Word: caligula
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...often that college professors descend from their ivory towers to come to the defense of what some consider pornography. But testimony from academics, including two from Harvard, played a major role in Saturday's Boston Municipal Court ruling that the film "Caligula" is not legally obscene...
Produced by Penthouse magazine, "Caligula" depicts the reign of a Roman emperor who ruled for a brief period and who was infamous for his exploitative and deviant sexual practices, which the film shows in explicit detail...
After hearing nearly two weeks of testimony from professors from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), universities in New York and Maryland and the two Harvard professors--Bowersock and Stanley Cavell, Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value--Judge Harry Elam ruled that "Caligula" has no literary, artistic or scientific value...
...added that the prosecution "failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that 'Caligula' lacks serious political value...
Bowersock said yesterday that ancient historians often ignore the period of Roman history which "Caligula" portrays in sexually explicit detail "because it's so unpleasant." He added, "If there's one lesson to be learned from this film, it's that it is not good to ignore a historical period because it is unpleasant. Sometimes one needs to be reminded of these things...