What are your limits?
Everybody has their limits, the little invisible lines that define what is appropriate and acceptable and what is not. A number of people have asked me if I only read books by christian authors and christian publishers. The answer is a resounding “No.” Neither do I only listen to christian music or watch movies that portray christian characters. A problem arises, though, when people who know I am a christian assume that all the books I review or recommend meet their same standards of propriety.
So, here’s my question for you: what are your limits?
I understand CBA will not publish a book if it includes a single swear word. It makes me think of Gone with the Wind and all the hub-bub Selznick endured for that one famous line: “Frankly, my dear …”
Will you read a book with swear words? Are there certain swear words that are okay and others that are not? What about sensuality? Do you have different standards for books versus movies or TV?
I have a friend who insists she’ll not read books nor watch movies that include profanity. Yet she loved Erin Brockovich. Have you seen that movie? Not only does it portray a single mom with immodest fashion sense and questionable morality, but the F-bomb is dropped liberally throughout. Almost as much as Good Will Hunting. My friend wasn’t bothered. In that case, the story took over. She was so drawn into the plot that these inclusions, which typically assault her, went unnoticed.
Where is the line and how good does the story have to be to justify “impure” details? Raw details often lend greater authenticity, but how much is too much? How do you define the line?
Posted on August 5, 2009, in details, random thoughts, writing. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments.
That’s a great question….it definitely gives me something to think about. I don’t limit myself to only reading Christian books and watching Christian movies, but I also don’t watch or read things that I consider to be “immoral”. But I’m not sure exactly how or where I draw a hard and fast line.
Great insight Tanya. It’s sad how easily we justify things in order to not have change our behavior. Maybe some of my lines need to be drawn a little darker, and perhaps moved back a little farther. Thanks for the challenge.
I try to live by the “be in the world and not of it”, so I may read or see something that doesn’t pass the CBA test, but I use my discernment and discretion.
I’d love to say a have a solid recognizable line drawn, but I really don’t. I try to stay away movies and/or books that throw in nudity/sexuality/violence/swear words/umappealing jokes just for the sake of something to do. (Like Adam Sandler’s movies for instance), but if it’s a true story I tend to loosen the rules a bit, although I do think that there is a way to…tastefully…portray subjects. Just because someone has sex doesn’t necessarily mean you have to describe/show it in all it’s gory detail – ya know?
This almost sounds cliche’, but a lot depends on the context and whether the violence/language/scene for “mature” audiences helped to tell the story more accurately or whether it was gratuitously added for shock value and added no information to the story. The stuff that gets added just to “spice” books or movies sticks out like a sore thumb. The stuff that lends itself to the story is not as obtrusive to me.
I tend to agree with Whimsie, and I get a little up in arms about the hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil perspective, but I still am unsure about the question. What I tend to find amusing in this discussion is that many of us will go to bat for the verbal, plenary, etc. inspiration of the Bible and battle vehemently insisting that every word is placed specifically and for a purpose, yet we completely ignore the explicit elements in the Bible. If the Bible were an uncut documentary, it’s my opinion that we’d find ourselves in the middle of a NC-17 rated (at best) experience that was horrifically violent, unbelievably erotic, and despairingly savage at times. I find it ironic that we ponder over whether or not we should read/watch/listen to explicit content when I think if we really applied ourselves to inserting ourselves in the narratives of the Bible we’d be much more challenged by figuring out how the rawness of the narrative contributes to how powerful the storytelling is.
Please don’t take this to mean that I condone a carte blanche attitude towards exposure to explicit content. I’m just trying to craft a viewpoint that reconciles explicit content that is external to my faith with that which is.