Dark Knight and Twilight Saga Surge Reader Response

Not everyone agrees about the value of these latest offerings from the entertainment media.

Editor's Note: One of the challenges of living in a society with an often toxic entertainment culture is picking your way through it to find material that is uplifting and not an assault upon your spirit and values. Dark Knight is the latest batman movie and we ran an article from national columnist Don Feder, called “Dark Knight of Hollywood's Soul”, which derided the wall-to-wall violence of the film and referred to the movie as “the most disturbing movie I've seen in ages.” Reader Jonathan Decker wrote in response that quite the contrary,”'The Dark Knight' is a Powerful Morality Tale.” Letters from readers are very divided.

Informed and Thoughtful

I whole heartedly agree with Mr. Decker. His informed and thoughtful review of “The Dark Knight” is outstanding and not a knee jerk reaction to a film that is based in human reality. Kudos for Mr. Decker. I think it is high time someone stood up and told the powers that be that they need to take step back and look at reality instead of jumping to the easiest conclusion. “The Dark Knight” isn't easy to watch, but at the end everyone is cheering for the good guys and learning to stand firm against the evil around us and in us. Bravo Mr. Decker. Bravo.

Karron Combs

Exposed to Such Gross Darkness

I just read Jonathan Decker from Auburn , Alabama 's take on the Dark Knight. My husband and I discussed staying to finish the movie after the joker slamed the guys head into the pencil. We stayed I am sorry to say. I see Johathan's point although I don't feel it is necessary to be exposed to such gross darkness. There is enough darkness in the world and we are so easilly deceived with 9 points of truth to get that one lie. I chose to find my moral points in a much "lighter" less violent environment. When asked I advise my friends to stay away.

Sharen Berry
Ava, Missouri

Not for Children, but Great Movie

I saw the film and thought like Mr. Decker that it was "not for children", but truly a great movie. While I hadn't taken in account his description to a "powerful morality tale" on my own...as I reviewed his take, I thought it was excellent. In fact, having seen the movie, I reflected as I read his article and honestly couldn't find him at fault in his comparisons. While I don't think the local Mutual groups should go out this upcoming Wednesday to watch it...the movie truly was able to stick to the most basic principles that both 'Batman' and basic "human instinct to do what is right" stand for. Bravo Mr. Decker....one of the best reviews I've read on any website.

Corry Driggs

Thanks for Publishing Both

I really appreciated the counter point view on “Dark Knight” – thoughtfully written and showing a different perspective than the first.  Thank you for publishing both.

Jonathan Fox

Repelled by Evil and Violence

I would like to take the opportunity to agree with your guest review of "Dark Knight," by Don Feder.

Though I was initially impressed with the acting and the special effects, eventually I became repelled by the film's absorption with evil and violence. Though there was some gritty realism in previous Batman films, there was at least a little reprieve every so often that broke up the tension. This film was a steady downward spiral of violence and cruelty which increased in intensity. It is ironic that, for a genre of film which appeals to youth, this film is characterized by the following:

1) Gruesome violence (the worst of which, fortunately, take place off-screen); 2) Sadistic characters; 3)One of the messages is that the line which divides good and evil is very thin (or, we are all a hair's breadth away from being the Joker). Indeed, the Joker's desire was to expose the "hypocrisy" of society; 4) The film ends with the "hero" losing most of what was important to him. As a matter of fact, the movie specifically points out that there is no "hero."

For me, these problems outweigh the "cool" special effects and a few attempts to make a good-vs-evil story in some of the speeches given by a few of the characters.

Another Tool of Satan

I haven't seen this film, nor will I ever see this film. But, just from the previews I would have to say that I think that Don Feder's view on the film is a more realistic version of “Dark Knight.”

I would pretty safely say that even though this version paints a rosier version of it's moral value, you could pretty much safely say that neither the prophet or apostles will be flocking to view this supposedly morally uplifting film.

I think this is just another church members attempt to rationalize viewing a film that I can't believe our Savior would be happy about it. It reminds me of when members flocked to the theater to see Passion Of The Christ. Even though we have been told time and again not to see R rated movies, somehow members of the church thought this movie was somehow exempt. They didn't think that possibly obeying the words of the Lord's Prophet could show more love and respect for his atonement that seeing some bloody R rated version of it on the big screen.

That movie has come and gone, and has it really made a difference? I think not. But, the disobedience is still there.

