My oldest daughter is 8-1/2. She watches PBS cartoons and a few others my wife and I haven’t censored. She’s enjoyed only a handful of full-length movies – with us, not too scary, and mostly G-rated. We didn’t finish Open Season because the characters were mean and crude. We skipped the dragon scene in Enchanted, and she hardly knows the ubiquitous Hannah Montana.
Call us overprotective, but we cherish her youthful innocence. Besides, how much adult content can and should an 8-1/2 year old consume anyway? I’m not saying she wouldn’t watch something unfitting if it played in front of her – it’s just that we don’t want her to.
Unfiltered
When I was eight and nine and ten, I hung out with Brian who bounced from Dysfunctional Mom to Alcoholic Dad week after week. Brian preferred the latter, mostly because his father fed him a steady stream of toys, junk food and HBO. On the occasions when I spent the night, Brian’s dad would go out drinking while an older, pot-smoking step-brother kept an eye on us. I’m not sure what “kept an eye on us” was supposed to mean, but he let us do what we wanted and filtered nothing when it came to movies.
Oh the stuff we watched till three and four o’clock in those mornings. Explicit language, nudity, violence – I saw and heard it all. My mom protected us at home and held the same kind of media vigil I hold on my kids today. But she didn’t know what I did at Brian’s house. And I didn’t tell her. I didn’t tell her because I wanted to go back for more.
Eventually, however, I saw a movie that shook me. It terrified me. It kept me awake that night and many nights afterward, and haunted me for years to come. Can you guess what it was?
Roger Ebert described it as containing “brutal shocks, almost indescribable obscenities. That it received an R rating and not the X is stupefying.” He wondered what could motivate people to sit through such a “raw and painful experience.”
I didn’t just feel guilty for hiding The Exorcist behind mom’s back. No, as a Pentecostal adolescent, I knew I had gotten too close to the devil. I was 12 before I confessed (in tears of relief) for what I did.
Why don’t we look away?
I could ask you about our high calling as movie-goers, the high calling of movie-makers, the media responsibility of parents, or the cultural meaning of The Exorcist – and I welcome your comments on any of these – but I want to start with a simple, yet perplexing, question: Why don’t we look away?
Why did I watch every second of that “raw and painful experience”? Why can’t I leave it up to my 8-1/2 year old to turn off a frightening program, or to look away from a CSI commercial? Why did a group of college women from my friend’s Sunday School class have a PJ party to watch Saw? What is it about horror and terror and evil that attracts us and then won’t let us look away?
P.S. Tell us what early movie you couldn’t look away from but wish you had.
Post and image by Sam Van Eman of New Breed of Advertisers.
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Tune in next Friday for L.L. Barkat’s Random Acts of Poetry. Here’s her Poetry Prompt:
Last night at our poem party, we tackled the challenge “In Conversation,” responding to a series of prompts taken from conversations, tweeted or otherwise. Try writing a poem that uses an overheard conversation as a starting (or ending) place. If you like, check out our series of prompts. You might even get to write about Zombie Girl. That, or lecturing on modern art in nursing homes. Drop your post link in my comment box by Thursday evening, December 10, for a link and possible feature. Can’t wait to hear (or overhear!) your poems In Conversation.
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I’m not much of one for scary movies. But I AM one for grief.
Why don’t I look away from sadness?
Because staring at grief somehow seems to both connect me to it and detach me from it. Both dynamics are necessary in my psyche, for dealing with my personal griefs.
I’d guess that the same is true for those who won’t look away from fear.
I am sure its because we are sinful…our flesh loves sin; and that is why we are called to mortify our flesh.
And if God has not made a change of heart in us…we don’t look away because we simply can’t. We are slaves to sin.
Abiding in Him,
Becky
Such a great point! Why *don’t* we look away? I don’t choose to watch scary movies, but even so enough violence and horror from TV etc. have embedded themselves in my mind over the years that there are plenty of terrifying images there, just waiting to leap out when fear gets the best of me. The images of victims of terrible tragedy and bizarre accidents conveniently shed their original characters to take on the form of my friends and family when somebody’s late getting home.
I wonder if people worried less before the invention of film, or if they just worried….differently?
As for a movie I wish I’d never watched…well, I can’t think of a movie but I do wish I’d never read The Stand. Steven King and I do not mix well.
And thanks, Sam, for linking to my monsters post! I’m happy to say that Youngest seems to have fully recovered from the experience, although it’s taken me a little longer ;o)
Erica, isn’t that funny. I’m no King fan, but I loved ‘The Stand.’ One person’s fear is another person’s fascination (and for me, King is rather philosophical and even redemptive).
From ancient days people told stories. This is what captivates humans, and tells us who we are. Often, these stories included violence, sex, and taboo. Look at the Greek myths. Read the Old Testament. We don’t look away because we are wired to listen, and learn. And now, watch. It just so happens our technology allows us to translate those stories into images instead of words. Sure, sometimes we can just go down a bad road and do it for purely sinful reasons, but more often than not, I think it’s just part of the human experience.
Of course we should protect our young children from inappropriate material, but at the same time, I personally did not want my children to be completely sheltered from the society and culture that their peers were all living in. What’s the big deal? I am very careful about judging what another person should or should not see, or let their children see, because it can get downright ridiculous (not allowing Harry Potter, but allowing Narnia). Within reason, of course. I personally do not like horror movies or running foul language, but I do enjoy a good story, even with some sordid, scandalous, scary parts.
This issue gets harder as boys get older. My teenaged son recently watched what he now considers his favorite movie — “Braveheart.” You couldn’t pay me to see it, even though many Christian men I know say it’s the best movie ever made.
