Category: Books, Movies and Television (Page 7 of 8)

Jesus and Injustice: 12 Years a Slave

November 22, 2013 / Trent / 2 Comments

I had to drive past two super-sized cinemas, both showing the same eight (bad) movies so I could see 12 years as a Slave.

My wife and I like to see all the movies with Oscar buzz and, given the reviews, thought this one was a must see, so we made the trip. I’m not sure it lives up to the comparison with Shindler’s List, but it was good.

(Spoiler Alert)

It was good, but I was a little irritated by the portrayal of Christianity in the film.

Christians in 12 Years A Slave

Not only were the slave owners explicitly Christian, but the one sympathetic character–the one who boldly expressed abolitionist ideals–was not. The most abusive slave owner–the one who had his slaves whipped if their daily cotton picking was less than the day before, the one who regularly raped his best worker, the one who shredded the back of a defenseless woman–used the Bible to justify his behavior. Mr. Bass, played by Brad Pitt, is the savior of Solomon Northrup, the protagonist of the film. Bass’ opposition to slavery is based on a vague objective equality inherent in all men. Where did this idea?

It is historically accurate to present slave owners justifying the institution of slavery with the Bible. It is also, certainly, true that some of those who opposed slavery were freethinkers like Bass—unaffiliated with Christianity.

But I was irritated that the filmmakers chose to associate Christianity with the injustice of slavery and ignore the fact that Christians played a major role in the Abolitionist Movement.

Throughout history, men have used whatever it takes to justify their own greed or lust for power. Within a Christian culture, such men will use Christianity to do so. This, however, does not make them Christians–to be Christian, one must walk in the footsteps of Christ. One need only read a few chapters of one of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John to see how Jesus would respond to slavery.

It was a Christian view of humanity that fuelled the abolitionists’ opposition to slavery.

I thought the movie overlooked this fact.

I was angered by the injustice of slavery as I watched this movie. I caught myself thinking, “If I were there, I would have done something.” Almost instantly, I recalled that our world is full of injustice today–including slavery.

Modern Slavery

It is the love of and for Jesus that motivates the International Justice Mission. There are millions of victims of slavery in the world today. IJM is doing something about it. Working with local officials, IJM rescues victims of slavery and sexual exploitation and they prosecute the perpetrators of these injustices.

IJM, and Christian organizations like it, are doing exactly what the makers of 12 years as a Slave hold up as the ideal, and they do it in the name of Jesus Christ. Sadly, the movie applies his name to those whose motives and behaviours are most contrary to his.

The movie is obviously concerned with exposing injustice. But I wonder about the long-term effect of consistently presenting Christians as those who perpetuate hate and injustice.

I worry, but won’t be surprised, that it will result in some new forms of injustice.

Warm Bodies: The Movie

June 19, 2013 / Trent / 4 Comments

Like the book, the movie, as social commentary, suggests the modern-secular self is already largely zombie. Early in the film, R walks through the airport with a bunch of zombies sitting around or bumping into each other. He recounts an earlier, better time, when humanity meaningfully interacted with others—the scene shows an airport full of people absorbed by their electronic devices bumping into each other like zombies.

The Need for Connection

Many zombies have gathered at the airport—airports are about waiting, and they are all waiting for something. R tells us what he’s waiting for: “I just want to connect.”

This desire is reflected in his collection. R collects a lot of things, and, from what we are shown, everything reflects this craving for connection. Every slide in the stereoscope shows a boy interacting meaningfully with a girl. The snow globe he acquires on the same excursion on which he acquires Julie presents lovers holding hands on a footbridge. And all the songs we hear from his record collection are about missing someone.

The connection issue is shown in the community of the Living as well. Their major project involves the construction of a huge wall to separate the Living from the Dead. Lead by Julie’s father, the Living strive for the symbol of division.

Like the figures in the snow globe, R and Julia supply the bridge between the Living and the Dead.

When the zombies see R and Julia holding hands, they are profoundly affected–the cure has begun. R describes the effect of the gesture when he says, “Julie and I were giving the others hope.” All this is a lot of fun. I enjoyed the movie, but, sadly, they resorted to mere convention.

Love Does it Again

This is where, disappointingly, the movie takes a significantly different approach to the cure than does the book.

In the book, romantic love is metonymy; it is one of several things that represents all things transcendent, like beauty, soul, and mystery. Not so with the movie; here the cure is simply romantic love. All the indicators of “true love” are present: hand holding, kissing, accelerated pulse, the inability to look away when her shirt is off and taking stupid risks, not to mention a literal balcony scene.

This is not a surprising solution to the zombie problem. Mainstream movies almost always solve all their problems with romantic love. It is able to overcome all barriers of social class, age, race and ethnicity, and personal conflicts. Why not overcome death?

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Disappointed in Warm Bodies, the movie where romantic love is salvation. Not a surprise given it overcomes every other barrier: class, age, race and ethnicity, and species. Why not overcome death? #WarmBodies #zombies #IsaacMarion” quote=”In Warm Bodies, the movie, romantic love is salvation. Not a surprise given it overcomes every other barrier: social class, age, race and ethnicity, and species. Why not overcome death? “]

I was a little disappointed at this, for it seems like a cheap solution, especially when the book offered romantic love as one of the means, rather than the end in itself.

In the end, we are asked to put our faith in romantic love, for only this is powerful enough to “exhume the world.”

Where the book hints that we need to recover of a view of reality beyond philosophical materialism, the movie suggests romantic love is the solution to all our problems. This is not to condemn the film, I actually enjoyed it, it just means it is a romantic comedy — and little more.

Read my review of the book.

Next Zombie post: Nazi Zombies

Warm Bodies: the Book

June 11, 2013 / Trent / 0 Comments

You know you’re an English teacher, if, when a movie is released, you buy the book.

The cover of my version of Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion is the movie’s poster, but it is better than a silly romance which cover seems to suggest.

The book’s first-person narrator is R — it’s all he remembers of his own name because he’s a zombie. The undead always have identity issues.

