On Mature Content in Fiction
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10 minutes
Language
Any good writer is trying to show the truth. I include “the good” and “the beautiful” as equivalent modes of the same thing, by the way. Obviously, this attempted “showing” manifests differently depending on whether you’re telling/showing a story, or writing a journal article. In fiction, where we “make things up”, a concern for telling the truth may seem out of place; but it’s not. A story need not be factual to be true. The Emperor’s New Clothes is a true story, as are Romeo and Juliet, The Lord of the Rings, and The Remains of the Day. They’re true, because they create an encounter with reality. But our current human reality is not absolute reality; it is not God. This reality also includes created things in a state of journeying, and it includes disorder. Besides that, it includes material that is genuinely mature; that is to say, good for the old, but not for the young.
Some time ago, a priest I admire gave a homily whose message I largely disagreed with. In the homily, he told the story of a child coming downstairs while his parents watched a movie. “Go upstairs,” said the parents, “this show isn’t appropriate for you.” “Very well,” said the boy, “I’ll go upstairs. But if this show is sinful for me to watch, isn’t it also sinful for you?” With all due respect to that wonderful priest, the correct answer to that child is a simple, “No.” Okay, perhaps not a simple no. Sometimes the child would be right, depending on the content, and, especially, on how the content is framed in the narrative; but at many other times the child would be incorrect to apply to his parents an identical standard of media consumption as that which applies to him. Let me explain.
The business of contemporary fiction authors – and in this I would include both novelists, and film and television writers – is crafting good stories. For the story to be good, it must achieve two objectives:
1) It must follow all the rules of good story mechanics regarding character, characterization, character arc, setting, plot, dialog, conflict, climax, resolution, etc.; that is, it must be technically successful, gripping, and engaging; 2) The overall story, including themes, symbolism, and the general, organic moral fabric must, at minimum, permit a decent person to derive some objective value from the narrative, without requiring him to assent to evil or falsehood.
I said “at minimum”, because, first of all, not all stories are meant to be weighty narratives. Some entertainment is like ice cream, and ice cream is good for us – in limited doses. Second of all, since we are living in a complicated and disordered society, some of that disordered content ends up in books or shows that are otherwise fine; that is to say, stories which would be fundamentally sound if not for the inclusion of isolated objectionable content. In that latter case, that is, if the objectionable material is not of sufficient quantity or gravity, or the story not so structured, as to derail points 1 or 2 above, then it may still count as “good”, with the caveat that its goodness is marred by imperfection, and could stand some editing (or censure.) Potential readers would then need to consult their own moral sensitivities before encountering it. Not everyone reacts the same way to the same level of disorder. In some cases, two well-formed people may even disagree about the appropriateness of showing this or that thing, and there may not be an unambiguous resolution of the matter. Case in point: You may regard the historically unrealistic scourging implements and slasher-movie violence of the scourging scene in The Passion of the Christ as an artistically appropriate use of exaggeration for the sake of driving home a spiritual point, whereas I personally think it’s disgusting, excessive, and over-indulgent to the point that it undermines the actual Scourging by numbing the mind of the viewer. This is not a matter of dogma, but of taste, and of personal sentiment.
For these reasons, if a person wishes to avoid all of the disorder in modern novels and films, I will not argue with him. I will only point out that this means cutting himself off from the majority of contemporary art and literature. In my own prudential judgment, the costs of doing so – social, moral, and even spiritual – do not justify the prices paid. I do not believe that lay persons are meant to live like monks, or to pull their skirts up lest they touch any of the world’s mud. I believe, rather, that a person in the world must expect to get a bit muddy while walking through it. If some of the mud is the permanently staining kind, you can skip the puddle, or the page, or the scene, or, in some cases, the whole show. But sometimes, perhaps, you can get a bit splattered, and then wipe the stuff off. If the whole book or movie is nothing but filth, or if the character arcs and plot movement are built so as to glorify or normalize lies, then obviously that’s different. Such books and films should be avoided, because they are not true, not good, and not really beautiful. So much for objectionable content in books and films, but what about content that is legitimately mature.
