MemeMachineGo!

The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Emergence of Recreational Evil:

Today, (if the reader will forgive a little hyperbole) we live in Frank-N-Furter's castle, in a society that turns sex, violence and forbidden fantasies into theatrical spectacles. Our cultural creations include ghoulishly violent video games and serial killer trading cards; slasher films and nature videos of animals killing their prey; writhing bodies on MTV and a Jeffrey Dahmer comic book. Our daytime talk shows are filled with one strange sexual situation after another, from the transvestite who tricks heterosexual men into having sex with him, to the male college student who attended class in the nude. As Freud might put it, sex and aggression, the two drives that are most commonly subjected to repression, have been set loose in popular culture, where they have been turned into mass entertainments.

There's a lot more interesting social criticism going on over at Transparency Now.

(Via rebecca's pocket, a blog so consistently great that I find I often avoid reading it because I don't have the time it'll take to follow all the fascinating links.)