question: what is the message of Diary of Anne Frank? Well, let’s ask Common Sense Media. This is their “message” section on the movie adaptation of Diary:

Although the story of Anne Frank is a tragedy underscoring what the world lost because of the Nazis and the Holocaust, there are also many positive messages in the real-life tale. The Franks, the Van Daans, Mr. Dussel, and the Dutch friends who helped hide them are all reminders that even during the most horrible situations, people rise to the occasion and can remain hopeful and, as Anne says, good.

Wait. The message of Diary of Anne Frank isn’t confusing and disturbing? There’s nothing confusing about Anne’s emotions? Nothing disturbing about the wartime persecution of Jews and the eventual betrayal of the Frank family by a Dutch informer? Nothing just a wee bit disturbing about the Holocaust?

Of course not. Because Diary of Anne Frank is great literature, a seminal book, a work of art. As determined by Common Sense Media. So it is judged by one standard and Kick-Ass by a different standard.

Let’s see if that same prejudice evidences elsewhere. Here is the message of Huckleberry Finn:

While this story is set in a racist society, and there is much vile racist talk (always cleverly done to make the speaker look ignorant and/or to show how that sort of thinking is foolish), this book was revolutionary for its time (and much criticized) because the message is clearly anti-racist and anti-slavery.

And here they are on the language in Huckleberry Finn:

As was typical of the time the novel was written and set, the N-word is used frequently and casually. Black men are referred to as “bucks” and women as “wenches.”

So, in both message and language, Huckleberry gets a pass. Is it because “The N-word” is less offensive than “f–k?” Hardly. The “N-word” carries the baggage of slavery, torture, rape and murder. But that word is okay, and other more innocuous words are not. Why? Because it was historically accurate? I hate to break it to Common Sense Media, but the use of “f–k” is every bit as “typical of the time.” I’ve heard it used frequently in, oh, the late 20th century and early 21st century. You could hardly find a word more typical of our time.

But of course Common Sense Media doesn’t have the cojones (or is that coj–es?) to attack Huckleberry Finn or Diary of Anne Frank because if they did so thy would look ridiculous. No, they won’t attack established art, they stick to attacking contemporary art.

Common Sense Media gives Huckleberry a pass on message “because the message is clearly anti-racist and anti-slavery.” Okay. So let’s jump back and take a look at the Drugs section in Kick-Ass:

An adult gangster is a drug dealer, and his teenage son — who becomes “Red Mist” — wants to become involved in the family business. Drugs are seen and discussed.

For this the movie earns three out of a possible five martini glasses. In the shorthand of CSM that’s three out of five “shame on you” symbols. If you get enough of the various “shame on you” symbols you are labeled unfit for children.

But wait a second here. The drug and alcohol use in Kick-Ass are without exception shown to be associated with evil. Our heros do not indulge. So, shouldn’t the drug use earn the same sort of exemption that Huckleberry enjoys for displays of racism? Isn’t the movie showing drugs as bad, to be avoided? By these standards would a school’s anti-drug film not also earn CSM’s wagged finger of disapproval?

Of course not. Because at CSM sometimes the context matters, and sometimes it doesn’t. Or to put it plainly: if CSM feels safe in taking a shot they will, and if they don’t they invent rationalizations.

CSM on the violence in Kick-Ass:

We’re talking extreme comic book-style violence with some blood. The main character is transformed after two thugs beat him up and he stumbles into the path of an oncoming car. The 11-year-old Hit Girl is perhaps more skilled and deadly than any other character, and racks up a large body count. In one highly stylized scene she wraps a bad guy around the neck with a cord to make him shoot himself through the head. Otherwise, the movie is filled with fantasy fighting, with knives and billy clubs, and many of the blows feel more real and painful than in a standard superhero movie. There are also tons of weapons (one character has his own arsenal), including a bazooka and a kind of armed jet pack. One character is burned.

CSM on the violence in Schindler’s List:

Depictions of point-blank shootings, murders, beatings, and mass murders.

CSM on violence in The Dark Knight:

Extensive, intense violence, including (but not limited to) shootings, stabbings, fistfights, explosions, rocket attacks, grenades, and more. A thug is slammed face-first onto a pencil that’s stuck in a table; an underling has an explosive device sewn into his body and then detonated; a hallucinogenic “fear drug” is used as a weapon; dogs are unleashed on victims; a man is set ablaze; cars crash; characters are bound in rooms full of explosives; live grenades are placed in the hands and mouths of hostages; two boats full of passengers are threatened with bombs on-board; suicide bombs are used as threats; knives and guns are brandished. Several characters have extensive facial scarring, either from knives or fire.

CSM on the violence in Saving Private Ryan:

Graphic, savage battlefield violence, as men are blown up, shot, and dismembered by artillery fire, and bayoneted, beaten, and stabbed in hand-to-hand fighting. Unsparing death comes to sympathetic characters as well as ones we hardly know.

Gee, does anyone see a pattern there? Each of these movies gets a maximum number of “shame on yous” but somehow the genuinely disturbing violence in Private Ryan and Schindler’s List get a few terse lines, while we go on, and on, and on about the violence in the two comic book movies.

Is there anyone who thinks the violence of the Holocaust or World War II are somehow less horrific than comic book violence? Really? It takes 8 lines of text to warn us away from the violence in the two comic book movies, and only a single line to pooh-pooh the violence in a movie about the Holocaust.

Whether it’s language, sex, violence or message, the position of Common Sense Media is not an impartial one. Readers of their site are not simply being provided with information, they are being urged in one direction or another. They are being guided toward those movies, books, shows or music that Common Sense Media happens to approve of, and away from those of which it can (safely) disapprove.

The difference between the description of violence in Kick-Ass and the description of the violence in Schindler’s List is not about facts, it is about propaganda. It is about manipulating readers rather than informing them. It is about achieving specific results and exercising power over the media.

It is, in short, about Common Sense Media’s own ambitions.

They decide what is appropriate, good or bad, right or wrong. They decide which targets can be attacked with impunity and those which must be given a respectful hands-off treatment. Their standards are not objective, although they position themselves that way, nor are they disinterested, though they claim to be.

And since their partnerships include such media powers as Comcast, Barnes and Noble and even Google, their power is real. A power they use not to inform, but to propagandize, to pick winners and losers, to shape art to their own ends, for their own agenda.

These are not the people who take risks to create art, they are the nattering finger-wavers on the sidelines who attack art for profit. These are not the creatives with a vision, these are the people who hope to gain by anointing winners and losers among the creatives. With their ridiculous age sliders and simple-minded symbols, they infantilize the very media they pretend to elevate.

They are uninformed critics, critics without a deep knowledge of, or interest in the arts they criticize. They are bullies who shy away from targets they know may injure their credibility and assault those they believe to be weak.

No doubt it seems ridiculous that I should take so much time to defend a comic book movie in which I have no financial or personal interest. But Kick-Ass is a good movie. It’s a movie I am glad my kids saw. A movie I honor the writers and director and producers for making. It does not deserve to be sucker punched by incoherent, contradictory and cowardly self-appointed moral scolds with no agenda but their own power.