My Take on the Rated-R Thing (Part II) - cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board

Sleeping in EQ · 08-07-2006, 05:11 PM

Another issue of medium in terms of commodity and context has to do with a differentiation between the kinds of distinctions between erotica and pornography that have application to other, and non-sexual kinds of content. For example, many psychologists receive instruction about atypical sexual behavior, and their texts on such subjects are filled with descriptions and pictures of such. What, arguably, makes such texts erotic but not pornographic is their purpose: We want professionals to be able to treat people with such difficulties, and so their professional knowledge of bizarre sexual activities is not culturally deviant. Books and tapes often recommended by therapists to help couples struggling with amore might be justified based on purpose (although there’s a judgment call on this that I’ll save for another time).

Lastly on distinctions between the erotic and pornographic, there’s also the question of medium content being appropriate based on the relation of the creator, the viewer, and the viewing context. For example, if a man was going on a business trip for two weeks, his wife slipping a cute little picture of her in a nightie into his luggage would be erotic but not pornographic, because our culture approves of a husband seeing his wife in a sexual way in private, and with her consent (And the same would possibly go for a phone call or e-mail with intimate content or a sexually charged reading of the Song of Solomon among spouses.) However, if either creator or viewer displays such content to someone outside of the culturally approved relationship (for example, the husband shows the picture to his buddies), the viewing context would transform the photo from erotic to pornographic in the minds of those other viewers. Of course I am not stating the Church’s position on such things, and in part I am not doing so because the Church has no position on such things. The veritable Handbook of Instructions counsels leaders not to construe that there is any official position in member’s bedrooms (pun!). I merely mention them because they reinforce the futility of applying a rating-standard to media content without consideration of medium and context.

You may have noticed that my discussion and examples have assumed a certain morality of appropriateness and inappropriateness. It’s time to pause for a moment and elaborate on that a bit. As regards significations of the human body, those that, in my judgment affirm its divine beauty and magnificence are appropriate, and those that, again, in my judgment, violate or run contrary to the body as beautiful and divine are inappropriate. Further, as the discussion between myself and my professor revealed, the best standard for the consumption of any and all media content is Article of Faith 13, which, not-so-incidentally, was exactly what Elder Ballard advised in Conference the October following my discussion. Article of Faith 13 functions as an intersection of ideas found in other passages and verses, and so works quite well as a touchstone.

Also, as an aside, I’ll mention that academic literature finds violence in media to be more negatively influential than sexuality. Sexuality is sometimes considered to be problematic, but I’ve found, as an LDS media scholar, significations of violence most always “violate” the body and its sacred beauty, while sexuality only sometimes does.

And on what, you may wonder, is my judgment based? Well, I have a particular way of approaching the scriptures and GA comments, a way that accounts for the fact that they are riddled with inconsistencies, contradictions, incomplete reasoning, and cultural inflections of all sorts. I’ll spare you a laundry list of them, but sufficeth it to say, I find guidance from such texts in putting verses and passages that appear to contradict in tension and letting them inform each other in dialectic. I see this as accepting that truth can be circumscribed, and that virtues like “be a good example” but “avoid doing your good works before the eyes of men like the heathen” can best be understood by using each to inform the other, rather than to emphasize one at the expense of the other.

So to formally address the MPAA’s rating system on the cultural, semiotic, and psychoanalytic terms I’ve suggested is to find the whole system unworthy of orthodox observance. Begun in 1968 at the behest of Catholic decency organizations and other interested groups, the MPAA’s ratings system is problematic in the current discussion for the following reasons: Its ratings are floating signifiers, they have no relevance outside the U.S., they were not constructed according to LDS standards, and they were intended as advisors for parents concerning their kids viewing.

Ratings float based on the subjective nuances of what is and is not culturally sensitive at any given point in time. And contrary to pessimists, movie ratings (and movies) are not simply getting more permissive over time (with an emphasis on “simply.”). For example, many movies rated as PG in the 1970s and 80s would be more likely to get an R-rating or PG-13 rating than they would a PG rating today (off the top of my head, Airplane, Poltergeist, the James Bond movies, some very violent westerns, and the Poseidon Adventure are good examples of such films). Films in the 50s through early 60s were more sexually conservative in many ways then films from the 20s, 30s, and early 40s. Films in the 70s and 80s were more likely to show nudity than are films today (and sometimes at a lower rating—Airplane has a sustained, medium-distance shot of a woman provocatively shaking her bare breasts and it got a PG rating. That wouldn’t happen today.) Moreover, we’re currently enjoying an influx of some family friendly movies such as “The Incredibles,” “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “Winn-Dixie,” and “The Shaggy Dog” (The reason for newer, high-quality, family-friendly offerings seems to be market driven. Hollywood wants to get the whole family to go out and spend $7.50 a ticket and so they’ve decided that they can’t exclusively niche market to male teenagers—who watch the most movies and who therefore most often have films crafted for them.)