I think that I am very much with Bradley on this one. I have a boy who is almost seven now, and I pray over him every day that he be ‘not removed from the world, but protected from the evil one.’
I agree that there is value in the story, and we are naturally drawn to stories (as LL said) not only to relate, but also to detach.
Of course I will not let my son watch something that I do not think that he is ready to handle, so I handle that stuff on a case by case basis. I also try to teach him discernment, and he repeatedly seen him make the right choices on his own.
The movie that I now wish I didn’t watch as a kids was Porky’s… I know… not a horror flick, but…
BTW… I also LOVED Braveheart!
When my sister-in-law found out I had never seen it, she became determined that I would watch the Exorcist. I was well into my thirties and didn’t make it past the first ten minutes. These movies that play with evil have always been easy for me to turn away from. They just strike a terrible dread in my heart.
As for my sister-in-law…I have always found her fascination with these demon/evil spirits/horror films interesting. She does not believe in God. Yet she seeks out the unnatural…is drawn to the unexplained. I think maybe that’s part of what keeps us from looking away…we are waiting to understand. Unfortunately, this world has a lot of mystery in it; so mostly we are left standing, mouth agape, wondering how in the world we ended up here.
When I was twelve, a parent (who shall remain unnamed) and the new significan other took me and my three siblings and the significant other’s three daughters to see one of these ripper thrillers. I’ll never forget it. We had led a very sheltered life until my parents’ divorce and subsequent dating life. There were naked people running around being decapitated everywhere. My heart pounds even now, remembering. It was traumatic. It blows my mind when I think of a parent sitting beside a row of children, watching such trash.
But that’s another story; a lifetime ago.
The movie was called Beyond the Fog.
Good feedback, folks. It seems as though a few distinctions have come up. First, as LL, Megan and Dan mentioned, it’s a “case by case basis.” In other words, your kryptonite may not be mine.
I see a second distinction where Becky calls it a sin but Brad says it’s just part of the human experience – something to learn from. That means – to keep the metaphor going – kryptonite has a range of value, from deadly to beneficial (Oh, if Superman could only have found this latter version!). I think I see value in both of Becky and Brad’s positions. Hmm, back to case by case?
A third distinction is around how we parent in relation to kryptonite movies. At the extremes, we either err on over-protection (I fear that I’m doing this) or filterless abandon. Too much sheltering can lead to rebellious consumption of the evils tabooed in the first place; too little and you get what Laura and I got.
So I ask myself, “What do I do with my 8-1/2 year old?”
Erica, I’m glad your youngest has recovered.
Agreed Sam, that as with so many things, balance is key for me, for our family.
There was a certain irony in my childhood , where I was not allowed to watch many movies ,Rosemary’s Baby for example, but often lived a scary and unpredictable life of it’s own darkness.
It is an area where I usually defer to my husband, who feels the same as Bradley. I do on an intellectual level, but am still disturbed by most of it. Years ago, I was on the committee that organized our high school visit by one of those entertainers who used hypnosis to get teens to act silly or say out of character things, and at the last second I ended up sitting in the student council office by myself as I couldn’t go in the gym.
I am with L.L., in that I am more apt to be drawn to grief. Which can leave it’s own toxic mark. Btw. Braveheart was amazing. There is somehow a difference in what bothers me and I can’t explain it.
Okay , now I’m upset because I suddenly remember watching some of Clockwork Orange with friends in University. Things that are too real are far more upsetting than gratuitous violence .
Thanks for the insights, deb. Interestingly, while my list of must-watch movies continues to grow, my actual willingness to watch some of them has decreased with age. My mom has said, “They affect me in ways they didn’t it when I was younger.”
Am I on my way to a strict diet of BBC sit-coms, nature specials and Frazier re-runs?
When I heard comparisons to Ridley Scott’s “Alien,” I had to see the movie “The Descent.” And…quickly wished I hadn’t.
The artist Paul Klee once wrote that the worse off a culture is, the more abstract its art will be (and vice versa). I’m not one for “the culture war,” but it seems to me that Klee’s words apply to modern film, particularly the horror genre, where no longer is it a conflict of good and evil (where no matter how many times you cover your eyes during the film, you can still expect the “good guys” to win), but a brutal mashup of gratuitous violence (all the worse when movies like The Descent or Hostel II intentionally commit this violence against women).
Stephen King said we are drawn to such tales because we are fascinated by it, and as far as movie villains go, we love “to try on his face in secret.” (is it any wonder audiences connected with the title character of Sweeney Todd?)
It definitely demands discernment. It means knowing the difference between the way the Bible artfully portrays a less-than-wholesome collection of stories, and the frivolity of modern cinema. And it also means acknowledging our own depravity, reflected with painful accuracy in Hollywood’s mirror.
Thanks for tuning in, Chris. I like your point about the Bible’s portrayal of dark content versus that of the modern cinema. Even in obscure, violent Old Testament passages, one can’t help but remember that they are part of something larger, something redemptive.
I wonder if the fact that we’re generally hope-oriented beings will keep (most of) the frivolous and gratuitous at bay. At least, I hope so.
Totally late on this post, but have to add that for me it was Poltergeist. Saw it at a b-day party when I was little and had the worst nightmares that poltergeist happened in my own backyard. So bad that I would get in trouble b/c I refused to go out and feed my rabbits in the backyard after dark. I have not watched a scary movie since.
I always look away. Even the audio of a scary movie commercial freaks me out!
Michele, I also watched Poltergeist at Brian’s house.
Speaking of commercials, sometimes I wonder how scary sounds would affect us if it weren’t for their association with scary content. I mean, outside of screaming, what makes a certain instrument or voice-over eerie or creepy?