Caritas

Top Ten U2 Songs Never to Appear on an Original Studio Album

2009-05-04T10:46:00.003-04:00

Here is my unofficial and non-authoritative list of what I consider to be the best U2 songs that have never appeared on one of their official studio albums. Some of these were B-Sides to singles, some are cover songs, some have only been released in limited fashion, and one has never been officially released in any format to my knowledge. (Some of these songs, however, have shown up recently on remastered deluxe editions of U2 CDs). So here is my list in descending order:

10. Summer Rain

Released on the limited edition U2-7 CD, this song has an infectious beat that makes it feel like a fun summer song -- rain or shine.

9. The Ground Beneath Her Feet

U2 put Salman Rushdie's lyrics to music and the result is a beautiful, melodic treat. This was released on a 4 or 5 song EP that was given out for free in the Sunday edition of a major European newspaper. As luck would have it, a friend of mine happened to be traveling in Scotland at the time and picked one up for me.

8. Can't Help Falling in Love

As a huge Elvis and U2 fan, what could be better than to combine the two. Technically this is a solo effort by Bono and he makes the most of it by infusing Elvis's 60's hit with the right amount of soul. The live version the band often performed during its Zoo TV Tour is equally enthralling.

7. Hallelujah Here She Comes

With lyrics like "I see you're dressed in black, I guess I'm not coming back. Hallelujah, hallelujah here she comes," how can you not love this song?

6. Xanax and Wine

I had a hard time deciding between this song and Fast Cars which mostly shares the exact same lyrics and similar musical arrangement. I went with this one because the Edge's guitar in this one has more punch to it.

5. Jesus Christ

U2 recorded this song in Sun Studios in Memphis during their Rattle and Hum phase. It has that raw, upbeat vibe to it that reminds a bit of one of my personal favorites that also came out of the Sun sessions -- Angel of Harlem.

4. Big Girls Are Best

Also a part of the U2-7 CD, the best way that I can think of to describe this song is funky. Plus it has the greatest title of all the songs in the U2 canon.

3. Flower Child

A light-hearted song made more so by the incessant thrumming of the acoustic guitar. I believe this song was recorded either during the "All That You Can't Leave Behind" or "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" sessions. (I forget which)

2. Wave of Sorrow

For more on this song see my previous post. It's a song that is as lyrically beautiful as it is melodic. I think it would have been a perfect fit on the Joshua Tree album, as it was recorded during those sessions.

1. She's a Mystery

U2 wrote this song for Roy Orbison who recorded a much less exciting version of it for one of his last albums. To my knowledge, U2 has never actually recorded a version of the song. They did, however, perform it live at least twice during their Rattle and Hum tour and it is available only on concert bootleg recordings. The song also has an Angel of Harlem flavor to it and it fits well with that style of classic American rock. Hopefully one day they will release one of the live versions on a box set or something.

Well, there's my list. Some other songs that were in contention and could be listed as Honorable Mentions include Levitate, Love You Like Mad, Dancing Barefoot, Smile, and Always.

U2's Most Theologically Interesting Song

2009-04-27T14:35:00.002-04:00

To claim anything as U2's most theologically interesting song is a bold one given their long history of theologically interesting songs. But I will nonetheless throw one up for consideration: "Wave of Sorrow." This song hails from the band's Joshua Tree period, though it did not appear on that album originally. There is nothing particularly novel about it in that it mingles several standard U2 themes: spirituality, lament, and social justice. But somehow the combination in this particular song hits me in the right spot.

I am a big fan of modern lament psalms in the guise of popular music and this fits the bill. The song begins with a lament of human suffering ("Souls bent over without a breeze, Blankets on burning trees, I am sick without disease"). In this song, Bono identifies with the poor and the suffering who seek a deliverance that may never come. Bono even seems to question whether lament itself is sufficient when he sings:

Son of shepherd boy now king

What wisdom can you bring?

What lyric could you sing?

Where is the music of the Seraphim?

It's as though he wonders if David himself could find the words to bring healing to such suffering. In this song U2 begs us to identify with the downtrodden and the marginalized, to in essence see the world through the eyes of Jesus. As such they conclude the song with their own version of the Beatitudes:

Blessed are the meek who scratch in the dirt
For they shall inherit what's left of the earth
Blessed are the kings who have left their thrones
They are buried in this valley of dry bones

Blessed all of you with an empty heart
For you got nothing from which you cannot part
Blessed is the ego
If it's all we got this hour

Blessed is the voice that speaks truth to power
Blessed is the sex worker who sold her body tonight
She used what she got
To save her children's life

Blessed are the deaf who cannot hear a scream
Blessed are the stupid who can dream
Blessed are the tin can cardboard slums
Blessed is the spirit that overcomes

Celebrity Role Models?

