2012 Hiatus

I've decided to put this blog on another hiatus. I do this every year or so because I just get disgusted with the idea of putting my own half-baked thoughts onto the internet. It's a stupid thing and it's vain, I think. I have no desire to talk to anyone at the moment or to have my thoughts read by strangers. I'll come back eventually, when I feel like I have something else worth saying.

How to Explain Tenure to Idahoans

I'd like to just take a minute to post my thoughts on the phenomenon of teacher tenure and why I feel it is important.

For those that don't know, tenure is a concept in which a teacher is invited to permanently stay at a school after he has taught there for a number of years. The first years of teaching at any school are on a year-to-year basis. At the end of each year the teacher in question is evaluated and the administrators weight out whether or not to offer him a contract for another year. The teacher's skill is taken into consideration as well as his experience and other factors like need and budget. If he is accepted for a fourth year (in Montana) he is offered tenure. This means that from that point on it is understood that he will work at that school permanently, unless, of course, he is fired for some kind of misconduct or some other reason. Each state has its own number of years required to achieve tenure, and it takes longer for a college professor to earn tenure than a high school teacher.

Recently the state of Idaho eliminated all possibility of tenure for any of its new public school teachers. What this means for Idaho educators is that, from now on, teachers will only be hired on a year-by-year basis. And schools can let teachers go at the end of any given school year for any given reason.

I was speaking to someone in church the other day, and he congratulated me on getting hired as a teacher. He asked if we were planning on settling down in Idaho.

"No," I answered, "because there's no tenure in Idaho. It's not a good place to raise a family."

He immediately responded with, "But is it better for education?"

I wasn't surprised by his question, since most conservative non-teachers seem to agree that tenure is bad for students and for education in general.

Why?

Most people seem to think that if a teacher has tenure, he is impossible to fire. This naturally leads to teachers who are lazy and who do not care about education, and who only show up to work every day to babysit a classroom and take home a fat paycheck. These teachers hinder the education of young students and ruin lives, all living off of tax dollars.

The thing is--this isn't true. Teachers are most definitely NOT impossible to fire. Teachers can still be fired for anything that is a violation of their contract and for a multitude of other reasons. Let's say you've got a lazy teacher on your hands who does nothing but show movies all day. As an administrator you can sit him down and have a meeting with him. Tell him your concerns. Monitor his classroom. Come up with a plan to change things, cut down the number of movies. Let's say he doesn't comply and continues to engage in the bad behavior. You have a second meeting, you talk again. He still doesn't change. At that point, he can be let go. Because he's violated his contract and he's being insubordinate. You might say it's actually not that easy, but I've known several teachers who were let go just like that. It's not as impossible as you might think.

Perhaps it's harder to fire teachers in states like New York or California which have a lot of protections for their teachers built into the system. But in places like Montana and Idaho, it happens all the time.

You might argue that teachers ought not to have any special protection for their job because people can be laid off at just about any other kind of job and education should be the same.

My counter-argument to that is that although maybe it's true that other employers are allowed to lay off workers whenever they wish, what other job:

1. requires at least a college degree (and in many cases a masters degree)
2. continuing education for the rest of your career (as in 6 college credits or more every 5 years)
3. pays 30,000 a year or about $14 an hour?????

Let's keep in mind that the average salary for jobs that require a college degree is $46,000, or about $21 an hour.

Let's also keep in mind that teaching is an inherently creative job. It requires mental effort to create/implement/adjust curriculum every day. For this reason teachers are often required to work well beyond their contracted hours by bringing work home at the end of the day. Even when one day is over, much planning is required in order for the next day to go smoothly. I do not think engineers, repairmen, physical therapists, accountants and secretaries are required to take their work home with them to successfully do their jobs.

One might argue that some professions (doctors, lawyers, etc.), although not necessarily creative, are required to "take work home" in the form of being on-call. But lawyers and doctors are not paid $30,000 a year in compensation, either.

My point is that tenure is one of the few things that can attract people to the teaching profession. Even if the job is hard and the pay sucks, there can at least be some job security for those willing to seek it. Unfortunately, Idaho does not think this should be so.

And so because there is no tenure here, what is going to compel someone like me to settle down here, buy a house and start a family? Because next year we might see lower enrollment at the school, which means we need to get rid of teachers quick, which means I could be out of a job at any given time.