We are all entitled to our free agency, and that is fine. But I just see this as another tool of Satan. Make something not so good seem good so that our minds an spirits can be filled with images and garbage we don't need.

Donna Caywood

It Matters Not if You Can “Juice Out” the Good

I think that the Jonathan Decker article is a classic example of how we as Latter-day Saints (and others as well) have acclimated to the level of violence in today's media. He's trying to justify the evil and highly  unnecessary  level of violence in this movie, by quoting scriptures and trying hard to "juice" out the "good".  

Frankly, it matters not if you can "juice out" the good.  The fact remains, that this movie is replete with evil and extreme violence, just as Don Feder stated.  This is NOT a movie that we will find Heavenly Father watching in the Celestial Kingdom .  As such, it is also one we need to stay away from.

I can hear the justifications and arguments already:  "If you're going to use that  standard, then you wouldn't be able to watch any  movie today!"  (great!  good idea!).  

My reply to these and any other arguments is that as Latter-day Saints, we claim, by virtue of our having been baptized and confirmed, to follow the 13th article of faith:  "If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."  “The Dark Knight” is NOT something that falls in any of those categories.  Another point is that while none of us are perfect, there are obvious  and extreme  things, such as “The Dark Knight” movie, that we can  and should  avoid.  We may not be able to avoid ALL bad things, but I think it's easy enough even for the weakest of us to avoid the  extreme  bad things.  This movie falls in that category by the sheer level of sadistic, nihilistic violence found therein, not to mention the "spirit" of the movie.

In relation to this, I have come to see for myself how we humans do, indeed, become acclimated to such evil things.  For years, my husband and I had discussed getting rid of our TV, but we were "not ready" to do it yet.  One day, I felt very ready to stop watching TV altogether.  But my husband had not.  So I patiently waited (ok, sort of patiently).  After many years, the day came that he too felt ready, and we got rid of it that very day.  That was 5 years ago.

In those 5 years that we have not watched TV, we have also not had the opportunity to become MORE acclimated to the level of degrading immorality and violence that is so prevalent today on TV and movies.  In fact, we have become more "UNacclimated"!!  Once in a while, either at a restaurant, doctor's office, or friend or family's home we are in a room that has a TV on (or we have seen snipets on the internet).  We have actually been SHOCKED to see the level (just in 5 years' time!) at which TV programming and commercials have stooped!

I can guarantee that we would not be shocked, nor recognize the extreme  difference if we had not stopped watching all of it 5 years ago.  Sure, we would think "it's pretty bad" - but we would not recognize the extreme degree to which it's "bad."  The same thing is applicable to watching Hollywood movies.  We have, in the past 2 years, lessened our movie attendance.  We rarely go to the theatre any more.  The time has come to simply not pay our hard-earned money for such garbage anymore.  And as we have stopped attending "theatre movies", we are beginning to have the ability again to discern the evil in these movies.  We are not as acclimated to the immorality, the violence, and the evil as we once were.  

Can we not go out and find movies, music and books that DO uplift?  Movies, music and books that do NOT have this graphic and extreme gore, immorality  and violence?  I think we can.  And I think it's a much better choice.  .

Teri Nine

Comment on “Powerful Morality Tale”

Thank goodness! Someone was paying attention.

B Wilcoxson
Idaho

When Will I Ever Learn?

I have read both articles and I agree with both.  I have seen The Dark Knight and I brought my children to see it.  Not really feeling great about that.  I did not leave feeling like I had just seen a good movie.  As the kids always say to me as we leave the theater, "Is it a buyer!".  I had to answer "NO".  But when the positives of the movie are pointed out and I think, "Oh, maybe", forgetting my impressions from the theater.  Then I read Mr. Feders article and I remember what I hated about the movie.  It's funny, nothing is new, Satan's ways haven't changed.  His plan is and always will be (in my opinion) "give them some good stuff and then you can put any evil you want in and they will overlook it.  When will I ever learn.  Why do I do what I do when I know what I know!!!!!!!    Example, I took my daughter to see Mamma Mia last night.  Need I say more. 

Repenting in California .

Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga

Missing the Point

I think with watching or reading anything still, the bottom line is...would you want the Savior to be an invited guest while you partake of the activity? Your glowing report of the Stephanie Meyer series amazes me that you would miss the point of the whole thing. Her series is about Vampires, the undead, people or creatures who kill. This is all glamorized and still the bottom line is, it's splitting hairs with evil.