2009-03-26T16:05:00.002-04:00

In his semi-regular column in Entertainment Weekly, Mark Harris recently wrote an essay on Rihanna. For those of you who haven't turned on a television, opened a newspaper, or turned on a radio recently, she is the pop star who was (allegedly) severely beaten by her pop star boyfriend. What has been making the news most recently, though, is that following this event, she appears to have reconciled with her boyfriend.

Many in the media are up in arms about this, noting what a horrible message it sends to young women. They are correct. It is a horrible message to send and one that may reinforce unhealthy behaviors in abusive relationships. But there is also a deeper, if somewhat tangential, issue at play here that Mark Harris identifies. Essentially the question he raises is: why do we automatically assume that Rihanna is or should be a role model for young women in the first place?

This is a vital question for anyone interested in the intersection of media and culture. From where do we get the idea that simply because a person (whether actor, singer, or athlete) is known by a lot of people, that he or she should consequently be a role model? Is it because they live in nice houses and make a lot of money so we conclude they owe us something back? Is it an extension of the Peter Parker Syndrome -- that with great power comes great responsibility? Perhaps, if we understand fame as a kind of power, then we can conclude that someone who possesses fame should use that power to edify society rather than degrade it?

Be that as it may, it still does not answer the question of why we in the general public make the choice to view celebrities as role models to be imitated. It can't be simply because we see them on a regular basis (on film, televison, in magazines, etc) because there are plenty of people in my daily life that I see on a regular basis that I would never consider treating as a role model for my life. It can't be simply because we admire their skill at their craft. I greatly admire the musical talent of Elvis Presley, but I don't want to imitate his lifestyle. And yet we tend to assume that skill in one area somehow translates into virtue in all areas. Just because a person plays a mean guitar or can pretend to be someone else really well is a silly reason for thinking our children should look to them for guidance in life.

Mark Harris writes, "If we really think that being famous now automatically qualifies you as someone whose example should be imitated and followed by young people, then that can only mean we now believe fame in itself represents a form of moral superiority." If that is the case, then God help us all. Maybe instead of attacking celebrities for not living up to the moral standards we set for them, we should look at ourselves and ask why we need them to be a paragon of virtue in the first place.

Dollhouse 1.6 "Man on the Street"

2009-03-21T09:54:00.002-04:00

Episode 6 of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse has been labeled a "game-changer" in the media. I have now watched it and would wholeheartedly agree with that assessment. The episode reminded me of the last episode of season one of Alias (although the game-changing does not go to quite that extreme a level). The episode was written by Whedon and characteristically contains some sit-up-and-take-notice moments. Revelations concerning the inner workings of the Dollhouse, Agent Ballard's neighbor, and the larger agenda of the Dollhouse all stand out. Throw in some well-shot fight scenes utilizing Tahmoh Penikett's Muay Thai martial arts background (an art that lends itself well to televised fight scenes) and you have the complete package. If you watched a few of the earlier episodes and gave it up, now is the time to get back on board (you can catch last night's episode on-line in several places). As for me, any ambivalence I may have harbored during the first few episodes is now gone.

Watchmen

2009-03-17T14:03:00.002-04:00

I caught Watchmen this past weekend and was rather intrigued by it. I had read the graphic novel over this past summer as part of a research project I was doing on the influence of the Book of Revelation on comic books (the article from that should be published in a book on apocalyptic and comics sometime next year). What intrigued me about Watchmen was the same thing that many critics have taken it to task over: the faithfulness of the adaptation. Watchmen is easily the most faithful adaptation I have seen of any novel, graphic or otherwise. With the exception of a slight tweaking of the ending, the film is virtually a shot for shot remake of the graphic novel. For me, this actually worked in the film's favor. I am one of the apparently few individuals who was underwhelmed by the artwork of the graphic novel. On screen, however, the visual imagery comes to life in a way that adds an extra punch to the experience. Unlike typical novels, graphic novels lend themselves well to this kind of rigidly faithful adaptation because the graphic novel is already a visual story and so the jump from there to film is much shorter than it is when having to translate words alone into images.

The other highlight of the film was Rorshach. Jackie Earle Haley does a great job of making you root for and loathe his character at the same time.

