People talk about things not being what they seem. They talk of hidden realities or false appearances. There are similes, analogies, and parables used for the education of the masses. They are, therefore, not necessarily negative. A certain amount of the unrefined seems permissible if the bad is not actually damaging and it achieves a real good.
Hollywood scriptwriters, producers, directors (aka, the film industry) seems to be willing to sacrifice so much good and subject it to being placed in a shell of dirt and filth. Messages of heroism, triumph, and values are debased by "the common" way they are portrayed. We hear that they touch the hearts of the poor individuals who are just generally down on their luck. Fair enough. I agree that you can't sell movies about rich kids succeeding and achieve the same thing that you can achieve by selling a movie about poor, basically illiterate Hispanics who live in East L.A. However, I believe there is a fine line between touching hearts and corrupting people.
Humans are creatures of imitation. That's how we learn. We even teach by imitation; we teach the subject in the same manner we learned it. Presented with beauty, we strive for beauty. Presented with ugliness, we stop striving for that beauty and start down the path of darkness and despair. Maybe it isn't that dramatic of a switch. You don't go from being a saint to a heartless wretch in a day (at least, that's incredibly uncommon). You try toeing the line. "It isn't really that bad..." until it really is that bad. To make a long story short, one must redeem the story with an ugly beginning with a beautiful end. The bad must cease to play an over-archingly influential role in the hero's life. Otherwise, the lesson learned is one which does not lift the individual to the true, good, and beautiful.
This rant is brought on by the movie I just finished watching: Good Will Hunting. Great story, great actors, etc. It's about an young adult who has no family, no money, and no education, but has an incredibly genius mind. He is brilliant like Albert Einstein. The story is about this man and his troubles. He has run-ins with the law which end up with him in a psychologist's office. Drama ensues, things get really bad, but it ends in happily ever after. But some of that happiness was lost on me because of the f-words that were in every sentence. I kid you not, I don't think the main character, his psychologist, or his buddies had the ability to not say that word. (Refreshingly, his girlfriend didn't swear as much. She did, but not to the distracting excess that the guys did.) There was no real turn around for this kid. He "found what he wanted" and that was supposed to be that. He had some healing from his past. Good stuff. He decided he actually loved the girl and wanted to be with her. This meant following her to California where she was going to medical school. Meh.
Why, why, why does the story have to be tainted with so much of the negative stuff from our culture??? Why can't it be a story of conquering sin and temptation, rather than getting through some of it and wallowing in the rest??? I do not understand this. It could have been a movie I loved. Instead, it was a movie I enjoyed moderately, but don't have any desire to watch again. Can anyone tell me, honestly, that having that many F-words made is a more touching movie? I thought not.
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