I would divide this latter category in two. First of all, there is the inclusion of wrong or sinful material in a narrative where the bad material is not glorified or glamorized, but serves the overall goal of illustrating the good. Because novelists and filmmakers have a professional obligation to show the story, not simply tell the story, at least some sinful content which is crucial to the narrative or to characterization might have to be shown. That showing can sometimes be by allusion, by inference, or by having another character obliquely mention it; the sin need not always be directly seen, but it must be seen in some way; that is, it cannot simply be an abstraction. This is true even in the Bible. We’re told that Rahab is a harlot. We are told that David, stalking around on his roof at night like a pervert, saw Bathsheba bathing, was overcome with lust, impregnated her, and much, much more. We are told in another place that a woman was caught in the very act of adultery. We are even told that Onan cast his seed on the ground, and that men and women gave up natural relations, and lay with members of their own respective sexes.
Now the way that disordered content is shown in a narrative must also reflect the rules of characterization. It’s fine for Othello or Henry V to allude to sin in general terms, but it's also appropriate (for characterization’s sake) for Macbeth’s witches to talk of ditches and drabs, or for Iago to talk of a man and a woman “making the beast with two backs.” That’s how Iago would speak, which is why it’s written that way. There is an appropriate level of realism in characterization, and in the absence of that realism, the story does not feel true.
An additional consideration along these lines is that contemporary fiction in particular, and by convention, is grittier and more direct than fiction of a more than a century ago. To put it in concrete terms, were Charles Dickens or Robert Louis Stevenson writing today, they simply couldn’t get away with describing some shady characters as, “swearing and cursing” or as “uttering such vile words as to call down judgment from heaven,” and that sort of thing. And yet, it was necessary, even back then, to characterize shady folks through shady language, and, therefore, to mention that they employed it.
It’s just as necessary nowadays, but because of the conventions of contemporary realism, an author can only get away once or twice with merely telling us. Practically speaking, you can only write, “Daryl said something obscene,” once or twice in the whole book, before the spell you have to cast as an author has been broken for the reader. For better or worse, nowadays we need to know what Daryl said. That doesn’t make an excuse for having every character curse and swear like a pirate, but it does mean that a book with modern pirates had better contain at least some modern pirate language, and some modern pirate behavior. Of course, a little goes a long way, and what I’ve said here does not justify the sheer volume of such “shown disorder” in contemporary film and literature; only its presence per se. So there are cases when even good books can show bad things, but what about good things that are simply not for everyone?
Again, we could look at Scripture. Consider the erotic, romantic language in Song of Songs. Though inspired, I am not sure that all of that book is meant for young children. Romance, and the sexual dimension of married adult life is noble and good, but it is also inherently mature. Similarly, young children are usually not fit consumers for stories about deep pain and loss, the contradictions and struggles of adult working life, psychologically traumatic events, mid-life regrets, the violence and terror of war, true crime, the difficulties of growing old, religious cults, the serious flaws of historical heroes, demonic possession, the complexities of colonization, Wall Street machinations, and so on. These subjects are too heavy or too complicated for children, at least most of the time, but that does not make them unfit for general consumption. And since these subjects involve people, and people are sinful, a good story with realism is going to have a certain amount of realistic disorder. Depending on the subject matter, this would probably include some harsh language, some violence, and some scandalous failings, and yes, at least some sexuality.
Does all of this have to occur with the explicitness and volume that we see in modern novels and films? Certainly not. Like many conservative-leaning people, I’m of the opinion that the heavy inclusion of this sort of thing is both a corrupting social influence, and a self-fulfilling prophecy. Take harsh language, for example. For the most part, people who’ve been raised with minimal exposure to harsh language use it only minimally, or for effect. But every character in a Stephen King novel cusses as though the continued beating of his heart depended upon it. Likewise, people who’ve been lucky enough to have a good father – kind, strong, and faithful – aren’t walking around with father-issues, though the Struggle-With-The-Father psychological mumbo-jumbo is a staple of virtually every contemporary novel and film (even Disney cartoons!) People who have been raised by virtuous and faithful parents generally do not walk around sleeping with people they just met, though, again, every protagonist in every novel and film is practically expected to. But unfortunately, the net effect of several generations of this kind of media has been to normalize – and therefore make realistic – the very social pseudo-reality it portrays. This complicates the contemporary writer’s job, at least if he is trying to be realistic, while also refraining from dragging his readers through filth.
