Kevin DeYoung wrote a post in early August on how he couldn’t understand why Christians would choose to watch Game of Thrones. No amount of awesome cinematography, great dialogue, or storytelling could outweigh the soul-damage done by the graphic violence and exhibitionist nudity. DeYoung followed this post a couple weeks later with a list of reasons he still wasn’t convinced and how he didn’t need to watch the show to know it was something to avoid.
We’ve talked about the show briefly here and not in an entirely negative way. What little I know of the story does appeal to me. The castles, costumes, landscape, dragons, and walkers look amazing. But DeYoung’s points are largely the reasons I don’t want to see it.
I remember seeing a conversation with a couple actresses about how much the show featured female nudity and why couldn’t they expose more men. They were willing to run with that, even mock-campaign for it. Men should have equal access to being full frontal, they said.
DeYoung wrapped up his thoughts like this.
On occasion I’ve stumbled upon a few minutes of PG-13 movies I used to enjoy as a teenager (like the Naked Gun series). I’m appalled by the things that didn’t tweak my conscience then but do now. We are so awash in sensuality that many Christians have no idea how compromised they’ve become. . . . Only in a hyper-sexual, pornographic-saturated culture like ours could we think that graphic sex scenes are no big deal, or somehow offset by a brilliant screenplay.
The actresses who take payment to be filmed naked are daughters, sometimes sisters, sometimes wives. If one of these actresses was your daughter, would you, viewer of the series, think it a fine and wholesome thing for her to display herself thus? Or if she were your sister, or your wife?
If you could not agree that this would be fine and wholesome for your daughter, sister, or wife, can you, as a person of integrity, go along with it when the actress in question is someone else’s daughter, or perhaps sister or wife?
This rationale appeals to me, Dale, but I recognize all, if not most, men need a handful of reasons to reject porn (or if you want to shy away from that word in this context, you can use exploitation, vulgarity, or lust). Women are worthy of respect, and if you think an actress or model may have to flaunt themselves in order to get serious work or attract any amount of attention from producers, then we need to avoid encouraging such abuse for entertainment purposes.