I am a huge movie buff. I love most types of movies–action, comedy, drama, science fiction, fantasy, historical, mystery, even romance if I am in the right mood. The only problem with this love of movies is that I also feel very strongly about not inviting content into our home that will offend the Spirit. Sometimes, it is difficult to know what you will see in a movie you haven’t seen before. There are many times I have debated with myself whether or not to watch a certain movie based on my prediction of what it might contain.
I have found two solutions that have helped make such choices easier for me personally. The first is a website called kids-in-mind.com. This free site provides information about potentially offensive content in movies. It promotes this as information for parents to know what their kids may be watching, but I believe that adults should be watching what they watch as well. I often use this site to see if I or my family members are “walking into a trap” when we go to the theater. Sure, there might be a few spoilers in the descriptions that give away a minor part of the movie but, to me, the knowledge of what to expect in terms of content is worth the risk. The real spoiler would be to subject myself, my wife, and my children to inappropriate content that doesn’t come out of the mind very readily.
The second solution that I have discovered is a really cool product called Clearplay. This solution consists of two elements: 1) a special DVD player and a USB thumb drive that plugs into your PC and the DVD player ($80) and 2) a subscription to the Clearplay filter list ($7.95 per month). To use this product, you go online and select the movie(s) you want to view. The appropriate filter(s) are downloaded onto the USB thumb drive which is then inserted into the DVD player. This automatically loads the content filters into the DVD player’s memory. You can then customize the level of content filtering desired based on several settings:
- Violence
- Sex
- Nudity
- Vulgarity
- Bloodshed
- Substance Abuse
- Blasphemy
These settings allow you to create a customized viewing experience based on what you want to filter out and how intense you want that filtering to be for each area. The thing I like best about Clearplay is that it literally takes the power to control what I view away from Hollywood and gives it back to me and my family. The other thing I like is that the movies are carefully edited to remove offensive content, but also to make certain you can still follow the storyline. This is not an easy task when editing some movies.
One caveat is that the filters cannot always remove all potentially offensive content, but there are always clear warnings on the menu screen when this is the case. Also, I have found that removing all offensive language, violence, nudity, and sex does not necessarily make a movie an uplifting, worthwhile, or positive experience. There are many movies that, even with these things removed, can still offend the Spirit with the message(s) they portray. So this product is not a panacea and good judgment and inspiration are still required.
However, for myself, I have found that these two solutions (kids-in-mind.com and Clearplay) have helped me to take better control of the media I view and have allowed me to enjoy watching movies once again without worrying so much about what I am going to encounter. If you are aware of other solutions for reviewing or filtering out negative content from movies, I would love to hear about them.
I agree that the best filter is to find out before watching a movie that it is not something I would like to view. I have used kids-in-mind.com with much success for myself and my family.
I’ve also found http://www.screenit.com to have helpful ratings, similar to kinds-in-mind.com. However, Screen it! recently went to a pay model, so you can’t get reviews of all the movies unless you pay the $24.95 yearly subscription.
I love netflix. It has allowed me to cherry pick the best movies of all time. I am watching more and more of the classics. The CG is not there, but they have great stories.
The website I love for family-friendly movie reviews is Plugged In Online (sponsored by Focus on the Family). They also review other types of media. They not only advise of negative content, but also discuss positive content (spiritual, family relationships, etc.). This gives me food for thought about what we may learn from the movie we watch. They are so thorough you’ll often see “spoiler warnings” attached to their reviews.
I should mentioned Plugged In Online reviews may be found here.
I’m a big fan of kids-in-mind and ClearPlay too. They’ve become invaluable tools for me and my family.
I agree that Clearplay is a great product and we’ve enjoyed ours. 🙂
Having earned several degrees in critical film studies, I have thought deeply about this matter and have lots of opinions about it. I absolutely agree with this post that we as parents need to scrutinize and carefully screen what our children (and ourselves) are watching. However, to quote Gideon Burton, a BYU English professor:
“Mormons do fight back against the wordliness of contemporary film, of course, but this takes the passive form of complaint and censorship, not the active form of creativity and invention. The Mormon audience is not interested in reshaping cinema; it’s interested in re-editing videos of popular film or sanitizing standard studio productions with filters like TV Guardian or Cleansweep software for DVDS, or with edited movie rental services such as Clean Flix. So long as the high point of LDS audience reponse to film is censorship or moral denunciation, a real Mormon cinema will be seriously impeded. To put it simply, Mormons are very good at pointing out what is bad, but not very good (with respect to film) at celebrating what is virtuous lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy. Until Mormon audiences embrace their own articles of faith, until they actively choose to discriminate toward the good and not just awya form the bad, then there really is no vision for Momron vision for cinema. Mormon cinema won’t have a chance to arrive so long as Mormons are prepared only to ascertain what is morally wrong in films they see, and remain uninterested in seeking out, discriminating, or creating what is right (morally or aesthetically) in film.”
