Question
Dear Gramps,
The values and beliefs expressed in modern day movies and TV shows are really offensive to me, and leave me feeling poorly afterwards. So I have pretty much abandoned them and gone to watching the old black and white movies and TV shows from the 1930s-1960s, where values and morals are more in line with the Church. My wife says I am in denial and living in the past. She watches her shows in the living room, and I watch mine in the bedroom. What do you think?
Robert
Answer
Dear Robert,
I think you are both right. I would agree with your wife that not everything on TV these days is inappropriate. Elder M. Russell Ballard agrees. In his conference talk, Let Our Voices Be Heard, he said:
“Because of its sheer size, media today presents vast and sharply contrasting options. Opposite from its harmful and permissive side, media offers much that is positive and productive. Television offers history channels, discovery channels, education channels. One can still find movies and TV comedies and dramas that entertain and uplift and accurately depict the consequences of right and wrong.”
Elder Ballard also addressed your concerns:
“The choices we make in media can be symbolic of the choices we make in life. Choosing the trendy, the titillating, the tawdry in the TV programs or movies we watch can cause us to end up, if we’re not careful, choosing the same things in the lives we live.
If we do not make good choices, the media can devastate our families and pull our children away from the narrow gospel path.”
Elder Joe J. Christensen also talked about media during General Conference. In his talk “The Savior is Counting on You” he said:
“Next, the Savior is counting on you to avoid the immoral trash that surrounds you in the media. Satan has made great inroads into the lives of some Latter-day Saints through the evil in the media.”
Perhaps it would be helpful for you and your wife to sit down, read these two talks and have a discussion–with respect for one another’s feelings.
You might also want to reconsider that TV in the bedroom. Elder Nelson gave a list of things we can do and one of them was:
“We need to have TVs and computers in a much-used common room in the home, not in a bedroom or a private place.”
Gramps
