The Vifl

So is it you, personally making the movie, or are you quoting someone? (The answer may be obvious, but I still want to be sure.)

If so, who has agreed to do the scene? I ask this because my personal feelings would be “pretty creeped out” if she was someone I know. Otherwise, not so much.

I have thought about the idea of artistic nudity and its relationship to biblical morals. Of course in contemporary North American Christianity any sort of nudity is of the Devil. For many people, though, nudity is merely another part of life. The early Christian (and Christian influenced) artists seem to reflect this truth; thus, the nudity abounding in their art. Somewhere along the line — perhaps with the Protestant Reformation — the church became utterly prudish and anything associated with sex became unbelievably sinful or unspeakable.

Any student of art must be aware of the motivation and influences behind the art, namely, culture . One may look at Da Vinci’s “David” and translate it to be a sculpture of the David of the Bible. This is wrong. The notably large hands of the man lead many to believe this to represent the the artist’s humanistic perspective. Also, if my art history is correct, the trend of nudes started in the Roman empire. We can note that many of the more prevalent perspectives of the times exalted group sexual acts as part of community and religious life (i.e. homosexual orgies at the public baths and temple prostitution).

So on one hand, I’m fine with eating meat offered to idols (note the implied connection with the topic at hand). But on the other end, there are plenty of men who can’t look at a nude and not see a naked woman. Similarly, there are plenty of women who get very offended at the opportunity for men to think inappropriately.

This leads me to another biblical perspective. After the Fall, God gave Adam and Eve clothes to cover their nakedness, which is representative of their knowledge of sin. From this point on, nudity was to be for husband and wife (and not even children — remember the curse that was placed on Noah’s son when he looked on his nakedness…)

Interpretation comes into play here, and with it, the aforementioned North American Christianity. Violence is condemned in the Bible just like sexual sin. If you survey a group of Christians, you would come to the conclusion that violence in movies is not in line with their morals. You might also find, though, that 8 in 10 or so of these same Christians went to see or possibly even own a copy of “The Passion of the Christ.” So then, in real life, violence is immoral, but for didactic or persuasive purposes, it is acceptable and even encouraged. How then can someone who operates with this method say that showing situations that may not even have sexual connotations (i.e. a dipiction of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden) be inherently sinful. One may respond with the statement that people natually associate nudity outside a marital relationship with immoral sexuality but seeing violence doesn’t make anyone sin like nudity does. Wrong. However hypothetical the situation might be, what about the sadist in the audience. He readily sins when he views violence. No one can rightfully and consistently claim that there are situations that are sinproof and acceptable and use this idea to condemn others.

With all this said, I still fall on the conservative side — mainly because we cannot remove ourselves from our context. Nudity and sexuality are still justifiably rather strongly viewed subjects among Christians and in our culture which has many origins in some sort of Christianity. In one sense, the “Don’t rock the boat” argument seems weak, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t live by it. I think that anyone who wants to create something that intentionally includes such volatile content should be very cautious and preemptively clear about motivations and purposes for it. There can be educational or inspirational value in a realistic depiction of intimate or morally charged situations, but it must be approached with sincerety, caution, and clarity of purpose.