Month: June 2007

Yesterday morning, before work, I got a call from a solicitor. When I answered the phone, the lady on the other end asked for the woman of the house. I informed her there was no woman of the house, and that the man of the house was speaking. She then went into her scripted speech about her cause; the Dove Foundation. She asked me questions about whether I was concerned about the “lack” of “family” oriented movies that are being produced by Hollywood. I told her no. Shocked, because she said “oh”, she continues to throw “facts” at me about how many more R rated movies are produced, and how there aren’t enough “family” oriented films being produced at the same rates. She then asked if I was concerned that this gap was so disparate, and asked why I thought it was. I then told her that movies are made to make profits; Hollywood makes movies that will sell, and it is less about family entertainment, and more about profit margins. Again, I got an “oh”. All in all, I listened to her spiel, I was polite, and our call ended with the traditional no three times rule (which is really annoying by the way).

As I got to thinking about the call, and after investigating the foundation, I felt the need to post about it, because I had some thoughts I wanted to express. First of all, I thought it was odd that she would initially ask for the woman of the household. Perhaps this foundation believes that it is the mother, not the father, who has the job of protecting and representing the “family” values that the Dove Foundation so solidly wants? Or maybe she just wanted to talk to a woman, either way, it was something to think about.

After investigating the website, and their justifications for backing one film, and not backing another, I found it to be pretty inconsistent with regards to violence and representations of “family”. Take for instance, they approved Spiderman 3 (which is no doubt, a violent film), but did not approve Pirates of the Caribbean, citing that Pirates was too violent. Now, I don’t see a need for an organization to approve or disapprove a film because of the level of clearly fictionalized violence, because if you are a parent, you should be intelligent enough to know that each of these films holds the potential to be violent, and as such, may be inappropriate for children; especially considering that each of these films are rated PG-13. If you lack this sort of filtering mechanism, well, I don’t really know what to say other than, wow, you are pretty willfully ignorant, so it probably doesn’t matter to you what your kids watch, does it?

But the violence inconsistency wasn’t what got my goat; it was the disapproval for movies that represented anything that wasn’t the judeo-christian “norm” of family (again, with inconsistency). I looked up three films that I thoroughly enjoy and own, all of which are rated PG-13: Best in Show, Rent, and De-Lovely. I picked these films, because I had a hunch that a film that portrayed gays in a positive light would not be approved by the “family”-centered foundation. I was correct. Each film was shot down, and here are some of the descriptions that were used as to why they were not approved:

Best in Show:

Content Description: Sex: picture of gay man in strange outfit, baring his bare bottom; two men kiss briefly; two women, outing their attraction for each other, kiss passionately; one woman has been sexually promiscuous in her past; the discourse coming form the gay couple is peppered with references to homosexuality – three other sexually based dialogues.

Rent:

RENT As you can tell from the above synopsis, this is NOT a family-friendly film. Like it or not, it is a peek into the underground world of drugs and homosexuality among a group of friends on the streets of New York at the “End of the Millennium.” Don’t let the singing fool you, this is serious stuff. Be prepared to see same-sex kissing, crude and suggestive dancing, cross-dressing, prostitution, drug addiction and withdrawal, and the effects of AIDS. The homosexual lifestyle is portrayed as acceptable and supported by family and friends.

and finally, De-Lovely:

De-Lovely has much to offer both musically and dramatically. And in a day when Christians are faced with pressures to consider homosexuality an acceptable lifestyle, De-Lovely may be worth seeing and discussing simply because it approaches the topic without being terribly graphic. It includes males dancing and kissing as well as implied sexual encounters. The film promotes the claim that homosexuals, like heterosexuals, are simply searching for love in their own way. Unfortunately, appropriate moral commentary is absent from this film, making it impossibel (this was taken from the site, as is) for awarding it the Dove Seal. The film adds crude and profane language.

What I see as something that IS consistent, is a disdain for anything that portrays homosexuals in a positive manner, or anything that shows the acceptance of homosexuality as a part of someones life. That disgusts me, especially because they rest on the laurels of promoting “family” values. This says to me, as a gay man, that I do not represent family values because I am gay and proud of who I am. This says that my friends, who are a lesbian couple with three children, are not a family, because they represent a positive example of a homosexual couple successfully raising children. That is religious propaganda, and should be called out for what it is. If you want to say that you promote family values, then promote happiness, safety, love, compassion, togetherness, and other positive values that would be fitting for any family to strive for. If you want to prevent children from being exposed to these “crude” representations of actual life, that I totally understand, as I would never take my child to see any of these films. BUT, that doesn’t mean that these films don’t contain elements of normalcy, decency, and representations of family, love, happiness, and life. To deny that, and to say that you don’t approve, represents ignorance, and more importantly, participation in a neoconservative propaganda campaign against homosexuality, and frankly, sexuality all together. That is a scary thing, especially considering the rate at which young people are being affected by AIDS these days; ignorance will make it worse.

Finally, I also found it interesting how much praise was given to the story of a father and son, which begins with a pretty jarring representation of mass murder, where the mother and all but the one son are brutally killed (even though it is implied and not explicitly shown). What movie to I speak of? Why, Finding Nemo of course!! What I find disturbing about their strong approval of this film, is that I personally know that there are several children that are traumatized by the beginning scene that I speak of, so much so, that if they would have been taken to see this Dove approved film in the theater, the parents would have been forced to take them outside because of the trauma and crying that would ensue. Forgetting that intensely jarring detail that happens at the beginning of the film seems pretty negligent of this organization, in my opinion.

Perhaps this organization would be better served by trying to make more films that it deems positive, and spend less time trying to denigrate other films that represent alternative facets of society. By doing what they are doing, they are proving that not only are their “values” inconsistent in several cases, but they are taking a positive effort to provide “family safe” entertainment, and hiding it under a religious, neoconservative, hate-filled propaganda campaign. So I say, don’t turn your positive into a negative; if you really want “family safe” entertainment, exercise a level of intelligence when taking your kids to the movies. Unlike what they are saying, there isn’t a lack of “family” movies at all, and damning all the ones that they don’t approve of is distracting from their cause (if that really is their cause).