The brownie analogy

[Katya]

At Laser Jock's request, here is my (long!) writeup of why I find the "poop in a brownie" analogy problematic. Please note that this is not meant as a personal criticism of Gio, his mother, or anyone else, since I think that many people casually use such analogies without necessarily endorsing all of their implications.

There are two main reasons why this analogy bothers me. The first is that it minimalizes the value and importance of fiction, art, film, etc. The underlying assumption is that such media is of inherently low worth, so there's no harm in throwing away or dismissing much of it out of hand. Also, people who are making such judgments often fail to evaluate a work as a whole piece of art. Instead, they zero in on one piece of the work that bothers them without stopping to ask if that piece is serving a laudable purpose in the greater work.

Going back to food metaphors, if you were baking a cake and you decided to taste all of the ingredients separately, you'd probably throw away the baking powder as being too bitter, as well as tossing out the raw egg yolks and vanilla extract. It's only when you bring the ingredients together in the proper way that they work together to make something better than the sum of your parts. If you only evaluated the individual ingredients, you'll be stuck eating flour, sugar, and milk. (Pure butter and pure salt are also pretty gross.) You might console yourself that at least you rejected the "bad" ingredients necessary to make a cake, but you'd actually be depriving yourself of something much better.

Also, in a zeal to focus only on individual "ingredients," it's possible to give a story a pass that has huge issues when evaluated at a higher level. Plenty of Mormon women read Twilight and praised its lack of sex, while remaining completely oblivious to the more-or-less abusive nature of Edward and Bella's relationship.


The second reason the analogy bothers me is that it's an oversimplification of a complicated issue.

Suppose I had a library that owned all of the books published in the last year. Also suppose that I had divided them into two floors by some unknown criterion. Suppose that I then told you the books on the first floor are rated, on average, 4 out of 5 stars by unbiased judges, while the books on the second floor are rated, on average, 2.5 out of five stars by the same judges. With that information, wouldn't it be easier just to read books from the first floor? After all, based on that information, you stand a much better chance of selecting a good book if you pick one from that floor.

Suppose that, however, you pressed the issue and asked what the difference was between the books on the two floors, and you then learned that the first floor contained books by dead authors, while the second floor contained books by living authors. Would that change your mind about which floor to visit?

It's true that books by dead authors tend to be more highly regarded (on average) than books by living authors, since we don't tend to keep older books in print unless they are well written and so have become classics. However, if you limit yourself to the classics, you're going to miss out on a lot of good books by more recent authors. But if you want to venture on to the second floor, you're going to have to find more criteria to help you choose between good and bad books. You're going to have to do more work and not settle for an easier option. (And even the first floor is likely to contain some duds.)

Likewise, I take no issue with using MPAA ratings (for instance) as a first approximation of whether or not a film is worth watching; I do it myself. But it's only a first approximation. If you get more information, you may need to revisit your initial evaluation. Conversely, if you want a more precise evaluation, you're going to need to seek out more information.


Sometimes when people (like me) express frustration on this topic other people hear us as saying that we should throw out away all standards and embrace everything. That's not what I'm saying at all. I care a lot about art and I also care about the effect that art has on us. I think that there are lot of important ethical issues that come into play when dealing with art, such as desensitization to sex, violence, or language; the glorification of war; Hollywood's depiction of the way "real" people talk and act; personal sensitivity to various themes and images; the effect of reading about violence or sex vs. watching it; the moral responsibility of the artist; etc. These are all important conversations to have and I love discussing them with people who see things from a different point of view. But we can't have these conversations if we settle for an oversimplification of the underlying issues.

[Marduk]

Thanks for this, Katya. As I'm sure Bob will attest to, a lot of the points that you bring up are pet peeves of mine. I really, really wish we'd learn to approach art in a more holistic way. However, I recognize that that is a much more difficult approach, particularly when trying to standardize consumption. I think one of the main problems that we face with our art nowadays is that most mass-consumed art is, simply put, stupid. It is vapid and inane, and reflects little of the reality of day to day life. It doesn't encourage people to think about real issues, analyze themselves, understand and love others, etc. It simply entertains and turns brains off. So what could be one of the greatest aids to learning how to best interact with one another, it instead becomes one of the greatest stumbling blocks.

[Portia]

Plenty of Mormon women read Twilight and praised its lack of sex, while remaining completely oblivious to the more-or-less abusive nature of Edward and Bella's relationship.

I find Edward and Bella just lying together with her in her panties to be more skeevy than a sex scene would be.

