Hollywood, Herod and The Massacre of Innocence - NCCG.ORG Ning Network Archive 2008-10

by Greg Spencer

Strolling through the Louvre museum, after seeing umpteen gold-flecked medieval Madonna-and-child paintings, I was ready for a visual break. I got more than I bargained for. I rounded a corner and I saw it, "The Massacre of the Innocents," a nightmare of screaming heads. Based on Herod's slaughter of all first-born sons (Matthew 2:16), the image could turn anyone's heart to mush. Maybe nothing grabs at our sense of injustice as fast as the horror of innocent children suffering.

That brings me to Hollywood. ("Just the leap I was going to make," you were about to say.) As I survey the cinematic landscape, I see parallels to Herod. Because he'd heard a Messiah might arise among the innocents, Herod saw them as a threat. Because producers know that those who maintain their innocence are more disciplined about the temptations around them, Hollywood sees the quality of innocence as a threat. Herod was willing to maintain his political power at the expense of others. Hollywood is willing to sacrifice the personal purity of their audiences for the sake of sales.

At the end of the Matthew passage, anxious parents discover their dead children and fill the air with weeping and wailing. Who wouldn't? My question is this, if I am correct that Hollywood is slaughtering our innocence, where is the weeping and wailing? Why are we not recognizing our loss or breaking down in agony? Far from mourning, most of us are rejoicing. In fact, we have given our sons and daughters (and ourselves) over to Herod in the comfort of our own living rooms.

Before you think that this article is just more ranting by a media-hater, I want you to know that I love movies — movies such as this last year's Millions, Good Night and Good Luck, and The March of the Penguins. But I don't love movies blindly.

Although I could write at length about the content of films, I would like to propose a less obvious idea: Innocence is not just for kids. Here are a few questions worth pondering: What is innocence? How might Hollywood be slaughtering innocence? What can we do about the state of lost innocence in America? I can only begin to answer these questions, but I hope to stimulate some thinking along these lines.

What is innocence?

I was watching a football game one afternoon when a commercial came on about an upcoming show. A woman in skimpy lingerie walked sexily toward a man and then passionately kissed him. Before I had a chance to change the channel to something less offensive, from behind the couch I heard the voice of my then 5-year-old daughter. "Daddy, why are they kissing like this?" and then she opened her mouth and mimicked the kiss on the screen. Instantly, my heart sank because she had lost a measure of innocence in that moment, an innocence I was responsible for guarding.

In this situation, I was thinking of innocence as we usually do, as a state of ignorance to be protected, an ignorance of information that corrupts. Naturally, we associate this quality with children. And while children should be shielded from all sorts of knowledge, we also do our best to introduce them gradually to much of the information we had, at one time, protected from them. When my kids were young, I did not tell them about police brutality or pastors who had affairs and left their churches. But when they became older, they needed to put aside the naïve view that these things do not occur.

Innocence is not just for kids. When Paul says in Rom.16:19 that we should "be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil," he is not addressing children. For adults, innocence is the virtue — not of "mere ignorance," of "not knowing" — but of knowing by discernment instead of by experience. It is ignorance of the experience of evil, not ignorance that it exists or how it works. As Jesus says, a disciple's innocence should be coupled with shrewdness (Matt. 10:16). He does not want us to have a Precious Moments sentimentality that pretends there is no evil in the world.

As a movie fan, I like to see highly praised films. But sometimes I refuse because I'm concerned about my own innocence. Though Taratino's Kill Bill series impressed the critics, I decided not to submit myself to his visions of playful human destruction. When I'm teased for not being about to "take it," I wonder what advantage there is to being so "tough" that a tragedy would pass through me like news about a baseball game. I know, it's "just a film." But, I guess, it's "just" my soul too, my view of the world.

All of this matters because, first, our moral purity is a goal of God's and, second, innocence is linked to our sense of justice. Kelly, a former student of mine, told me of how at age 4 she walked into her parents' bedroom and saw her father hitting her mother. The father, recognizing the transgression to Kelly's innocence, said, "Don't worry, Kelly. This is what married people do who love each other." Kelly, now 22, says, "From this experience, I learned how to lie." During her early years and well into adolescence, Kelly lied without remorse. Innocence is worth protecting for adults. We need the security of unbreached borders.

So, how might Hollywood be "slaughtering innocence"?

First, many films portray innocence as backward, dull and unsophisticated. Who wants to be a nerd when you can be James Bond? The "uninitiated" are the fools in Grease, Pleasantville, and hundreds of films, including the recent 40 Year Old Virgin — and they become progressive, exciting, and cool only by indulging their desires and shedding their grossly overstated commitment to morality. Clearly, virtue is embarrassing.

Second, many films make a narrative argument that inspires audiences to press against the boundaries of all kinds of innocence-thresholds. There's nothing wrong with revenge, says Batman Begins. Forget about your reluctance for shameless self-promotion, says Chicago. C'mon, don't be so uptight about coveting wealth and beauty and romance, says Notting Hill. Relax your judgmental spirit toward stealing, says Oceans Eleven and Twelve. Are these movies entirely bad? Of course not. Will one viewing make us lose our innocence? Perhaps not. Is there a possible cumulative effect when we see the same threshold-pushing message? I think so.

What can we do about the state of lost innocence in America?

The most important thing is to care about innocence — and that begins with our own innocence. When I speak to groups on media ethics issues, one of the first comments from the audience is usually "I agree. I am so worried about what all of this does to the kids." I often think, "Okay, but are you also worried about what happens to you?" So many of us think we are not in any way affected by what we see from Hollywood. But if that's the case, why do we go see movies in the first place? Aren't we going to be affected?

Once we've become committed to innocence, we can look for how it is being treated in films. I was so pleased to see the honoring of Samwise Gangee's character in the Lord of the Rings movies. He is Frodo's loyal friend, a hobbit with a pure heart. Because of his innocence, he names and resists evil. He is less easily seduced. We should hold up the good examples of innocence and praise them.

We can also talk with each other about the choices we are making. In college, I remember many a conversation with friends about the wisdom of seeing a particular film. Today, I hear far fewer of these conversations. If anything, I hear the "don't be so sheltered" argument from other Christians.

But I say, be brave, speak up! When two of our daughters were invited to a birthday party for a second grade friend, my wife, Janet, dropped them off and warmly asked the parents if they were going to show a movie. Yes, they said, Cat Ballou. Janet's eyebrows went up. It's the story of a drunken cowboy and his adventures with prostitutes (Jane Fonda in her "sex kitten days" — so said the video box). As graciously as she could muster the words, Janet said she felt uncomfortable with that film and would they be so kind as to call before the film started so she could come over to pick up the girls. The three adults ended up in a cordial discussion about what films were appropriate for what ages, and the upshot was that they asked if Janet would go pick out a movie. Truly, everyone was satisfied.

The slaughter of innocence is a frightening but complicated phenomenon. We could easily become shrill reactionaries, complaining about all except the simplest of artistic expressions. Can movies sometimes teach us the importance of keeping our innocence while walking us through some difficult material? I believe they can.

In fact, in Proverbs 7, the wise father does exactly this. Instead of merely telling his son about the wily prostitute, he takes his son down to the red light district and gives his son knowledge ("Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths," 7:25).

Essentially, he tells his son to practice innocence, to learn by discernment rather than learn by experience. It's a good model for all of us.
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Copyright © 2006 Greg Spencer. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. This article was published on Boundless.org on March 2, 2006.

Reply by Lev/Christopher on March 11, 2009 at 7:26am

Excellent article

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