Not Just a Movie: The Scarlet Letter
PART 6 IN AN 8-PART SERIES
"An R-rated motion picture, in the view of the Rating Board, contains some adult material. An R-rated motion picture may include adult themes, adult activity, hard language, intense or persistent violence, sexually-oriented nudity, drug abuse or other elements, so that parents are counseled to take this rating very seriously."
—Motion Picture Association of America
Last year, Plugged In was called on the carpet by Phillip Telfer, a Christian media commentator, for our review of the R-rated Sex and the City.
Telfer didn’t single us out, mind you. Rather, he condemned several ministries for reviewing the estrogen-drenched, sex-laden comedy. And it wasn’t the content of the reviews that bothered him: He was upset that any of us saw it at all.
"Am I expected to jump up and down with enthusiasm for such courage demonstrated by these reviewers taking the bullet for me so that I don’t have to be accosted unknowingly by spiritually and morally compromising messages and images in that film?" Telfer wrote. "I should hope not. The title and rating seemed to be an adequate indicator that it was something that was not only inappropriate for me to see but something I couldn’t imagine Jesus spending his time and money to watch."
Telfer’s take, as I understand it, is that Christians have no business whatsoever watching R-rated films.
And I get where he’s coming from.
R Is for Restricted
The Bible calls us to think about "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable," and it’s a rare R-rated flick that manages to do all of that. Or any of that. By their very nature, R-rated films can contain graphic violence, sex, obscene language or (most often) all three. And Plugged In, as a rule, cautions our readers about going to these so-called restricted flicks.
"So why," Telfer and other discerning readers ask, "do you review them?"
Here’s the short (and incomplete) answer: Because you watch them.
In 2005, Variety magazine surveyed moviegoers (with the help of the marketing firm MarketCast) to determine whether political or cultural attitudes shape what movies they see. It was discovered that folks who consider themselves "very religious" go to see R-rated movies nearly as much as people who label themselves "nonreligious." Moreover, conservative religious types—most evangelical Christians fit into this camp—are slightly more likely to see violent, R-rated movies than nonreligious moviegoers are, 29% to 28%.
Go figure. Plugged In’s own predominantly Christian readership—which is, without exception, made up of intelligent, upstanding, wonderful people—watches R-rated films. In fact, more than 84% of you have seen an R-rated movie at least once in your life, if our informal online polls are any indication. My personal guess is that many of you might have seen … far more than one.
R Is for Reach
As mentioned earlier in this series, Plugged In tends to come down kinda hard on R-rated films. We know depictions of sex, violence, drug abuse, etc. can harm folks who watch enough of it, and these biases are bolstered by reams of data that come across our desks with frightening regularity. So how are we to explain this conundrum? Are we to conclude that our readers—as wonderful as they are—aren’t always as discerning as we’d like them to be? Or can we posit that some R-rated films, despite their content, have merit?
Are Christians losing their sense of "otherness" from secular society? Is Christianity, long the countercultural alternative to the world at large, now embracing the world—and its products—a bit too much?
Probably.
But for us, that’s yet more reason to engage with the world most familiar to our readers—to very gently explain, if nothing else, that the media choices they make matter: to themselves, to their family and friends, and to their Creator. My editor once told me that part of our calling as movie reviewers is to be a quiet voice in loud places—a little like Jiminy Cricket: When someone reads our review of Saw and decides to see it anyway, we’re convinced that what we say about the film will affect, however slightly, how that person watches it. And we firmly believe the seeds we plant there can take root and bear fruit later.
Also, we know that while most Plugged In readers are Christians, not all are. Some may be exploring the idea of faith. Some simply share our ideals as they relate to media discernment, tolerating our Christian perspective to get to what they see as the "meat" of our reviews. Some even come to mock us, eager to laugh about how we knock around their favorite movie, band or TV show. And they are welcome, too, because they, too, won’t be able to immediately dislodge and dismiss everything we have to say.
Now, Plugged In is not intended, primarily, as a conduit for evangelism. But can it still serve as a gateway to Christ? Certainly … if we approach our subjects with respect and conviction, and if we are willing to apply spiritual principles to the things that interest, puzzle and vex our readers. If we are willing to walk through a sometimes uncomfortable landscape and give them (hopefully) a glimpse of another, better world.
And the truth is, sometimes I think we can find a glimpse of that world in the most unlikely of places.
R Is for Resonance
For most of our readers, the most readily accessible example of this is The Passion of the Christ—a hard-R film that many churches and parachurch organizations (Focus on the Family among them) trumpeted as a must-see portrayal of Jesus’ final 12 hours (at least in mortal trappings).
I was covering religion for a Colorado Springs newspaper at the time, and when I dutifully trudged down to the multiplex opening day to interview folks who had seen it, I was floored to see so many kids piling out of the theater. One mother, a 9-year-old girl in tow, told me this was the first film her daughter had ever seen (Disney just didn’t cut it for this mom), and it was the first film she (the mother) had gone to in a dozen years. She loved it and planned to see it again. Her daughter, frankly, looked a little shell-shocked.
Obviously, that little interaction literally brims with possible discussion points. But the one I want to emphasize here is this: The message conveyed by The Passion mitigated the fears she had about its content. She felt this film had something important to say.
Others feel the same way about Schindler’s List—another R-rated film designed to pack a pithy punch. Steven Spielberg purposefully casts Oskar Schindler as a 20th century Moses who saves thousands of Jews from their Nazi overlords and the holocaust. "Those are my people," Schindler bellows, his face set in stark white and shadow. Indeed, the film feels like literature—images and themes and earlier echoes all boiling into a resonant story that stays with you long after you’ve seen it.
As does The Passion, it also leaves you feeling like you’ve spent three rounds fighting Cesar Chavez. Both films emotionally bruised and bloodied me. Neither one do I want to see repeatedly.
As a parent, I don’t let my children see R-rated fare, no matter the message. But it’s not just about the kiddos. I’d also caution adults to be careful—discerning—before they go to an R-rated film themselves. Above all, know yourself. Don’t subject yourself to films that might, on one hand, tempt you to sin or, on the other, give you nightmares.
But the R rating—given the strange and ever-changing guidelines used by the MPAA—shouldn’t in and of itself be a modern-day scarlet letter. I’ve seen plenty of PG-13 movies that should’ve been rated R. I’ve even seen one or two R’s that felt like they could’ve been PG-13. Ratings may be a helpful starting point, but you’ll get far more information reading reviews on sites such as (shameless plug here) ours. This is life, people—not class. And we should be thinking beyond letter grades.
In Part 7 of "Not Just a Movie," a pitchfork pokes a hole in Paul’s cinematic defenses.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8