Sax and violins

I've been stewing on a question for the past week or so, ever since Jeff wrote praising the new Batman movie and Brant posted pretty much the opposite (twice).

Please note - I have not seen the movie, nor will I. I am not into such things. So I am going to take it to a meta-level and ask that you follow me there. So in the following we're not talkin' 'bout Batman, 'k? So I am not dissing nor discussing that particular movie, 'k?

Here's the deal I've been thinking about - Brant's original post seemed to be pretty simple. Batman, for whatever else it may have in it, apparently had a lot of violence. My wondering started with, "Is it ever OK, as a Christian, to watch violence as entertainment? Ever?"

Just for the record, after due consideration my answer is, "No. Never."

Here's why. We're supposed to love people, and love peace, and bring that love of people and peace to the world. How can we do that if we love violence so much we want to fill our heads with it? If we watch ever-more-gory-and-realistic violence in our movies and play it in our computer games? Sure, I already know where you're argument's going to go - "But that's just entertainment! It's just on the screen! It's not real! It doesn't affect me, I just watch it for fun."

That is your argument, isn't it? 's'OK - it's everyone's argument in this culture whenever someone brings up violence on TV or in the movies or in video games (anyone reading this into first-person shooter games? WoW?) or even, God forbid, football (and hockey, and basketball). So let's think about that for a minute. If I accept that someone (you specifically - adult, mature, well-balanced, mentally healthy you) can watch something violent for pure entertainment and it doesn't affect them and how they think, then that immediately leads me to another conclusion.

Porn must be OK.

Now, I am not talking about porn where either participant is coerced, or underage, or not of my species or anything on the fringes like that. I am talking about two (or more) consenting adults goin' at it in graphic heterosexual detail, period. Hey, it appears lots of married people even like to film themselves and post it on the Internet as "amateur porn" - digital exhibitionism and all that. So, let's use that very example - married couples just "spicing up" their sex life by displaying recordings of their intimacy for others to see. What can be wrong with watching that, eh?

Because after all, it's just entertainment, right? It doesn't change who we are, or how we think, or how we view others, right? Right?

"Oh, wait," I hear someone say. "Porn is different." Why? "Because it's about sex." Yes? "And sex is a special act, and it is about relationships with other people, and it is visceral and really affects us at a subconscious level." OK, I can accept all that.

So what makes violence different?

Violence is a special act. Violence is about relationships with other people. Violence is visceral and really affects us at a subconscious level. Huh. I guess I don't see the difference.

So here's where I am at on the subject of violence in entertainment. I watch some violence in movies. Mostly in movies I have seen before and know where and what level the violence is at. I have been consciously trying to avoid introducing new violent scenes into my head over the past five years or so, no matter how "good" the movie may be. So no Saving Private Ryan, for example. No Batman, either. Actually, it is part of the reason I didn't finish the second two installments of Lord of the Rings, even. Because I really do believe violence affects us. It reprograms us. And I don't think that reprogramming is a Good Thing for Christians to have in their heads. Any more than the raw, impersonal sex in porn is good for us. I certainly don't think it's good for me to have in my head. It's not a morality thing - I don't think you'll necessarily go to Hell for having seen the Blade trilogy. It's a practical thing. I can't think "peace" if I keep filling my head with violent images.

I started going down this thought process very slowly almost three decades ago, when I saw my first David Cronenberg movie. David Lynch movies then accelerated my thinking about it. Because no matter how good I thought those movies were (and they were), there were scenes in them where I could literally feel, almost in real time, my brain changing. Images that appeared so quickly that there was no way to filter them out - I couldn't even close my eyes fast enough. And now they're in my head forever. I would've never thought about the situations portrayed in them if I hadn't seen them, and now they will always be a part of me. I don't think I like that. No, in fact I am sure I don't like that.

So starting sometime around 1999-2000 I started getting much more careful about what I watched (and read, but reading's easier to stop before you go too far - today's modern quick-cut movie editing makes it almost impossible to anticipate when they're going to implant a brain worm). And this post is written to ask you to think about it, too. I am not telling you to stop playing computer games or watching Batman movies. Who am I to set myself up as your judge? All I am saying is perhaps, just perhaps, each of us needs to carefully think about and choose what we are going to mentally ingest. That's all. Just think about it. Because you don't get a chance to undo what you see.

Peace.