Burton is of course talking about Mormon cinema, spefically, but I feel that his comments could be applied to parenting and the media. As a member of my bishopric once said, “It is not enough to remove the negative, you have to replace it with the positive.” We of course need to protect our children from harmful media, but we also need to teach them how to actively understand and respond to the media they encounter. We need to teach them more than just how to walk out of the theater or turn off the TV. We need to teach them how to analyze media and understand the deeper messages being presented. (Because sometimes a film can be “clean” on the surface, but have deeper, more disturbing ideas.) Not only will this help them to be more active viewers, but it will help them to appreciate the stuff that is good on a deeper, better level.
This comment is already turning into a novel. I have a lot more to say—specifically about how the media can be used to bond families closer together—but I’ll just close by saying that I agree with the BYU Media Arts department’s stance on media and children. I highly recommend checking out professor Dean Duncan’s Children’s Media course at BYU or his website Children’s Media Review (which is in bad need of repair and updating—any takers on helping it?).
Ugh… please excuse my many typos…
My view on this is that while it is essential to get as much information as possible in order to make an appropriate viewing decision, it’s a crime to edit a work once it has been released by the artist.
Once it is released, a work stands as it is; a complete vision of the artist who created it. When the public decides to alter the work it amounts to graffiti. The choice is to watch or not watch – a power that has never been in the hands of the Hollywood producers.
What exactly is the control that we are in need of claiming back from Hollywood? While I am concerned about standards and morals in all forms of art, surely the control over my viewing always remains with me.
The problem with solutions like Clearplay is that one pays another to watch objectionable material one does not want to watch himself. Since it also requires the purchase of a DVD, it still provides monetary incentive for directors to keep making movies with such content.
Not buying/renting the DVDs is necessary to show we are not interested in the content.
Likewise, if Mormons want good cinema, they should try creating good cinema. Comedy with clique-y punchlines doesn’t cut it.
The key to taking control from Hollywood is reducing their market and increasing the market for wholesome entertainment.
Thank you David for the heads-up on clearplay. We are going to get it this weekend. Our old filter broke. Does anyone know a way to filter TV programs??
I have a bunch of friends that have raved about Clearplay, but I have chosen not to use one in our house. If you purchase or rent movies that need to be edited by Clearplay, then you are using your dollars to support movies that have offensive material. The movie studios don’t know that the offensive content bothers you, they just know that someone bought/rented an offensive movie.
I have to respectfully disagree with the posters who feel that editing videos is 1) morally wrong because it distorts the artist’s original vision and 2) that watching edited videos always contributes to “evil” causes and perpetuates filth being produced in the entertainment industry.
First, I believe that if I purchase something, I have the right to modify it for personal use according to my own taste. For example, once I purchase a book I feel very free to write in it, tear out a page I don’t want, etc.
Second, contrary to popular belief, there are many excellent non-evil film makers in Hollywood who tell really great stories with positive messages but do not necessarily do so completely in line with LDS standards. This is usually because they are not LDS. They don’t understand gospel principles the same way members should. This does not mean they are bad people or that they don’t have important things to say that we should listen to. However, because I do want to maintain an LDS standard in my home, I am grateful for technology that allows me to access these good stories and messages without being exposed to the world’s way of doing it.
I personally was disgusted with clearplay. The quality of the editing was horrible (muting just doesn’t cut it). Besides, not only was I having to pay for filtering each month, but I also had to buy the DVDs.
My solution: Any new DVDs I buy, I get from Family Edited DVDs. I buy the original DVD and they provide a free edited of any DVD I purchase from them. Their editing is top quality. Their selection is slim, but they have the most popular movies and most all the new releases.
pluggedinonline.com does movie reviews from a Christian view point and it is free