R describes his life as a zombie:

We do what we do, time passes, and no one asks questions . . . . We grunt and groan, we shrug and nod, and sometimes a few words slip out. It’s not that different from before” (4).

“It’s not that different from before.”

This is one of the main themes of the novel, suggesting that, in many ways, people are like zombies long before they become the decomposing brain-eaters.

R finds himself the protector of Julia–she’s alive and pretty amazing. She’s unlike any of the Living or the Dead. Where R’s cognitive abilities are severely compromised, what with being dead and all, Julia is clever in a philosophical sense. She explains that the source of the “plague” was not anything like a virus or nuclear contamination, but was from “a deeper place.” She actually uses the word “sin.”

Its source is not any direct divine judgment per se, but because we’ve “crushed ourselves down over the centuries” (221).

I think we crushed ourselves down over the centuries. Buried ourselves under greed and hate and whatever other sins we could find until our souls finally hit the rock bottom of the universe. And then they scraped a hole through it, into some … darker place.

In the last few centuries, we have crushed ourselves, indeed all of reality, down into the very small container of matter only–material reality is reality. We have rejected all transcendence: anything beyond the physical. We have come to believe the world is ruled by immutable and impersonal laws, that humanity is just a bunch of genes trying to get ahead and that time is a mindless and purposeless march toward personal and cosmic oblivion. This view of the world could be called “Philosophical Materialism.” It holds that matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, consciousness, and will, can be explained in terms of matter. The world described by philosophical materialism is closed to the transcendent.

This idea has crushed us. We’ve largely lost our sense of mystery and little evokes wonder. More and more of us believe that everything from mountains to sunsets, from music to love, is a product of physical or chemical processes. We no longer value things for their own sake, but for how economically useful they are–trees have become lumber and pigs have become pork. It is just a matter of time when people will be valued only for their utility. Or has this happened already?

We are Zombies

The book asks, if this is our conception of reality, what then is the difference between being a zombie or one of the Living? Julie doesn’t see a lot of difference anymore. While looking at a daisy Julie says, “We don’t even have flowers anymore. Just crops” (70).

We don’t even have flowers anymore. Just crops.

Julie believes that human beings are no better than zombies if they lose their sense of wonder — when they cease to see the world and its inhabitants as beautiful in and of themselves. Her father, only concerned with practical survival is no longer any better than the Dead he hates. She says of him, “Dad’s dead. He just hasn’t started rotting yet” (202). Julie believes life is more than physical and that simple survival isn’t enough. She says, “I mean obviously, staying alive is pretty . . . important . . . but there’s got to be something beyond that, right?” (71).

“I mean obviously, staying alive is pretty . . . important . . . but there’s got to be something beyond that, right?”

Julie is a foil to her father’s limited participation in life, but her vitality also provides a more important contrast to the Dead, represented by R.

Julia is less than impressed with R’s stagnant music collection. He communicates that he isn’t really looking for anything different–that’s the way the Dead are. She doesn’t accept this as a valid excuse claiming, “Music is life! It’s physical emotion–you can touch it! It’s neon ecto-energy sucked out of spirits and switched into sound waves for your ears to swallow. Are you telling me, what, that it’s boring? You don’t have time for it?” (54).

The Cure for Zombies

Julie’s love of music, like that for flowers, is rooted in their transcendence–they possess qualities beyond their physical properties. She is unique in that, unlike her father or the zombie R, she believes that there is more to reality than the physical.

This, it turns out, is salvation for R.

Romantic love is a part of his salvation, but it’s much bigger than love. It includes flowers and music and everything else that human beings experience. All the things that are good or true or beautiful, supernatural, spiritual or transcendent things.

Love is the main marker of R’s encounter with a transcendent reality. Before he meets Julie, R describes the zombie perspective of others, whether Living or Dead; we are all meat–“Nameless, faceless, disposable” (74). After he falls for Julie, she becomes much more to him than meat, more than a mere physical body. Consider this passage from near the ends of the story:

“I look into Julie’s face. Not just at it, but into it. Every pore, every freckle, every gossamer hair. And then the layers beneath them. The flesh and bones, the blood and brain, all the way down to the unknowable energy that swirls at her core, the life force, the soul, the fiery will that makes her more than meat, coursing through every cell and binding them together in millions to form her. Her body contains the history of the universe, remembered in pain, in joy and sadness, hate and hope and bad habits, every thought of God, past-present-future, remembered, felt, and hoped for all at once” (222).

In Julie’s face, he sees the transcendent and it is inseparable from the physical.

This has always been true of everything, he just forgot–this is the essence of the zombie.

Somewhere in the last few centuries, we have separated the soul from the body and then ditched the soul because we couldn’t weigh it. We lost the enchantment in life. The novel’s thesis is that if you live long enough in a disenchanted world, you will eventually become little more than a zombie. It offers a solution too; this story suggests that the first step toward the cure of the zombie curse is the re-enchantment of the world.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”In the book, Warm Bodies, the zombie, R is representative of all materialists, living and undead. He finds salvation, not a result of romantic love, but in encounters with embodied transcendence in music, flowers, and Julia. #zombies #WarmBodies #IssacMarion” quote=”In the book Warm Bodies, the zombie, R is representative of all materialists, living and undead. He finds salvation, not a result of romantic love, but in encounters with embodied transcendence in music, flowers, and Julia.”]

The movie made one significant change to the story.

Next Zombie Post: Warm Bodies (The Movie)

Want more zombie articles? Start with this one: A New Kind of Monster

Little Miss Sunshine

December 25, 2012 / Trent / 0 Comments

Little miss

They are the Hoovers because they all pretty much suck.

At the dinner table–the symbol of familial unity–they eat chicken out of a bucket, off of paper plates and drink pop served in McDonald’s collectible glasses. The nutritive value of the meal is equal to the emotional and spiritual value of this communion. A message on the answering machine interrupts the dissonance of conflicting wills. The seven-year-old Olive has, by default, qualified for the Little Miss Sunshine Pageant. Reluctantly, the family must make the long trip from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach, California so that Olive can attempt to achieve her dream and become a beauty queen.

