When it comes to books, movies and television, many of us have had our guilty pleasures at one time or another. I sure have. There comes a point though when we can’t reconcile consuming junk and then turning around and putting out goodness.
There’s comes a point when God answers our prayer to “search me O Lord,” and He asks us to take a hard look at what we let in to our hearts and minds.
– 1-
“You have to keep an open mind.”
One of the main problems with arguing that “you have to keep an open mind” is that you end being so “open” to everything that you aren’t steadfast about much of anything. Open-mindedness as preached by the catechism of our culture necessarily leads to a kind of moral relativism.
For example, I had a conversation just yesterday with an acquaintance who encouraged me to have an open mind and go see “50 Shades of Grey.” She explained at length how [main character] Christian Grey, a tortured soul who happens to have sexual tastes that tend toward torture, “had a hard childhood and that’s why he’s so messed up and ultimately he needs [Ana] and her love to save him!”My first thought: anything in the media that makes us sympathize with evil should be suspect, because that sympathy leads us to lessen our indignation at evil.
This acquaintance of mine had been duped into glossing over the disturbing, explicit and pornographic content of the film. The idea that it is all okay in the end because she saves him, right?
We should all feel deep compassion for a human being who must have had something terrible happen to him to pervert him thus, but Christian Grey is not a real person. He is a fictional character in a film produced to make money. The author of the 50 Shades trilogy, as well as the filmmakers, deliberately strive to make us sympathize with Christian Grey to the point that an otherwise severely unhealthy and abusive relationship less disturbing to us.
– 2-
“But the characterization/story/acting/music/writing is so good!”
What we are really saying is that everything else is so good that we don’t mind a little bit of trash thrown in.The thing is, all those little bits of trash we justify to ourselves add up to desensitization to what is not good, or holy, or rightly ordered.
One of the devil’s sneakiest tricks is sneaking something bad into something good. An important point to remember is that TV, music, movies and even books are art. Art is a representation of reality, and reality can be ugly, sinful, and graphic. But just because something can be considered art doesn’t mean that it’s worthy of being consumed. A Christian needs to be asking honest questions about what he or she is choosing to watch or read. “Where does this piece lead me and others? How does it make me feel? Does this lead me toward God? Toward virtue or even a deeper understanding of my fellow human being? Or does this draw me away from God by creating temptation or drawing up impure thoughts?”
Just because something is uncomfortable or graphic doesn’t mean that we automatically need to turn away. Consider the scene in the recent movie version of Les Miserables, when good and virtuous Fantine finally falls into prostitution to provide for her daughter. It’s an incredibly uncomfortable and emotional scene–and powerful. Millions of people saw the real tragedy, horror and degradation of prostitution–and I wonder if more than a few hearts were not touched with truth.
A TV show can have a killer story line and great acting, but if you know that every episode or so is going to have an obligatory sex scene, maybe there’s some honest and prayerful soul-searching that should be happening. Even with fast-forwarding, you’re still going to catch the drift of what’s going on. The same goes with books.
There’s an elephant in the room that needs to be mentioned regarding sexual content in particular: there are millions of men and women struggling with addictions to pornography. I’ve talked with too many people suffering deeply in their relationships from that demon. So many of them are your neighbors, your friends, and the people sitting next to you in church. I don’t think it’s going overboard to take the Bible’s instruction to “guard your heart and mind” seriously. Sometimes people are so concerned about not being too “extreme” or “putting themselves in a bubble” that they don’t say no enough to media that isn’t good for them. What are we so afraid of? Not watching a TV show is a small thing compared to eternity. We cannot outgive God.
– 3 –
“That’s great for them, but I don’t feel called to that right now.”
That’s a tough line to follow in a conversation. After all, who can argue with you if you don’t feel called to it?Spiritual maturity takes time. Some things that were acceptable to me five years ago media-wise aren’t even on my radar of “okay” these days.If you are on the receiving end of this excuse with regards to media, I think you just have to pray in the moment about whether the greatest charity you can show to that person is to keep your mouth shut, or to point out that what they “don’t feel called to” is a matter of mortal sin. Sometimes it is for us simply to let the witness of our lives plant the seeds that the Holy Spirits nurtures over time with little pokes and prods to people’s consciences. I can attest to the fact that those little pokes and prods get annoying after a while.
It is also important not to be snobby or condescending to others regarding their choices. Find a way to communicate or live out your preferences with quiet humility. There’s usually a way to let people know what you’re about without making them feel like they’re going straight to you-know-where. Then again, there are always going to be some people who feel like you’re judging them no matter how gracefully and quietly you opt out of something. That reaction is due to those little pokes and prods of conscience rather than anything you’ve said or done.
