Recently, blogger and author, Tim Challies, wrote a blog titled, "Television's Rape Epidemic" that challenged readers to consider the growing proliferation of sexual violence in hit television shows. Challies writes, "Sometimes...rape is shown explicitly or psuedo-explicitly, while other times it is recounted as a past event. But either way, this much is clear: Television has never been crueler to women than it is right now." Anticipating the rebuttal that the Bible contains many accounts of rape (Genesis 34, Judges 19, and 2 Sam. 13 to name a few), Challies writes:
Within the great drama of Scripture, Tamar’s story serves not to entertain, but to inform and reform. It is sin told sinlessly. It avoids being salacious and being explicit. It displays the far-reaching consequences of David’s sin, it highlights the sickening idolatry of mankind, it explains some of the battles that will soon come. Best of all, it calls the reader to cry out for a Savior, another Son of David, who can fully and finally put an end to such horrors. It is a far cry from rape as a shocking plot twist meant to generate buzz, rape as character development when all else has failed, rape as the explanation for vengeance.Challies ends his blog with these questions: If Christians won’t allow explicit scenes of sexual violence to keep them from watching television shows, what will? If scenes of rape are not over the edge, what is? If we won’t draw the line there, will we draw it anywhere? (the link to the blog is here).
I also saw a recent blog by Tony Reinke that provides an edited transcript of John Piper's recent episode "Should Christians Watch 'Game of Thrones?'" wherein Piper provides 12 biblical reasons why Christians should not watch the HBO hit series (the link to the blog is here).
Both articles are deeply thought provoking and reminded me of a conversation I found myself in the midst of at work concerning a very similar premises concerning the movie "The Wolf of Wall Street." One of my co-workers (an avid movie-goer) was expressing their great disappointment and disgust of the Martin Scorsese film that contains several scenes of graphic nudity. My coworker felt that the film terribly overstepped the boundaries of morality and tried to disguise it as an acceptable form of art. One of my other co-workers was arguing on Scorsese's artistic behalf that the film, although deeply disturbing and immoral, served as a means of communicating and exposing the atrocities of humanity and our sinful nature. Both of my co-workers left the conversation unpersuaded by each other's argumentation, and I cannot help but feel like I witnessed a microscopic skirmish of a greater (dare I say it) culture war taking place in the midst of the church today.
These are the kinds of battles that have been and will continue to be waged in the broader war taking place within Christendom as postmodernism continues to creep in and persuade Christians away from black and white morality and into the grey fray. Morality, more and more, is judged by artistic license more than by the Word of God within the church, and more and more Christians are excusing the immorality portrayed in movies, television shows, video games, and other forms of media as an artistic expression meant to reveal and communicate social problems that exist around us as opposed to graphic displays of immorality and sinfulness meant for entertainment purposes.
A couple of years ago, the opportunity to watch Schindler's List presented itself and I took it. I was in my early twenties, I was alone, and I was deeply engrossed in a self-proclaimed film studies. I had heard all the hype behind the movie, and I wanted to see what all of the hype was about. I found the film deeply disturbing as I watched the shameless cruelty of men who thought themselves to be gods as they inflicted gross forms of physical and emotional torture to fellow image bearers that they saw as nothing more than viruses needing to be exterminated.
The movie was not entertaining, and after it was over, I knew that the film was never made as a form of entertainment. Rather, it was made as a visual representation of an atrocity that we all read about in our history books but never really contemplated how disgusting the atrocity truly was because our comprehension of the sinfulness of the evil of the Holocaust was marred by our immaturity and adolescence in American high schools (unexposed to pain and suffering in suburbia). The Holocaust never really seemed real until after I saw Schindler's List, and I think that's why the movie was made. It made money, yes. People probably did go to see it to be entertained at first, but they most likely left the theater in tears. The movie was never produced to entertain, but to expose a culture that doesn't really know the meaning of cruelty, evil, and sin to the atrocities that, sadly, are still taking place around the world today. The film was made at a time when many American's were unaware of the genocide taking place in Africa, and it opened a lot of eyes and hearts that were shut and closed to the historical repeat taking place on the other side of the world without them even knowing it.