There are many reasons that Little Miss Sunshine is my favourite movies. The acting is brilliant and the screenplay works on all levels. It’s also funny, poignant, philosophical and redemptive.

The movie is redemptive, but some Christian viewers would find this movie offensive.

That’s an Awful Movie

(SPOILER ALERT)

One of the characters is homosexual, but most Christians would be able to get past this, The grandfather would be a little more difficult to excuse; he uses heroin and advises his grandson to have sex with as many women as he can. It has strong language and a t-shirt that declares, “Jesus Was Wrong.” If that’s not enough, a seven-year-old girl dances, albeit naively, like a stripper.

Some might ask, “Even if there is something redemptive in this movie, is it worth seeing all the ‘garbage’ just to find that particle of truth?”

I find far more than a particle of truth in this film. Perhaps, part of the problem is that we have different approaches to understanding narrative. If the truth is a piece of a story that can be extracted from the whole and held up and declared to be a true bit, then an argument could be made that there aren’t a lot of true bits in this movie and quite a few untrue bits.

I recently wrote a post about using the term “Implication” instead of “Application” when determining our response to Bible stories. We can interact with any story, including a movie, with the principles of Implication.

Implication

Implication is a more appropriate approach to narratives of any kind for it maintains the integrity of all elements of the story of which the “idea” or “moral” is but one.

The first definition for term implication in the Oxford English Dictionary is the one I have in mind: “The action of involving, entwining, or entangling; the condition of being involved, entangled, twisted together, intimately connected or combined.”

The truth of a narrative is communicated through the experience it conveys–the experience in which we are entangled. Viewers of Little Miss Sunshine will find themselves entangled in the story.

Every character has a dream, hope or driving motivation. Significantly, these motivations are completely individual and they tend to divide each family member from the others. Olive dreams of being beautiful; Richard wants to have success in his career; Duane want nothing more than be free from home and his means of escape is to become a test pilot; Grandpa seeks pleasure in his waning years; Cheryl dreams of a happy family, and Frank seeks recognition and love.

Entwined into Little Miss Sunshine

Which of these dreams do you share? Everyone has a longing for something. These dreams are consistent with the Biblical idea that we were created for more than what we experience in this life. This is the place where I become entangled in the story, for I am every character in this movie.

Each character is a long way from achieving his or her dream. Olive lacks poise and grace, and the sort of beauty that would win a beauty pageant. Richard will never sell his self-help plan because it is mostly empty cliché. The picture of a previous husband sitting on the entry table in the opening scene shows that Cheryl is divorced. Her family is far from harmonious. Duane hates everyone, especially his family–he has stopped speaking and will remain silent until he is in flight school. Grandpa’s hedonism is self-destructive; his heroin use has gotten him thrown out of the nursing home. Frank has attempted suicide because he’s lost his boyfriend and reputation. Each character struggles with his or her own limitations as well as external circumstances.

It is very clear that, as individuals, they need something; as a family they need something; they need redemption. This too is consistent with the Biblical view of humanity. People were made to be in communion with each other. They began their journey seeking their own desires and their lives were dissonant and broken. They came together around a quest; they thought the quest was getting Olive into a stupid beauty contest, but it turned out the quest was the unification of their family around the protection of its most vulnerable.

When I become entwined into this story, I feel the needs and longings of these characters as my own. I feel the partial meeting of these needs as the family comes together in the crisis.

What’s True in Little Miss Sunshine?

If this way of experiencing narrative truth in a story isn’t good enough for you, there are plenty of “Application” truths here as well. If you are looking for the nugget of truth in this movie, there are many.

Here is a partial list:

We all dream of being something more than we can possibly be because we aren’t nearly the creatures we are supposed to be.
We are limited by our sin and the effects of sin in the world.
We do things out of love, but sometimes these things are not all that appropriate (Grandpa taught Olive the only dance he was familiar with); it’s a good thing that the love in our intentions is powerful enough to eclipse the inadequacy of the results.
To be naïve is not the same as to be innocent.
Even in our brokenness, we can be a blessing to others.
Actions are more powerful than words (the scene where Olive brings Duane back into the bus), and that’s why the Incarnation is so incredible.
Human beings were made for community and within community, we can transcend our individual weaknesses.
Grace, forgiveness, and LOVE are incredibly powerful.
Self-sacrifice is fundamental to the expression of love.
Suffering is important for growth.
The world’s standard for winners and losers is completely wrong.
There is a loving presence at the centre of the universe that orchestrates all things for our good.
Life is tragic and beautiful and also pretty funny.
Beauty pageants are stupid.

Bad stuff in movies can be Good, if you do the math.

October 9, 2012 / Trent / 0 Comments

Photo by Antoine Dautry on Unsplash

I never really understood math.

Apparently I could do it, because I got Bs in my math classes, but doing it and understanding it was not the same thing. My strategy was to look at the pattern in the sample question and repeat the pattern in the exercises. The trick on the test was just to apply the right pattern. This was hit an miss.

I never understood why multiplying a negative by a negative was a positive.

(-n)·(-n)=n

It took 30 years, but I now understand this, until recently, impenetrable mystery, and I understand it because I understand that sex, violence, and coarse language are not necessarily a bad thing in movies.

[tweetshare tweet=”I now understand how (-n)(-n)=n, because I understand that #sex, #violence, and #coarselanguage are not necessarily a bad thing in a movie.” username=”Dryb0nz”]

Math teachers have been telling me for a long time that “a negative times a negative is a positive,” but I never understood how this was possible. It was counter-intuitive as far as I was concerned—a special knowledge reserved for great a mathematical shaman like Mr. Stauffer, my high school math teacher. Multiplying negatives ought to result in a whole lot more negative.

But I know understand how this could be possible.

Sexual Content, Violence, and Coarse Language

Many people, when it comes to the movies we watch, think that strong language, sex/nudity, drug use, and violence are things to avoid (for more on this topic, read “Dog poop in the Brownies”).

I was talking to someone who had this view and heard myself saying, “A movie can have ‘bad’ things in it, but not be a ‘bad’ movie.” I was talking about Groundhog Day. Bill Murray’s character, Phil Connors, was doing bad things like driving drunk and having sex with a woman to whom he was not married.