– 4 –
“It doesn’t affect me.”
It’s true that what is too violent or too crude for one person may not be as scandalizing to the next person. But even for the most desensitized among us, what we consume does affect us–as surely as what we eat nourishes us, makes us fat, or makes us sick.
Being desensitized to violence, sexually explicit material, or other objectionable material in the media should be a flag for us. Anything that hardens our hearts to things that are not from God needs to be thought about with God at our side.
Additionally, is it not a form of pride to think that we will be the one person to be immune from the harm? What we consume affects us, whether we think it does or not. Everything we choose to consumer either draws us more toward God or leads us away from Him.St. John of the Cross compared the soul to a pane of glass. When the pane of glass does not directly face the light, the smudges and stains on it are barely noticeable. But when the pane of glass is turned directly toward the light, every little stain, smudge, and fingerprint stands out. The more directly we turn to face the light of God’s love, the more we can see all of those little smudges and stains on our soul, and the more we desire to clean them off.Fr. Robert Barron writes that “this explains the paradox that the saints are most keenly aware of their sins, even to the point of describing themselves as the worst of sinners. We might mistake this for false modesty, but it is in fact a function of truly saintly psychology.” The more we turn our souls toward God in our lives, the more we naturally censor the media that we consume.
(I tried to post this once before but not sure if it did or not. Feel free to delete if it's a double post)
I think you're right that as Catholics we need to be thoughtful and considering about the entertainment we consume. I've heard one sermon comparing entertainment to food that affects our body the way entertainment affects our souls. However, I'm not sure the approach in this post is the approach we should take for two reasons: First, Art at its best reflects reality and gives us some insight into life (with great art arguably providing an insight that points towards the divine). However, when depicting reality that often necessitates a depiction of the ugliness of sin. Second, art is made by humans, who are sinful. These two things make me very doubtful whether any form of entertainment actually passes your approach because they all contain flaws.
I think a better approach is not to condemn a movie because it has a "flaw" but rather to engage in it. Ask questions like "why is this being depicted in the manner it is depicted?" To use Les Mis and 50 Shades as the examples, Les Mis has two sex scenes but the purpose of the depiction is not to glorify. The prostitution scene is meant to depict the horrors of Fantine's life and meant to condemn the "righteousness" of those who condemned her to it (as well as to suggest her continued suffering as a result of her out-of-union affair), whereas the scene in the tavern arguably suggests the ridiculousness of the innkeepers and their unprincipled lifestyle in contrast to Valjean and Marius's virtue. 50 Shades on the other hand's depictions seems pretty clearly designed to arouse. The former has artistic merit (although one can certainly disagree over it) while the latter does not, which to me suggests a Christian can generally be ok seeing the former but not the latter.
Now, I think the second question a Christian should ask is "How is this affecting me?" An artistic defense of a scene might be well and good, but if a scene (or a theme) is leaning one to sin, then obviously consumption isn't appropriate. Asking yourself "why do I enjoy this? Do I enjoy this because it helps me understand myself/the world/God better or because I am enjoying this naughty thing" is an important Spiritual Reflection.
Anyway, this has gone on way too long. Hope this helps.
Michael, thank you for such a great comment!
Your first point about art –how it depicts reality and necessarily sometimes depicts the reality of our fallen world, and sin– is spot-on. It’s something that I need to edit into this post. Thank you for pointing that out.
Les Miserables was not the best choice of examples for this post. 🙂 The scene with Fantine doesn’t deserve to be categorized as an unecessary sex scene, because I do think it falls into the category of art depicting reality in a way that leads the audience towards virtue. The scene depicts the horror and degradation of prostitution in an unavoidable and powerful way when you put it together with the story. I may have to find a better example of what I was going for in editing.:)
I do want to argue that there are a lot of otherwise good shows that sneak junk in. For example, if I know I’m going to catch graphic sex scenes and have to fast-forward through them (and you still catch the jist of what they’re doing in fast forward), then they’re out for Michael and me. It’s tough to cut out a show that has a neat story otherwise, but here’s one part of our reasoning: There are so many millions of men and marriages struggling with addictions to pornography and people struggling with unfaithfulness in marriage in other ways, that taking extra steps to protect those images from our minds is not something we think is overboard or prudish. I think that sometimes we can be so worried about not putting ourselves or our children into a “bubble” that we let in more than we should.
Your last point about a Christian asking “how is this affecting me” is awesome–also worth editing into this post in the future (when I get a second to go back and do it!):