Some might say that because there is no tenure, teachers will work harder to keep their jobs. This idea might make sense purely in theory, but in practice it is not realistic. Teachers are not laid off or held onto due to their performance in the classroom. Teachers are laid off because of money reasons, pure and simple. And in a tenure-less world it is the teachers who have more education and experience who will be laid off first. Because teachers with higher degrees and more years of experience require larger salaries and will be let go and replaced by younger, less experienced teachers. As teachers gain more years of experience and higher pay they will be let go and newer ones will replace them. This is what Idaho had in mind all along, and it is not good for educators hoping to make a career in the world of academia.

Will the best and brightest teachers want to move to or remain in Idaho? I'm guessing "no." No, Idaho will be content to keep younger and less experienced teachers rotating through the schools, working a few years and then moving away. Education will become more and more automated and done on computers at home instead of in classrooms and eventually most teachers will be done away with. That was the plan all along. To replace human teachers with software in an effort to save money.

Tenure is a good idea. Tenure is the one of the only things a school has to keep teachers from gaining experience and running away to a new job the second something better comes along. It also rewards experience. It is also a good way to provide mentors to younger teachers, who will eventually provide mentorship to the next generation.

By providing a teacher with tenure you are giving a college graduate incentive to settle down in your community, buy a home there, spend his money there, raise his family there, pay his taxes there, etc. Most teachers I know are hard-working people who go to church and have families. We are required by our own profession to continually educate ourselves by taking college courses for life.

Occasionally you will find a teacher who is burned out, too old or otherwise not putting forth his best effort. There are lots of ways to remedy this, including the things I mentioned above. In the end, even if none of those things work and a school is stuck with a lazy teacher--then is it really that big of a loss? It's not like he's a lazy politician or CEO making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Is it enough to destroy a system that has evolved over several centuries of experience?


Worst case scenario is that you've got a lazy teacher earning the maximum salary, which would mean a teacher with a PhD and 40 years of experience. A lazy teacher with a PhD and 40 years of experience? Sounds like any typical college class! And at that point I think the man deserves to be a little lazy. But really, how often does this even happen? In my experience the "lazy" teachers are the ones who earned degrees in some unrelated field 20 years ago and got their teacher licensure just so they could have an excuse to coach sports. In fact, if you want to solve the problem of crappy teachers then try eliminating sports programs from public schools. (As if that will ever happen in super-conservative, super-Republican Idaho.)


Anyway, now if anyone starts to debate you about whether tenure hurts schools you can fight back with some actual logic. You're welcome.

Rated R for Retarded, Part 2

Now It's On

I was checking movie showtimes the other day when I stumbled across an online review for a local movie theater:

“This theater is great because it's SAFE for families! They don't show any R-rated movies, so you know you can bring your kids here!”

This statement pretty much sums up the Rexburg Mormon mentality perfectly, doesn't it? It's better to remove choice in the name of “safety.”

But you know what? I grew up going to the movies all the time, in theaters that DID show R-rated movies! And you know what else? I watched Beauty and the Beast in the same multiplex that showed The
Silence of the Lambs next door, and yet somehow I did not grow up to become a serial killer! Astonishing, isn't it?!

Anyone who knows me knows I have a serious beef with the R-rated movie ban that Mormon culture seems to enforce. You can read the first part of this series here. It details my history with R-rated movies and my interest in them.

So what exactly is my problem? Am I advocating disobedience? Am I saying that we shouldn’t be following the instructions of the prophet? I don’t think so.

In fact, while I acknowledge that we've been advised by our leaders countless times to avoid bad movies and other media, I am not sure that all R-rated movies are automatically prohibited. As I wrote in the first entry in this series, most of us grew up assuming R-rated movies were prohibited because someone or other told us that someone in authority said so somewhere. I’ve had countless lessons in Sunday School and Priesthood in which teachers and others have claimed that the prophets have always counseled against R-rated movies.

So what makes R-rated movies inherently wrong? Did anyone in the church actually say so? How could a work of art be morally wrong simply by what it’s rated by some third party? I think it would be helpful to first look at a little bit of the history behind R-rated movies and the rating system in general.

A Brief History of Movie Ratings

Starting with silent films and for about fifty years onward, movies were just released to the public without ratings. An entire generation of movie-goers simply relied on reviews, advertising and word-of-mouth to know whether or not a given movie was appropriate for whatever age group. That changed in 1968 when the Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA, began assigning movie ratings. The original categories were G, M, R and X.

