The Mirror: Instant Drop in Standards

 Back in 1984, my 15 year old friends and I went to see a film which legally we weren't supposed to be able to see. I was able to buy alcohol as well around that time thanks to looking older than I was, and the slackness of those who sold the grog. I live in Australia's Northern Territory and I need to show my ID every time I buy alcohol at a bottle shop. I'm pretty sure I look over eighteen now, but we have a banned drinkers register up here, so no ID, no booze. Late in '84, I'm pretty sure the person who sold me movie tickets to Scarface (rated R) didn't even look at me to see whether I was old enough, and they certainly didn't ask.

How did I feel about seeing a film with sex, nudity, very frequent coarse language, graphic violence, gore, and intense and frightening scenes? Let me just say, there's a reason such content is restricted to adults.

That was 36 years ago. Thirty six years. In the 1980's you never heard swear words on TV. There was no PG rating, but they had one called NRC (not recommended for children under 12), so films with a rating lower than M would generally have been considered okay for older children. There would not have been any course language or strong violence and certainly no nudity or sex, not even suggested or implied sex. TV was also very safe during prime time, generally speaking.

Of course, it's possible, I'm viewing the past through rose-coloured glasses, but I feel like there was a lot of safe, harmless viewing for children, even as recently as the late nineties and early 2000's when my older children were growing up.

I would have bet my life on a PG film being safe for my two younger children, now aged fourteen and eleven respectively. In fact, I tell them when it's their turn to choose, that anything PG is okay for us on family movie night. There's been a not of a blurring, a lowering of standards in my view, but it's been such a slow fade I wouldn't be able to pinpoint when it happened. At what point did someone say it was now okay to use the word "shit" multiple times throughout a PG rated film? When did nudity and strong sexual allusions become okay? Realistic violence? Did I miss something? There's no other way to describe it other than as a slow fade.

What brought this all to a head for me was last week's family movie. I'd previously considered this one, but baulked and, in it's place selected the pathetic Jack and the Beanstalk which I wrote about in a previous post. I hesitated and chose another film instead of Instant Family because of the advisory warning. These are good. These advisory warnings because they add detail to the rating. Okay, it's PG but why? What is it exactly that makes this family film not for general exhibition. Instant Family actually rated M today, but I swear it was PG on Saturday. Anyway, it's rated M with a content advisory saying its suitable for children aged 13 and over...which is what I thought PG was.

My point remains though, albeit minus my star attraction in the witness box. There are PG films with mild sex scenes, coarse language and medium level violence listed on Amazon Prime's ratings list. I reckon PG is no sex, no coarse language, and mild comedic violence only. But I'm swimming against the tide, I know that. When parents take their children to the cinemas to see M rated films, and they say that's okay because they are superhero films.

I admit to being conservative which may lead me to the continuation of this tiresome belly-ache. Rather than making clearer my already completely transparent views, I'll turn my attention to the film which started it all. It's ironic that it appears to have been my mistake which led me to having to try to explain 'dick pic' to my eleven year daughter. I chose an M rated film which contained frequent uses of 'shit'. And there were some fairly intense dramatic scenes and violence. You can see why I was shocked. And you can probably also see why I'm a little sheepish about my protest. Protest? Let's be honest, it was a rant; a baseless rant, (but not entirely baseless).

I'll be more careful next time.

Instant Family, by the way, is a terrific film. A highly recommended heart warmer.

B is for Bashing

“Phil stepped forward. “F#@* off! You aren’t allowed on my property.”

With both hands, David grabbed Phil by his shirtfront and swung him away from the door over the balcony railing. Then David leapt the railing as Phil rose to his feet. His fist crushed Phil’s nose and David heard a pop.”

-Loathe Your Neighbor ch. 16

 

Apparently, an expected, even anticipated part of a night out on the tiles, is a bashing. Get yourself drunk then look for a fight. Choose a spurious reason for your assault or simply knock the stuffing out of your victim for the heck of it. Now, before your protests deafen me, I am not saying that all people behave this way. Of course they don’t, and it is true to say that not even the majority of people behave this way. In fact, most people don’t go out and get drunk for fun. Many do. While there may be quite a few people doing the same thing at home, I am not walking down the dark road of domestic violence. I’m standing on the metaphorical corner, outside the pub, stating that there are enough people who think excessive drinking and bashing people go hand in glove, to make me nervous about late nights in the company of heavy drinkers. But wait, you cry, you are talking about the alleged link between alcohol and violence. Alleged? Read the stats. I wish I could stop, but there are also people living in our society who don’t require booze to fuel their violence. You might have one living next to you. What would it take for you to throw him over the balcony?

MAlvsadhn

These nine letters are a program content advisory. The more letters appear after a show's name, the more there is in that program which may offend people. Language, violence, sex, drugs use, horror and nudity. I never watched it, but apparently Big Brother Up-Late had it all many years ago in its heyday.

A preacher I once heard, suggested that Christians should participate in popular culture in order to relate to people. When everyone's talking about Big Brother, for example, what can we contribute to the conversation if we haven't watched it? How can we reach people if we can't relate to them? Good point!