Harry Potter deals with witchcraft, casting spells. It is still witchcraft, the Savior has not changed his stance on how HE feels about it. The same is true with Ms.Meyers series. It is a classic case of calling good evil, and evil good. The Savior does not split hairs, wrong is wrong, evil is evil. Dress it up or slice it any way you want to and putting an age limit on the last book because for its explicitness, the Prophets of the Lord teachings are contrary to Ms. Meyers story lines.

You have been hood winked and dazzled by the Adversary once again. Please stop promoting this series as harmless romance. It teaches incorrect principles straight across to young women , young girls and ADULT women!

Please don't continue to glamorize this series. See it for what it is honestly. Is this a book you would talk about in the Temple ?? Honestly, I know it is not. The Scriptures talk about even the very Elect being fooled, look no further than your acceptance of this book series. It is far from harmless.

Nina Jo Jensen

Editor's Note: Meridian reported on the publication of the book and the response of the public because she is a Latter-day Saint receiving a great deal of public attention. We talked of the book's great success and how the media handled it. We mentioned the criticisms people had of it. We said that Stephenie was a good storyteller. We did not review the books, but reported on them. Those two are very different. Read on to a letter from a reader who decided not to read the books based on the article.

"Journalists have relished making an issue of Meyer's Mormonism, which is a bit puzzling to he.r " There is nothing puzzling about "Mormons" being held to more scrutiny than others. We profess to have the one and only true church of Jesus Christ . When you put that out there you must be ready to choose a straight and narrow path. I have not read these books but have recently heard about them.

Two young LDS girls worked pulling weeds in my flower beds for several hours recently, to earn money for girls camp. They were wonderful, sweet, hand working girls. Both are avid readers and their conversation was intense about these books. It was obvious they loved the series. I was disturbed at the time about the word "vampire" You can sugar coat it all you want, Vampires should not be a part of these young girls lives. A great dream does not necessarily need to transpose into a popular fiction series for teens or anyone else for that matter. I personally feel we should stay as far away as possible from dark thoughts and feelings. To sweeten that which is basically wrong only makes it that much easier for us to pull away from Jesus Christ.

I did appreciate the fine article that has given me enough information that I will steer clear of this series.

V Joyce Miles

Steamy

I am disappointed in one sense concerning this book.  The steam that seemed to emanate from some of its pages.  Even I had to fan my face several times because the blush was intense.

However the over-all storyline is good. 

I am also concerned that the book is on the 5 th grade reading list in some schools.

My granddaughter is going to be 12 and has read the first three in the Twilight series. If she had been my daughter, I would have waited to let her read them until she was old enough to understand the underlying sexual innuendo's going on in those three books.

So having said that, I thought my daughter should know that Breaking Dawn is inappropriate for her daughter as well as her young men in her household.  I suggested she read it to them and not read aloud the parts where the material is questionable and inappropriate for impressionable young women and young men.

Definitely more steamy, definitely not for anyone who is not an adult.

Definitely a chic-lit book for the frustrated to say the least.

Alana Tompkins
Tooele, UT 84074

Couldn't Put Them Down

First of all, let me say that I have read all four books, couldn't put them down until I got the characters 'to a safe place', and am very impressed with Stephanie Meyer's ability to create such an original, exciting story that just won't let go of you until it is over.

BUT...I am also a mother, and reading these books from the point of view of a mother, you look for the things that your and other children will glean from this type of book.   In the paper the stats said that 1.3 million books sold the first weekend, and they expect that to rise significantly in the coming days.  The audience that reads her books is a spectrum of women of all ages, but most are YOUNG teen aged girls.  Do you realize how many beehive classes that represents?  I personally know some girls as young as 10 that have read the first three.

What is Stephanie Meyer teaching our girls??

~ The bad boys are the best.  Bella is always attracted to the exciting, scary crowd, and believes she will be entirely safe because they love her.  This happens in Hollywood all the time, but not very often in real life, and we need to remind our girls of this fact.

~ No matter what girls throw at them, the boy is the one who needs to control his 'urges'.  Edward is always doing everything he can to control himself with her--while living right at the edge of losing it.  She allows him to come into her bedroom every night and watch her sleep, she throws herself at him passionately every chance she gets-even begging to have sex--and he is the one who doesn't allow things to get 'out of control'.   I don't think girls should EVER assume that the guy is the one who will stop things before they go too far.