Because this movie condemns this bad behaviour, this movie is good.

Math Exercises

Exercise 1 — Instructions: Reduce the following to an equation (show your work):

In Groundhog Day, Phil Connors is drunk driving and manipulating a woman into having sex with him because when he wakes up in the morning the day will reset and nothing he’s done will have happened. A day without consequences. Early in the movie, Phil Connors is incredibly self-centered. When he realizes he is caught in a time loop he uses people to satisfy his selfish desires.

Groundhog Day is critical of Connors’ selfish behaviour.

Being critical of a bad thing is a good thing.

A negative, shown to be negative, is positive.

(-n)·(-n)=n

(drunk driving)(is dangerous) = a true statement.

The math just works.

If a movie has a bad thing in it and calls it good, it’s bad.

(-n)·n = -n

(drug use)(is good) = a false statement.

A positive (shown to be) negative is negative.

n·(-n) = -n

(sexual purity)(is silly) = a false statement.

A positive (shown to be) positive is positive.

n·n=n

(performing the Heimlich maneuver)(is good) = a true statement.

The key, then, to assessing the good, true and beautiful in a movie involves discerning the movie’s stance toward the false, evil and perverse in a film.

It’s more than adding up the # of objectionable words/phrases, etc.

The Test

Failure to understand the implicit attitude toward these things in a movie places both of the following movies in the same category.

Parental Advisory #1

Sex/Nudity: sexually related dialogue and gestures
Drugs/Alcohol: drinking, marijuana is used; mention of other drugs
Violence/Scariness: people are killed; gunfire; fighting
Objectionable Words/Phrases: 295

Parental Advisory #2

Sex/Nudity: sexually related dialogue
Drugs/Alcohol: drinking, smoking
Violence/Scariness: fatal shooting, beating up, intimidation of others
Objectionable Words/Phrases: 140

The first is Pineapple Express, the second, Gran Torino.

Don’t see the first; don’t miss the second.

The Demonic and the Stupid

October 5, 2012 / Trent / 0 Comments

I went to see Looper on opening night.

There’s plenty to talk about in this movie, but too many people haven’t seen it yet and I don’t want to spoil it for them.

My experience in the theatre that night had me thinking that two more points should be added to the list that I started in the last post (Read “. . . Will We Watch?”). There, I suggested that we might consider having two standards regarding Language, violence and sexual content in movies. Movies that explore what it means to be human can have greater latitude for including this adult content, and a film that is just for entertainment, less so.

The principle is: language, violence and sexual content can be a means to an end, but not an end in themselves. To these I’d like to add the demonic and the stupid.

One of the films previewed before the feature presentation was Sinister. The preview scared me spitless. I cannot declare with certainty that this movie even has a demon in it, nor can I say with certainty that that this movie is using the demonic as entertainment. But, I think, based on the trailer, it’s likely.

Even if it’s not, I know that this type of movie is not good for me to see. This is a bit tangential, but an important point when it comes to movie viewing. Not everyone can view everything. For some, sexual content needs to be avoided as a matter of course. For others, this isn’t an issue, but violence is. For me, it’s the demonic.

Even though the demonic in The Exorcist is a means to an end, this type of content is something I avoid. Dicerning movie viewer need to know themselves.

The Exocist (1973) is such a film in that it deals with important themes and in many ways it affirms Christian understanding of reality. The presentation of the demonic was a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. This is more than can be said of the flood of “supernatural thrillers” that followed. Like sex, and violence, the demonic is not to be glorified or celebrated or simply exploited for entertainment purposes.

Nor is the stupid. I was reminded of this by Jeff Daniels.

Jeff Daniels plays the role of Abe in Looper. He also played Harry Dunne in Dumb and Dumber (1994). I admit some parts were pretty funny and a quite clever. This is probably one of the best in the genre—but it spawned a long string of movies that celebrate utter stupidity. Most fall far short of clever and don’t have the same level of talent (Daniel’s co-star was Jim Carrey).

These movies compensate for their lack of cleverness and comedic talent, with more stupidity and crudity. I’m not sure if it’s even possible to have stupidity as a means to an end. Maybe that’s why most of these movies are simply stupid, and because we can’t send them to their room for misbehaving, we can only ignore them and hope, that without an audience, they will stop.

Language, Sex, and Violence — Will We Watch?

October 2, 2012 / Trent / 1 Comment

Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

“If it’s not appropriate for children, it’s not appropriate for anyone.”

I’ve always had trouble with this idea, because if I took that approach, I’d no longer be able to read my Bible.

I have been told by those who can read the original languages in which the Bible has been written that some of the language is pretty course, especially in the prophets. And you don’t need to read the original language to find sexual content both the beautiful stuff, like The Song of Songs, and the repellant, the story of Lot and his daughters (Gen. 19:30-36) comes to mind. There’s also plenty of violence. When I was young, my imagination played the tent peg story (Judges 4:21) and the murder of Eglon (Judges 3:12-30) clearly on the screen of my mind.

The good folks down at the Skeptics Annotated Bible give the following, tongue in cheek, review of the Bible using the same categories that some concerned Christian groups give to movies:

• Sex/Nudity: 197
• Drugs/Alcohol: no information
• Violence/Scariness: 957
• Objectionable Words/Phrases: 180

Their jibe does make a point.

Rather than using the naively using the MPAA rating system or a misunderstanding of Philippians 4:8, I would like to suggest a new standard by which discerning parents, can determine what movies to watch with their older children or patronize themselves.

A New Standard for Evaluating Movies

It is not the language, sexual content and violence in and of themselves that should keep us from reading the Bible. It is not the presence of Sex/Nudity, Drugs/Alcohol, Violence/Scariness or Objectionable words/Phrases that should prevent us from going to movies.

It is how these things are treated in the move. If they are treated as the Bible treats them, maybe we can watch them. Maybe we even OUGHT to watch them? You see, I’m not just looking for a loophole to get away with watching whatever movie I want.

