Darkness In Entertainment

Though the Old Testament's ethical statements are misinterpreted far more commonly and egregiously than those in the New Testament are, it is not uncommon for the contents of the gospels and epistles to be misunderstood in the evangelical world.  For instance, a verse as relatively unimportant as Philippians 4:8 (unimportant in the broader context of Biblical ethics) is often touted about as if its instructions to think about that which is "true," "pure, and "praiseworthy" condemn dark entertainment.  The blatant non sequiturs aside, this stance is actually opposed to the sincere contemplation of many parts of the Bible.

The Bible contains stories of sexual assault (including the assault of men by women [1]), murder, abduction, sadistic torture, incest, sorcery, and other deeds that it itself labels not just immoral acts, but offenses that warrant execution at the hands of other humans.  The typical conservative understanding of Philippians 4:8 even precludes thoroughly meditating on these aspects of the Bible!  Beyond embracing the inherent contradiction of using the Bible to argue against consuming dark entertainment, though, evangelicals seem to want entertainment to do little to portray the world in a realistic manner.  They rightly complain when a culture trivializes sin, but lash out at many works of art that do the opposite.

I do not mean that a work of entertainment must be dark and violent to be realistic or worthy of attention, nor do I mean that only darker themes are capable of having depth.  Life is neither intrinsically dark nor intrinsically bright; these aspects of life are determined by a given person's circumstances, and the emotional perceptions of a particular situation are purely subjective.  There is always a place for entertainment that emphasizes either general side of the spectrum.  However, the last two decades of filmmaking have produced no small number of lighthearted movies aimed at a broad audience, and these films (and similar video games and TV shows) have not extinguished the desire for content that includes intentionally dark themes.

Darker works of entertainment--works like Joker, Game of Thrones, Saw, Logan, The Boys, and the rebooted Tomb Raider games, to list some examples from the 2000s--often have an even greater capacity to spark contemplation than lighthearted works of entertainment.  This is not because darkness is a prerequisite to intellectual or emotional depth, but because it is more likely that audiences as a whole will take darker themes seriously.  Not everything in human life is intrinsically bleak from an experiential standpoint; however, it does require a special boldness to create a story around thematic elements that are excluded from casual conversations because of the intellectual or personal weight associated with them.

Thus, while lighthearted entertainment inherently lacks the same thematic intensity as darker works, it does not follow that lighthearted content is undeserving of anyone's time.  Nevertheless, even those who personally dislike dark themes are without basis for treating mature or controversial entertainment as if it has any causal connection to social ills.  Despite all the asinine criticisms thrown at dark entertainment, it ironically often accomplishes something that "family appropriate" content could easily fail to do: it spurs people to seriously grapple with ideas and realities that they might otherwise scarcely acknowledge or understand.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/06/when-women-rape-men.html