Dollhouse

2009-03-09T18:07:00.003-04:00

I have made no secret of the fact that I am a fan of Joss Whedon's work. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my all-time favorite television series, with Angel not far behind. Firefly never resonated with me in the same way, though I still enjoyed watching it. So I began watching Whedon's newest series, Dollhouse (airing Fridays at 9:00 on Fox), with great anticipation. I have now seen four episodes and based on those, I would describe Dollhouse as a show that is currently good (though uneven), but with the potential to be great. Classic Whedon themes are all there: girl power, the creation of identity, the quest for redemption, the nature and responsibility of power, and ruminations on the meaning of existence. What is notably lacking is the trademark wit and clever dialogue we've come to expect from a Joss Whedon production.

Dollhouse is the kind of show that will have a difficult time in today's media environment. It is a slow starter. The initial episodes have focused too much on stand-alone stories with not enough emphasis on the overarching narrative that carries the series. It is that overarching narrative that creates the potential for this show to transcend "story of the week" mediocrity. I liken this show to a roller coaster. Right now it is on that first leg where you make the slow and steady journey upwards. But as it approaches the top, I expect that we are merely a few episodes away from it really taking off.

Dean Winchester and Gaius Baltar

2009-02-26T09:10:00.006-05:00

One of the characteristics of a postmodern world is that spirituality is regularly injected into the public sphere, most frequently through popular culture. And popular culture often does a better job of capturing the reality of spiritual responses better than the church has typically done. I recently came across an example of this through a comparison of two different pop culture characters: Dean Winchester of Supernatural (photo on the right) and Gaius Baltar of Battlestar Galactica (photo on the left).

On one level these two characters could not be more different. Dean Winchester is a blue collar monster hunter who fights against evil. Gaius Baltar is a genius scientist who inadvertently plays a prominent role in the near-genocide of the human race. Yet they share a very similar journey. At the beginning of each of their respective series, each character is a hardcore, angry atheist. Through a steady string of adventures and eye-opening encounters, however, each character gradually progresses through agnosticism and into a form of faith that each acquires in the fourth season of their show. They each come to their faith in different ways and for different reasons. And their varying responses to their journeys represent two different spiritual responses.

In the episode, "Are You There God? It's Me, Dean Winchester," Dean's brother Sam suggests that they now have proof that God exists (this is because Dean encountered an angel). Their conversation unfolds as follows:

DEAN: Proof that there's a God out there that actually gives a crap about me personally? I'm sorry but I'm not buying it.

SAM: Why not?

DEAN: Because why me? If there is a God out there, why would he give a crap about me? . . . Why do I deserve to get saved? I'm just a regular guy.

SAM: Apparently, you're a regular guy that's important to the man upstairs.

DEAN: Well that creeps me out.

Dean is the person who is so aware of his own faults and who sees his place in the universe as being so insignificant that he can't fathom that God would pay attention to him, let alone love him.

Compare this response to that of Gaius Baltar from the episode "Escape Velocity":

"I'm not a priest. I've never even been a particularly good man. I have, in fact, been a profoundly selfish man. But that doesn't matter, you see. Something in the universe loves me. Something in the universe loves the entity that is me. I will choose to call this something 'God.'"

If Dean Winchester is creeped out by the attention of God, Gaius Baltar embraces it. Acutely aware of the sins of his past and rather than see himself as unworthy of divine attention, he is deeply moved by the thought that he could be forgiven, that he could find redemption for his crimes.

Anyone who spends much time in churches or around people who are spiritually seeking will recognize these two portraits -- that of those who find themselves shrinking away uncomfortably from the gaze of God and those who find themselves reveling in it.

Given the sordid past of American television, that it is the medium regularly presenting us with models of spirituality like these and others is itself a cause for wonder.

Supernatural Book

2009-02-17T14:40:00.004-05:00

For those of you out of the loop, Supernatural is a television show on the CW network that is now in its fourth season. It is in many ways a descendant of The X-Files, but one that incorporates a heavier dose of horror while tying its mythology not to governmental conspiracies but to the supernatural battle of good versus evil. A new book that explores the world of Supernatural is about to be released, to which I was privileged to contribute. You can see an image of the book cover below and then the text that will appear on the back cover beneath that. If you have any interest in Supernatural or in the creative analysis of popular culture, you should check it out. I may provide a more detailed review of its contents when I have a chance to read more of it than my own chapter.

“[Supernatural has] the smartest, most passionate, most intelligent fans

of any show on television.”

