Good, except for...

When people see a movie, they are inevitably asked how they liked it. The majority of the time the response I hear is, "it was good except for... (profanity, nudity, violence, sex, etc.). My response is, if it has all of those bad things in it how could it possibly be good? For some reason, people think that they are somehow immune to the bad parts of movies. They don't think it really affects them. I beg to differ. I've heard it said that if you don't see movies because of just a few bad parts, then you are really missing out on some good movies. Once again I disagree. I believe that if those movies contain any offensive material at all, then they are not good movies. Any offensive material in a movie does affect your spirit, nobody is immune. This is one of Satan's greatest ploys. A few years ago I subscribed to clean flicks where movies were edited to remove offensive material such as swearing, bedroom scenes, some violence, and other things the editors thought might be offensive. I appreciated not having to listen to profanity etc. but even then, a lot of those movies were not even worth watching. [Sidenote: Hollywood lawyers put clean flicks out of business. They want to make sure you get all the bad offensive material when you watch a movie. After all, this is probably why most movies are made.]

An analogy I have heard several times is this. Let's say somebody made brownies and used nothing but the finest ingredients. And just before baking added a couple tablespoons full of dog poop. Would you like to eat those brownies? You would hardly notice the dog poop. I would say most people would not eat them. If they knew what they contained. Well I thought of a little better example along the same lines. Let's say we made the same brownies with the finest ingredients and just before baking added a little bit of arsenic or strychnine. Just like the first example, you wouldn't notice the poison when you ate the brownies. But they certainly would affect your body. And nobody in their right mind would knowingly eat those brownies.

Well just like those brownies would poison your body. Movies and television with offensive material poison your spirit. And just like poison you ingest, the effect is cumulative. The more poison that you put in your body the sicker and sicker you get until it kills you. Likewise, the more bad things you put into your mind via watching movies, television, reading magazines etc. the sicker you become spiritually.

There is a short story I want to relate and I hope I don't butcher it too much, it's been a while since I've read it, but I believe it is from The Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W. Kimball. It goes something like this. There was a man traveling in the desert with his camel. They decided to camp for the night and the man pitched a tent. The camel of course was left outside the tent. Well the desert winds became very strong and the sand was blowing strongly hitting the camel. The camel and asked his master if he could just put his head in a tent so the sand would not get in his eyes. So the man agreed. Well, slowly but surely the camel kept asking if he could come in the tent just little bit more to avoid the sand blowing against his body. And each time the master agreed and let the camel inch his way in to the tent a little bit more. Eventually, the entire camel was in the tent and the man had no space to sleep.

This is an example on how Satan works against us. He starts out with little things like maybe a movie with just a couple of swear words. Then, eventually more swearwords. And eventually those swearwords are not offensive like they once were. And so on and so forth. Just like the man in the story became tolerant and allowed his camel to creep in until it overtook his entire tent, the same is true with becoming tolerant to offensive material in movies. Until eventually our spirits are so desensitized to offensive material, we become spiritually dead. Just like the poison will kill our bodies, the offensive material and movies will kill our spirits. To me, spiritual death is much worse than physical death.

Let me give you an example of something that happened to me several years ago. While attending podiatry school in San Francisco, one of my classmates asked me if I would attend his birthday party. I told him no, but eventually he was so persistent that I reluctantly agreed. There are several stories to be told here but I will focus on one. As part of the birthday celebration, everybody was to go to the theater to watch, "Rocky horror picture show". I had no idea what this was. And I still don't really. Here's what happened. There was a group of about I would say 10 to 15 people, we all paid our way in. As we were waiting for the movie to start, we were informed that the film, or projector was broken. But what they were going to do was have a live performance, or reenactment of that movie. So, as it started, I felt very uncomfortable. But what should I do? I was with a group of people and I didn't want to ruin the party for them. But I really didn't want to be there. So I finally decided I would tell my classmate i was going to wait in the lobby while everybody finished watching the movie/live performance. (I didn't have my own car there as we all walked over to the theater together so I didn't really have a way of going home. ) Anyway, I got up the courage and leaned over to my friend and told him I wasn't comfortable and I was going to wait in the lobby. Much to my surprise, everybody in the party got up and left and we all got a refund. So, by me standing up for what I believed in, I was a good example to 10 to 15 other people, who for that instance all avoided a bad influence.
Moral of the story-stand up for what you believe in and What Is Right , and don't worry what others will think of you.

While I'm on the subject let me just mention something about the motion picture Association's rating system. I'm sure we are all aware that we've been counseled to avoid R- rated movies. I don't think we can trust the rating system the same as we could several years ago. Even some PG movies contain much offensive material. I have even seen a couple of G-rated films that are crude and contain one or two swearwords. I believe that if a movie shouldn't be seen by 13-year-old or 17-year-old then why is it okay for an adult to watch it? Does morality change as you age? If it is not suitable for a child to watch, then it is not suitable for an adult either.

That's my two cents.