Why I Didn't Care for the Oscars

I remember years ago hearing a speaker talking to youth about their entertainment choices. He told a story about his little boy not wanting to eat raisins. So he decided to try a little experiment. He gave him a bowl of cereal with one raisin in it. He watched his son pick out the raisin and go ahead and eat the cereal. The next day he put a couple of raisins in the bowl, and again the little boy removed them before eating the cereal. The next morning he put in a handful, and then watched as his son carefully picked out every raisin. Finally, he placed a bowl of cereal in front of his son with raisins mixed all through the cereal. The boy started to remove them one at a time, and then just gave up and pushed the bowl away.

The point of the story was to ask teenagers how much offensive material has to be in a movie before you decide it's just not worth trying to pick your away around it. Good question. I'm finding that as I get older, instead of becoming more tolerant of what I see in movies, I'm actually becoming less and less happy trying to ignore offensive material in my entertainment.

My wife and I fast-forwarded our way through the Oscars last night just to see which movies that we have not seen would get awards this year. I wondered why each year it seems like I've seen fewer and fewer of the nominated movies. This year we've only seen one of the films up for Best Picture.

And then it struck me--of the 15 movies up for one of the top awards (Picture, Director, Best & Supporting Actor/Actress), 10 were rated R and 5 were rated PG-13. Not one movie out of the 15 was rated PG or G. According to Kids-in-Mind.com (a very helpful resource for parents about the mature content of films--actually, Judy and I frequently use it to decide what we will see), these 15 movies included a total of over 150 "F" words. That's an average of more than 10 a film! (Granted, two of the films accounted for nearly 100 of that total, but most of the films had at least 2 or 3, if not more.) The only nominee for Best Picture which did not find "F" words necessary to produce quality dialogue was "The Reader"--and it got a 9 out of 10 for the amount of sex!

Some will say that such films are realistic and serious and true-to-life. Maybe. But I can remember when Hollywood was able to make Acadamy Award winning movies without vulgarity, nudity, simulated sex acts, or realistic visual effects of someone's head being cut off.

So when I look at the movie listings on a Friday night, I find myself wondering, "How many raisins can I keep picking out of my cereal?"

The answer seems to be "less than I used to" . . . but even at that, I'm pretty sure I'm putting up with more than Jesus would.

Gracious Speech and Partisan Politics

Have you noticed how partisan politics has become? I heard an NBC reporter this morning discussing the way the current stimulus package debate has drawn President Obama into partisan politics, despite his pledged desire to bring new bipartisanship to Washington. The reporter pointed out how the same thing happened to Bush, who had pledged to be a "uniter" rather than a divider. He said it just seemed to be part of the fabric of Washington.

I'm concerned with the way partisan loyalties seem to be destroying our ability to treat each other fairly and respectfully. Some conservatives accused Democrats of wanting Bush to fail because of partisan loyalties, and said that was un-American. Now some conservatives say they want Obama to fail. Why was it bad for one and not the other?

Party loyalties often appear to overwhelm objective analysis of issues and positions. For example, when a Republican president led a war against Iraq, some Democrats charged that we had no clear national interest at stake and that we had no clearly defined measure of victory and no exit strategy. When a Democratic president sent troops into Bosnia and Somalia, some Republicans said the exact same thing. To the independent observer, it looked like the real issue may not have been national interest or military strategy; the real issue may have been whether or not the President belonged to your party.

Even worse, it seems that the growing political divide in our country is leading us to demonize our opponents, much the way we demonize our enemies in war. It seems we want to believe the worst about our political opponents. They are the enemy. Since we believe in the truth, they must be enemies of the truth. Since they are enemies of the truth, they must be ignorant of the truth or, worse, liars.

So right-wing pundit, Ann Coulter, writes a book entitled, If Democrats Had Any Brains They'd Be Republicans; and left-wing pundit (now senator), Al Franken, writes one entitled, Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. And each side is thoroughly entertained by one and deeply offended by the other.

Too often when I talk with people about political and social issues, I hear them paint their opponents in harsh, insulting, and combative ways. Friends have called Cheney and Rumsfeld "warmongers." Clinton was a "whoremonger." Bush is "an idiot." Obama "pals around with terrorists." It's rare that I can sit at a table with someone and find they can treat their opponents fairly and respectfully. Can't we question whether the Bush administration's policies were too hawkish without labeling them as inhumane warmongers? Can't we question some of Obama's political associations without making it sound like he plays racquetball with Bin Laden?

I confess that I once engaged in the same sort of rhetoric. And I admit that I still struggle at times to treat my political opponents with respect. But I'm doing much better. I now consider it something of a personal challenge to enter a controversial discussion and find ways to speak politely of opposing positions—and an even greater challenge to describe someone else's positions with the fairness with which I would want them to represent my own views.

Somehow we Christians must learn to speak "with grace" (Col. 4:6), using speech that "gives grace" to those who hear (Eph. 4:29).

You know, the way we do when we discuss our differences in the church . . .