G meant open to everyone.

M meant more mature audiences, but still open to everyone.

R meant 15 and under required a parent or guardian

X meant 16 and under not admitted

In 1970 the rating system changed to G, GP, R and X. In 1972 it changed again, and in the eighties it coalesced into what we know today: G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17.

I bring up the history of the rating system to illustrate that the system itself has changed and the meaning of “Rated R” has also changed over the years. It’s changed from when I was a kid. It’s still changing today. For instance, based on what I’ve read I believe the original R rating more closely resembled today’s PG-13 rating. I say this because of the presence of the X rating. 

In the early years of the rating system, X was the strictest rating. Today we associate the X rating with pornography, but there was a time when many non-porno movies were assigned an X rating simply because of their mature subject matter. In this way I feel the old X rating had more in common with today’s R rating. An example of this would be the film Midnight Cowboy starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voigt. It won Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture in 1969. It is considered by many film critics to be one of the greatest American films and is even preserved in the Library of Congress. It is also an X rated film. An X-rated film won Best Picture? Yes it did, but simply because back in 1969 X just meant “movie for grown-ups,” not “porno.” The meanings of ratings change over time. 

Baby holding copy of an X-rated film

So here is a movie with an X rating--a rating that most young people associate with pornography--that would never receive an NC-17 rating in 2012. What does this say about the system if it can just change like that? We treat the rating system as if it’s something etched in stone by the finger of God and we’re supposed to use it judge whether a movie is morally right or wrong to view. But really, that’s not its job. 

The rating system was not created to a judge whether a movie is morally appropriate. It was made to judge what audience it should be for. Is Midnight Cowboy a good movie? Is it a movie that’s worthy of your time? Does it have aesthetically redeeming qualities? Does it say something about life, about America, about humanity? We can’t tell that from the rating. In 1969 it was rated X because it dealt with subjects inappropriate for youth. It’s about a male prostitute, drugs, sexuality and failure. But is it pornographic? Is it dirty? I don’t think there’s even any nudity in it apart from briefly seeing Jon Voigt’s butt, and even that may be just my imagination. I’m sure most young people today would find the movie downright boring.

When Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf premiered, it was considered so scandalous that it was almost banned completely. The entire MPAA rating system was created in part because of this movie. The film was only allowed to be released after some censoring and many warnings being placed on all its advertisements saying “FOR ADULTS ONLY.” Profanity and sexual language was the cause of the uproar. Here are some examples of the questionable dialogue:

“son-of-a-bitch”

"screw you"

"up yours"

"hump the hostess"

These are all phrases and expressions any five-year-old could hear on Big Bang Theory or the evening ABC Family movie. And yet at one time this movie would have been X-rated because of them.

Twelve Times, in Context

I have not done any sort of exhaustive search of every possible mention of R-rated movies in the church archives, but I think it’s fair to keep things to whatever is available on lds.org and in the official church handbooks. I’m not going to count things someone once heard in Stake Conference back in his home ward in Washington. If it’s important, it ought to be readily available to everyone.

So my first big discovery: the church has no official policy on R-rated films. At least, if there is an official policy it’s not listed in any of the church’s official handbooks. I’ve read through them and there’s nothing there. They talk about avoiding inappropriate media but they never specifically mention any film ratings.

There’s also the (in)famous claim that R-rated movies are specifically prohibited in the “For the Strength of Youth” pamphlet. They are not nor have they ever been. This left me with the Conference archives to search.

A cursory search of the phrase “R-rated” or “rated R” in the General Conference archives brings back 12 hits, total. These archives go all the way back to 1971. With two conferences a year since then, that's 82 total General Conferences. So in 40 years of talks, “R-rated” only gets mentioned 12 times? That surprised me, especially considering how often R-rated movies have been discussed in church all of my life. 

To put this in perspective, a quick search of the term “debt” brings back 196 talks. “Pornography” also brings back about 200 talks. The terms “movies” and “films” bring back 230 talks! That’s 230 opportunities to mention R-rated movies, right? But they very rarely do.