―Eric Kripke, creator of Supernatural

Supernatural is more than a show about fighting demons. It’s about more than a cool car, a kick-ass soundtrack and hot guys with guns. Supernatural is about family and sacrifice and heroism—about good and evil and the choices you make to stay in the hunt.

You know there’s more to this show than meets the eye.

So do we.

• Professor Gregory Stevenson considers the true meaning of horror and what Supernatural’s characters have to say about the human (and demonic) potential in all of us
• Super-Wiki team member Jules Wilkinson gives Dean’s ’67 Chevy Impala her due
• Television Without Pity’s Jacob Clifton looks at the feminine in Supernatural’s world of shotguns, muscle cars and masculine bravado (it’s more influential, and more pervasive, than you think)
• Supernatural RPG writer Jamie Chambers outlines demon-hunting on the cheap—and what it has to do with Supernatural’s appeal
• Contemporary fantasy author Tanya Huff delves into the psychology of John Winchester
• Fan Sheryl A. Rakowski (one of the three winners of the Supernatural.tv/Smart Pop Supernatural Essay Contest) shows how the boys’ biggest weakness—their need for each other—is also the biggest strength they possess, no matter what the Trickster says
• And writer Shanna Swendson mines the sources of Supernatural’s monsters, from folktales to urban legends, and deems Dean and Sam our modern-day keepers of the lore

Big Bang Theory: Smartest Show on Television?

2009-02-09T10:35:00.002-05:00

Comedy rarely gets its due, particularly when it comes in the form of the television sitcom. I've posted before about how television programs have gotten progressively smarter over the last couple of decades in terms of the expectations they have of viewers. One example of this is the expectation of a certain knowledge base on the part of the audience. Shows are designed today to reward smart, attentive viewers by providing references without explanation. In past sitcoms, no joke would be made unless it could be easily understood by the audience across a wide spectrum. Today shows are ignoring that rule and instead filling their shows with a variety of references and jokes that require a certain pre-existing knowledge base in order for a person to get the joke or to appreciate the joke fully.

An excellent example of this phenomenon is The Big Bang Theory. As an exercise, one of my classes the other day watched an episode of this show and then we put together a list of all of the terminology that was used without definition and the references that were made without explanation. The show demands that in order for the viewer to fully "get the joke", they must come to the table with enough of a working knowledge in order to understand the terminology and enough cultural awareness to be able to understand the references (such as with the show's subtle references to movies without any mention of the title of the film itself). The episode we watched was titled "The Jerusalem Duality." Below is the list of references or terminology from that episode alone, categorized according to the type of reference.

Science
Quantum State of Matter
Open Science Grid Computer
Free Electron Laser
String Theory
False vacuums
Quantum Loop Corrections
Lorentz Invariant
Field Theory Approach
soft component of cosmic radiation
laser array
argon lasers
payload bay
sensor apparatus
titanium
carbon nanotubes
tensile strength
cold fusion
helium neon

Science Fiction
Teleportation
cyborgs

Films
Star Wars
Willy Wonka
Field of Dreams
The Matrix

Notable Awards
Nobel Prize
Stevenson Award

Historical Characters
Wolgang Amadaeus Mozart
Antonia Salieri

Foreign Languages
German – wunderkind
Hebrew/Spanish (Cielito Lindo sung in Hebrew)
Spanish (Nuevo Jerusalem)

Geo-Politics
Middle East Crisis
Wailing Wall

Geography
Sonora Desert

Biblical Studies
"new" Jerusalem
Pharoah/Moses
Promised Land

Sports Record-Keeping
the asterisk

Hollywood Morality?

2009-01-22T10:24:00.002-05:00

Christians have often tended to oversimplify the issues related to morality and spirituality in entertainment media. We see this in the common stereotype of the Hollywood industry as inherently anti-Christian and immoral. In one section of my book, "Televised Morality," I make the following suggestion: "The battle over morality on television is a battle to determine which worldview will be most influential in shaping our cultural values, and which institution will provide the foundation for moral responsibility. It would be a vast oversimplification to suggest that Christians are interested in morality, while the creators, producers, and writers of television are not. The issue is not interest in morality, but differing approaches to moral reasoning and different methods of moral discourse."

In other words, there are many creative voices in Hollywood who are very interested in morality. The difference is that their morality may flow from a different worldview, may be structured by a different paradigm, and may be communicated in different ways. The better we become at recognizing this, the better we will become at evaluating media's presentation of morality.

