Whatever is the world coming to...?

This morning, drinking coffee and reading in bed, deliciously late in the morning, Dan and I were talking about the movie he went to see last night (I didn't want to go) - Django Unchained, by Quentin Tarantino. We know Tarantino's movies are very violent, always, but some students had seen this one and raved about it, and it won Oscars, so... Dan wanted to see it. He felt that it was a good movie, but, horribly violent, in fact, it got more and more violent as it went along. He commented that it is incredible the level of violence and gore we are used to seeing now on the screen. People no longer complain about it, although not everyone likes it obviously, it is just almost always there.

The graphic-ness is partly because special effects have developed so much, that anything can be portrayed realistically, even disembowellings, burnings at the stake, and decapitations.  And then apparently there is the director's urge always to push the boundary, and do the next thing, the next most horrifying, bloodthirsty thing, just because, you can. And it is for the sake of "art", after all. Um, no, I don't think so. I think it is for the sake of being "daring," and shocking.

At the same time, we have been watching a TV series we missed while away, "The Tudors" (which I do not recommend as you will understand in a minute.) Along with many I have a fascination for the Tudor period, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I and all that. I enjoy reading novels set in that time. But it was also by all accounts a frightening, violent time to be alive. Then, people went to watch in the flesh the beheadings and burnings, and shouted along. So, maybe I shouldn't feel so concerned... But again, I have been shocked in another way watching this series, about the graphic sex that is shown. Bar actual genitalia, you see ev-er-y-thing. It is strange really, how the most private activities are now acted out, not briefly, not just above the neck, not with one foot on the floor, not with even a scrap of sheet or hair discreetly positioned. This is in a show that would have been aired late evening, and on national TV, not rated as pornography, just, a "historical drama." You have to wonder about the actors - they are basically acting out porn, and, did they really sign up for that? It has changed so much in the course of my adult life, that I am sure older actors must wonder why and how they have ended up stripping off quite so much. I mean, would you do it?

So is it in there for the sake of art? Sometimes they say it is essential to the story - but usually, it isn't. The implication would be enough. Have we have become so used to seeing it that we don't question it? Or, am I really that much more squeamish about both violence and sex than most people - even than most other missionaries?!

When I was first a short-term missionary in Zambia, there was a lovely older American missionary lady, who loved reading, and often lent out her books to both other missionaries and Zambian friends. So, she had gone through all her books and used a black sharpie to blot out all the swear words in her books! And really, there weren't that many! Now, she would have to blot out a good proportion of every book.  Although I laughed about that, I do warn friends when I lend them books about the "rude bits."

Oh dear, what is the world coming to?