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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Wed, 27 Jan 1993 09:16:16 CST
From:         Anthony Glen Jeffries <jeffries@IASTATE.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Movies & Ratings
              <01GTXH9VKKFM99DJV5@asu.edu>

I hadn't checked my mail in two days, and when I logged on this morning
I had *212* messages.  Sheesh!

Anyway...

> Scott Weberg writes:
>
> > What percentage of new movies are rated PG??  (IMO any movie that's rated
> > above PG has SOMETHING non-Christian in it; violence, sex, foul language,
> > etc.  I'm not saying here that we should NEVER see a PG-13 or R movie --
> > I'm just making a point about the *content* of today's movies.)
>
> I do not believe you could make an accurate and complete movie version of the
> Bible with less than an R rating, and possibly an X.  The Bible includes some
> pretty brutal passages.  In fact, if you just sat in a chair and read the
> Bible you might not get lower than a PG-13.
>
> Side note: I understand that you cannot read the KJV on the TV or radio in
> the US without having the FCC get on your case.  The word `piss' appears at
> 2 Kings 18:27 and Isaiah 36:12 (along with some derivatives in other places),
> and that word is on the FCC's list of no-nos.
>
As a student in the broadcast portion in the journalism department at ISU, I
think I can say that as long as the previously mentioned "brutal passages"
are used for the discussion of some Biblical point or something important like
that the FCC will not get upset.  If normally questionable language is used
in, for example, a news program (i.e. its being used for something serious),
then it is okay, *if* there was no way to avoid it, or it added to the
discussion, etc.  Using the same material strictly for its sexual
explicitness, etc. for, shall we say, (much) less than serious purposes will
get a broadcaster (notice that I did not say cablecaster) in serious hot water
with the FCC, depending on the time of day when the material in question
was broadcast.  Granted, all of this involves judgment calls (what is a
"serious" discussion, and what isn't).

This is just a quick response to your post.  I'll ask some of my journalism
professors about this one.

> > [stuff about why there aren't more good films out there deleted]

> Because it is very difficult to make a movie such as `ET', and it is very
> easy to have a cop shoot a gun a few times and have a woman take off her
> clothes.  While the high-quality G & PG movies do make a lot of money, it is
> easier to make profitable R-rated junk with prurient appeal.
>
I don't have any figures with me, but I concur.

> The same principle applies to many other things.  Sting made zillions of
> dollars with his album "The Dream of the Blue Turtles", which did not include
> any explicit references to sex or violence -- but it's hard to write a bunch
> of songs whose lyrics are complete sentences, and it's easy to sing about sex
> and put an unclothed female on the album cover.
>
See above.
>
> > My guess is that there is a *power* behind this industry with an agenda to
> > "kill, steal and destroy".
>
> I think the only active power is worship of The Almighty Dollar; while some
> people are moviemakers, most are businessmen who make movies.  This leads to
> neglect of good wo> rkmanship and going for cheap thrills.
>

Satan has much to do with it, as well.

>  *
>
> BTW, I know Democrats are anathema in this newsgroup, that Bill Clinton
> is the reincarnation of Diocletian, and that anybody who voted against
> George "God's Own Candidate" Bush earned a trip straight to Hell.  (Voting
> against a Republican is the Unforgivable Sin, after all.)
>
I voted for H. Ross Perot.  I couldn't stand Bush, and I wasn't too happy
about Clinton's stance on abortion, national health, etc.  Of course, if
a third candidate hadn't run, I probably would have voted for Clinton.
Scary.  Very scary.

> However, I thought I'd mention that Tipper Gore took some time out from
> drinking fresh blood and wrote a book titled "Raising PG Kids in an X-rated
> Society" (or something like that).  People who are interested in this topic,
> and who don't mind supporting one of those Godless Heathen Anti-Family
> Democrats, might want to get a copy of her book.
>
I'll have to see if this is in our university library.
>
> Darren F Provine / kilroy@gboro.rowan.edu

Anthony Glen Jeffries
Journalism and Mass Communication student, Iowa State University
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU