By Allie Martin and Jenni Parker
A media expert is providing a comprehensive family-friendly guide to mainstream movies.
Statistics show that 92% of Christian youths see and rent the same movies as their non-Christian contemporaries. That is what prompted Dr. Ted Baehr to compile What Can We Watch Tonight (Zondervan, 2003), a 600-page book that provides an overview of movies produced between 1990 and 2001. The guide evaluates each film on the basis of language, sex, violence, worldview, theology and entertainment value.
Baehr, who is head of the Christian Film and Television Commission, says too often parents fail to realize the impact movies play in the lives of their children. For instance, many social science experts have related film and television violence to increased violent behavior among youth, and some have suggested that recent incidents such as the tragic shootings by teens Eric Harris and Dylan Kliebold at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, may have had a very direct media violence connection.
“Every child at different stages of development has different reactions towards what they see. We just have to be very careful that we don't give them scripts for behavior that turn them into another Klebold or Harris,” Baehr says.
On his Movie Guide Internet site and in his popular newsletter, Baehr offers reviews and analysis from a Christian perspective, providing detailed information about each movie's moral content. The media expert believes such tools can help most Christians who, although concerned, definitely need to be more vigilant about selecting appropriate entertainment for themselves and for their children.
“Most people do care, but they don't care enough to take five minutes a day to teach their kids to be media wise,” Baehr says. He believes parents often fail to take the time necessary to help their children make the best entertainment choices, in many cases because the parents themselves have not been equipped to do so.
But with the help of family-friendly resources like those he provides, Baehr says mothers and fathers can start to make a difference. He tells Christian parents, “What you need to do is care enough to spend a few minutes a day helping your kids to be media-proof so that you can protect the eyes of innocents — and so they'll be willing to protect their own eyes.”
According to Publisher's Weekly, Baehr's reviews are “carefully explicit,” with precise “content analysis” that details how many uses of profanity are in a film, what the violent scenes involve, and whether a movie contains any sexual situations or nudity. The reviews also use a ratings system based on a film's moral and ideological suitability for evangelical Christians and on artistic merit, resulting in scores that can help parents make well-informed choices about family entertainment.
(This article courtesy of Agape Press).
