Edited, Schmedited – Thoughts on Movies

Movies “edited for content” have been around in some form or another for as long as I have. New services come and go, usually shut down by Hollywood attorneys who hilariously and hypocritically claim that editing a movie destroys the “director’s vision,” or some other tripe. (Apparently editing a movie for TV or an airplane has no impact on the lofty vision of the director.)

We have used a lot of different methods to clean up our entertainment. We have used TV Guardian, and we have rented or purchased DVDs that are edited. The latest service that has come down the pike, VidAngel, “sells” you your own copy of the movie, streams an edited version to you, then buys it back. Sneaky, but it had avoided lawsuits – until this month. (In Jan 2017 the Courts shut them down but they are still fighting.)

We signed up of that service a little while ago, but I haven’t used it yet. I’m sure that it works, but it worries me because I am a huge movie fan. I love movies – maybe a little more than I should. Yet my love of movies often conflicts with the standards I try and maintain. I have written enough about that before, (here, here, here and here.) and don’t want to revisit it here. Suffice it to say, I have yet to see anyone successfully justify how any R-rated movie meets the LDS standard of avoiding profanity, nudity or violence. (Everyone has their own opinions here – not trying to be self-righteous – just righteous.)

Enter edited movies. Now we can watch what we normally shouldn’t be watching – which opens up a lot of R-rated and PG13, and even PG movies that would have previously been rejected.

But I think there should be more to it that just picking a movie and letting it roll. Here are two quick examples:

When the King’s Speech came out a few years ago, I was bummed that it was rated R because of lot of profanity – so I didn’t go see it. Fortunately, a few months later, they re-released it as a PG-13 movie and stripped a ton of the profanity out.  It was a “Good” movie, and I’m glad I saw it.

Back in my BYU days, the on-campus Varsity Theater would show edited versions of popular movies. I specifically recall a Peter Sellars movie entitled “Being There” was shown on campus. They had chopped out some sex stuff and some profanity. But, at the end of the movie, the mindless protagonists walks on the water in an obvious reference to Christ. I immediately felt gross. There was some outcry amongst the Christian community at the time that the movie’s atheistic intention was to make a mockery of the story Jesus – and that is what I felt when I was sitting there – in the BYU theater!  It was like they edit the movie, but never actually watched it.  I have never forgotten that experience, and it made an impact on me. Removing the profanity and sex from that movie did not make it a “Good” movie.

Which brings me to my concerns about edited movies and TV shows:

1. Removing BAD stuff from a movie or program does not necessarily make that movie or program GOOD. And by good, I’ll go with Joseph Smith’s version of “Good.” “If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.” Joseph Smith. Maybe a better choice of word would be “worthy,” as in “praiseworthy.”

 

For example: You can take all the bad words out of “The Hangover” trilogy, and you are still not left with a “worthy” movie. Same with “Fight Club” or “The Walking Dead.” Sure, you can clean them up…  It reminds me of an old MormonAd:

Nobody wants to eat the ice cream with the cockroach in it. But nowadays, with technology, we can actually remove the cockroach bits and pieces from the ice cream.  Would you eat it now?

My personal concern (And I mean the concern that I have for me) is that if I watch a lot of movies in an edited version that I wouldn’t watch in their original version, I’ll allow myself to become less selective and flip off the discernment switch in choosing my entertainment – finding security in, “Hey – it’s edited.”

A perfect example of this would be last years Oscar winner, “Mad Max: Fury Road.”  I watched an edited version. It was a good movie, but to was surely not a “worthy” movie by any stretch of the imagination.

This would be especially dangerous if you have kids – it would be easy to fall into the habit of letting them watch whatever – as long as it is edited. I worry about placing too much faith in editing for cuss words and naked bodies, with no ability to edit for the messages and meanings contained in the movie.

2. The economics of edited movies send the wrong message.

If I “pseudo-purchase” a streaming movie, or buy an edited R-rated DVD, I am sending my dollars and approval to the studios that made it. My message to them? Please make more – I like this stuff.  It reminds me of the old story of a church leader talking to a store owner and asking him if he would consider closing on Sunday – the shopkeeper replied, “If your people didn’t shop in Sunday, I probably would.”

3. The Blurring of Lines

We all know that the movie and TV rating systems are seriously flawed to the point of being ridiculous – but they are flawed in the direction of being inadequate, not ignorable. Worse yet, they are determined by people whose standards are far out of kilter with us as members of the Church. It would be foolish to trust a PG-13 rating for our 13 year-olds. Ratings standards have declined drastically over the last decade – should ours?

With all of the streaming services like NetFlix and Hulu, the choices for content are unlimited – but somehow the standards keep declining.  (I got to the third episode of “House of Cards” before I disappointedly bailed on it.)

Edited movies somehow give us permission to take a quick peak into to Babylon without ever really going there. I know because I have watched movies that I would have never considered watching – just because they were edited.

But in defense of edited movies… I remember seeing Titanic in the theater while seated next to my Father-in-law, who had just been called as a new Stake Patriarch.  Let’s just say that Kate Winslet looked more comfortable than I felt. However, I would gladly watch an edited Titanic with my kids. There is always the “Jesus Test:” Would you watch it with Jesus?  Which is a pretty high standard. (Personally, I would just hand Him the remote and cower.)

I also remembering talking up “Back to the Future,” then turning it off part-way through because I had forgotten how much profanity was in it.  An edited version would serve us well. (Just last month we plopped the kids down to watch “Raising Arizona.” (We didn’t even make it to the diaper theft.) My memory seems to naturally diminish the things that I shouldn’t be watching over the years, and I find myself making terrible recommendations.

 

So, those are my concerns. The wicked world is getting more wicked, and finding better and sneakier ways of getting into our home. As a movie lover, edited movies seem like the answer to my prayers, but in reality, they can be wolves in sheep’s clothing – even if every bad word, brutal death, or naked body is removed.

Be careful out there – use the discernment we are promised through the Holy Ghost, and never fall for the falsehood that there are no worthiness standards that we should apply to our entertainment. There are.