To preface this post I must say a couple things:
1. I do not write this to make myself seem better or worse than anyone. I am using personal experiences just to illustrate a point.
2. These are thoughts not meant to be insulting or demeaning to anyone, just thoughts that I have had lately.
OK.
When I was a young woman (about 16 or so) I read Jean M. Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear Series. I thought I was super sophisticated, but I still hid the books from my parents. I think in my heart I knew they were wrong. I knew that pornography was wrong, my parents taught me that well, but I still read them because no one stopped me or thought to ask about what I was reading.
When I went away to college I had a very distorted body image and had an eating disorder. Luckily I also had a friend that cared enough to help me overcome it. I think this had alot to do with what I was reading and watching. I watched some pretty nasty stuff, and read voraciously, some of it not so good.
As a young mother I often watched "the Soaps" and read adult literature. Often saying to myself that I could skip the parts that were offensive or didn't agree with my teachings. (like the language and nudity)
As a young married couple, we watched Titanic.
This was a turning point for me.
I swore then and there that nudity of any sort no matter how "tastefully" done it was, was not something I was going to condone or see. Also, I made a vow with myself that I would not watch any movie over 14A. This translates to meaning that I will not watch R or most PG13 movies either as that is what 14A ends up being.
Also that year we disconnected our cable TV and have been TV-less for over 10 years now.
A few years later I discovered that music was beginning to be disturbing to me and I quit listening to the radio.
A few years after that I stopped reading adult literature. Skipping the "bad" parts was not working for me.
Then we moved to the city we are in now. We were prompted to do some things that were out of our comfort zone. Huge food storage, moving to a farm, adopting children. Of these three, one has been achieved and two are well on the way to being accomplished.
This year I have been re-thinking the music I listen to. As I have been thinking of this, deleting music, trying hard to find some "guidelines" or whatnot, Cocoa has posted a few really great thought provoking posts about music. I often feel as though we are prompted to write things, sometimes for us, sometimes for others. These I feel were written for me. :) I know she didn't know it, but I needed them to help me. (read them here and here)
On Sunday we had a lesson on pornography. While we didn't have anything new or ground breaking discussed, it gave me a re-affirmation to be even more attentive to what happens in our home. What I view or read. I felt pretty good after the lesson because it was a great booster to what we have already been working towards. Then dh came home and told me about his day. He is in offices all day long fixing machines and helping them learn how to use them. This is often done in a back room. That is where dirty things are. (just to leave it wide open there) Women are also often provocatively dressed now, even in a professional setting. It gives us even more of a push to help him find alternate forms of work.
I have deleted music, chucked books, given away and chucked movies and generally cleaned up our viewing and listening stuff. We have tried to follow inspiration where available and have been seeking it where it is not.
Then I read this blog post.
Many of my friends know that I will not read certain books, Harry Potter and Twilight, just to name two. I disagree with some things about them so I just don't read them. I try really hard to pick books that I would agree with the premise, or are popular and hope that I can help you judge if they would be appropriate for you or your kids. Many of you know that there are certain things I put in my book reviews. I make sure that I point out if there is language. I make sure that if there is "objectionable" content, I tell you. I also try to judge how old the audience would be appropriate for. One of my first reviews was "Hunger Games". This was the subject of the post above. I have since removed it from my blog because I went back and re-read what I had written. I now disagree with my own opinion.
Not because of what I read from the link above, but because the link above changed ME. I have been tossing this around for a long time. I have thought of little else this week.
I 100% agree with the author's opinion of violence. I WILL NOT watch a violent movie. I WILL NOT let my kids play violent games. I WILL NOT tolerate fighting in my home. Why do I allow myself to read these things?
I have a very active imagination. I can read a story and visualize it very well.
Why is reading it OK but other forms not?
I have reassessed what I am reading and recommending to you. I am going to be going through my reviews and hopefully adding the violence factor to the review. Those that are violent with descriptive wording will be removed from my reviews all together.