So let’s take a look at those 12 mentions. The oldest (and first, I believe) incidence of the term “R-rated” popping up in General Conference is all the way back in 1972. Elder Robert Simpson, a member of the Presiding Bishopric, said:

Elder Robert L. Simpson

"Why not make some effort to find out something about the next movie that will engage your family’s undivided attention for two and a half or three hours and will probably cost you far more than you contributed to the poor and the needy that month? It goes without saying that all X- and R-rated movies are automatically eliminated."

This statement was made four years after the MPAA rating system debuted. On the surface it does appear that a General Authority is indeed forbidding R-rated movies, but I would like to examine it more closely. 

Elder Simpson speaks with the point of view of a parent thoughtfully choosing a film he would want to take his family out to watch. Of course it “goes without saying that all X- and R-rated movies are automatically eliminated” because we’re talking about choosing a movie that’s appropriate for family viewing! He didn’t say that all X- and R-rated movies ought to never be watched, ever. He was just making a common sense statement that you shouldn’t let your kids watch these movies. Maybe you think I’m being nitpicky and “wresting the scriptures” so to speak, but I would argue that context is important here. An entire culture was shaped by statements like this one, so why not examine it closely? This initial announcement from Elder Simpson was made in such an off-hand fashion--and then there’s no more talk about R-rated movies in Conference for many years!

If he were just expressing common sense then obviously it wouldn’t need to be reiterated year after year. But most people in the church would have you believe that Elder Simpson meant it as a proclamation against all R-rated films for all time. Why, then, didn’t more General Authorities talk about it?

Out of the 12 mentions, only one came from a living prophet. President Ezra Taft Benson brought it up during the Priesthood Session of Conference (April 1986). He begins his talk by “[speaking] directly to you young men of the Aaronic Priesthood.

President Ezra Taft Benson

"[Avoid] magazines and books that are obscene and pornographic. We counsel you, young men, not to pollute your minds with such degrading matter, for the mind through which this filth passes is never the same afterwards. Don’t see R-rated movies or vulgar videos or participate in any entertainment that is immoral, suggestive, or pornographic. Don’t listen to music that is degrading."

This is the one and only time a sitting prophet utters the phrase R-rated. Out of the 12 mentions, more than half of them were talks quoting these lines right here. (The rest of the 12 mentions were all stories about young people who either refused to watch or walked out of R-rated movies.)

I’d like to examine President Benson’s quote, though. This is another case in which I would argue for context. First of all, he makes it clear from the beginning that he is speaking “directly” to the young men. Some may argue that if something is told to the youth it ought to apply to the adults, too. But there are many instances in which we protect the children and youth from the grimness of the world because we know they are not yet mature enough to process it. We shield children from the harsh realities of life and death and sexuality. It’s what makes children children. We withhold many things from young people like the right to vote or to drive, simply based on their maturity. There are many books I enjoy as an adult but that I would not feel appropriate for children or teenagers. So I think it’s important to note that this command was issued specifically to the Aaronic Priesthood.

Secondly, President Benson associates R-rated movies with entertainment that is “vulgar,” “immoral, suggestive” and “pornographic.” By 1986 the term “R-rated” had evolved into shorthand for “vulgar movie.” I believe he was trying to express to young men to avoid dirty movies and otherwise immoral media. This was his goal. Does that mean that every single movie that is rated R is immoral, suggestive and pornographic? How does that make sense?

What if the Joseph Smith movie they play at Temple Square received an R rating from the MPAA? Would it suddenly become immoral, suggestive and pornographic? What if Finding Nemo were suddenly re-rated R from the MPAA? Would it become immoral? Obviously not. So the question I want to ask people is: after reading that passage by President Benson, do you feel that his point was to urge young people to not watch immoral or pornographic films, or do you feel his point was to urge all members to start judging the appropriateness of films simply based on their MPAA rating?


I personally believe that that talk had some of the longest-lasting unintended consequences in LDS culture, and that the church has been trying to fix the damage done ever since. This is why, for almost thirty years, the prophets have always, ALWAYS spoken in generalities when it comes to movie--instead of forbidding any certain rating. Again and again they have expressed that we need to choose art wisely on a case-by-case basis and not let others make that choice for us. But most people around here don't buy that.

Freedom of Choice

British Rating System

The MPAA is a man-made committee run democratically and devoid of any divine revelation on what movies ought to be rated. The people on this committee do not hold the same values as Latter-day Saints. So why are we allowing them to decide what is and what is not acceptable for our viewing?

