Hollywood’s annual season of self-congratulations wraps up this Sunday night with the Academy Awards. No doubt host Jimmy Kimmel, the presenters, and the recipients will continue to advocate for the #MeToo and the Time’s Up movements, designed to draw attention to, and hopefully start ending, sexual harassment in Hollywood.
Good for them! It’s about time actors and their ilk used their time on stage for something other than more self-promotion. #MeToo and Time’s Up are not just good for Hollywood. They are good for humanity.
But while these protests are what we see televised, it’s what has quietly happened behind the scenes that raises eyebrows.
When news of Harvey Weinstein’s heinous crimes against women broke last October, Hollywood staggered. It was not as if this was the first celebrity to have his, or her, sins exposed. But now the dominoes were falling. Weinstein was expelled from the Academy of Motion Pictures, as the count of the women he had assaulted continued to climb.
And then, suddenly, the Academy grew a conscience. In a move that likely never occurred to them as ironic, on December 7, 2017, the Academy adopted a code of conduct and warned members it reserves the right to expel any who flout the new rules. The code was sent to more than 8,000 members and to news media.
The code of conduct states that “there is no place in the Academy for people who abuse their status, power or influence in a manner that violates recognized standards of decency.” The Academy, the letter guarantees, “categorically” opposes any misconduct and threatens disciplinary action against those who inflict any form of “abuse” against other members of the Academy.
Good! But did you notice, “Recognized standards of decency.” So, now, suddenly, decency matters? Hollywood just admitted what they have denied for decades—there is a moral consensus, and we are better off if we live by it.
But how is it, exactly, that Hollywood intends to enforce this “code of conduct” while at the same time denying it in nearly every motion picture being made in Hollywood?
The truth is, we can claim all day long that we don’t believe in a consensus of decency. We just can’t actually live that way. Now that Hollywood is experiencing the logical conclusion of its own culture, suddenly decency matters.
Hollywood has pushed the boundaries, condemned social standards, defied decency, and expelled common standards of morality from its films, in the name of “art,” while advocating immorality among its members, in the name of “rights.” And now, Hollywood is surprised that they have fostered for themselves a culture that destroys the lives of its members.
Of course, the Academy did not cause Cosby, Weinstein, Spacey, and others to inflict abuse on their victims. But their unyielding campaign against cultural standards of morality empowered the abusers and made available the abused.
In the end, it cannot be denied. Standards exist for a reason. We are sinners, and we need boundaries to keep us safe, moral, and healthy. When we flout those boundaries, we generate a self-destructive scenario that will, eventually, collapse and crush us.
Ultimately, everyone returns to the same conclusion.
God was right. Morality matters.
Standards remind us that we are creatures with a Creator who tells us what to avoid so we can live healthy lives. He provides standards not to be cruel or legalistic, but to keep us safe from our own sinful selves. This need for boundaries is woven into our spiritual DNA. Paul wrote that people who try to deny moral standards while at the same time desiring them actually reveal that they were built by a Creator who endowed all people with “recognized standards” of morality and decency. We deny that to our own demise (Rom. 2:15).
But what has happened in Hollywood could happen to any of us. If we strain against the rules and we push against the norms and we chisel at the boundaries, we will find ourselves living in the abyss of our own moral consequences. And suddenly, those boundaries we snubbed look pretty good after all.
We want freedom. But we need standards. In right relationship with Christ, and in obedience to His Word, we have both. “Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32).