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.

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.

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.

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.

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?).