The MPAA decides that the F-word is okay to say once, maybe twice in a PG-13 film. So that’s okay for everyone. But say it THREE times and then it’s R, and that’s definitely NOT okay. (What if the film is about a man with Tourette’s syndrome, as in the case of The King’s Speech?) See, this is the problem with the rating system. The MPAA has no interest in context. It simply observes things happening in a movie and assigns it a letter.

It is also common knowledge in the film industry that many directors will film unnecessary scenes with gratuitous sex or gore only so they can cut them out later in order to make the MPAA think that they are “trying to work with them.” Because the MPAA is much more willing to award the coveted PG-13 rating to a movie that has at least tried to tone itself down as opposed to a movie that argues with it and refuses to cut anything. Think about the implications of that one.

Canadian Rating System

Then there’s the fact that the MPAA is a purely American institution! Other countries have rating systems but we are the only ones that even have these ratings! The letter R here does not mean the same thing in the rating systems of other countries! Oftentimes movies that are rated R here are rated with lower ratings elsewhere, and vice-versa. What does this mean theologically? If I watch The Matrix in Idaho I am, in the minds of some, committing a sin because I went against the direct words of a prophet. However, if I were to watch The Matrix in Canada then I would no longer be sinning because it is not rated R there. It’s not even rated 18-A, Canada’s equivalent to R. It’s rated 14-A, Canada’s equivalent to PG-13. So are Canadian Latter-day Saints not sinning for watching the exact same movie as me? Will God punish me but not them? Did God make Christ suffer in the Garden of Gethsemane for me watching a film based on the rating of some committee in Hollywood?

And then what happens when movie ratings are inexplicably changed? Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho was shown in BYU-Idaho’s film class for over thirty years. It was made in 1960 and therefore not rated. Then in the late nineties it was re-released on DVD and got an R rating. My film teacher told us that he was ordered to not show it anymore. Had they been sinning all those years? I have a VHS copy of the Nicolas Cage movie Valley Girl from 1983. It clearly states on the box that it’s rated PG. There’s sex and swearing in it, though! The DVD copy of the same movie says it’s rated R. Did I accidentally sin? But then take a look at a movie like Titanic! It’s rated PG-13, even though there’s full-frontal nudity followed by a graphic sex scene! Which one is a sin and which one isn’t?! WON’T SOMEBODY TELL ME?!

German Rating System

Caveat

I want to state right now that I understand that many R-rated movies are trash. I’ve seen a LOT of movies in my life. I know what’s out there. Much of it is garbage. Many R-rated movies are pornographic. But I will also say that many PG-13 movies are also trash and also pornographic. And there are plenty of PG movies which, while not pornographic, are definitely garbage devoid of any artistic or cultural merit. 

I feel it would be infinitely better for the world if more people spent their time reading books rather than watching screens. I know that if given the choice, though, most people would rather do something passive like watch a screen. But if they're going to watch a screen, why not watch something worth watching? This is where my problem with R-rated forbidders really originates.

Because they:

1. Pretend that their choice is based on church doctrine, when such a doctrine doesn’t exist

2. Try to get others to not watch R-rated movies or insinuate that others are doing something wrong by watching them

3. Happily watch any piece of excrement with the PG-13 label slapped on it, giggling at the poop jokes all the way, never once stopping to question whether or not it’s good or bad, right or wrong.

For some reason it's the people who are the most adamant about not watching R-rated movies that will turn around and watch the most excrement. THAT'S my problem. Because I'm an artist and I like to fill my life with good art. Maybe to other people art isn't very important. They can spend their lives 4-wheeling, avoiding books and watching sports. Fine. But filling your mind with reality television, football games, High School Musical, Glee, Hannah Montana, Dancing With the Stars, etc. is way WAY more damaging than my copy of The Life Aquatic will ever be.

The Heart of the Matter

What SHOULD we watch? It's human nature to crave guidelines and structure in life. This is especially true of Mormon culture. We like having clear limits to what we should and shouldn't do. It makes life a little more stable. Unfortunately some of us crave that same black and white structure when it comes to art, and as a result these people end up stalwartly never watching an R-rated movie but then spending countless hours watching everything else. This is not in keeping with the spirit of the gospel. It's the mindset of the Jews of Jesus' time, where they craved rules upon rules and to have laws for every little thing. It's a lower form of religion, but it's easier than having to think for ourselves. 