A couple of months ago, the opportunity to watch 12 Years a Slave presented itself and I took it as well. Again, I watched the film by myself and I only watched it because I wanted to see what all the hype was about. After all, this film was awarded "best picture" of the year. This was a decision I quickly regretted making.
Unlike Schindler's List, this film tried too hard to be another Schindler's List by overexposing a far more outdated atrocity in modern history, dig up buried hatchets, and reveal slavery in a "new" light to American movie-goers. When Schindler's List came out, there had never been another film like it about the Holocaust. However, 12 Years a Slave tries to portray the American slave-trade in a new light despite a long history of phenomenal films that have already broken that ground. I left the movie unentertained and unenlightened. The film had no redeeming value, in my opinion. It displayed immense cruelty upon human beings, and the only "moral" characters in the film were the slave owning, Bible-thumping men and women whipping, raping, and killing their human property in the name of God. Although the main character was supposed to be portrayed as the most moral character in the film, his moral compass points to the sheer act of survival (quite Darwinian) by whatever means possible more often than not.
If I take a step back, however, there's not much difference between Schindler's List and 12 Years a Slave. Both films portray some of the greatest sinful atrocities in the history of mankind by a medium that is most popularly used for entertainment purposes. Somehow Schindler's List left a far more positive impression with me than 12 Years a Slave, but both films equally portray human nature at its worst by means of paid actors, elaborate sets, and simulated recreations of all-too-real events.
So, Challies' questions struck a nerve with me. Where do we draw the line? When do we know that a medium has crossed the moral line in the name of entertainment?
I can certainly see where Challies is coming from, and I agree with him far more than I disagree with him. My greatest contention with him is that his article implies that all tv shows and movies are created for entertainment purposes. Certainly, the shows that he lists in his blog are meant for entertainment purposes, but television shows and movies are starting to progress more and more out of the realm of entertainment and into the realm of education. Since my wife and I have gotten Netflix, I have been immersed in a new world of film called documentaries. I was first exposed to documentaries in high school with Super Size Me and Bowling for Columbine, but documentaries have come a long way since my high school days. Netflix has several documentary films to choose from, and although some of them have entertaining facets, they are meant to expose, enlighten, and reveal more than entertain.
The problem is that since the advent of documentaries, more and more tv shows and films are incorporating documentary-like styles. More and more films are being made as commentaries on contemporary or past culture, and they are disguised as entertaining movies. They're not documentaries because they are not produced with any journalistic finesse, but they seek to serve the same purpose as a documentary. They portray themselves as entertaining films, but the viewer leaves the theater (or couch) feeling like they have just been exposed to some form of subliminal messaging or propaganda.
The problem with this style of film-making is that it is effectually greying the moral line between right and wrong, and many Christians are falling for it (to include myself). 12 Years a Slave is such a film. I put the DVD back into it's case, and couldn't help but think that I just watched a movie that was more about the intolerance of some in our culture against homosexuality (perhaps those nasty Christians who owned slaves) than a film about the horrendous abuse of slaves across America in the 18th and 19th centuries. The message behind the film wasn't "Slavery is really really bad," because such a message wouldn't resonate with our contemporary culture that is starting to show progress in the racial equality realm (despite a constant barrage of counterproductive propaganda engines like the NAACP, ghetto rap music, and films like 12 Years a Slave).
12 Years a Slave was an artistic expression made by Steve McQueen, and I couldn't help but think that I had just been duped into watching a film with a subliminal message that had nothing to do with the atrocities of slavery. Worse yet, this film utilized nudity to cover up the jedi-mind-trick taking place. I was supposed to believe that the nudity in the film was adding legitimacy and realism to the story, but it didn't and I didn't fall for it. I do not know why filmmakers feel like a terrible action is portrayed as even more terrible when the person inflicted is nude. Terrible things do happen to people when they're not clothed, but why the persistence in film and television to show it graphically and explicitly? You want to know why? The travesty enlightens (documentary side) and the nudity (entertainment side) sells tickets. That's why.
