Thursday, December 22, 2005
Old Woman or Young Woman . . . . . . . . . . R-Rated or Uplifting
o Should you be picky about what to entertain yourself (and your family) with?
o Why worry about seeing or hearing anything objectionable - haven’t you seen or heard it all before?
o Aren't violence, sex, and crude language all just a part of real life?
§ ‘Ever seen that black and white drawing (often illustrated in psych 101 texts) that you’re sure is a picture of a beautiful young woman, until someone points out to you that, if you look at it another way, it looks like a picture of an old hag? It often comes with separate pictures of the young woman and the old hag, so you know what to look for. But it’s really the same picture; what you see usually depends on which secondary picture you’ve just looked at (i.e.: the young woman or the old hag). Similarly, we tend to see life a certain way, depending on what experiences have influenced us - where our focus is.
§ Some people like to point out, in an effort to justify the same in entertainment, that the scriptures contain many stories of violence and immorality. Victor L. Brown, Jr., in his book, Human Intimacy, responds to that thought. He points out that the difference between the movies and the Bible is that the Bible reveals the natural consequences of such actions, whereas Hollywood often portrays glamorous, unrealistic consequences (which are misleading).
o One last question: Are the scenarios left imprinted in your mind after you watch a movie, things that you want to remember because they have been an uplifting influence or . . . maybe not?
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6 comments:
Not always true on the movies side. Yes there are movies that show unrealistic consequences, but there are also some very good R rated movies that show the real consequences of the actions and have shown major deterents from going down those roads. By trying to just justify the bible you forget that you may be generalizing in movies when the person you're disagreeing with is doing just the opposite. Just thought I'd give you another thought.
One thing I take into account when deciding whether I find a movie moral or not is whether the good outweighs the bad. Amelie, for example, has a few scenes that make it R-rated, but overall it's such a beautiful movie with such a wonderful view of life that I wouldn't want to have missed it because of those few scenes (which I actually don't remember, to be honest).
On an unrelated note, I watched W;t again last night and figured out why I like it so much. I'll blog about it one of these days.
Thirdmango: I agree - not always true on the movie side. That's why I used the word 'often'. I do agree that there may be R-rated movies that have value.
However, the strongest issue for me in whether or not I watch an R-rated movie, as I already pointed out to Master Fob, is that a prophet of the Lord has instructed us not to. As I see it, obedience to the teachings of the Lord's prophet is worth more than whatever value one might find in an R-rated movie. I didn't mention this in the blog b/c I didn't want to sound preachy, but here I am, saying it anyway, b/c it's the way I feel.
I don't know why I think of this, but in my high school French class, we watched Manon of the Spring, which features a very naked woman dancing around.
It didn't really bother me. Sex rarely does. Gratuitious violence, now, bothers me.
I was a bit angry that the Miller theater took Brokeback Mountain out of the showing but kept Hostel. Personally, I'd rather watch two people try to work out their feelings for each other than someone slicing off someone's toes one by one with a hedge clipper.
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That's because you don't understand hedgeclipper culture.
I'm sort of appalled at myself for having never watched R-rated movies on a regular basis in my life until recently. Even that's an overstatement. I've still seen only about 6 or 7, probably. But the fact that I've changed from following the prophet to justifying them as "uplifting" is disturbing.
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