Content Wars

About 4 weeks ago, I was pretty secure in my position on film content, which was basically that most works should aim to be in the PG range, or settle for PG-13 if the story was too mature. Now I'm not sure where I stand or why. Are all my standards arbitrary? How did I ever decided where to draw the line. Let's look at this analytically.

Violence

Generally speaking, I don't want to see violence too closely, and I don't want to see too much of it. I'm okay with characters being killed en mass (by "okay," I mean I won't judge the filmmakers), but I don't want to watch dozens of individuals be decapitated, mutilated, shredded, stabbed through the heart, crushed, melted alive, or offed by whatever other sick means the director can come up with. While it's hard to watch a character be hurt, I'll put up with it if it serves the story. It makes no difference to me whether or not blood is shown. A lot of the time, the more gruesome means of violence can happen off screen, and be just as effective while somehow being less disturbing. (Who wants to directly watch the hyenas eat Scar alive instead of watching their shadows?)

My reaction to violence in entertainment

 Why might it be necessary?
1. I like movies with lots of action. It's hard to tell an action adventure story without at least a little violence. Most movies that have violence need it.
2. The villains need to hurt people. They wouldn't be evil otherwise.


Why do I take issue with violence at all?
1. I don't want to see gore.  I just don't. It's not pleasant.
2. I don't want to be desensitized to violence.
3. Some people worry about violence being emulated by the viewers. I never worry about that for myself, because it just wouldn't make any sense for me to imitate the violence in a movie unless I was in a similar situation to the characters, which I probably never will be. I might be concerned for young children (everyone out of grade school either knows better, or is already mad), but only if I feel like the film doesn't take seriously the consequences of violence.

Language

Personally, I think the idea that one combinations of phonetic sounds is more vulgar than another is one of the dumbest, most baseless ideas man has come up with. But since people buy into this, I choose to refrain out of respect for others, as I believe everyone should. This puts me in a weird place in which, by my own open admission, I care solely because my parents care.

My reaction to language in entertainment

Why would language be necessary?
1. It's realistic. I don't buy that because 1) I never curse, so when someone says "If you were in that situation, you'd probably curse too," I think "No, I'm really quite sure I wouldn't." and 2) I don't see the need to portray human depravity with perfect realism. I think I can get the message without all the gritty details.

So what is my problem with language in media?
1. I don't want kids to hear cuss words, because they'll repeat them. If something has even one cuss word in it, I won't share it with a kid because . . . sheltering. If someone's high school-age or older, then I might show them something with a little "mild" cursing in it.
2. While I don't expect the speech patterns of adults to be dramatically changed by what they listen to, I know that at some point, listening to anything too much will make it become part of your vocabulary.
3. I can't share things with my family. When you're the oldest of five kids, the youngest being 13 years younger than you, you're  all sheltered, and you mom makes your already conservative standards look liberal, finding cuss words in what could easily have been clean entertainment becomes extremely frustrating. It's just really nice when I can enjoy things with everyone.

Sex

I'm harder on sex than I am on anything else. I'm okay with people falling in love, hugging, and sweet-talking each other. I'm okay with kissing too, but there is one kind of kiss that looks like love, and then there's another kind that just looks like making out, and the latter makes me mildly uncomfortable. Intercourse I have no desire to see (or at least I don't wanna find out if I want to see it). In fact, I'd rather they never even imply that any unmarried characters had intercourse. But if they must imply it, I expect the camera to cut away before anyone starts disrobing.

My reaction to sex in entertainment

Why it would be necessary?
1. Because it's plot related, I guess. I don't see why that would happen very often but . . . every once in a while . . . I can't think of many good examples . . .
2. It's realistic. Again, I don't really care if it's realistic. And I don't see why the heroes can't be celibate, like me. Am I not realistic?
3. Character development. OK, I'll give you that one. But still, this should rarely ever be necessary.


What is my problem with sex?
1. Impressionable young viewers will emulate it. I don't expect most people to imitate violence, but for some reason, I'm terrified that people will be aroused by depictions of sexual acts and what to emulate them.
2. If there's too much of it, it starts to resemble porn. And porn is bad because it objectifies its subjects.
3. It makes me feel awkward. I just don't want anything to make me think about sex.

Crude Humor

I don't have any moral claim against this one; I'm just disgusted by it.

Now for the Part where I Play My Own Devil's Advocate

Well, Jonathan, are you okay with films portraying characters who sin? Of course, it'd be pretty unrealistic if they didn't sin. I thought you didn't care about being realistic. I don't care about being 100% realistic, but sin is such a major component of human nature, I don't see how you can avoid it entirely and it seems disingenuous to try. Then how come you seem to be okay with some sin and not others? Because a character calling someone a a b---h seems worse than a character generally being rude without using four-letter-words. I know I said I don't actually care about profanity, and impressionable viewers are just as likely to imitate G-rated rudeness, but I'd rather they do that than curse, because the two behaviors totally don't have the exact same sin problem behind them. And while I'm flaunting my double-standards, I'm totally fine with a character being a sexist womanizer as long as I don't have to see what he does in bed. And I'm perfectly willing to see suffering, just not ugliest side of suffering.

OK, now I'm really confused. All the lines I've drawn seem so arbitrary. While I generally don't consider one sin worse than another, I make an exception when it comes to movies and TV. What good reason is there for me to be more offended by Tony Stark sleeping with women he just met than I am by Gaston imposing himself one someone who's clearly not interested? If anything, Gaston is objectively worse, and it's not the fact that he's the bad guy that makes me feel better.

My reaction to psychopathy in entertainment

 The only explanation I have is that I don't want to see ugliness. I want the world depicted on screen to be sanitized to some extent. I'm only willing to see so much of human depravity. Even if the dark side of life is part of the story, which it always is, I want it to be approached with great subtlety. The characters can be as rude, irresponsible, cruel, or uncouth as they want as long as their actions only mildly disturbs me. I don't care if there are other people in the world who see this stuff all the time. I don't, and I don't go to the theater to see the world's dirty laundry.

So there you have it. We content-conservatives are basically squeamish, selfish protectionist (not the economic kind). Is that always bad? Should I take more of an all-or-nothing approach?

"One of the weird things with these films, which I must confess I actually quite enjoy, we sit around thinking how we are going to kill an Orc. You actually turn into a psychopath. And actually I can think of a hell of a great way to kill Orcs but I am always restricted by PG-13, unfortunately." - Peter Jackson, the anti-me