In light of the above, what is a contemporary adult fiction writer of a traditional moral and philosophical bent to do, at least if he plans to write for a general adult audience, and not for an isolated niche of readers—I mean readers/consumers of contemporary Christian fiction and film—who are (apparently) just fine reading crappy stories, and watching crappy but WHOLESOME low-budget films?
My answer is that his task is fundamentally the same as it ever was: to write effectively for his given audience in such a way that the story draws his reader first into itself, and then, through it, into whatever truths emerge organically from the drama. Fiction writers are not essayists. They do not have theses to offer; they offer stories. If the stories are mainly for children, then they should restrict themselves to the concerns and interests of children. If the stories are for readers of almost any age, then they should be written in such a way as to offer something to the widest possible demographic. These are the most satisfying stories; the ones that a whole culture can love at the same time, because it has layers enough for people of every age. But if, and only if, the stories are for adults, then they can and should contain some mature material, because adults are not children. Adults have concerns that children do not, and should not have. Adults have access to good things that children do not, and should not have. Adults encounter evils that children should not encounter. Stories help us to process and understand all of these things, whether good, bad, or just very complicated.
For that reason, I think there are times when an honest author writing for adults cannot reasonably restrain his character from dropping the F-bomb, nor intervene in time to prevent another character from betraying her husband. He might want to. He might love his characters, and do everything in his power to stop them from making a mistake that will harm them, and everyone they know. He might have no particular interest in scandalizing, or titillating his readers. He might, in short, be under the same demanding moral restraints as the man who refuses to read any modern books or watch any modern movies. But here’s the thing: his characters are not.
They just are who they are. Having, somehow, stumbled upon them, and being duty-bound to tell their stories, he must dutifully report their free choices. People who do not understand this last point, and who think authors can just make their characters do whatever they want, simply do not understand what it means to write fiction. They are thinking of the fiction author as an architect, or an essayist, whereas they ought to think of him more as an historian, or an archeologist, or an orderly. Sometimes, he’s a coroner. Perhaps a better image still is fiction-author as documentary-maker. True, makers of documentaries have choices about what to film, and for how long, as well as how to frame the overall narrative. They needn’t let the camera linger for so long or so lovingly over the worst things, and yet they also lack complete control over those things. At minimum, they must film the story that they’ve been tasked with filming, and they must frame it in a way that draws out the truth of the content filmed, and they must show whatever needs showing in order to get the story across. That’s just the business.
To return to the point with which we began, fiction writers are in the business of showing the true, the good, and the beautiful, albeit in a strange, indirect form, yet they do this in light of reality. Not just the absolute reality of God, but also the imperfect reality of the here and now. Contrary to popular belief, writers, even fantasy writers, do not invent this reality whole cloth, but are bound in various ways: by their audience’s expectations, by their characters’ natures and choices, by the germinal plot and character arcs they’ve been given with all those strange initial images and mysteries that must be fleshed out, and by the standards of believability within the kind of work they’re writing. When writing about more mature realities, whether good and necessary or bad and unfortunate, writers have some freedom about what they show, but not absolute freedom.
To sum up, and to make the point very bluntly, you can try very hard to make a given character not say, “F--k,” only to find that he insists on saying it anyway. If I may make a daring comparison, just as God, the Author of all things, restrains himself by a voluntary choice to giving and sustaining the voluntary choices of his creatures, however vile and tragic those choices may sometimes be, so the human author as sub-creator is in some way bound to let the characters speak and act for themselves. He is not “more moral” because he runs away from this authorial responsibility, and only tells “nice stories” with nice messages. That’s not good art; that’s not good sub-creation. The name for this is cowardice. If an author fails in this way, he may indeed manage to avoid offending certain people, but he will also avoid writing a good story.
There’s more to say about this, of course. Specifically, we could talk about the circumstances of mind and of soul that increase an author’s likelihood of having good and edifying stories to tell, instead of only awful and disturbing ones. We could talk about the mystery of stories, which come into the mind through some kind of a back door in the brain, mind, and spirit, and how that spirit, if it regularly draws close to the Author of All, while also regularly exercising its narrative muscles, is more likely to receive the kinds of story germs that might, in the end, be edifying. But leaving aside those very important questions, the fact is that a writer gets what he gets. And who he gets. And then he has to tell things as they are. That’s just the way it works.