~ Bella is against getting married.  She is so opposed to it, that she ruins the opportunity to make her wedding seem like a joyful occasion, the day that every girl dreams about her whole life.  The fact that it happens in the book, is almost irrelevant, other than it allows Edward to be willing to give Bella what she is really interested in.  This is not the only reason we want our girls--or boys--to look forward to getting married.

~ She gets pregnant right away.  Not a problem except it makes her very ill to carry a baby that is half vampire, half human.  Everyone wants her to destroy it.  Especially Edward.  (Well, they are all afraid it will kill her, and they don't know exactly what it will be...and they never use the word abortion...)  Bella has to make friends with a previous enemy to protect her because she is afraid they will over-power her and take the baby by force.  The book is written in such a way, that the audience will probably side against Bella at first.  I know that even though we don't condone abortion, there are grave circumstances where it is necessary, but is this where we want our children to learn to make that judgment call? 

~ The book is very good about not actually describing acts, but the characters make flippant comments all through it.  Can't believe your house is still standing!  We destroyed 10 before we were able to get these emotions under control!  Bella is so excited to join the vampire world where no one ever sleeps.  She can have her days to do all the things she needs to, and then her nights will be available to be with Edward--not sleeping, but fulfilling their longing--all night long. 

The World teaches us that it is okay to think about these things, talk about these things, make jokes about these things...as long as we don't DO these things we are good, moral people.  We believe that "Virtue should garnish our THOUGHTS unceasingly".  That means we try not to think about, talk about or joke about things that are of this nature.

I am sending this because I am worried about the mis-information we are giving our young girls.  We need to take the time to correct the misconceptions that the world is giving them.  At least when we were young, everyone knew what was right and what was wrong.  So many things have been allowed by the world to be right, and I think sometimes we assume our children have the same paradigm as we do.  They don't--especially when we don't take the time to teach it to them.  Unfortunately, just because it is written by a Mormon doesn't seem to make it safe.  And if we decide it is okay to let our young girls read these books, we  had better--at the very least--have a discussion about all the things in there that aren't right or moral.

Here is a quote from the New York Times:

“They put the fanaticism right back into the word 'fan,'" Meyer said. "They're so dedicated. I mean, they're loyal and they get so excited. You wouldn't think it's about books. That always surprises me. You know, that's how I felt about books as a kid."

A healthy obsession for a girl growing up in Phoenix , one of six children in a conservative Mormon household.

"It was very 'Brady Bunch' at times," Meyer laughed. "But it was a really nice childhood. My parents were good parents."

...A role Meyer would soon take on herself as a wife and mother of three.' 

Stephanie Meyer has been quoted that she wishes she weren't being recognized as a "Mormon writer".  She would rather just be known as a writer.  

I have to agree. 

Sheri Spencer

Disappointed

I have subscribed to your publication for awhile and have always appreciated all your hard work for values and the right. Everyone has a right to enjoy the literature they want. I would never want to take that away from anyone. I don't even consider myself an ultra righteous person, and I have been going over this in my head over and over again because I feel that I must be missing something. I was just really disappointed to open your publication today and see that you too were promoting the Twilight series.

I haven't read them and I have no intention of doing so and have discussed my feelings with my daughters and none of them want to read them. We loved Harry Potter so it's not the unreal characters that I struggle with. But in Harry Potter, Narnia, The Hobbit-it was always a war between wrong and right and right always won. In Twilight it sounds to be all about forbidden love and people  who love the smell of blood and people who are willing to sacrifice everything to be a vampire.

I want my girls to seek after forever love—eternal love—not forbidden love. The written word is powerful—we can read and re-read it and draw our own mental imagery. I am not saying this author is evil or that the books are evil but I think we need to be oh so careful with what we deem praiseworthy and of good report. Just because the author is Mormon-well—I don't want to be contrary—I am just really trying to decide why it is I feel so strongly about this. Thanks for all you do by being willing to devote so much time to putting out this great publication and everything else you do.

Lisa Bishop

Is Everyone Nuts?

Is everyone out there nuts? blind?  This is wrong.

It is wrong to glorify something that's associated with darkness.

It is wrong to allow this kind of semi-sexy book to be read in our Christian homes.

Why are people, who love Light and Christ, buying this book?

WHY wasn't something said in the article about Light vs Dark?

We are children of the Light. Period. Not of sensuality, not of the night and darkness.

A. Hartung
Conway, SC