Freedom Vs. Dignity

The only problem with getting up early and going to morning prayer with a group of gentlemen from my Church is that my brain actually gets working. Blast this early morning thinking. :) Que the sarcasm if it isn't already.

So, my family is now officially addicted to House. We've borrowed the DVD set of Season two, and when we watched an actual movie last night, my mom noted that while she loves watching movies, she really wanted to see what the next episode of House had in store. For those of you who don't know about House, I suggest you do some research and watch a few of the shows if it interests you. Suffice to say, it's a medical show with a humorous twist. Duh, it has Hugh Laurie in it.

To cut to the point, I got to thinking this morning about AEDs (Automated External Defibrillators). You know, the zappy thingys that bring someone back to life after his/her heart stops beating. Really quite mysterious. But, the thing is, on medical TV shows, you only see men getting zapped because the pads of the AED are applied to the chest. Of course, it's scandalous to show a woman's breasts on TV like that.

Why is it scandalous? Our Victorian sensibilities tell us that anything regarding the upper portion of a woman's body is unfit for public viewing. But, it's a doctor show. Women have heart attacks too? Why be sexist and only show men being saved?

In Victorian times, modesty (or downright prudishness) was emphasized so heavily so as to ward of sexual promiscuity. We can all recognize that, seeing as that strain of thought has become part of our culture as well. Quite honestly they didn't have to deal with medical shows in the Victorian Era. Doctors of course saw women's breasts. There was nothing dishonorable with that. They're doctors, that's what they do. Why have things changed then? The shows still deal with doctors helping people. The setting hasn't changed.

The TV has made slaves of us all. By blatant sexual overtones in advertising ("sexy talk" as Hugh Laurie said earlier in his career), we have lost all sense of dignity and respect for the female body. Even though the topics are the same, even though the show House deals with doctors helping people, it is utterly impossible for them to show a nude female torso and keep a sense of sobriety for the subject.

Now, having said that, I of course have to clarify myself. This is for TV shows. Movies, I think can be slightly different. Writing this, I thought almost immediately of the movie Wit, starring Emma Thompson. This is an incredibly powerful film, and while I endeavor not to recommend movies to people, I think that I can break that rule in this case. At the risk of giving away the plot, all I can tell you is that, towards the end of the movie, there is a scene where doctors attempt to use an AED on Emma Thompson's character. Now, they must remove Thompson's robe in order to move ahead with the procedure. I don't know if it's because it's Emma Thompson or because of the gravity of the movie itself, but I don't know of anyone feeling either scandalized by this or (going to the other extreme) at all tempted to fleshly lusts (monastically put). This is an exception. I don't think that anyone could have pulled this off on House or E.R. or any of the other medical shows out there. Films are able to grow a subject and mature in a way that TV shows are incapable.

Living in America, what are our freedoms? I've been told that there's nothing in the constitution about banning porno. True enough, there isn't, but does that mean that we ought to let it run rampant in society (as if it already isn't)? At what point do our rights dictate our judgments? I, for one, am glad that House isn't allowed to show female nudes on the show (though that could change, of course). I don't think that the general population, in it's present state, is able to handle it, myself included. We've lost all sense of dignity in this country, and our rights need to be called into question as a result. Yes, we have the right to buy porno at 18, but does that mean that we ought to? We think of ourselves as adults, but as far as moral compass is concerned, we're little better than children.