Challies is surprised by the growing amount of sexual violence portrayed in television and film, and I do find it surprising that more and more Christians are growing accepting of watching shows with nudity, sexuality, and even sexual violence. However, I am not surprised by the increase of films and movies displaying sexual violence graphically in their plot lines. In fact, I am surprised that Challies, who is one of the leaders in the anti-pornography front in the church, is surprised that sexual violence is growing more and more acceptable in our culture and even within the church. As sexual violence portrayed in pornography becomes more and more mainstream and more and more acceptable and accessible by our culture, it should be of no surprise that our moral filter in what is entertaining in television shows and movies is growing more and more penetrable.
Where I disagree the most with Challies is in his interpretation of this phenomenon. Movies and television shows do not create culture, but rather, they reflect the culture that creates them. Television and films are artistic expressions of human beings with certain worldviews, philosophical ideas, and theologies. Immoral films do not make people immoral, but rather, immoral people make immoral films.
More and more filmmakers who have a warped and perverted view of sex are making films that portray warped and perverted plot lines engrossed with sex, and a pornographic savvy culture is all too happy to embrace these filmmakers' "artistic expression."
As I have stressed over and over in my blogs, the problem with this society is not the supply of sexual immorality, but rather, it is the growing demand. The problem is not that more and more television shows and movies are placing sexual immorality on a pedestal, but rather, the problem is that more and more people in this world have no qualms with those who do so.
Rape and sexual violence have been in movies for a while. I grew up watching films made in Hollywood's "Golden Years," and I remember several films with sexual violence in them. They weren't graphic and explicit like they are today, but the movies included sexual violence in the plot line. My dad would rush to turn the film off, apologize that he didn't remember that was in the film, ask for our forgiveness, and then pick something more palatable to watch as a family.
Back when these movies were made, however, there was a lot of push-back from people who went to the movies unawares that such content was in the film they paid to see. Believe it or not, there once was a time when people would walk out of a movie theater and demand their money back when the film contained sexually suggestive and violent material. Those days are long gone, and I don't think it is because ticket prices are so high and more and more cinemas have a no-money-back policy.
I'm ashamed of the number of times when a movie or tv show has been recommended by a Christian friend of mine and I look up the parental guide on IMDB and see that it contains nudity, terrible language, and graphic violence. I'm ashamed of the number of Christian friends that cannot wait for the next episode of Game of Thrones to come out. I'm ashamed of the number of professing brothers that rushed to purchase the latest release in the Grand Theft Auto video game series. I'm ashamed that I am guilty of making similar bad "entertainment" choices, and I am ashamed that I will probably make others in the future against my better judgment because I want to keep up with our culture (when in fact, I need to do the exact opposite).
Despite my disagreement with Tim Challie's interpretation of the growing phenomenon of the prevalence of rape and graphic sexual material in films and tv shows today, I could not agree more with his and Piper's challenge to the members of Christ's body. Why are we watching this filth? What do we stand to gain from it? What do we risk losing by watching it? Has Hollywood duped us into believing that we are watching a film for enlightenment while they subliminally fill our minds with propaganda and further jade us to the sinfulness of sexual immorality? We all know rape is bad, so how will a movie or show further enlighten us to its atrocities by simulating it in a film or show that's meant to make us think? Why are we watching shows or films wherein rape is used merely to make a bad guy more sinister or make a good girl more damaged?
There's nothing entertaining about rape, and the only reason rape is more and more popular in our entertainment is because we are less and less sensitive to recognizing the sins before us as sin (simulated or not). Murder in movies is simulated. No one really died, and no one really murdered anyone. The whole things is synthetic, no matter how realistic it may appear. Rape in movies is simulated. Although no one really got raped in the scene, sexual immorality was not simulated and you just embraced it because you have concluded that nudity in film and tv is just "movie-magic." Guess what? It's not. That's real nudity, real pornography, and real sexual immorality before your eyes. There is a fine line, and more and more Christians cannot even recognize when that line gets crossed. That's shameful.