I know that this is pretty extreme. But where do I begin? Or stop for that matter? This is where I have decided to start.
I was discussing with dh the other night how it seems that we are becoming rather strict. We am becoming peculiar to an extreme. Even among a "peculiar people". We don't allow TV, most movies, I don't listen to the radio, now books...
I don't think that this is a bad thing, but it is a bit worrisome to me. What if I am missing something. What if I need to be more faithful in some other way.
What do you think? Where do YOU draw the line? Please weigh in. Please also be kind to each other. :)
Cheers
11 comments:
I am totally offended because I love Harry Potter and Twilight! Just kidding! About the being offended part. not the loving them part. :)
I think it is great that you are choosing to take things out of your life that aren't benefiting you spiritually. I never knew what Hunger Games was about (I must have missed your review)...Not a book I would be interested in at all based on the post you linked to. I am not a big fan of violence, but I have to admit that I do watch some movies/shows with violence in it. I just finished watching Jericho on Netflix- a TV show that is violent and I really liked it...It wasn't blood and guts violent (I WILL NOT watch that), but it was violent. I was drawn into the show because of the patriotism and the fact that it wasn't a far fetched concept. I am pretty picky about what kind of violence I will watch but I am probably just justifying it. I look back on movies I watched as a child (Goonies is just one example) that we loved and that when I let Jake watch it was shocked that I ever thought it was okay (it is a funny movie but there are so many cuss words and inuendos-how do you spell that?)! I think when we know better we do better. Good for you. Be peculiar! I think it is becoming easier to be peculiar even among members of the church now. The church is true but the people aren't. I am still amazed at how many members think it is strange that we are homeschooling. I frankly can't believe more members aren't with things our children see and hear among their peers in public schools. We all have areas to improve and this is probably a big one for a lot of people. The Star Wars fans (my husband and son) in my home will never let the violent movies go. Are they bad movies? I guess it is a matter of where you in your life. I personally think they are cheesy. :) I wish we could get rid of the TV in our house but my guys would never let that happen...I am not sure I could live with out Fox New, HGTV, the History Channel, or the Discovery Channel though either. :)
One thing I have heard a member say to justify violence is that the Book of Mormon would be rated R if they made it into a movie (they did I guess and it was rated R until they deleted and changed scenes. I never saw it...), does that mean we shouldn't read it? Very thought provoking post.
Isn't it funny how the little changes we make lead to more and more changes until we are SO different than we were even a couple of years ago? As we learn line upon line and are willing to ACT on what we learn we become better. It's the willingness to ACT that makes the difference.
What's hard for us is my mom owns a children's bookstore so she sends us books all the time - and not all of them are ones we want in the house! I think she is slowly realizing what our standards for books are.
Both the Bible and Book of Mormon would be rated R if made into movies - the difference is they were written by prophets called of God to teach us. Other books are not!
P.S. We are big HP fans (books) at our house. :)
I'm so grateful for people I have met through blogging. I find myself going through the same process of weeding out all those things which I feel are not "virtuous, lovely,or of good report, or praiseworthy." But often I feel like it begins to really seperate me from others even within the church.
I often wish I had had more supervision as a child and that those older and wiser than me would have encouraged that I read and watch more uplifting and edifying books and movies. But I am grateful that at the young age of 17I finally figured this out and have strived for better from then on!
Life is a little stressful right now and I find myself questioning our current decisions. I mean we are living in a hotel!!! But I know the end result will be right for us.
Reading your post today and Cocoa's comment keep me moving forward. I have been far from blogging land lately but I always visit yours and Cocoa's because they do inspire me and uplift me.
Thanks Jaime.
What a great post! I actually got into a big fight with an almost-fiance about this issue because he didn't understand why I was so bothered by violence in movies - I told him that just as he wouldn't go to movies that portrayed sexual relations, we shouldn't go to movies that portrayed the greatest sin (murder).
What's sad is that I wonder if I've forgotten those feelings as I've gotten older -- you've given me much to reflect on, my friend.