We are commanded: "seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith." We have been admonished countless times throughout the years to seek out art that will uplift and enlighten us, not degrade. R-rated movies have been mentioned as examples, but seeking out the good and avoiding the pornographic has been brought up in every single Conference since at least 1971. The prophet Joseph Smith summed it up nicely as he quoted Paul in the 13^th Article of Faith: 

“If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”

The following are all non-R-rated movies released in the past year. Which one of the following movies would you consider “virtuous,” “lovely” “of good report” or “praiseworthy”?

The Smurfs

Apollo 18

Prom

Abduction

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

New Year’s Eve

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Just Go With It

Shark Night 3D

Green Lantern

Twilight: Breaking Dawn

Mars Needs Moms

Season of the Witch

Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son

The Zookeeper

The Roommate

We Bought A Zoo

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

Jack and Jill

I’m going to go ahead and answer for you. None of them. In fact, all of these movies are the opposites of what we are to seek after. They are not lovely, they are ugly--they are not virtuous, they're dishonorable--nobody makes good reports of any of them--and they are not deserving of any praise. In fact they were all heavily criticized. These films dull the senses, stupify the mind, and desensitize the spirit. And yet I would be willing to bet that there are more people in Rexburg that have seen all of the movies on that list than there are people who have ever watched The Constant Gardner or The Fall or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

It’s very instructive to notice that the Article of Faith does NOT state that we ought to seek after things that are virtuous AND lovely AND of good report AND praiseworthy. It clearly uses the word “OR” and that’s very important. There is art that can be of good report but not necessarily lovely or even virtuous. There is art that can be praiseworthy without being lovely or virtuous. I’ll use Saving Private Ryan as my example here, but many other films will work in its place (The Godfather, The Green Mile, A Simple Plan, The Hurt Locker, Braveheart, Ran, Brazil, Black Hawk Down, The Shawshank Redemption, The Royal Tenenbaums, etc.).

Saving Private Ryan is a film about World War II. I watched it with my father in the theater when I was fifteen or sixteen. I had grown up watching old World War II movies, and so nothing prepared me for what I was about to witness on the screen that night. The first segment of the film is taken up by a massive battle in which the American troops storm the beaches of Normandy. There is nothing but chaos and mayhem and death all around—a hell on earth. The entire film is taken up with the hellishness and brutality of war, but it also contains moments of transcendence in which men band together to help one another. Everyone in that theater wept at some point or another throughout that film. It was a statement on the ultimate sacrifice that so many men gave during the war in order to save their fellow man. Yes, it contained gore and yes it was violent. It was definitely rated R. But was it an immoral film? Was it something that we ought to avoid ever watching?

Perhaps if you feel it would be too much for you, then yes. But as I walked out of the theater that night I remember saying to my father that I felt every single person in America should have to watch that film. That way they could understand what the war was really like.

I would not characterize the film as lovely. Virtuous in its own way, but not lovely. It was very ugly. It definitely is praiseworthy, however. And it definitely is of good report. It is critically acclaimed as one of the best, if not THE best war film ever made.

Some people will argue that even so, the film is too violent and that’s why we need to avoid it. But what is the nature of its violence? And is there something sinful about witnessing violence? Saving Private Ryan does NOT enjoy violence. It is not happy about death. It in no way makes violence look fun or exciting. 

“Ah,” you might say, “But neither do the SAW movies! So is it okay to watch violent films as long as they don’t make it look fun?”

No, because the SAW movies are all about exploiting the suffering of human beings to make for mass entertainment. Saving Private Ryan sensitizes the viewer towards violence, rather than DE-sensitizing. It makes the viewer more sensitive about the sanctity of human life and the awfulness of war. The same cannot be said about the SAW movies, which leave the viewer numb and disgusted. 

There is also an element of voyeurism in SAW and in most horror films. They are created simply to shock and disgust. They are not art in any real sense. They don’t enlighten, they have nothing to say about humankind. They degrade and debase. They do not uplift. They have nothing to contribute. Saving Private Ryan is a violent film that ultimately has something to say.