When "The Passion of the Christ" came out and did phenomenal business, Christians were overjoyed because they believed that Hollywood would now finally get the message that movies with Christian themes and Christian topics can make money. Therefore, Hollywood would start making more such movies. They were right. A short time after this, another Christian-themed movie came out. It was called "Saved!" The creator of that movie expected it to do great business because "The Passion" had showed that moviegoers hunger for Christian-themed movies. That is not what happened. Many Christian communities were very upset by the film and boycotted it. Why? "Saved!" is a satire of the Christian high school experience. It exposes the hypocrisy that is often apparent in shallow forms of Christianity. Consequently, many churches took this to be an anti-Christian film. The creator of the film didn't see it that way. He did not see himself as attacking Christianity but attacking hypocrisy within Christianity - what one might argue is the same thing Jesus did with Judaism.

The truth is that what most Christians really want is not more films that address Christian topics and themes, but more films that present a very narrow view of Christianity. They want only a pristine, uncomplicated version of Christianity delivered by the media -- a version that anyone who has spent time in churches knows is not the reality. Basically they want Hollywood to preach their message for them.

Is that Hollywood's job? When Hollywood puts out movies like "Saved!" that satirize Christianity or that make Christianity out to be more complex and complicated than the stereotype we would like to promote, are they doing Christianity a service or a disservice?

Short People

2009-01-15T13:50:00.000-05:00

I am co-teaching a course right now on “Religion, Media, and Youth Culture. In class the other day, my co-instructor Dr. Stogner played several songs by Randy Newman and illustrated their complicated history of interpretation. He noted that, for instance, the songs "I'ts Money That I Love" and "Short People" were highly criticized due to the surface meanings of the songs. "I'ts Money That I Love" extols the virtues of money above all else – above religion, above compassion, above people. "Short People" suggests that "Short people got no reason to live." Being rather tall myself, I must confess that I am not personally offended by this song. (Although, since I live in a house full of short people, I suppose I could be offended on their behalf, but frankly I can't really muster up the energy to do it.)

What Dr. Stogner argued was that the outcry and even anger over these songs resulted from a fundamental misunderstanding of their true message. Is it possible that "I'ts Money That I Love", despite its glowing adoration of cash and bulging savings accounts, is really a harsh critique of a view of life that confines meaning and value to the acquiring of wealth? Is it possible that when Newman laments the existence of short people that he is really highlighting the intrinsic illogic of racism and bigotry? Yes, it’s possible and it’s an aspect of the distinction that scholars would draw between "text" and "subtext."

The wide cultural misinterpretation of these songs is, unfortunately, nothing new in popular culture. There is a long history of people misidentifying the meaning of pop cultural texts (songs, film, TV, etc.). There are many reasons for this. Sometimes it is because we don't know how to interpret a media text. Often we rely solely on the surface level and don't probe deep enough (as in the case with the Newman songs), though sometimes we don't even do a very good job of interpreting the surface. I'm reminded of Bruce Springsteen's song "Born in the USA," which became the unofficial slogan of the Reagan campaign team because of its strong patriotic message ("I'm born in the USA. Woo hoo!"). The problem was that Reagan's campaign manager never actually bothered to listen to the lyrics very closely, words like:

I got in a little hometown jam
And so they put a rifle in my hands
Sent me off to Vietnam
To go and kill the yellow man

Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"
I go down to see the V.A. man
He said "Son don't you understand"

"Born in the USA" is not a patriotic song; it's a protest song. The message was missed because people didn't listen closely enough.

Such misinterpretations also happen because people don't pay enough attention to genre and methods of communication. Doing so is to realize that many types of media texts deliberately communicate on multiple levels and sometimes those levels, as in the case of satire, intentionally contradict each other. In other words, maybe we need to realize that popular culture might just be smarter than we have traditionally given it credit for.

Pop Culture Resources

2008-10-14T10:39:00.009-04:00

I was recently asked by a friend for a recommendation of some resources to read on popular culture so I thought I would share a few here. I am including links to these books on Amazon over on the right if anyone wants to check them out further. These are works that not everyone will agree on, but all are provocative in their own way.

Godawa, Brian. Hollywood Worldviews: Watching Films with Wisdom and Discernment.

I have found this to be one of the better books on religion and film. Godawa explores the different kinds of religious worldviews that undergird many Holllywood productions. He also includes an appendix titled "Sex, Violence, and Profanity in the Bible."

Johnson, Steven. Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter.

As the title indicates, Johnson argues that popular culture today has become increasingly complex and requires increasing amounts of intellectual engagement in order to make sense of it. He addresses video games, film and television, and the Internet. In the last part of the book, he gets into neuroscience, which I am in no way qualified to evaluate, but in the first part of the book, he makes a very convincing case.

