A young person I know was just fifteen when she told me her favorite movie was "Road Trip", an R-rated romp that received the rare "O" (for morally offensive) rating from the USCCB movie rating service. I was taken aback since I naively under the impression that R-rated movies were prohibited for those under 18 and she was considered a "good kid". I hadn't seen the movie but thought from its reputation that this seemed a warning sign. Sure enough, at least one abortion later it appears that warning sign was extremely large.
Yesterday we celebrated the sixteenth birthday of another girl who'd tried to commit suicide a few months ago. One of the things that came out was that she wrote dark, depressing poetry and that her musical taste was nihilistic, goth music. I wondered aloud if she should be listening, post-suicide attempt, to that type of music. Her twenty-one year old sister agreed with me and thought those CDs should be thrown out. Yet on her birthday she received (from a "friend") something called "Breaking Benjamins" which a cursory glance revealed titles like "Dancing with the Devil" & "Evil Angel". I know little about modern goth music, but there's something ironic about seeing her express joy and happiness over receiving a music CD that apparently trumpets anger and despair.
Update: Steven Riddle comments:
In both cases you site there is a serious question, which isn't your point and didn't really need to be addressed because it was extraneous, of cause and effect.
In some sense the post suggests perhaps both and I would agree in a vicious cycle. Something happens to make someone embrace "Road Trip" or Goth music and the music in turn creates the need for more of the same, just as the film encourages repetition and reenactment...
Part of the problem of ignorance of modern culture is that we can't separate the truly harmful from the harmless. And the really bad point is that the truly harmful may be seemingly more innocent than the harmless or helpful. Take the brouhaha over the Harry Potter series which is pointedly Christian in its moral lessons; we get exorcists frothing at the mouth over the magic in it. And yet, this same age group is being pelted with CSI novels--novels that encourage young people to look at a human as just another object, and interesting anatomical study that will help you solve a mystery. Talk about desensitization to death and mayhem! And yet, almost nothing is said of these, which I view as pernicious and potentially damaging far in excess of what the covers might indicate.
Anyway, you make some interesting points. Not everyone who listens to Goth music will be tempted to suicide (you didn't imply that, but I just want to state it) and not everyone who watches "Road Trip" is on the road to multiple abortions--but to expose young people and allow the exposure of young people to such questionable materials certainly gives them the wrong idea.
I spend an enormous amount of effort trying to ferret out what will be okay for Samuel to read and view and what is likely to be harmful. It is an exceedingly difficult task, but one that is so, so important, as you have so aptly pointed out. However, more important is the necessity of making certain that he never "needs" these things to fill in a void we have created through inattention or lack of formative love.
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