[yayfulness]

I heard someone (definitely not LDS) describe the books once as "misogynistic Mormon vampire porn," and someone else called it "abstinence porn." No sex, but definitely sexual. (I say this in utter ignorance, having done my best to avoid anything related to the series except for Divine Comedy skits.)

[Giovanni Schwartz]

Yeah... DEFINITELY felt dirty reading the last one. Yes, I read them all. I'm only ashamed to admit it because the last one was SO DANG SKANKY.

In reference to the "Poop in the Brownie" scenario:

While I appreciate the "It's art!" logic, I still feel that's what appropriate for Katya may not be appropriate for me. I mean, Katya is a genius with Graduate level degrees. She can probably see the themes behind a movie much better than I can, thus understanding the artistic necessity for some potentially less-than-desirable content. I, on the other hand, have no way to determine what the artistic effect the producer/director/whatever was going for. Instead, I see a movie full of death, immorality, and violence, with no inkling that there is a deeper meaning behind it.

Does this mean that I should go out by myself and watch the movie, without any artistic guidance? Or should I wait to be in a controlled environment, where I can have someone to help me recognize these artistic themes, so that in the future, I can better understand the movies that I watch?

EDIT: Okay, so my example in the middle is a little extreme. But my question still stands. Should I watch these movies with no hope of REALLY understanding them, or should I wait until I have someone to guide my hand?

[Unit of Energy]

I think you answered your own question Gio. I haven't seen an 'R' rated movie, not because I disapprove of watching them, but because I haven't found a compelling reason to. Going just because it has artistic value doesn't mean one should watch a film if all you'll be getting out of it is sex and violence.
At the same time though, I think the problem that exists with the brownie analogy isn't that everything is appropriate for everyone, but that using the analogy tends to eliminate the possibility that there can be value in things that have some rough parts.

[Giovanni Schwartz]

Thank you for saying what I meant. You're very eloquent, and I appreciate it.

[bobtheenchantedone]

Gio, you remind me of one of the more obnoxious comments I ran across in RS - "Suddenly I thought, if my eight-year-old nephew shouldn't be watching this, then why am I?" How about because he's a kid, and there are lots of things that are appropriate for adults that aren't for children? There are school subjects, books, activities, movies, even things about the gospel that I would not share with with my youngest siblings. They don't have the maturity and comprehension to properly analyze and respond to more mature themes and more difficult subjects. That doesn't mean I can't do or see or know about those things.

I recently posted on the F-book that I was thinking of writing a blog post about Mormon object lessons that bug me, but I think all the specific examples boil down to this: the way those lessons teach is in black and white. Compare a girl who broke the law of chastity to a cupcake that has been licked - you wouldn't want to eat that cupcake now, would you? But that ignores repentance, differing circumstances like recent converts, or could be taken to mean that a divorcee or widow is also unacceptable (not to mention treating a woman like an object, thanks). If you follow the poop in the brownie lesson to what I think is the logical conclusion, you're stuck with church-produced movies (except for ones about the Book of Mormon, 'cause there's a lot of war, and there's violence in movies about Christ as well, so that's no good) and your only reading is scriptures and church magazines. No matter how good these things are, I refuse to believe that that is all we are meant to consume.

[Katya]

While I appreciate the "It's art!" logic, I still feel that's what appropriate for Katya may not be appropriate for me. I mean, Katya is a genius with Graduate level degrees. She can probably see the themes behind a movie much better than I can, thus understanding the artistic necessity for some potentially less-than-desirable content. I, on the other hand, have no way to determine what the artistic effect the producer/director/whatever was going for. Instead, I see a movie full of death, immorality, and violence, with no inkling that there is a deeper meaning behind it.

At the same time though, I think the problem that exists with the brownie analogy isn't that everything is appropriate for everyone, but that using the analogy tends to eliminate the possibility that there can be value in things that have some rough parts.

U of E's got it. Let me give you an example that will maybe help illustrate what I'm talking about.

I first heard about the movie The King's Speech on a movie podcast that I listen to. Both of the hosts really liked it and they encouraged parents to take their teenagers to the movie, even though it was rated R, because they explained that the R-rating was for one scene where expletives were used in a speech therapy context and the rest of the movie was pretty much PG.

Based on that recommendation and its Rotten Tomatoes score (which was similarly high), I decided to watch the movie in the theater, and I loved it. So the next week, I made my roommate go with me to see it again. When it came out on DVD, I told my mother that she should watch it and I explained exactly which scene had the swearing (in case she wanted to mute it). My mom watched it and loved it and made my grandparents come over one evening to watch it. (I don't remember if she muted the swearing scene for herself, but she did mute it for my grandparents.) My grandparents also loved it, and spent a lot of time reminiscing about what they remembered about the WWII era.