Jones, Gerard. Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Superheroes, and Make-Believe Violence.

This is a fascinating and unique take on the issue of violence in the media and its effect on youth. Drawing both from testimony from developmental psychologists and his own experience as a comic-book writer who holds workshops for children, Jones argues that fantasy violence in particular can be not only beneficial to the development of children but even essential. Whether you agree or not, it represents an important voice in the debate and one that not often gets heard.

Romanowski, William. Pop Culture Wars: Religion and the Role of Entertainment in American Life.

This book is more of a history of American entertainment. He shows how many contemporary Christian reactions to popular culture are nothing new, but have a long history, including for instance reactions to William Shakespeare and the Davy Crockett Almanacs (a precursor of the comic book).

Stevenson, Gregory. Televised Morality: The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

It may sound arrogant to recommend your own book, but hey, I wouldn't have written it if I didn't think it would be helpful. Although dealing with Buffy the Vampire Slayer specifically, this book is actually designed as a study of moral discourse in popular culture. So even if you are not a fan of that show, it is my intention that the principles of interpretation laid out in the book apply to any serialized television narrative. In particular, I think the first three chapters and the last chapter would be helpful in terms of laying out those principles.

Those are my current recommendations. I do have another book on popular culture that I hope to write, but that will be at least a couple years away (I have a book on Revelation I have to finish first). For those who are interested in Revelation and popular culture, though, Sheffield-Phoenix Press will be putting out a series of books on "The Apocalypse in Popular Culture" sometime next year. I am writing an essay currently titled "The Metaphor of Apocalyptic Warfare in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Supernatural, and Battlestar Galactica" that will appear in their volume on television, currently titled: Small Screen Revelations: Apocalypse and Prophecy in Contemporary Television. I am also working on another essay on the influence of Revelation on comic books that will be in their currently untitled volume on literature.

Fall TV Season

2008-09-15T19:54:00.002-04:00

I have to confess to being a bit underwhelmed by this Fall's television season. There are very few shows that I am eager to see this Fall. I think Fringe should be pretty good (and the part of the pilot episode I have seen so far demonstrates as much), but it remains to be seen how well it will hold up in the long run. I also am looking forward to My Own Worst Enemy -- and not just because I was a fan of Heathers back in the 1980's. The premise is a bit familiar. Basically it is a variation on The Bourne Identity, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, True Lies, and any other amnesia and/or dual-identity spy thriller. Still, the reason that plot line has been done so often is because it's a good one.

Beyond that, I'm not sure I'll be watching any other new series. I'll have to content myself with the return of Chuck, Smallville, and all my other old favorites -- at least until Dollhouse comes on as a mid-season show.

Confessions of a Pop Culture Academic

2008-08-12T21:13:00.008-04:00

A few months ago the third international academic conference on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all things Joss Whedon was held in Arkansas. I did not attend (due in large part to the fact that the conference fell on the day of my daughter's birthday). For many the idea of a conference on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the works of Joss Whedon is not too surprising. After all, if they can have conferences for people who dress in Klingon outfits, why not? It's when you throw the adjective "academic" in front of the word that people shake their head in bewilderment. When I inform people that I am teaching or writing on a particular pop culture topic, the looks I get range from confusion to disbelief.

Yet the fact is, the academic world is changing. Go to virtually any college or university campus in this country and you will find classes on popular culture, with specific courses on Buffy, The Simpsons, country music, or just about any significant pop cultural movement of the last twenty years. Although this phenomenon of the intersection of academics and popular culture did not begin with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the pervasive and prolific nature of the academic engagement with this show almost makes it seem like it did.

In fact that's where it began for me. The hunger out there for academic analysis of popular culture has become so strong that for the last four years I have been trying to get back to writing in my chosen field, but have been unable to do so because I am regularly inundated with requests or opportunities to write or lecture on popular culture. Now for many people, allocating college courses to the study of Lost or to the cultural significance of U2 is a tragic waste of an educational opportunity and a sure sign that the apocalypse is upon us -- and I'm not talking about the bi-weekly apocalypses that tend to populate Joss Whedon's shows -- I mean the real one. I have to admit, I understand that perspective because I used to be that person.

