Are movies totally going to the dogs?

And when I say this, even though I am normally a play-on-words type of guy, I mean it in the sense of the movie industry taking even more of a turn for the worse.
Next week is March break, and in the spirit of celebrating my son's week off [and hopefully mine too...long story] I have been planning a list of sorts of entertaining activities that we can do together. I am going to try finding some snowshoes. Sliding may be on the list. Pretending we are stranded in Antarctica, on and on.

One of the things on the list was to watch some movies. 'Yes man', 'Marley & me', and 'Bedtime Stories' were a few on that list. These movies kind of stuck with me because of comments/previews that I had heard/seen led me to believe that perhaps these might be decent choices.

Boy, do I feel foolish.

I decided to check out the ratings [and the reasoning behind them] at pluggedinonline.com Some of the results for the so-called more 'family' films quite honestly disturbed me.

Besides the obvious EXCESSIVE violence in some of these movies, it is mostly the free use of profanity that disgusts me. What makes these movie writers/directors/producers/companies think that we enjoy or even want to hear this sludge? I know when I am watching a movie and the 'f' word or 'Gd' or 'GC' comes up [especially if there are visitors in the house], I physically and visually cringe. I see no necessity in injecting all of that garbage into a film that, more times than not, would be a decent and entertaining flick if not for the nonessential filth to satisfy the tastes of whatever type of people enjoy that sort of crud.

I guess it makes the characters seem tougher. Or more resilient. Or maybe a better soldier or lawyer. NOT!!! It actually does entertain people to the point where they believe that whoever is in charge of getting this film into the theaters is a rebel or a macho-type person. It never used to be this bad. And it applies to TV and games too. Year after year the standard for making a decent film gets whittled down so bad that soon you'll have to watch it with the volume down and the subtitles OFF. The stringing together of shameful superlatives is somehow conducive to a rebel attitude or someone who won't take anything off of anyone. To me, it is just plain wrong, and laxidaisical on the part of our government and film agencies that supposedly patrol the waters of visual entertainment. Time to break out the old movies that you weren't embarrassed to admit to having watched to your mother...

With the negative turn that society as a whole has taken in the last 'few' years, are we holding anyone accountable for how our kids are being exposed to the world we live in? If there is that much trash in the world, no matter how well I try to raise him, how much of a chance does he have of growing up to be a good, decent, honest, faithful, full of integrity and humility, empty of bitterness and ego and deceit, upright and respected member of society???

It is getting worse by the minute, and our kids are exposed to it and soaking it up like sponges. The question is, what are we going to do about it? It is our responsibility as parents to inform them what is right and what is wrong and hope that they use it as a guide to steer them well and keep them on course.

Chew on that in little bites...

L8r