Something to think about--Movie Experiment

Cody and I have had four movie passes burning a hole in our pockets ever since July!!! Unfortunately, nothing good has been in the theaters lately except for a couple weeks when we wanted to go but couldn't. Last week I saw that Prisoners was coming and I thought it looked good so we planned on going to see that. I thought the movie was PG-13 but Cody noticed that it was R when we were driving by the theater a couple days ago. I was disappointed that it is R but glad that we didn't unknowingly try to go see an R rated movie. When I thought about that I got thinking, what if we had gone to see the movie and never even noticed it was R, how much of the movie would we have sat through before we walked out? Would we have even walked out? I hope we would have. As I was thinking about that the Pysch Major came out in me. What would be the result of an experiment where you take people who don't watch R rated movies, and show them a movie that is rated R but tell them that it's PG-13? Would they walk out? At what point would they walk out? What would be the factor that would make them decide to leave? Or would they stay the whole time because they thought it was rated PG-13? I would postulate that most of the people would stay, though I hope I would be wrong. It would depend on the movie though because some R rated ones are way worse than others, just like some PG-13 movies are way worse than others. Movies are getting worse as more sex, violence and language are becoming acceptable in PG-13 movies. When I watch movies that are PG-13 sometimes I think that there is no way I would want my 13 year old watching this stuff, a lot of it is too inappropriate for me! But because it's so acceptable we just...accept it. It's okay that they said the f-word once, because it's PG-13 and I know they won't be saying it again. Oh wait, now they can say it twice in a PG-13 movie?? Well, that's okay, as long as it's only twice. Boobs in the Total Recall remake? Oh that's okay, too, because obviously three boobs is fake and it only showed it for a second. Sex in Twilight? That's okay because it's Twilight and they're finally married and in love and that's what happens in the book!! But what if your 13 year old was sitting next to you?? Gives you something to think about. How much will I put up with because I can close my eyes or fast forward or because, hey, it's just a little bit and it's not R so it's okay, right? When someone says "This movie is SO good and it's only rated R because of one scene and we can just fast forward through it" it can be pretty tempting to watch that movie. Reminds me of the visual aid given at a fireside where the speaker put a little bit of dog poop in a burrito and then said, "it's okay, it's just a little bit, right?" Would you just eat around the dog poop??

This also got me thinking about the music I listen to. When I'm listening to Pandora and Elise is with me and the song is bad I change it, but not always when she isn't with me, cause it's just a little bit of language and sexual innuendo and I'm old enough to listen to it, right? Plus it's such a good song to dance to!

Which then also got me thinking about how we are supposed to be like little children, and probably if it's inappropriate for my child it's inappropriate for me. That's kind of hard to swallow because if I think really honestly about it, the shows and movies I watch and the music I listen to isn't always stuff I'd let Elise watch. Not that it's really bad, but it's bad enough that Elise doesn't need to be exposed to it.

And I think about the books on my book shelves. Is every single book on my book shelf one I would be okay with Elise picking up and reading? That I can almost certainly answer yes to. I need to go through them and make sure but awhile ago I did go through them with that purpose in mind. Books are a lot easier to give up than shows and music.

Something to think about. Definitely something for me to think about.