That's Obscene

12 responses to “That's Obscene”

1. 

   Phyllis Crosby

   April 13, 2009

   Mike you have done a good job of explaining why sentimentality without the grit of life is obscene. And I agree, however it sounds like you are saying there are only two kinds of art – obscene sentimental Christian expressions (bad art) and everything else, including pornography (good art). I haven’t seen the film in question, but it sounds as if you are saying that if I were to find anything objectionable with it then I must be a two chapter Christian. I can’t imagine this is what you mean. Again I haven’t seen the film mentioned in your article nor do I know why it received a triple X rating, but I do know that pornography is very destructive, especially to woman and children. I am quite familiar with the human trafficking situation in Asia and I object to anything that draws men into abusive practices, even if it’s called art. There may be room, using the four-chapter framework, to put both sentimentality and pornography in a negative light.

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2. 

   Mike Metzger

   April 13, 2009

   Of course there is, Phyllis. The key, again, is first context – then content. Otherwise, Christians have difficulty explaining why the nudes in the Sistine are beautiful works of art while a few miles away in Rome, similar looking works of nudity are considered to be obscene. Pope John Paul II said it well. The problem with obscenity is not that it shows too much but that it shows too little of the human person. There are two kinds of art – beautiful and obscene, made by people of faith, no faith, or different faiths. Believing something to be objectionable requires first believing in an objective, told through a story line. My point is that “two chapter” believers don’t have the right objective and story line (which is also true of pornographers).

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3. 

   Randy Newman

   April 13, 2009

   Mike,
   So what would you tell the Christian students and professors to do, as an appropriate four-chapter gospel, response to the showing of state-sponsored and paid-for-with-state-funds, pornography film?

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4. 

   Mike Metzger

   April 13, 2009

   Randy: Einstein said you can’t solve a problem in the frame that created it. You have to reframe the problem. The problem is not that it’s state-sponsored or paid-with-state-funds. The problem is that Christian students and professors don’t know how to reframe. The other problem, in this recent case, is that the horse is out of the barn. Protest is the only option available, and it has a few merits. It would be better however to mentor selected artists in the “four chapter” gospel so that Christians can trump the hands being played, in terms of aesthetic quality. Second, we can mentor selected Christians who learn how to tell a story that elicits this response from the wider world: “That’s obscene!” The follow-up would be: “How do you define obscene?” Now we’re talking about definitions of reality rather than simply freedom of speech. We didn’t get into this mess overnight, so there are no quick fixes.

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5. 

   marble

   April 13, 2009

   Much for thought here, Metz. I have not heard of obscenity as ‘without story’, which is an intriguing definition. Perhaps we’ve gotten bogged down into the hopelessly individualistic mire started by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous “I know it when I see it” definition in the mid ’60’s. The problem there, of course, is that giving up on conversation about what pornography is, relegates one to continual challenge along that front, until the unspeakable limit is found. [and can we define “pornography” similarly as “without story”?]

   I don’t know that I understand the second recommendation in your comment above. Are you proposing that these certain “selected Christians” set out to tell stories that “the wider world” will find obscene? Meeting obscenity with obscenity? I don’t know that I follow that. Yes, I can see the value in reframing the discussion away from freedom of speech to a discussion about the nature of reality.

   I wonder, though, whether the tragic might be a better vehicle for doing that, however, than the obscene. [“tragic” in the classical sense, which can bring about a reorientation to ‘the good’ rather than the use of the term we’re beginning to tolerate, in which it becomes the equivalent of “oh, too bad. . . .” to describe a harsh event].

   Instead of engaging on the ‘freedom of speech’ issue in these kinds of cases, could we not engage on the ‘story’ [or lack thereof] issue? In a way, though, I guess that’s the point of pornography. The very lack of a properly human story allows the onscreen actor to be made a commodity, and to be fit into any story the viewer chooses to invent to surround the graphic ‘action’. That kind of activity is simply not possible in, for example, a story like Tess of the d’Urbervilles, where Tess is as a person not to be disposed of at the whim of the reader/observer.

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6. 

   Mike Metzger

   April 13, 2009

   Well, Marble, you add to the feast! I only meant “selected” as those artists who yearn to be proteges and be mentored into a more holistic view of reality. No I don’t propose they meet obscenity with obscenity. I am proposing that they take up Walter Lippmann’s challenge that when the arts become nothing more than freedom of speech, it becomes hard to remember why freedom of speech is worth fighting for. I yearn for artists to reframe the arts inside a holistic story – your suggestion that we take up tragedy might be a good start.

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7. 

   Scott

   April 13, 2009

   Mike, I agree that a long term approach must be adopted to win this war but it is important to have a short term startegy to win battles along the way. I think that we would love to hear more of your ideas on practical steps that can be taken to address these issues as they come up. Do you have any thoughts for this?

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8. 

   Schaeffer Nelson

   April 13, 2009

   Great entry, Mike. C.S. Lewis’ fiction makes an interesting comparison with O’Connors, I think. Where hers can be almost oppressively dark, Lewis handles even dark topics with a kind of calm. I wish we could have gotten them in a room together and heard them talk about how stories ought to present chapter two– through more subtle implications (Lewis, I think) or brutally frank depictions (O’Connor). There’s probably a place for both approaches depending on the story. If you’ve read “The Violent Bear it Away”, stack that novel’s Satan character– the man in the lavender car– against Screwtape; it’s quite a difference in tone. Any thoughts?

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9. 

   Martin Allan

   April 13, 2009

   When particular films such as the Last Temptation were released the mass protest against it tended to backfire. In the same way the campaign led by the opponents of the Passion of the Christ backfired against them. Sometimes publicity based protests backfire because of the controversial nature of what is being protested against. Freedom of speech or expression also implies the right to be offended. How each person deals with that in case they happen to be offended can either inflame the situation or calm the situation. Most people tend to react in anger when they are offended rather than reflecting upon it & making a more measured approach such as noting the offence but not publicising it on a broader scale which is more effective.

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10. 

    Mike Metzger

    April 13, 2009

    Schaeffer – Yes, a good distinction… but no more to add than your comments. I suppose there are several good ways to skin a cat. The point is to be not be afraid to consider what a good skinnin’ looks like. Flannery O’Connor was darker, but then maybe that’s partly a product of writing from Georgia rather than Oxford. As for Scott’s comment/question: Careful about your use of the word “practical.” There is a uniquely American tendency to see reflection on a course of action to be less “practical” than taking a course of action. It is just as practical to say nothing this go ’round and begin to redevelop Christians as it is to say to the Maryland students: “Is there anything that you’d consider obscene -and not appropriate free speech?”

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11. 

    Byron Borger

    April 13, 2009

    Hey, one little extra: it is surely indicative of this problem you mention about the safe silos that don’t admit to complexity or evil that most so-called “Christian bookstores” don’t carry Flannery O’Connor, either her essays or fiction that you so nicely cite.

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12. 

    BlackNTanInTheAM

    May 27, 2009

    Mike,Points well made and taken.  I have done youth talks like this (called ca. “The Gospel According to Metallica”) where I frame a metanarrative of songs together.  These songs take us through usually only two “silos” and leave us with only death.  It takes a lot of searching but decent Christian attempts at the resolution can be found.Here’s where my thoughts went after reading your piece: so triple X scenes are not “without story” as long as the metanarrative scopes all the silos?  I don’t think so.Scripture tells us of the rapes of Lot and Tamar but do not give us the details.  I do not believe tastefully done sex scenes ought to be considered art (“sexuality in a story best defining reality”). That might not be what you were arguing for but my reading led me there.

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