That the MPAA rating system is not used outside the U.S. is an important point to the 6 million or so Mormons who live elsewhere. Canadian saints, whose culture is a bit more sensitive to violence and a little less sensitive to sexuality, have long observed that some films that get an “R” rating in the U.S. are less harshly rated in Canada, and vice versa. Invoking an “R” rating simply makes no sense for the church in a global context.

That the MPAA rating system was not designed to meet the needs of Latter Day Saints is quite obvious. No one is concerned with whether or not Mormon standards correlate with ratings. As an example, and to return to my discussion of the iconic and the symbolic, is an hour and a half of innuendo that one might (or might not) encounter in a PG-13 film really less degrading to the human body than a few seconds of seeing anatomy that most everyone is familiar with anyway (which is more likely in an R film)? Jack Valenti, President of the MPAA has said “Indeed, if you are 18 or over, or if you have no children, the rating system has no meaning for you. Ratings are meant for parents, no one else.” (www.mpaa.org).

And finally, a few comments on President Benson’s statements. It is true that he was specifically addressing young men, and later, young women. It’s also true that the current printing of the “For the Strength of Youth” pamphlet has no mention of rating whatsoever. Having observed these facts, I do not propose to ignore his council. Rather, I understand it for what it is: A rule of thumb given to U.S. LDS youth that adults in the U.S. should also keep in mind. And I consider his council in dialectic with the statements of other Church leaders, scriptures, and most fundamentally, the 13th article of faith.

I have no problem, whatsoever, with LDS folks in the U.S. who choose to strictly avoid all R-rated movies. Nonetheless, I clearly see weaknesses in such a position and have argued rather extensively that there are other acceptable practices. I encourage all who are interested to check out the following articles, which have served as source material for some of my comments. Dan Stout’s article “Protecting the family…” which describes different types of Mormons in terms of their media consumption might make excellent material for personal study or family home evening.

Hatch, J. 2003). “Can ‘Good Mormons’ watch R-rated movies?” Sunstone, March 2003.

Stout, D. A. (2001). “Critics as audience: Perceptions of Mormons in reviews of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America.” In Stout, D. A., & Buddenbaum, J. Religion and popular culture: Studies on the interaction of worldviews. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press.

Stout, D. A. (1996). “Protecting the family: Mormon teachings about mass media.” In Stout, D. A., & Buddenbaum, J. Religion and mass media: Audiences and adaptations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Stout, D. A., Scott, D.W., & Martin, D.G. “Mormons, mass media, and the interpretive audience.” In Stout, D. A., & Buddenbaum, J. Religion and mass media: Audiences and adaptations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Olaiz, H. (2002). “One Lord, one faith, many chat rooms: Mormons, the Internet, and the complexities of open spaces.” Sunstone, December, 2002.

Valenti, J. M., & Stout, D. A. (1996). “An analysis of the impact of religious culture on media use and effective communication to women.” In Stout, D. A., & Buddenbaum, J. Religion and mass media: Audiences and adaptations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

jay santos · 08-07-2006, 05:41 PM

Thanks for the good read. I agree with you on nearly all counts except for your take that the prophet didn't really tell us not to watch rated R movies and your conclusion that watching rated R movies is not a sin. I thought it's been made more clear and more recent than you seem to infer. I'd like to know more on that. Hasn't Pres. Hinckley come out against rated R movies?

Anyway, I find it easier for my conscience rather than to justify my watching of rated R movies, to just admit I'm wrong but that I like to do it anyway.

There are a lot of commandments and a lot of sins, and I'm trying to make my way towards being a perfect follower of Christ little by little, but for now giving up rated R movies isn't the next step for me.

Among my favorite movies of all time, many are rated R: Godfather, Pulp Fiction, Fargo, Fight Club, Punch Drunk Love, etc.

Many rated R movies I would call must see for historical value, such as Saving Private Ryan. In many rated R movies I have seen thought provoking and deep spiritual messages such as Eternal Spotless Sunshine of the Mind whatever (beautiful message on unconditional love) or Butterfly Effect (which despite starring Ashoton Kutcher displayed an incredible profound concept on fate/destiny/circumstances that goes hand in hand with Stephen Robinson's parable of the divers). I enjoy the "smart" movies like Punch Drunk Love or Adaptation, and they all seem to be rated R. The funniest movie I've ever seen is a rated R Waiting for Guffman.

Now, if I knew the second coming was tomorrow and I was forced to choose between the latest Tarantino flick or a fluffy rated PG romantic comedy, that's a no-brainer. Deep down I know watching rated R movies is not right. The images of violence and sex affect us all--it would be silly to try to deny that.

