The magic of movies is that one reaches some, while merely frustrating others. For example, a fellow critic preferred Melancholia to my favorite film of last year, The Tree of Life. I found this surprising, because Melancholia, an apocalyptic, end-of-the-world, fatalistic drama, is the gloomiest movie I’ve ever seen. At one point its star, Kirsten Dunst, in her passive acceptance of our planet’s doom, states, “The Earth is evil…it won’t be missed.” My friend appreciated the film’s depiction of someone suffering from extreme depression, whereas I found its message less than profound because it offered no hope.

As with Terrance Mallick’s The Tree of Life, Melancholia is deliberately paced, resonant in its imagery and contemplative. Unlike The Tree of Life, which examines questions concerning God and the afterlife, Melancholia’s writer/director, Lars von Trier, avoids any such topics. His characters are decadent, self-absorbed and lost; so devoid of spirituality they can’t even find it within to pray as Earth faces destruction. But, as I say, she got something out of it, despite its hopelessness.

That got me to thinking of what people are willing to endure in the name of entertainment. Loaded with cynicism, crudity, excessive this or that, many films beat us up rather than nurture – something an art form should do more than they do. The result of my nonscientific study was that generally the public goes to movies in order to ease the tensions of the day. In most cases, they’re not looking for anything with an “art-house” ethereal flair. They just want to see something blow up or Katherine Heigl get together with her latest male costar after two hours of bickering. Okay, fine, but I’m amazed at what cinemagoers will tolerate once they’ve handed over their $10.

Having endured Death at a Funeral (the English version in 2008 and the Chris Rock remake in 2010), I feel I have submitted myself to enough gross-out humor to last a lifetime. In one scene, an enfeebled old man is helped onto a toilet. This leads to the most graphic depiction of a bathroom necessity I can remember seeing in a movie (copied in nauseating detail for the remake). As gross as that sounds, a pretty, stylish-looking young woman sitting behind me laughed with the intensity of one who has just heard Abbott & Costello’s Who’s On First. The entire audience did the same for this scene in the newer version.

Knowing it contained an equally stomach churning scene, I skipped last year’s Bridesmaids. How funny or profound could this movie be in order for me to view wedding dress shoppers vomiting and undergoing bouts of diarrhea?

Forgive the graphic detail, but a whole lot of people went to see that movie. If they had known about that scene, would they have gone? Maybe now you won’t rent it.

Moviemakers keep pushing the envelope. Even comedies made for the family such as the recent Joyful Noise now contain elements not found in that genre a few years back. As my colleague Mary Draughon said of that film, “It is refreshing to see a Hollywood production acknowledging the church as a very important part of a community. But the dialogue is spiced with many s-words and other crude expressions among leading church members. Mean-spirited competition, a vicious public ‘cat fight’ in a restaurant, and an unmarried couple caught in an embarrassing and tragic sexual encounter are treated as sources of hilarity.”

Movies can be parables that instruct. Indeed, we can learn from viewing portraits of man's folly. And perhaps we have evolved into beings capable of processing any amount of abuse put before our eyes. But is that what our Creator intended for us?

The Bible states we are not to be governed by the world's standard. "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2).

Decades ago, studios were regulated by the Motion Picture Code, which was established in order to protect and resonate the values and moral concepts society considered the standard to live by. You didn’t need a reviewer’s content description so much. By the end of the 1960s, however, the Code had vanished, replaced by the MPAA rating system. Since the Code’s demise, content (the reason for the rating) has become as influential as a film’s artistic and thematic elements.

Swearing, irreverence to God, excessive violence, crudity, nudity, perversity – these were forbidden under the Motion Picture Code. But many filmmakers thought this code of decency was restrictive, and were determined to end it. The ideal of the new MPAA system was to allow for more mature themes. Sadly, the reality was a door opening to a bombardment of excess. This one decision made by Hollywood has done more to change our society’s standards than any other social act. There are no restrictions anymore. The “artists” won. But the culture lost.