Beginning in 2004, I had very strict rules about the kind of movies and TV I would watch. In the past year, I have mostly revoked these strict rules. But now that I don't have these rules, what do I do now?
It all started in ninth-grade seminary, when I had an overzealous seminary teacher. He didn't tell me to make these rules, but I was inspired to make them by things he said. I started the school year by giving up The Simpsons, then gave up more things as time went on.
I have never gone by the MPAA ratings, because those are wildly inconsistent (and, I might argue, corrupt). Basically, my rule was not to watch movies or TV with objectionable language. Which was pretty much anything made after 1970, except for things aimed at kids and families. (Even many family-friendly films were not permitted. I gotta say, "family" films of the 1980s and 90s were not so family friendly.😲) This solidified my interest in ridiculous 1960s sitcoms, and I have found myself decidedly out of the loop on pop culture. I had stricter standards than anyone else I know, and I think they were even stricter than most (all?) General Authorities.
Real life would not fit my movie standards. It wasn't entirely about the language of these movies, but part of my rationale was that if I set my standards so high, I would stay away from worse content. Even if I stretched my rules a bit, I was still in safe territory.
Of course, my life revolves around holidays, and there are many holiday movies that became off limits for me. Here are examples of holiday shows I would not watch (some of them I watched before I got strict, some of them I have seen since then, but some I have never seen): Hop, Independence Day, Hocus Pocus, Monster House, A Christmas Story, The Santa Clause, Home Alone, Elf.
This might sound like I have negative feelings, but I actually don't regret this at all. It really served its purpose of keeping me away from undesirable content. I mostly think movies and TV are a waste of time now, and my strict standards were one factor (out of a few) that made me devalue them. Now I usually only watch TV when I'm doing something else (usually cooking, exercising, or socializing).
But I came to realize an undesirable side effect of these strict standards: it made me judgmental of others whose values are different from mine. (I used to refer to The Incredibles as The Incredibly Evils.)
This was exemplified last year when I went to visit my nephews, and one of them had his preteen friends over for his birthday party. One of these friends, whom I will call Kid A, kept using language I find objectionable. But then Kid B flippantly used a very inappropriate word, and Kid A said, "Hey, [Kid B], there's no need for vulgarity!" Kid A thought it proper to use clean language, even though his definition was different from mine. And just because someone does things I disagree with, it doesn't mean they are a wicked person. There are weightier matters.
But where do I go from here?
My standards loosened in time for me to work for the Sundance Film Festival. My last day was Friday, and I picked up various items in time for the festival, including ten free movie tickets.
I'm a little nervous to see these films. I don't have restrictions anymore, but I still don't like objectionable content. For example, in the last few months, I have seen movies with scenes of people getting shot by guns or arrows. I did not like those scenes at all, and after one movie, I found myself sad for no reason at all, and I think it was the movie's fault. Going forward, I think I will still mostly stick to kid-friendly films, when I watch films at all. When I chose my tickets, I tried to stay away from the harsher films. I really am a nonfiction kind of guy, because I found myself drawn more to the documentaries. But there are still some films that might have undesirable parts. The 2019 Sundance Film Festival will be a new experience for me, in more ways than one.
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