I have always been enamored of popular culture. Some of my earliest childhood memories of growing up in Chicago are of Bozo the Clown, the Electric Company, and Sesame Street. I love all forms of popular culture: music, video games, television, comic books, film and, yes, even celebrity tabloid shows (I did, after all, label this "confessions"). Yet once I chose the path of academia, I immersed myself in the traditional pursuits of higher education within my field: archaeology, historical criticism, literary analysis of ancient texts. Frankly, the idea of combining my academic life and pop cultural life never once occurred to me. And I was highly skeptical of those who did. I scoffed when I would read about some college offering a course on science fiction or someone publishing a Freudian analysis of the Teletubbies.

I can trace my conversion to Joss Whedon. I was a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and enjoyed it simply as such, until one day I discovered that there were several other serious fans of the show at the college where I teach -- one was a Religion professor, one a Communication professor, and another an English professor. We began to have regular conversations about the show, carried on in the hallways or during lunch, and I began to notice how they were all, consciously or not, applying their own special fields to their interpretation and analysis of the show. The English professor would notice traditional archetypes at play, the Communication professor picked up on some overarching themes, and the Religion professor was quite enamored with Faith (okay not exactly a religious obsession, but at least she had the name to go along with it). In my conversations with them, I began to see how I could combine my own academic training in the field of religion with my love of popular culture without feeling ashamed of doing so. This led to my book on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Televised Morality) that came out in 2004. Since then I have been teaching and writing steadily in the field of popular culture.

What I have learned through this journey is that the academic study of popular culture is not only an interesting sideline, but absolutely fundamental to a well-rounded liberal arts education in the twenty-first century. Understanding popular culture is essential to understanding twenty-first century western culture. There are many reasons for this, but I want to highlight three.

One, popular culture reflects societal values. We gain a valuable insight into our culture by paying close attention to the stories we tell and the songs we write. The values we hold dear, for good or ill, seep into those expressions. Now that can be a frightening realization, just as any good look into the mirror can be. We learn that as much as we are a culture obsessed with wanton sexuality and enamored with the trivial (we've practically elevated Britney Spears to the level of deity, for crying out loud), we are a culture equally enthralled by the concept of redemption. Just spend a week in the movie theater or watching primetime television drama and count how many times this theme pops up.

Second, popular culture shapes societal values and beliefs. A culture shapes its values and beliefs through the stories it tells. The reason people get so upset about portrayals of violence or smoking on television or depictions of an abortion without subsequent emotional consequences is because they know that these portrayals do in fact influence thoughts and actions to some degree. People have even coined the phrase "the CSI effect" to refer to the impact that show has had on potential jurors who are now much more educated about forensic science and criminals who now have a better grasp of how to avoid detection. Because the songs we sing and the shows we watch help to shape our cultural agenda -- morally, socially, and politically -- it is important that academics explore these connections.

Third, popular culture matters to people. People take their favorite shows, musicians, and authors very seriously. They develop strong emotional attachments to these things and have sometimes profound aesthetic experiences of them. In other words, popular culture has become a form of popular art. Now this is not to say that there are not a whole lot of less than desirable pop cultural expressions out there. For every show like Battlestar Galactica, there are countless Temptation Islands. For every Citizen Kane, there are numerous Weekend at Bernies. But this is nothing distinctive to popular culture. For every Mona Lisa, there are a thousand Velvet Elvises. But the best shows on television, for instance, provide viewers with a significant aesthetic experience and scholars are coming to realize the importance of studying that experience. In fact the philosopher Noell Carroll prefers to call popular culture "mass art" and says that such mass art provides people in western culture with their "primary access to aesthetic experience."

So consider me a convert. In my teaching, I have found my students to be far more engaged and willing to enter into discussion in my pop culture classes than they typically are in my religion classes. I have had students come up to me in the cafeteria wanting to engage me in discussion about the theme of redemption on Lost, whereas trying to get those same students to discuss biblical concepts of redemption in class is like pulling teeth. One of my favorite classes to teach at Rochester College is a class title "Religion, Media, and Youth Culture." I created this as a team-taught class. I teach it along with one of our Psychology professors and one of our Communication professors. It is a valuable learning experience for the students to see how popular culture looks through the eyes of different disciplines. We'll watch an episode of Battlestar Galactica or Buffy the Vampire Slayer together and then the students get to witness and join three scholars from different disciplines in discussion of that episode. I, for instance, may explore that episode's use of christological imagery, the Psychology professor may examine its use of Jungian archetypes, and the Communication professor may examine how it relates to contemporary communication theories. It is a highly valuable educational experience. When the students leave that class and go turn on their TV's or their iPods, they suddenly begin to notice things that they had missed before and see connections of which they had been unaware. Then they'll come back and report that to us with breathless excitement. That joy of discovery is the essence of academia.