Art—and movies are art—is a dialogue about what it means to be human. It explores the good and beautiful; it also explores the evil and sin, and it explores the need and longing for redemption. All movies are about these things.

Experiencing art broadens and deepens our experience and, therefore our understanding of our neighbours. Understanding the language of film, and how to talk about it, makes us better able to attend to, and even contribute to, the dialogue and, thus, be more effective servants to God and neighbour.

Art has this serious purpose, but it can also be fun. This distinction is important when we talk about movies and some of the more adult content they often contain.

“Just for Fun” or “Getting Serious”

Movies have two functions that occupy points on a continuum. On one side are movies which are made to provide consumers with pleasure or entertainment. Commercial success is the primary goal so these movies are designed to help large numbers of people. This is not in itself a bad thing. Because they want to attract as many viewers as possible, they have to provide a good product, and they need a PG rating, so they don’t have strong language, nudity, or realistic violence.—if successful, everybody wins. I would classify The Avengers (2012) or Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) as a film that occupies this end of the spectrum.

On the other end are movies that are made in the hopes that it may broaden, deepen or sharpen our awareness of the human experience. These have a more artistic purpose and they demand more from us in that they attempt to bring us more deeply into life’s joys and struggles, while they and often produce empathy in the audience. Precious (2009) or Ordinary People (1980) perhaps fit into this category.

Because this is a continuum, movies usually occupy some point between the two ends of the spectrum. Some lean toward the entertainment side but still tell us something about life—Finding Nemo. Others tell us something serious about life, but while they do it, they entertain—Little Miss Sunshine.

Too much sex, violence, and language?

How much language, sexual content, and violence we are willing to tolerate in a film has something to do with where it is on the continuum. Movies that are on the entertainment side of the continuum ought to have a minimum of language, sexual content, and realistic violence. These things are a means to an end, and they ought not to be an end in themselves. If they are presented as such, discerning viewers will avoid them.

But because language, sexuality, and violence are a part of the human experience, they can be in the sorts of films that bring us into reality. Context matters a great deal here. The nudity presented in Spielberg’s, Schindler’s List (1993) is much different than the nudity presented in American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile (2006). The first shows the humiliation and abuse of women in a very dark time in human history, and the other objectifies women for the viewing pleasure of its male audience.

I have never been impacted by a scene of violence as much as the opening scenes of A Time to Kill (1993). 10-year-old Tonya Hailey is brutally attacked by two rednecks. These two white racists are caught boasting about what they did to Tonya. Her father, played by Samuel L. Jackson is understandably distraught and, recalling an incident a year previous when four white men were acquitted after raping an African-American girl in a nearby town. He is determined that justice will be done. So he shoots and kills the smirking rednecks as they leave their arraignment.

The violence of the initial attack is intense, but it was necessary for us to share some of the horror and violation of the act so that we could empathize with the distraught father who killed the men who attacked his daughter. The rest of the film involves his trial for murder. There is no doubt that he is guilty, but we understand his actions because we watched the event that motivated his decision to kill. Had you read this story in the newspaper, you’d likely be able to offer a flippant opinion about who’s right in this case, but by your participation in the violence, the issue is at least more complicated and your empathy makes you a better neighbour.

The violence in this movie is not the end, it is the means to an end, and that end is the honest exploration of the human condition.

“Faking It”

There are some movies that seem to say something significant about life and human experience, but are really presenting sentimental and over simplistic views of life. One such movie is Remember the Titans, which the filmmakers would have you believe is a realistic representation of how a football team overcame issues of racism and hatred to win the state championship. Although, based on a true story, racism in the real world is not so easily dealt with and movies that tell us that it is are not doing us any good.

Food Analogy

The following analogy might be helpful.

The movies which are just for entertainment are like home-made apple pie with a scoop of good quality ice cream; they are really good, but you oughtn’t to have a steady diet of the stuff.
The artistic film that brings us into reality is like a well-balanced meal—I’m thinking turkey dinner here—they are good for the soul.
Then there are the TV-dinner type movies that pretend to be saying something about life, they got processed turkey and mushy vegetables, but they are really giving us such a simplified version of reality that we’re better off eating the pie.
The ones that are full of sex, violence, or base humour are analogous to chocolate covered dog poop—they might look good in the trailers, but you won’t like the taste it leaves in your mouth.

Art has this serious purpose, but it can also be fun. This distinction is important when we talk about movies and some of the more adult content they often contain.

Does movie violence affect the viewer?

September 28, 2012 / Trent / 4 Comments

Skitterphoto / Pixabay

Does movie media violence desensitize?

I heard this question asked the other night. They didn’t ask me, but if they did, I’d have said, I didn’t think so. The reason is that I have been exposed to a lot of media violence. I have played Counter Strike and Call of Duty for over 10 years and have watched a lot of movie violence.

Even after all this, when I see an actual act of violence, I have an instant significant emotional, even physical, reaction to it. The 1968 execution of Captain Bảy Lốp is one example. I saw it once. It affected me profoundly and I will not willingly see it again.

Based on this evidence, I would suggest that all my exposure to game and cinematic violence has not desensitized me to real violence.

The person to whom this question was actually addressed claimed there is no doubt that movie violence affects the viewer.

In one sense this is certainly true—one of the purposes of film, indeed all art, is to affect the viewer. I think, though, that behind the statement was the tacit assumption that movie violence has significant negative effect.

I wouldn’t have been too worried about this claim except that it wasn’t about the violence in John Wick or The Walking Dead. It was about the action sequences in The Avengers. I wasn’t so sure about that.

Who is most affected by Media Violence?

James Potter brings together many studies on the effects of violence in On Media Violence. Ted Turnau summarizes Potter’s findings in his book, Popologetics.

The data suggests that media violence can have an effect of viewers, “but the kinds of effects and the depth of those effects vary greatly depending on the individual viewer and his or her contexts.”

Those who are most affected media violence are:

those who watch a lot of television;
those who cannot differentiate between types of violence (small children or the mentally disabled);
those who already have an aggressive personality;
those who are already emotionally upset or angry when they see an episode of violence.

