In honor of Halloween, some of us decided to take in the riveting epic Saw III last night. If you have seen any of the movies in this series, you'll know that they are extremely violent and intended for a (theoretically) mature audience.
So imagine my shock last night when a young family showed up, including a four-year old little girl. And she was not the only child there - although my seat did not give me the best vantage point, I could count at least six children under the age of twelve. In a movie where putrified hog corpses are liquified in order to drown a judge and a young man is "crucified" in an apparatus that twists his body so as to force his bones through his skin, I don't know that this is quite in line with Winne the Pooh or Spongebob or whatever is popular with children today.
Having worked in a hospital and having been present to many traumas in the ER, I thought I was accustomed to the noises and sights of medical instruments whirring and blood. I am grateful that I'm still sensitive to such things (I had my ears covered for a lot of the movie it was so aurally overwhelming) but I can't fathom what those little kids were thinking. I can't imagine what their parents were thinking, except that they wanted to see the movie and, in lieu of hiring a babysitter, brought the baby with them. I might not be a dad, but I do want to be a father, and all I can say is that it was one of the stupidest and most thoughtless displays of parenting I have ever witnessed. Lord knows, someone will take exception to that statment and chastise me. But near as I can tell, I don't think it's proper or helpful or wise to replace the images of childhood (Winnie the Pooh, Care Bears, Pokemon, Harry Potter) with the graphic and horrifying images of Saw III.
I'm getting off of my Saturday morning soapbox! We have a liturgy workshop today, so I must prepare myself ...how one prepares for such a workshop, I don't know, but I'll find a way!
2 comments:
I was astounded the other day in perusing the movie rental offerings at the local supermarket while waiting to pay a utility bill. Wow.. satan would have our youngsters view (as well as listen to) the false power of hell, and would have it seem normal, so very "have some popcorn with your gore?"
And this is what.. Art? Expanding one's mind? Entertainment? Learning about life?
How long can we remain asleep to what has become his blatant sifting?
Honestly, I wish Catholicism would take a note from that Saw III movie (which I really liked, by the way) and get back to the blood and gore. Look at the bone chapels in Europe, the saints with the stigmata, the blood drenched passion plays, and the incorruptible bodies of the saints. What's more, in the old days, it would have been normal for a Catholic to keep a skull on his desk as a memento mori.
Nowadays, however, we're trying to appeal to wusses with weak stomachs who can't handle the blood and guts of real, actual Catholicism. We really need to bring back the old time relgion of the crusades and the Holy Inquisitions.
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