08-07-2006, 05:11 PM	#1
Sleeping in EQ Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: The People's Republic of Monsanto Posts: 3,085	My Take on the Rated-R Thing (Part II) Another issue of medium in terms of commodity and context has to do with a differentiation between the kinds of distinctions between erotica and pornography that have application to other, and non-sexual kinds of content. For example, many psychologists receive instruction about atypical sexual behavior, and their texts on such subjects are filled with descriptions and pictures of such. What, arguably, makes such texts erotic but not pornographic is their purpose: We want professionals to be able to treat people with such difficulties, and so their professional knowledge of bizarre sexual activities is not culturally deviant. Books and tapes often recommended by therapists to help couples struggling with amore might be justified based on purpose (although there’s a judgment call on this that I’ll save for another time). Lastly on distinctions between the erotic and pornographic, there’s also the question of medium content being appropriate based on the relation of the creator, the viewer, and the viewing context. For example, if a man was going on a business trip for two weeks, his wife slipping a cute little picture of her in a nightie into his luggage would be erotic but not pornographic, because our culture approves of a husband seeing his wife in a sexual way in private, and with her consent (And the same would possibly go for a phone call or e-mail with intimate content or a sexually charged reading of the Song of Solomon among spouses.) However, if either creator or viewer displays such content to someone outside of the culturally approved relationship (for example, the husband shows the picture to his buddies), the viewing context would transform the photo from erotic to pornographic in the minds of those other viewers. Of course I am not stating the Church’s position on such things, and in part I am not doing so because the Church has no position on such things. The veritable Handbook of Instructions counsels leaders not to construe that there is any official position in member’s bedrooms (pun!). I merely mention them because they reinforce the futility of applying a rating-standard to media content without consideration of medium and context. You may have noticed that my discussion and examples have assumed a certain morality of appropriateness and inappropriateness. It’s time to pause for a moment and elaborate on that a bit. As regards significations of the human body, those that, in my judgment affirm its divine beauty and magnificence are appropriate, and those that, again, in my judgment, violate or run contrary to the body as beautiful and divine are inappropriate. Further, as the discussion between myself and my professor revealed, the best standard for the consumption of any and all media content is Article of Faith 13, which, not-so-incidentally, was exactly what Elder Ballard advised in Conference the October following my discussion. Article of Faith 13 functions as an intersection of ideas found in other passages and verses, and so works quite well as a touchstone. Also, as an aside, I’ll mention that academic literature finds violence in media to be more negatively influential than sexuality. Sexuality is sometimes considered to be problematic, but I’ve found, as an LDS media scholar, significations of violence most always “violate” the body and its sacred beauty, while sexuality only sometimes does. And on what, you may wonder, is my judgment based? Well, I have a particular way of approaching the scriptures and GA comments, a way that accounts for the fact that they are riddled with inconsistencies, contradictions, incomplete reasoning, and cultural inflections of all sorts. I’ll spare you a laundry list of them, but sufficeth it to say, I find guidance from such texts in putting verses and passages that appear to contradict in tension and letting them inform each other in dialectic. I see this as accepting that truth can be circumscribed, and that virtues like “be a good example” but “avoid doing your good works before the eyes of men like the heathen” can best be understood by using each to inform the other, rather than to emphasize one at the expense of the other. So to formally address the MPAA’s rating system on the cultural, semiotic, and psychoanalytic terms I’ve suggested is to find the whole system unworthy of orthodox observance. Begun in 1968 at the behest of Catholic decency organizations and other interested groups, the MPAA’s ratings system is problematic in the current discussion for the following reasons: Its ratings are floating signifiers, they have no relevance outside the U.S., they were not constructed according to LDS standards, and they were intended as advisors for parents concerning their kids viewing. Ratings float based on the subjective nuances of what is and is not culturally sensitive at any given point in time. And contrary to pessimists, movie ratings (and movies) are not simply getting more permissive over time (with an emphasis on “simply.”). For example, many movies rated as PG in the 1970s and 80s would be more likely to get an R-rating or PG-13 rating than they would a PG rating today (off the top of my head, Airplane, Poltergeist, the James Bond movies, some very violent westerns, and the Poseidon Adventure are good examples of such films). Films in the 50s through early 60s were more sexually conservative in many ways then films from the 20s, 30s, and early 40s. Films in the 70s and 80s were more likely to show nudity than are films today (and sometimes at a lower rating—Airplane has a sustained, medium-distance shot of a woman provocatively shaking her bare breasts and it got a PG rating. That wouldn’t happen today.) Moreover, we’re currently enjoying an influx of some family friendly movies such as “The Incredibles,” “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “Winn-Dixie,” and “The Shaggy Dog” (The reason for newer, high-quality, family-friendly offerings seems to be market driven. Hollywood wants to get the whole family to go out and spend $7.50 a ticket and so they’ve decided that they can’t exclusively niche market to male teenagers—who watch the most movies and who therefore most often have films crafted for them.) That the MPAA rating system is not used outside the U.S. is an important point to the 6 million or so Mormons who live elsewhere. Canadian saints, whose culture is a bit more sensitive to violence and a little less sensitive to sexuality, have long observed that some films that get an “R” rating in the U.S. are less harshly rated in Canada, and vice versa. Invoking an “R” rating simply makes no sense for the church in a global context. That the MPAA rating system was not designed to meet the needs of Latter Day Saints is quite obvious. No one is concerned with whether or not Mormon standards correlate with ratings. As an example, and to return to my discussion of the iconic and the symbolic, is an hour and a half of innuendo that one might (or might not) encounter in a PG-13 film really less degrading to the human body than a few seconds of seeing anatomy that most everyone is familiar with anyway (which is more likely in an R film)? Jack Valenti, President of the MPAA has said “Indeed, if you are 18 or over, or if you have no children, the rating system has no meaning for you. Ratings are meant for parents, no one else.” (www.mpaa.org). And finally, a few comments on President Benson’s statements. It is true that he was specifically addressing young men, and later, young women. It’s also true that the current printing of the “For the Strength of Youth” pamphlet has no mention of rating whatsoever. Having observed these facts, I do not propose to ignore his council. Rather, I understand it for what it is: A rule of thumb given to U.S. LDS youth that adults in the U.S. should also keep in mind. And I consider his council in dialectic with the statements of other Church leaders, scriptures, and most fundamentally, the 13th article of faith. I have no problem, whatsoever, with LDS folks in the U.S. who choose to strictly avoid all R-rated movies. Nonetheless, I clearly see weaknesses in such a position and have argued rather extensively that there are other acceptable practices. I encourage all who are interested to check out the following articles, which have served as source material for some of my comments. Dan Stout’s article “Protecting the family…” which describes different types of Mormons in terms of their media consumption might make excellent material for personal study or family home evening. Hatch, J. 2003). “Can ‘Good Mormons’ watch R-rated movies?” Sunstone, March 2003. Stout, D. A. (2001). “Critics as audience: Perceptions of Mormons in reviews of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America.” In Stout, D. A., & Buddenbaum, J. Religion and popular culture: Studies on the interaction of worldviews. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press. Stout, D. A. (1996). “Protecting the family: Mormon teachings about mass media.” In Stout, D. A., & Buddenbaum, J. Religion and mass media: Audiences and adaptations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Stout, D. A., Scott, D.W., & Martin, D.G. “Mormons, mass media, and the interpretive audience.” In Stout, D. A., & Buddenbaum, J. Religion and mass media: Audiences and adaptations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Olaiz, H. (2002). “One Lord, one faith, many chat rooms: Mormons, the Internet, and the complexities of open spaces.” Sunstone, December, 2002. Valenti, J. M., & Stout, D. A. (1996). “An analysis of the impact of religious culture on media use and effective communication to women.” In Stout, D. A., & Buddenbaum, J. Religion and mass media: Audiences and adaptations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. __________________ "Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; " 1 Thess. 5:21 (NRSV) We all trust our own unorthodoxies. Last edited by Sleeping in EQ; 08-07-2006 at 06:06 PM.