According to the research, “Family background seems to play an important role as well. Children who come from strong families that teach children that violence is not acceptable do not act out aggressively after seeing media violence.”

Portrayal of Media Violence makes a difference.

How violence is portrayed also makes a significant difference as to how much it will affect a viewer.

Violence seems to have more of an effect

when the violence is portrayed realistically;
when violence is seen by the viewer as justified;
when the violent act seems to have no consequences;
when the violent act goes unpunished;
when the violence is done by an attractive person or a person who is demographically similar to the viewer;
when violence in linked to erotic content.

When violence has no effect

Violence seems to have little or no effect on the viewer:

when the violence is portrayed in a humourous fashion;
when violence is seen as having specific negative effects, such as pain to the victim, or when the perpetrator is punished;
when violence is done without malice or a revenge motive by a professional, such as a policeman or a soldier in a war movie.

The research seems to suggest that violence does, in fact, affect the viewers. But it matters a great deal who the viewer is and the nature of the violence presented.

Sometimes “Restricted” Means True

September 24, 2012 / Trent / 1 Comment

Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash

It happened again today. I sometimes show movie clips to show that literary devices used in great poetry and prose are used in movies as well. Today’s lesson was Allusion. I had just hit play on the movie There Will Be Blood (2007) and the big “R” shines on the screen. From some dark corner of the room, a student utters a mock gasp and says, “My mother won’t be happy I’m watching this.”

It suits my educational purposes to show only the first 10 minutes of the film until Daniel Day Lewis holds up his oil covered hand in Macbethian fashion and my point is made. We never get to any of the R-rated content.

An R rating is given by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to a film if the language, sexuality or violence is considered inappropriate for children under 12 years of age and it recommends parental guidance for those under 17.

The student comment was a joke, but it indicates the reality that the MPAA rating system is being used by parents, even Canadian parents, to decide what movies they will allow their children to see.

This makes some sense since the purpose of the rating system is to give parents some idea as to the level of language, sexuality, and violence in the film. And we ought to be concerned about these things. Harsh language, sexuality, and violence are unsuitable for children.

The problem here is that the rating system assumes that language, sexuality, and violence are all that parents should be concerned about. There are a few things that I think Christian parents would hold higher that the trio of cinematic vice.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”The movie rating system assumes that language, sexuality, and violence are all that parents should be concerned about, but isn’t the truth even more important that the absence of this trio of cinematic vice. #parentaladvisory #parenting #truthinmovies” quote=”The movie rating system assumes that language, sexuality, and violence are all that parents should be concerned about, but isn’t the truth even more important that the absence of this trio of cinematic vice. “]

Some parents restrict their viewing, and that of their older children, according to the MPAA rating system. But when the MPAA rating system is the guide, some movies are being watched that shouldn’t be, and some are not, that should be. A “G” or “PG” rating doesn’t mean it’s good and an “R” rating doesn’t mean it’s bad.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”When the rating system is our guide, some movies are watched that shouldn’t be, and others are not, that should be. A *G* or *PG* rating doesn’t mean good and *R* doesn’t mean it’s bad. #parentaladvisory #parenting #truthinmovies” quote=”When the rating system is our guide, some movies are watched that shouldn’t be, and others are not, that should be. A *G* or *PG* rating doesn’t mean good and *R* doesn’t mean it’s bad. #parentaladvisory #parenting #truthinmovies”]

Let me illustrate what I mean using two movies: Remember the Titans, rated “PG” and Crash, rated R for language, sexual content, and violence. Both of these movies seem to explore themes related to racism.

Remember the Titans

Dove Foundation reviewers have no problem recommending Remember the Titans to families.

“Well hurray for Hollywood! At last – here’s a story about overcoming bigotry told without profanity, exploitive sex or excessive violence. What’s more, it’s downright entertaining. . . . If a film is done right, no one is going to leave the theater let down by its wholesomeness.”

One of the things the reviewer got right is that it certainly is entertaining. And if they are saying that we ought not to indulge in movies where profanity is pointless, sex exploitive and violence excessive, I also agree with them. But, I would object if they were suggesting that profanity in a movie is inherently wrong, that all sex is exploitive and that any violence is excessive. They go on:

“[W]e approve of [Remember the Titans] because it represents a concerted effort to tell an uplifting story without the usual ratio of obscene and profane material. If that sounds like a Hallmark card commercial, well, what’s wrong with leaving the theater feeling hopeful and satisfied? Isn’t that the purpose of art – to uplift the spirit of man?”

Actually, it’s not the purpose of art. There are two limited understandings of the role of art. One is that it must contain some moral instruction and the second, it must be beautiful. Art may be beautiful, and it will, on occasion uplift the spirit of man, but it ought never to do so at the expense of the truth. If it does it will legitimately be labeled “bad” art.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Do you like feel-good movies? Art may be beautiful, and it will, on occasion uplift the spirit, but it ought never to do so at the expense of the truth. Some movies are fluff disguised as truth. #RemembertheTitans #parentaladvisory #parenting #truthinmovies” quote=”Do you like feel-good movies? Art may be beautiful, and it will, on occasion uplift the spirit, but it ought never to do so at the expense of the truth. Some movies are fluff disguised as truth. #RemembertheTitans #parentaladvisory #parenting #truthinmovies”]

Why is this movie “uplifting”? It’s quite simple. We feel good after viewing it. The movie begins with a few “good” people and a whole bunch of “bad” people. The good people are not prejudiced and the bad people are. The audience, very early on, is led to identify with the good people. That’s why we feel good after viewing it.

Through the course of the movie we shake our heads at the close-mindedness and cruelty of those racist people, but feel uplifted as more and more characters see the light and join our team of the generous and open-minded non-racists. This movie reinforces our simplistic preconceptions of the world in general and racism in particular. Worse, it reinforces, rather than challenges our simplistic preconceptions of ourselves as “good.”

This movie draws too clean a line between good and evil which is not representative of reality. It suggests racism is simple and easily overcome. It denies the reality every human being is a racist. Granted, there are degrees of racism, but to claim one is without any prejudgment on the basis of race, is like claiming one is without sin.

