Movies: a reflection of our culture.

I watched a great documentary the other day called This Film is Not Yet Rated. Highly recommended if you love movies... it's available for streaming on Netflix. It talks about the standards set by the MPAA and how it controls culture.

One of the primary things the documentary talks about is how violence is accepted in American movies, sometimes even glorified, but nudity and sex are shameful and strongly regulated. Which, to me, doesn't make any sense. We were born nude. It's our natural state. Humans began to wear clothing to protect themselves from the elements, and through time, a nude figure was seen as provocative. If we didn't have sex, we wouldn't reproduce, and not to mention we would be awfully grumpy. Porno is one thing, but our culture is so shy of sex in general.

Pictured: the decay of decency.

A lot of movies we have nowadays are also ridiculously violent. Violence can be used in conjunction with other elements to tell a story. It's necessary for films such as Saving Private Ryan to portray a realistic warscape. However, anymore we have movie after movie of a plot centered solely on violence.

I'm not squeamish, but Hostel was disgusting. It was nothing more than a torture film with very little plot. Saw was an interesting concept, but as they made more and more movies they turned into snuff films. In a way, humans crave violence. We're warring, primate creatures underneath a sophisticated facade; it's instinct put into place for our survival. But sex is an instinct too, and a good one at that. Why is a romantic scene, or a nude person, so offensive to us when we don't blink an eye at decapitations and mutilations?

A good point that the documentary brought up was the fact that, for much of Europe, their movies are the complete opposite. Violence is regulated more strongly, and nudity and sex aren't a big deal. Look at Amelie: a sweet, quirky story that anyone could love. It's rated R in the US because of two five-second upper-body sex scenes with no nudity and a time-lapse picture of a pregnant woman with her breasts exposed.

The Lilith who is planting demons in our childrens' minds.

It's also interesting that gay couples are also looked down upon more strongly in movies than violence. Take But I'm a Cheerleader. Run-of-the-mill teen movie, except it's about a cheerleader who realizes she's a lesbian and her parents send her off to straight camp. There's a fully-clothed masturbation scene and a fully-clothed sex scene where her and her girlfriend do nothing but mess around a little, both very brief. Apparently this got it a NC-17 rating. American Pie depicts a guy having sex with a pie, and one of the Scary Movie films shows a guy blast a girl and glue her to the ceiling with his semen, yet those are only R. But I'm a Cheerleader got the same rating as a porno because it had a lesbian couple.

Maybe someday we'll come to terms with the fact that the rest of the English-speaking and Western world thinks we're a bunch of ultraconservative puritans and lighten up a bit. But until now, I guess we'll have to enjoy our horror films that aren't so much horror anymore as they are a contest to see who can get the most blood and viscera on screen.

This is normal and acceptable.