You see, violence itself is not inherently sinful. When we watched the terrorist attacks of 9/11, we were not sinning. When a soldier fights in a war and watches other people die all around him, he is not sinning. When the apostles witnessed Jesus being scourged and crucified, they were not sinning. In fact, the film The Passion of the Christ was rated R, and it depicted events that we talk about all the time at church. In the Book of Mormon we read that Nephi was shown a vision of Jesus Christ and his scourging and and crucifixion. It's almost as if Nephi got to see a movie of the events of Christ's life. Was Nephi sinning in viewing such? I doubt it. But some people will argue that watching actors dress up as Jesus and pretending to be scourged, THAT'S a sin. Because a committee rated The Passion of the Christ as R. So watching a replay of the real thing is fine for Nephi and the prophets, not okay for regular folks. Sex and sexuality fall into this same category. For the most part I think we can all agree that gratuitous depictions of sex are not appropriate, but does that mean it's wrong to even IMPLY sex? Because the scriptures, although not graphic, tend to be very frank about sex. He lied with her. She lied with him. They were married and lay together. She had not yet known a man. That kind of thing. So while I  don't believe that pornography can be art--there is still a place for sexuality in art. There are no topics that are off-limits for art. Sex, adultery, murder, cheating, lying, stealing, betrayal. These are just elements of the fallen world in which we live. The scriptures are chock full of them. Art just tries to make sense of them.


A tried and true argument is that  we just shouldn't be exposing ourselves to bad things like violence because it's not "uplifting" and there's already enough bad stuff in the world, so why watch things that are bad? 

Every man, woman and child on Alderaan being exploded

It's a B.S. argument because these same people will then turn around and gleefully watch Star Wars, a film series that includes people being killed by the truckload, torture, an entire planet of people being murdered at once, electrocution, maiming, little furry creatures being killed and several decapitations. So why is violence okay in this case? Because Star Wars is rated PG, of course!! 


You know, in their own way these people prove that art CAN contain horrible things and still be worthwhile. 


The ironic thing is that the death and destruction in Star Wars is not only entertaining, it seems quite exciting! This is typically the case with PG and PG-13 movies. They make death and killing look like loads of good fun. It’s ironic because movies like Saving Private Ryan get rated R when they attempt to show killing and death in a very unglamorous way, which is perfectly aligned with gospel principals, but then most Mormons will only watch PG-13 movies which almost always glamorize violence. Again, the point of the rating system is to say to the world, “Hey, Saving Private Ryan is not for kids. We’d like to shield them from watching something so brutal. Have them watch Star Wars instead.” Perhaps this is one of the reasons why, as a culture, us Mormons tend to act like children well into our thirties.

"It's a Classic."

When I was serving my mission in New York City we were allowed to go and watch Broadway shows on our preparation day as long as they were on the list of mission-approved shows. I still remember an anecdote about Elder Neal A. Maxwell that got brought up from time to time. I don’t know if this story is true or not, but I have no real reason to doubt that it is. Elder Maxwell was visiting the mission and speaking with the mission president. He asked to see the list of approved Broadway shows. Les Miserables was absent from the list, probably due to the fact that there is a song about brothels in the show. As the story goes, Elder Maxwell told the Assistants to the President: “Les Miserables ought to be on the list. It’s a classic.” There was no further discussion on the matter. From that time forward, it was allowed.

My point is that often times great art will include things that we would not necessarily approve of on their own. Les Miserables has a brothel, but if anything it’s just showing how horrible brothels are. It’s not even about brothels, though. It’s a beautiful story about redemption and family. I will never forget watching the show with my father on Broadway, and how he had tears in his eyes at the end of it. I didn’t fully understand then, but I think I do now. I think Elder Maxwell understood it, too.

When I look at the General Authorities and all of the modern prophets, I think of them as learned men. Wise men. These are men who are well-read, and who are familiar with the great works of literature. But are you telling me they have chosen not to read Shakespeare or Sophocles or Dante or Milton because these authors all wrote stories about murder and adultery and other horrible sins? That is just silly. I think it was Orson Scott Card who wrote, “The depiction of bad behavior is not the endorsement of bad behavior.” Have we forgotten that The Book of Mormon includes the decapitation of a defenseless person who is passed out drunk right in the first few chapters? You can’t simply judge a work of art by the things depicted in it. It is so much more than that. Movies are included in this. 


Elder L. Tom Perry once said:

“We do not need man-made rating systems to determine what we should read, what we should watch, what we should listen to, or how we should conduct our lives. What we do need to do is live worthy of the continued companionship of the Holy Ghost and have the courage to follow the promptings that come into our lives.”

Amen. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch Blade Runner.