Remember the Titans tells us that there are many people who aren’t racist—most particularly the movie’s audience. This movie allows the audience to sit comfortably in the knowledge that they are good and open-minded citizens of the world and if the world were full of people like themselves, there would be no racism (and perhaps no sin) in the world. Certainly an uplifting message.

Sure, one function of art is to “lift up the spirit of man,” but it ought never to do so by lying. If you are going to take Philippians 4:8 at its word, you are not going to allow your children to watch this movie alone without someone to help them see where this very entertaining movie falls short of the truth—even though there is almost no language, sexual content or violence in the film.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”A movie ought never to *lift up the spirit* by lying. Philippians 4:8 means to help our children to see where a movie falls short of the truth, even though there’s no language, sex or violence. #RemembertheTitans #parentaladvisory #parenting #truthinmovies” quote=”A movie ought never *lift up the spirit* by lying. Philippians 4:8 means to help our children to see where a movie falls short of the truth, even though there’s no language, sex or violence. #RemembertheTitans #parentaladvisory #parenting #truthinmovies”]

Crash (2004)

Another of art’s aims is to challenge our faulty preconceptions of the world and ourselves. Crash won the academy award for best picture in 2005. Like Remember the Titans, this film deals with racism.

Although commending this film for its acting and cinematography, a reviewer at the Dove Foundation criticizes it because it “generates a very negative perception of America and its inter-racial relationships.” In other words, Crash does not present a view of the world (or of America) consistent with that of the reviewer. In this case, this fact ought to commend the movie rather than earn the critic’s castigation.

The Dove Foundation website gives a detailed description of all the sexual content, both shown and talked about, and it describes the acts of violence in the film. It also itemizes the language:

87 F, 17 S, 11 A, 10 N, 8 H, 3 B, 2 J, 3 C, 7 G/GD, 1 D, 2 OMG, 4 P.

I’m not even sure what all of these mean, but I think it would be a sin for me to sit and try to figure them all out, so I accept that there is strong language in this movie. For all these reasons, the film does not earn Dove Foundation Approval Rating. Granted, this rating is based on suitability for families, and it is not that.

I want to be clear, this movie is completely inappropriate for younger children. But, I recommend this movie to any adult who can see past the content. Why? Because it’s “excellent” and “praiseworthy”—it’s very well crafted—but it is also “true.” It gives us a picture of the world in that we see good and evil, not clearly embodied in individual characters, but all mixed together.

The characters I initially judged as “good” do bad things and “bad” people, good things—eventually the categories don’t work anymore. When you get to this point, you have taken some important steps toward understanding racism. I came away from this movie convinced that racism isn’t simple, nor is it a problem only out there somewhere, but resides in every human heart, most significantly in mine.

This movie doesn’t uplift the viewer but challenges his assumptions—his prejudices. It’s not a pleasant experience, but it is honest and good.

And true.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Some movies don’t uplift the viewer but they challenge his assumptions—his prejudices. It’s not a pleasant experience, but it is honest and good. And true. #RemembertheTitans #parentaladvisory #parenting #truthinmovies” quote=”Some movies don’t uplift the viewer but they challenge his assumptions—his prejudices. It’s not a pleasant experience, but it is honest and good. And true. #RemembertheTitans #parentaladvisory #parenting #truthinmovies”]

There are many movies out there that ought not to be viewed by anyone, let alone children—some of them are rated G. It is likely that more of them are rated “R,” and ought to be avoided for their treatment of language, sexuality, and violence. But there are also those that are not only well crafted but also tell us the truth about ourselves. And sometimes they have content that earns them the “R” rating because the language, nudity, and violence actually help the film to deliver the truth in a meaningful way that changes us for the better.

Finding Nemo in the Belly of the Whale

September 13, 2012 / Trent / 0 Comments

My students use the word epic to describe anything that they think is really awesome.

An epic, really is a long narrative poem with a hero fighting a battle of universal significance.

You might be surprised to know that Finding Nemo has a lot in common with some of the stories which are legitimate epics. Like the Aeneid and Odyssey, Finding Nemo is about a hero on a journey. Maybe calling it epic is a misnomer, but I will certainly call this story mythic.

SPOILER ALERT:

Toward the end of the movie, Marlin finds himself in the belly of a whale. What happens to Marlin there is an archetypal event. It’s archetypal in that it is a type of event that turns up again and again in stories across a broad range of times and cultures. One of the most familiar, of course, is the biblical story of Jonah.

The Hero’s Journey

In his The Hero with a Thousand Faces, mythologist Joseph Campbell identifies the “belly of the whale” experience as one of the stages of the hero’s journey. He says that this sort of event can occur just as well in a temple as a whale, but wherever it occurs, it is a necessary step in the hero’s journey as he strives to complete his mythic quest.

The “belly of the w hale” experience is one where the hero does not conquer, that comes later, but is instead swallowed into the unknown. Here he contends not with external enemy, but part of himself, and in this encounter, something must die; it is “a form of self-annihilation,” says Campbell. This is a painful, but necessary process, for if the hero encounters his enemy or attempts his great task before he has dealt with himself, the quest would end in failure.

Marlin’s Heroic Journey

Before his adventure began, Marlin could not venture away from the safety of the reef. Not since his mate, Coral, and all their offspring, except Nemo, were killed by a predatory fish. This tragic event shapes his entire life and he believes that world beyond the reef was hostile, evil even. His worldview profoundly affects his parenting and Nemo is beginning to strain against his father’s over-protectiveness.

Marlin’s paranoia precipitates an uncharacteristic act of defiance by Nemo which results in his capture by divers. He is taken away to far off Sydney. Marlin goes after him. He leaves the reef because there is only one thing he fears more than the open water—losing Nemo.

But just because he leaves the reef, doesn’t mean that he’s found any kind of courage or that he has changed his mind about the dangers of the ocean. He’s still at the beginning of his adventures. Marlin enters the phase of the hero’s journey that Campbell calls “The Road of Trials.” World literature is full of these tests and ordeals. Often with a supernatural helper, the hero begins to understand that “there is a benign power everywhere supporting him in his superhuman passage” (Campbell).