08-07-2006, 05:41 PM	#2
jay santos Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 6,177	Thanks for the good read. I agree with you on nearly all counts except for your take that the prophet didn't really tell us not to watch rated R movies and your conclusion that watching rated R movies is not a sin. I thought it's been made more clear and more recent than you seem to infer. I'd like to know more on that. Hasn't Pres. Hinckley come out against rated R movies? Anyway, I find it easier for my conscience rather than to justify my watching of rated R movies, to just admit I'm wrong but that I like to do it anyway. There are a lot of commandments and a lot of sins, and I'm trying to make my way towards being a perfect follower of Christ little by little, but for now giving up rated R movies isn't the next step for me. Among my favorite movies of all time, many are rated R: Godfather, Pulp Fiction, Fargo, Fight Club, Punch Drunk Love, etc. Many rated R movies I would call must see for historical value, such as Saving Private Ryan. In many rated R movies I have seen thought provoking and deep spiritual messages such as Eternal Spotless Sunshine of the Mind whatever (beautiful message on unconditional love) or Butterfly Effect (which despite starring Ashoton Kutcher displayed an incredible profound concept on fate/destiny/circumstances that goes hand in hand with Stephen Robinson's parable of the divers). I enjoy the "smart" movies like Punch Drunk Love or Adaptation, and they all seem to be rated R. The funniest movie I've ever seen is a rated R Waiting for Guffman. Now, if I knew the second coming was tomorrow and I was forced to choose between the latest Tarantino flick or a fluffy rated PG romantic comedy, that's a no-brainer. Deep down I know watching rated R movies is not right. The images of violence and sex affect us all--it would be silly to try to deny that.