Notice how many "filters" are at work in that story. I almost never watch a movie without a recommendation, and I need a very strong recommendation to watch an R-rated film. (Usually it needs to come from someone who knows me personally; The King's Speech was a rather unusual case, in that regard.) My mom watches even fewer movies than I do, so I take the best ones that I've seen and recommend them to her, taking into account what I know of her personality and tolerances. My grandparents hardly ever watch movies, but my mom likes to invite them over once or twice a year to watch something really good, so she picks out the best of what she sees for them. So, by the time the movie got to my grandparents, it had to go through about three different filters of people who watched the film with the next person in mind. Any one of those filters could have tossed out the movie as not being worthwhile, and 99.9%+ of all movies do get filtered out by the time they reach my grandparents. BUT . . . it turned out that none of those filters was a strict "no R-rated movies" filter, and although almost all R- or even PG-13-rated movies would have been caught by those filters, it turned out that this one movie was good enough to pass along (with one scene optionally muted), in spite of its MPAA certification.

Now, according to the brownie analogy (or to a very strict interpretation of it), I should have dismissed the idea of watching The King's Speech as soon as I found out it was rated R or had swear words in it. Also, anyone who knows me and who knows that I watched that film should think less of me for "lowering my standards." But it was a really good film. It had a noticeably positive impact on me and on my life. I am a better person for having watched it and I don't want to deny the reality of that experience just because someone else thinks that the film had "poop" in it.

[Unit of Energy]

Oh, yeah, I have seen the King's Speech, although it was the PG-13 version. I have a good friend who has a personal goal not to watch R rated movies, but felt no qualms seeing that movie on multiple occasions, although I believe the only time he saw it without muting that scene was when he joined us at the theater for the PG-13 version.

[Katya]

Oh, yeah, I have seen the King's Speech, although it was the PG-13 version. I have a good friend who has a personal goal not to watch R rated movies, but felt no qualms seeing that movie on multiple occasions, although I believe the only time he saw it without muting that scene was when he joined us at the theater for the PG-13 version.

Yeah, the fact that that scene is so easily muted makes it kind of an unusual case. (And it actually says a lot about how movies are marketed, that the producers didn't care that it was rated R, because they weren't originally looking for a teenage audience, anyway.) There are other R-rated movies that I love, but I think that's the only one that even my grandparents have seen.

[Katya]

http://jkirkrichards.wordpress.com/2012 ... on-sunday/

This is a really great post (with a really long title) about nudity in art by J. Kirk Richards. (I feel like it fits in with this general conversation, so I'm posting it here.)

[Genuine Article]

I just read that yesterday and loved it. It was a great reminder that all truth, regardless of the subject matter, comes from God.

[Marduk]

Well, Katya, since I read that article, I've been wondering about another question, and now you've given me the opportunity to ask it here.

Would this same argument apply to POSING nude, as a member of this church?

[Katya]

Would this same argument apply to POSING nude, as a member of this church?

That's an interesting question.

If I believe that drawing from live (i.e., nude) models is a moral activity and if that activity is impossible without the models, themselves, then I suppose I have to conclude that the modeling is a moral activity, as well.

But that doesn't mean I'd be interested in volunteering. (I wouldn't even be comfortable with the BYU-sanctioned bikini modeling.)

[Laser Jock]

I'm reminded of another article you asked about on the Board, Katya: "Seeking after the Good in Art, Drama, Film, and Literature," [PDF] by Travis T. Anderson (new link, since the one in the Board question broke). I should re-read that; I remember thinking he made some really great points about why it's a problem to avoid any and all things that have even a hint of un-doctrinal content. (And if anyone else is at all interested, take a look; it's a great essay.)

[NerdGirl]

I was a BYU bikini model. And I would have done it without the bikini. In fact, I think there would have been less of a weird aura of secretiveness and awkward sexual tension without the bikinis.

[Cindy]

I wouldn't even be a burqa model. That kind of attention makes me feel very uncomfortable. (This is also why I hate surprise birthday parties. All those people looking at me expectantly make me want to run screaming out of the room.)

[Marduk]

Obviously, I'd do it, but I'm a dude, so I don't have all those wierd body image issues. Well, I do, but I'm not supposed to, so I mask them with false bravado.

[Watts]

I wouldn't even be a burqa model. That kind of attention makes me feel very uncomfortable. (This is also why I hate surprise birthday parties. All those people looking at me expectantly make me want to run screaming out of the room.)

SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTIES ARE THE WORST.

On a more related note, as an artist I think I would feel less weird about just having the models be nude. But I am also going into a medical profession, so maybe naked people just don't freak me out at all.