Although Dori isn’t necessarily supernatural, somehow Marlin has a helper which couldn’t be better suited to guide him. Dori is Marlin’s opposite. She has what Marlin lacks. Their difference is symbolically represented in colour. Marlin is white and orange; Dori is black and blue (blue is opposite orange on the colour wheel). More importantly, Dori has no short term memory. Dori can’t remember; Marlin can’t forget.

The Road of Trials

On the perilous road of trials the hero learns a great deal. And Marlin has a lot to learn.

Marlin’s world is simple—too simple. He sees the world in the simple terms of safe and dangerous—good and evil, if you will. The ocean beyond the drop off is simply a very dangerous place and you just don’t go there.

On the road of trials, Marlin learns that his worldview is not adequate and that the world is more complex than he always believed.

His first lesson is that what appears dangerous isn’t necessarily so. The three sharks are actually very nice fellows. But they do have some very dangerous weaknesses. This encounter seriously challenges Marlin’s binary thinking.

The next encounter on the watery road of trials is with the mindless malevolence of the abyssal angler fish. This encounter, although confirming Marlin’s paranoid worldview, shows Marlin that evil can be overcome. Not only does he overcome evil, he actually uses it against itself when he employs the fatal lure to shed light for Dori’s reading of the Sydney address on the ski mask. He had to overcome evil in order to acquire essential information for the completion of his quest.

Then next trial follows the conversation with a school of fish that teases Marlin. Felling slighted he wants to move on as quickly as possible. Because he’s not in the mood to listen, he misses vital information. Dori hears, but, of course, forgets the warning the time they get to the rock. She doesn’t know why, but she thinks that they should go through a cleft, and not over the rock. Marlin ignores Dori’s input and chooses the latter route based only on appearances—the cleft looks more perilous, but again, appearances deceive.

Because of his impatience and arrogance, he is forced to deal with the jellyfish—evil here is passive. It is Marlin’s foolishness that places them in peril—he’s responsible for this one.

The road of trials has problematized Marlin’s worldview. Good and evil are not nearly as simple as before—he learned that what looks evil might not be, what seems good might be dangerous; he learned that good isn’t the same thing as safe. He also discovered that sometimes we are a bigger problem that what we call evil.

The Meeting with the Mentor

Marlin and Dori have earned a rest and they find it on the EAC with a bunch of sea turtles. This is actually a time of preparation that often precedes the greatest trial the hero faces on his mythic journey.

The most important part of this preparation is instruction on parenting from Crush, the turtle, who functions as mentor. Marlin observes Crush’s parenting in action. Squirt, Crush’s son, accidently drops out of the current. Marlin is alarmed and ready to solve the problem for the young turtle. Crush stops him saying, “Let us see what Squirt does flying solo.”

The young fellow regains the current on his own and is ecstatic. “Whoa, that was so cool! Hey Dad, did you see that? Did you see me!? Did you see what I did?” This is the feeling of accomplishment that can only come with facing and overcoming difficulty. This is something that Nemo has never experienced, and likely won’t unless something changes.

On the journey the lessons have been taught, and this last piece of wisdom imparted by Crush applies all the lessons to an act of parenting. Marlin now has the knowledge, but this knowledge has not been internalized. Marlin still hasn’t really leaned—knowing is not the same thing as doing. Before Marlin can rescue Nemo, let alone be the father that Nemo needs, the fear resulting from the death of Coral and family must die. This happens in the belly of the whale.

The Belly of the Whale

Marlin bashes his head against the baleen wall. He can’t get out. He blames Dori. He has no hope. The quest is doomed and he will not be able to tell him how old sea turtles are. He laments, “I promised him I’d never let anything happen to him.”

Dori says, “That’s a funny thing to promise.” She explains, “You can’t never let anything happen to him then nothing would ever happen to him.” This is essentially what Crush told him, but his fear will not allow him to live it.

The whale stops and the water begins to drop. Dori trusts her partial understanding of the whale’s instructions go to the back his throat. Marlin has a lot more difficulty trust. He is convinced the whale is eating them.

Hanging onto the surface of the whale’s tongue above the abyss of the whale’s throat, Dori tells Marlin, “He says it’s time to let go.” Literally, let go of the tongue, but also to let go of the tragedy in the past that has shaped his view of the world. His history must no longer define his life, and it certainly can’t define Nemo’s.

“How do you know something bad isn’t going to happen?” he asks Dori.

She replies, “I don’t.”

He releases his hold on the tongue and plummets into darkness. The downward movement is symbolically toward death, but the fall changes into the upward movement of resurrection. He and Dori are propelled out of the whale’s blowhole in a spray of water.

They are in Sydney.

Campbell says, “Allegorically, then, the passage . . . through the jaws of the whale [denotes], in picture language, the life-centering, life-renewing act.” The hero’s emergence is a rebirth.

We know what happens next. The hero is now ready to complete his quest and after the belly of the whale, success is virtually assured. Marlin, with some help, successfully rescues of Nemo. This is a victory, but the real battle had already been won in the belly of the whale.

Master of Both Worlds

We know Marlin has truly been transformed for on the journey home, he allows Nemo to risk his own life to save many fish caught in a net.

There is a moral to the story; this movie offers some pretty good advice on parenting. But, like all the great stories, it bears far deeper truths than this. These are universal truths that are repeated in the world’s literature, significantly the Bible.

Here’s the beginning of a list:

Things in this world are usually too complex to reduce to simple categories like good and evil.
Although it doesn’t make sense, by opening your hands, you can gain so much more.
Significant transformation occurs through suffering and times of despair, and these can be followed by a profound joy.

What is the mechanism behind this these universal ideas being found in the world’s literature, and Finding Nemo? Some say these are evolved patterns, but I’m living as if the mythic truths in all stories echo the Creator’s one story that culminates with the birth, death and resurrection of Christ.

Either way, I don’t think you can deny that this film is far more than a morality tale about over-protective parenting.