Whatever You Do, Don't Read This

I was surprised at how much I got into writing this letter to my Hebrew teacher. I tried to be nice, but direct and really tell her how I felt. I have a lot to do right now, but I thought a lot about this letter and revised parts of this over and over again. If you want to understand more about my experience in watching this movie, see my post entitled, "So Desensitized" from a week ago or so.


March 31, 2010

Shalom,

Pesach semeach. I have been thinking for awhile about sharing with you some of my concerns with watching the movie, Be and Become for your class. I haven’t been sure how to do this exactly and I feel like there hasn’t been a good time to bring it up with all of the stressors your family has been through recently. I am writing a letter so that I can express better than I could in person some of what I felt while watching the movie and how I am affected. If you have any questions for me or would like to discuss it further in person I am willing to do that.

I was unpleasantly surprised by a couple of parts in the movie—two parts in particular. I’m guessing you are fairly familiar with this movie and know what scenes I am referring to. Both are sexual in nature. One involves the adoptive couple in bed together and is rather brief. The other one is considerably longer. It involves a scantily clad female seducing the main character in the dance club by helping him take off his clothes in her private room, touching him, and exposing herself enough so that he would give her money. This scene was especially disturbing considering that these characters in the movie don’t know each other at all prior to this interaction. The brutal violence that follows their interaction only makes it worse. I don’t even know all that happened because I was averting my eyes for half of the scene.

To be completely honest, I was shocked that a movie assigned by a BYU teacher would have such content. I honestly felt like I was betraying BYU and its standards by watching this movie in a classroom that is set aside for the important purpose of learning. I felt like I was watching trash that would hinder anyone from learning truths about life. I realize that people have differing levels of sensitivity to media content. I think males in general may be more affected by sexual content than females. I know I felt disturbed watching these scenes and felt very uncomfortable with them. This bad feeling didn’t just leave right after the movie was over unfortunately. It was lingering. I now have scenes etched in my mind that I wish were not there. As a result, I want to strongly encourage you not to show that movie to students in the future, or at least to edit out parts of it.

I admire your interest in refugees and immigrants and some of the plights that they may experience. Your humanitarian spirit is impressive and encourages me to be more humanitarian minded. I really mean that. I can glean some value in learning about and seeing some of the difficulties of immigrants or refugees though saddening and disturbing they may be. Depictions of poverty, communication frustrations, cultural misunderstandings, or societal difficulties may help me and others have more compassion and understanding for God’s children when these depictions are not obscene in nature. However, I cannot see any value in watching depictions that desensitize viewers and hinder compassion rather than fostering it. Watching immoral behavior of others normalizes so much of what modern day prophets warn us against today and does not increase faith, hope, or charity to help others. I understand that people may be taken advantage of or be put in difficult situations that are part of real life for them. However, I believe that seeing obscene depictions of such tragedies does not help anyone to assist others. Seeing it may increase pity, but not compassion because such content brings the viewer down and makes them less able to lift others up. We can really only understand and help others when we are sensitive and susceptible to be influenced by God’s love, not when we are hardened or desensitized by obscenity. Please do not encourage your future students to watch this movie unedited. Todah.

With a lot of forethought and feeling,


Eliyahu
(Jason Burningham)



I'm curious to see how many people read this post with the title that I gave it. I'm performing a little personal pyschological research : ), so if you read this post will you please leave a comment telling me you read it? Even if you don't have anything to say about it, just say "I read it." Thank you.