But for some reason I could not bring myself to watch it. Maybe it was the rebel in me that refused to look at the show just because it was popular, or maybe it just didn't appeal, or maybe I was worried that I might actually like it and get hooked. How shocking to enjoy a show featuring violence, language, sex, nudity, horror and drugs when I call myself a Christian.

The thing is, I have written a book which needs a content advisory warning, Loathe Your Neighbor. I'm a Christian who wrote a book which contains ungodly behaviour. I guess I'm in good company because I know another book which features all the same things as Big Brother-Up Late. Despite it's adult content, I happily confess it's my favourite. I keep reading it over and over again.

 

It's funny how what we read, watch and enjoy sometimes conflicts with what we believe, how we live and who we are.

 

 

Fingers aren't Sausages

Some of the cartoons being fed to children as entertainment these days disgust me. They seem to be celebrations of violence, and of the grotesque and macabre. A deformed character with extremely anti-social behaviour, a sick looking beast of some sort with uncontrollable anger, a morbidly obese animal having its blubber filmed in slow motion, and a ghoulish looking chef practicing cannibalism. Oh, it's good stuff. Very uplifting, and morally strong viewing indeed.

The shows to which I have referred, and which you may recognize, are relatively new shows, but violent cartoons are not new. I watched Tom and Jerry as a child, and I saw Wile E. Coyote get blown up and squashed more times than I can remember. It's the same thing isn't it? Not in my book, but you can make up your own mind. The disturbing trend towards increasingly graphic depictions of heinous acts is of course not limited to children's cartoons. How funny is it when Homer throttles Bart, causing his eyes to pop out of his head as he struggles for breath? Children watch a hell of a lot, and I don't use the word 'hell' lightly, of shows that they shouldn't be watching: shows which promote values which most people find abhorrent. Breaking the law if it suits your purposes. Using violence to solve problems. Disrespecting parents and authority in general. The list goes on. Here are the lucky few children's cartoons to be named and shamed in Square Pegs.

Spliced is a show about mixed up, freaky animal mutants and their mixed up freaky animal mutant friends. The happy sounding theme song talks about the animals having been constructed in a lab by being spliced, and diced and regurgitated. In one episode, a large animal eats all the other animals who I thought were his friends. They escape from inside his stomach by detonating an explosive. The result is their liberation while the large animal is stripped off all its skin and stands with its internal organs on display. It's so funny.
Horace in Slow Motion features a lovable, portly pig who performs his greatest bodily acts in slow motion. In one episode, thankfully they are all short, we have the hilarious pleasure of watching this corpulent pig stuffing his face with cake while attempting to run on a treadmill. In Monsterchef, the cook chops off someone's fingers and puts them inside pastry to serve, before ripping our his own intestines and adding them to a soup he is casually stirring. Yummy!


Let your children watch these sick and twisted shows by all means, and call it harmless fun if it makes you feel better, but don't forget to pray that we don't end up with a society swollen with sick and twisted individuals. We've got enough of them already, don't we?

Violent Friends

Crime is a very popular genre of both book and film in which extreme violence committed by depraved people is depicted in horrific and nauseating detail. Why do we love it so much? Why do we find death, and in particular gruesomely imaginative murder, so entertaining? We are sick aren't we? Would it not be fair to say that a society which is amused by mentally ill people perpetrating heinous acts of violence, is a sick society?


On November 20, 2010, David Auchterlonie was taken into the bush by a couple of his mates to help him celebrate his 17th birthday with some booze and marijuana. When they arrived at the designated spot, David was tortured, tormented then murdered with a double sided axe by his friend, Matthew Milat, the nephew of infamous mass murderer Ivan Milat. This crime was so disturbing that the sentencing judge remarked, "that any person, not suffering from a psychiatric disorder could behave in such a manner is almost inconceivable." Almost but not quite. Writers of crime imagine such heartless and evil acts for their bread and butter. Readers and viewers greedily participate, shocked and disgusted perhaps but nonetheless entertained. It is, after all, only make believe, and the pyschopath usually gets caught or killed by the authorities in the end so our unslakeable thirst for justice is satisfied. In the fictional fairy tale world where no one really gets hurt and good triumphs over evil, we feel safe to enjoy perversion.


The story of David Auchterlonie rendered me speechless as I watched it on the news. I wonder if his family would enjoy a movie like Wolf Creek or a book like The Wasp Factory. I wonder if his mum will pick up the latest crime thriller and revel in the tale of a cold blooded murderer who takes the life of their friends for fun. I wonder if any of the family members of victims of violent crime can read stories like We Need to Talk about Kevin, or watch films like The Hills Have Eyes or American Pyscho. There must be something seriously wrong with us.


To think that there are people like Ivan and Matthew Milat, Martin Bryant, and Anders Breivik roaming around in our societies, on our streets, obsessed with evil intentions, perhaps even possessed by the devil himself, planning, watching,...time bombs waiting to explode. It might make you wonder just how well you know your friends?