I can say ditto to much of what you said. I haven't listened to the radio for years. We haven't had cable for a few years either. We haven't watched the most popular movies or read the most popular books often times, and yes, we feel like we fit the "odd" pretty well.
We are huge HP fans though!
The hard part of filtering the violence part, I think, is that good vs evil often has violence. It is truly a war between the two and we are living it.
I personally don't allow violence for glory, revenge or the "fun of it". But I also recognize that good vs evil is not pretty. Evil is not pretty.
So I ask myself, Is there a lesson to be learned about good vs evil? Is evil behavior glorified or portrayed in a manner without consequences?
Truly books are in need of our filtering just as every other type of media. Good for you! :)
I can see where you are coming from, but I see two sides to every issue, and I often cant help but be on both sides (of course there are obvious exceptions haha), I was taught a good lesson about this very subject once: When I was a teenager I had to read a holocaust book for an english assignment..needless to say it was very unsettling for me. But when I went to my parents to talk about it, my dad did something kind of surprising, I was SURE he would be in full agreement with me, my dad was very rigid on the content that came into our house, but instead he took me to the video store and rented about 3-4 WWII movies. Then over a couple of days he sat with me and we watched them, sometimes he would explain parts of the history to the story I didnt understand, mostly he didnt say anything, then we watched the nuremburg trials, it had genuine footage from the concentration camps, they were so disturbing, I cried. He told me later it was hard for him to see me so upset about it, but when it was over he turned to me and said, "mary, you need to understand something, Both your grandfathers fought in this war and Both of them basically taught your mother and I the same lesson. These things are sad to hear about, unsettling to read, and horrible to see..But they really happened, and we can Not afford to forget them, they cannot be ignored, and the excuse that "they happened along time ago" never ever applies, real people went through those horrible things, because other real people put them through it..we cannot forget, because if we become complacent about it, then we will not be able to prevent things like that from happening again. You need to be upset about it, violence like that is not okay to be fine with. But dont avoid the knowledge." I wrote that whole thing in my journal the same day. My mum also told me she had come across some pictures in her dads military stuff as a kid, for years she didnt understand what she was looking at, then it dawned on her one day, she was staring at piles of bodies, she was horrified and told her dad she didnt know why he would ever take or keep things like that (he was part of one of the military groups that freed the concentrations camps and he was sent from one to another to oversee operations for his own group) and she thought he should burn them, he told her much the same thing "no, people need to see what really happened, you get rid of all the images that are hard to look at or offend people and then there is nothing to remember, memories fade, these are evidence, proof" and he made her promise to never get rid of them.
So I agree that excessive, gory, glorified and unnecessary violence for entertainment movies/books is wrong, but I draw the line at history, I mean just look at the scriptures, they are RIFE with battles and they all have an important message to share.
Also I totally love Harry potter haha, every story has a good v. evil to it, its in the telling.
Ok so I deleted my previous comment, I wrote it in a moment of mild annoyance and then thought the better of it. I read the review you referred to and I have to say I found it alittle...extreme. I spoke to a really close friend of mine who has several times recommended those books to me and asked her about the violence referred to. What she told me about it gave me a different view of the books than that represented by the blogger in your post. I am against violence that is glorified or celebrated. My friend told me neither are the case in the hunger games. I dunno, maybe I would have to read it to get a better sense of my own opinion of it. But if the bloggers opinion, and the general one amongst her posters, is to be followed, nothing, ever written, would measure up to acceptable, there seemed to me to be an attitude of seeking out the bad in every sentence rather than looking at the good moral behind the story. Which doesnt set well with me.
Violence is a real tough one! I really don't like bad language or crude/sexual type things in movies, etc, but have been lax on violence. Thanks for giving us all something to think about!
The link to her post regarding the Hunger games has now been password protected. ; ( I was just in the middle of reading it, when it disappeared. I will certainly be asking her for a password. Looked pretty well written to me. I have not read those books yet and I probably won't due to her post and yours (this one). So thanks!
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