PG-13

Yes, I've seen 27 Dresses... I am a 32 year old man who over the years has dutifully sat through his fair share of "chick flicks". I must confess that I've also seen The Notebook, The Devil Wears Prada, P.S, I Love You, The Prince and Me, and The Princess Diaries (1 & 2).

In last night's Jr. High Youth group, we discussed True Love; what it is and what it isn't. We are going to talk more next week, but we started off by discussing Love in pop culture, primarily in movies. I asked what movies had they seen recently that were "love stories" and these are the responses I got...

-27 Dresses (seen it) -The Notebook (seen it) -He's Just not That Into You (have NOT seen it) -Titanic (seen it) -PS, I love You (seen it) -Wedding Crashers (seen it, unfortunately) and 5o First Dates (seen it)

After hearing this list, I had them describe the plot lines and "love angles" of some of the films and basically came up with something that resembles this... Boy meets girl (or vice versa), Girl does not like boy (or vice versa), After doing something stupid, Boy does something heroic and wins girls heart, Boy and Girl have sex... maybe they get married, the end.

We then tried to think of romantic movies they have seen where the main characters do not have sex or were married. We came up with Fireproof (have Not seen it).

I went online this morning and looked at all the ratings of the above mentioned films and realized all of these films that the youth mentioned (except Wedding Crashers -R) were rated PG-13. And what invariably separates the PG-13 from the PG films is the sex. I tried to add up the length of time from when the main characters first meet to their first sexual encounter and here's what I got... 27 Dresses (4th meeting), The Notebook (2 months, although technically longer), Titanic (4th meeting), PS, I Love You (2nd meeting), Wedding Crashers (I have no idea, but I know it's soon), 50 First Dates (23rd Date).

I know that these are just silly movies, but without question, stories like these ARE affecting pop culture beyond the movie screen. I don't know many 13 year olds who are mature enough to watch and process the love scenes and sexual dialogue that are in these PG-13 movies without their idea of love being somewhat tainted. People of all ages (but, especially our youth) are quickly accepting the popular view that love, sex, God, self-respect and marriage are all separate issues and are open to individual interpretation, depending on a person's extenuating circumstances.

Mark Driscoll, one of my favorite pastors talks about the eventual dangers of this issue here...