Ah, jeez. One of those.
She was definitely not prepared to get an earful, but come on, she'd called to solicit my complaints about the entertainment industry, and I'm in the entertainment industry. With very strong feelings about a particular subject.
The woman was with something called the Dove Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of "family-friendly" entertainment. Their website says:
Our standards and criteria are based on Judeo/Christian values, free from the pressure of commercial interests. We believe in a positive approach of commending high-quality, wholesome movies rather than condemning filmmakers for not meeting those standards.
But of course that's exactly what they're doing. There's language all over their site condemning filmmakers, in that sweetly passive-aggressive tone that these people should get patented. "Moms and dads are concerned about the gratuitous sex, violence and anti-family values that their children are exposed to," they say, and "For years we have watched the morals and attitudes of the entertainment industry slowly creep into our society." They refer to the "increasingly salacious" content of most contemporary entertainment; and there are prominent links to the FamilySafeDVD site, which offers edited versions of mainstream movies--edited versions that were not created by the creators but chopped up by oh-so concerned busybodies with no right to do so. The Dove Foundation's website offers links to an edited version of Finding Neverland
, and this one in particular boggles the mind: what on earth can there be to edit out of Finding Neverland? The woman was completely surprised when, in answer to her question, I flatly said "Nope." She should be thankful that I didn't continue with the thought, because in truth I feel the MPAA's restrictions are too stringent. Quite aside from their sheer arbitrariness (see the documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated
for the whole absurd story), I'm just not a big fan of self-censorship, which is exactly what the MPAA is. It was created by the entertainment industry for the purpose of convincing the public that the entertainment industry is responsible enough to monitor its own content.I say that the best way to convince the public of your responsibility is to actually be responsible. And with that said, it might surprise the people at the Dove Foundation that I really don't have much use for movies that revel in gratuitous violence, like any of the Rambo films, or anything with Dolph Lundgren in it. I don't have much use for gratuitous sex, either, although come on, I'm a guy, I don't mind exactly, but... well, you know.
(Actually, good sex in a movie can be a glorious thing. The Spanish film Sex and Lucia
, which my friends the Halperins distributed, is a wonderful movie with interesting characters who love each other and engage in loving, playful sex that has kinda ruined sex scenes in most other movies for me.Nor am I one of those who routinely denies that movies (or any kind of art, videogames included) can have a harmful effect on the young. Hell, a movie can have a harmful effect on anyone--it's a necessary corollary of what I do that if I choose to believe a story can have a positive effect, it must also be possible that it have a harmful effect. Artists do have a responsibility to their audience, it's that simple.
The thing I don't believe in--and here I am adamant--is that we should shelter our children from such things. Case in point: when I went with the family to Europe about nine years ago, my brother and sister were I think 12 and 14, something like that. We reached Amsterdam and, when the parents went off somewhere, I took Adam and Amanda down to de Wallen, the infamous Red Light District. Then we hit a torture museum just off the Dam. I did this because I firmly believe that children should be exposed to everything--so long as there's an adult present. If they had wandered into de Wallen on their own, that would have been bad; but with me there, both keeping an eye on things and answering any questions they might have, then I think it is exactly the sort of education kids ought to have. (I made sure we all went to the Anne Frank House, too, which the Dove people would probably approve.)
The same with movies and books and whatnot. Experience them under supervision and I think pretty much anything goes--and if it's uncomfortable for the parent, well, that's the parent's problem. The artist has a responsibility to be a good artist, to tell his stories responsibly; and parents have a responsibility to be good parents, to make sure their kids are actually prepared for life--which they cannot be if they've been sheltered from everything dark their whole lives.
This is why I think organizations like the Dove Foundation are just plain wrong. In truth, I would like to see more family-oriented films--and the Foundation's assertion that family films tend to make better profits has some real merit. But it's also true that if that balance were to change--if there were a lot more family films and a lot fewer violent films, then the family films would be seen as a dime a dozen, and the more, shall we say, exotic material would seem rare and exciting and would make terrific profits. That's just how things are.
The woman cut off the call before I was done saying my piece, and I rather suspected that she hadn't included my response in the opinion poll she was taking, because she seemed like the sort who only wanted to hear opinions that matched with her own. So I went online and took their web-based poll, just to make sure they had some dissenting opinions. You can do that, too: just go here. Wouldn't it be fun if we could completely throw their numbers off, and restore a little sanity to this particular conversation?
