Let's Talk Entertainment-Specifically Movies

So my last post talked a little bit about my struggle with TV and our call to be different as Christians, you can read it here.   This post , I want to focus on movies.

Movies can be amazing.  They allow us to dream, they allows us to feel, they allow us to step into another person's shoes for a little while.  As humans we long to connect, especially emotionally, and a well written and filmed movie lets us do just that.

Anyone ever feel as though we live in a very strange world?  I grew up in the 80s. Where the movie ratings were a little different than they are now.  Profanity was very normal to hear in PG movies of the time, but you rarely heard the f-word until you were watching R-rated movies.  Also, sex(specifically nudity) was mostly R rated films.  You might get some innuendos and make assumptions, or see some people in PG-13 movies fooling around and assume what they were doing, but nowadays I feel like sometimes I am watching soft porn just so they can put some sex in there.  Really, it isn't needed. Hollywood screams, but it's my artistic ability being squashed or some none sense like that. I have seen plenty of great movies where you know that the people are going to have sex but they don't show it.  It's all about how you write the scene.   

At this point some of you might be saying "she's a prude", well I'm not and in the future if you read my blog you will see some interesting posts about the bloggers and Christian writers I follow, then you won't be thinking that. 

Back to the movies.  Now, are all movies that are clean, glorifying to God? I would say no. However, the occasional goofy, good time movie is also fine in my eyes.  We laugh a lot and most of the time there isn't anything to be said after it's done except that we all watched it together and laughed a lot, and that's some good family time in my book.

Nowadays, movie ratings are so odd I feel like I have to make sure I read the full review before anyone of us sees it because if I don't then there is this awful surprise lurking there.

We are such an overly sexualized culture that it's everywhere, even in our kids movies. It's ridiculous.  

Here is an article from CNN money that talks about how G & PG rated films make tons more money they their PG-13 and R rated films but yet that hasn't taken a turn for the better.  That being said, I do want to say that I am glad that a lot of the super hero movies nowadays are PG-13 and mostly clean. Of course, that doesn't mean that they don't put things in there I don't agree with.  But, it does mean that I feel like for the most part I can let our pre-teen son watch some of them.

My husband and I talk about this a lot.  We want to make sure that our kids are watching things that matter, or at least things that don't show them too many things before they are mature enough to understand the ramifications of them.

I want to point out, as a Christian, I want to watch movies that don't disrespect God and my beliefs.  It's hard to find a movie with good acting and a good plot that fits the criteria.  

I want to share something specific with you.  My husband and I went to see Wonder Woman.  I read the reviews before hand and they looked really good.  They did a good job of covering up cleavage, unlike the original TV series from the 80s.  The majority of their female warriors were made up of athletes, not actresses.  The script was well written, and the acting was great.  The violence wasn't over the top for the time period and there was a lot of period humor and female/male related non crass humor.  However, there is this one scene in the movie that bothered me.  There is a scene where you know that the male lead in the movie, played by Chris Pine(Captain Kirk in the new movie series), is bathing in a glowing bath of some kind and Wonder Woman comes into where he is.  He starts to get out and realizes she is in the room with him and there is maybe a minute of awkwardness where she asks him if he is a typical male.  You see, up until she meets him, she's never seen a man before.  And then you see him block him private areas and there is a full frontal scene of him doing it.  Seriously people!  Why?  We didn't need to see that, we got the understanding of the scene from the well written script and they could have show his top half if absolutely necessary. There was a lot of innuendo talk about sexuality with the situation being what it was.  Why the nudity?  I think it has to do with people thinking that they "need" to do this for shock factor, to add "more" to the scene.  I don't know.  All I know is that I was a little enraged by it and it irks me to this day.  It spoiled a perfectly great movie for me.  I am absolutely positive that was not glorifying to God.

I was irritated that I didn't prepare myself for this by reading the entire review online before hand.

Our family uses Plugged In by Focus on the Family as a way to truly see what is in the movie before you view it yourself or let your kids see it.  There is also another site called Common Sense Media that does a good job, but it is not a faith based organization and so therefore I think that I tend to agree with the ratings from Plugged In more than I do with Common Sense, however sometimes they have more reviews than Plugged In does.

I really can't stand the fact that I have to censor everything our family watches nowadays. I know I can turn on the Disney Channel and be okay, but other than that I don't know. There are a couple of services out there that can help with filtering and choosing more clean movies. I haven't tried them yet, but I intend to over the next year and let you all know what I think.

What was the point of this blog?

Yes, it was a little rant from me.  But more so, I think I just wanted to make sure you understand that God really does want us to be better stewards of our time, what we invest ourselves in and how we not only raise our families but also showing others around us how to live differently.  You might disagree with me, it's your choice to do so.  But, I want to say to you...  If you are a Christian then let the Holy Spirit work in you every day. Allow your heart to be open, to look inward and then upward and see if something is missing.  

Someday we will all meet the Father and be held accountable for our actions. That includes our media choices.

Here is a good article on Living a Holy Life.  God's Grace is enough when we are truly saved, but that doesn't give us complete freedom to act as we wish or what we think is best.  Remember Judges "In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit."

Jesus is our King and we are to do as He commands, not what we think is right in our own eyes.

While you are thinking about this, you can rock out to Jeremy Camp's Take My Life.

Colossians 3:17

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.