The Dark Knight

2008-07-25T10:34:00.003-04:00

I recall very well the first time I saw Batman, the 1989 film with Michael Keaton as Batman and Jack Nicholson as The Joker. I came out of the theater stunned. The reason was that it was the first time I had seen a comic book film in which the subject matter was treated seriously. Now I liked Richard Donner's first two Superman films, but even they treated the subject with too much of a wink. Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor was a caricature and even Superman was a bit too silly at times.

Batman is a dark character who walks a perilous line between right and wrong, between sanity and lunacy. Batman was able to capture that essence. As much as I love the 1989 version, I am enjoying the new reboot even more because it takes that same dark sensibility, but casts it even more in a world recognizable to us. Instead of making Gotham City a gothic fantasyland, this new Batman is set in a city that looks familiar -- in fact, in much of the recent film, Chicago serves as stand-in for Gotham City.

Here's what I especiallly liked about The Dark Knight (without giving away too many spoilers):

1) The Joker - Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker is nothing short of brilliant. He accomplished the impossible -- making Jack Nicholson's performance seem like a lesser accomplishment. What adds even more to Ledger's wonderful take on the character is the fact that the script makes the Joker simply an agent of chaos -- a character with no backstory, no origin, no conventional motive. Even if you are not a Batman fan or a fan of comic book films at all, The Joker alone is reason enough to see this film.

2) The story - what may be most striking about this film is that you could actually take Batman out of the film - substituting any clever and capable detective in his place - and the movie would still work well as a great crime thriller. In many comic book films, the story revolves around the hero and his heroics. Here, Batman is essentially one character among others that all revolve around the story.

3) Two-Face - I was extremely disappointed with the version of Two-Face that appeared in Batman Forever. He is potentially such a complex villain that the campy treatment of him there was a travesty. I still have some quibbles with his role in this film in that he comes across as almost thoroughly evil and demented. I would much rather see a treatment of Two-Face in which the duality of evil and good was at play. That makes him a much more powerful metaphor for the duality in humanity.

4) Jim Gordon - Gordon is the real heart of this story and Gary Oldman plays him so perfectly that you naturally feel drawn to him whenever he is on screen.

5) The ending - At first I wasn't sure I liked what they set up for Batman at the end of the film, but after further reflection, I have become converted. It makes me quite anxious to see what direction they go with the next one. I won't give any details here for the sake of those who have yet to see it.

The only thing I didn't like as much about The Dark Knight, ironically, was Batman himself. Christian Bale again does a great job and there are some cool scenes, but I didn't see as much of the iconic sort of Batman action as I would like. He spent a lot of the movie either driving around or walking around and punching people. I wanted to see a little more of the Ninja-like stealth and scowering of rooftops like we got in Batman Begins. But that is a minor concern. For those who haven't seen it yet, I would add that this is not a movie for children. I was planning to take my 9 year old son to see it, but then after viewing it myself first, I decided against it. This is definitely an adult version of Batman and the Joker, but it is the version many of us adults have been waiting for.

Martial Arts and the Movies

2008-07-17T20:57:00.020-04:00

I have been a practitioner of the martial arts and a fan of martial arts movies for most of my life. So I thought I would put together a completely personal, biased, and slightly irrational list of martial arts movies. The irrational part comes from the fact that my list does not follow logically prescribed rules. For instance, a few caveats:

1) This is not a "Best of" list. These are not necessarily the best martial arts movies nor necessarily even movies that I would recommend for everyone to see.

2) These are also not necessarily my favorite martial arts movies, though some may be. I will also likely miss several good movies that could be on my list simply because I have not seen all of them.

3) What this list represents are movies that illustrate different martial arts in effective or interesting ways. When many non-martial artists see martial arts movies, they often think of them simply as "karate movies." Yet there are countless different martial arts, each with their own nuances. I sometimes get asked by people, "My son/daughter wants to take martial arts. Can you recommend one for me?" That's a very difficult question to answer. Martial arts can differ so widely from each other that an art that is right for one person is not for another. So my list is an attempt to provide movies that illustrate these (sometimes subtle) differences.

4) Having said that, all of these movies have been "Hollywoodized" to some extent. They are not pure examples of the art, but exaggerated and often altered versions. Yet they do provide a good introduction to the distinctions between styles. Enough preamble meandering.

Enter the Dragon (Jeet Kune Do)

Jeet Kune Do is a martial arts style developed by the late Bruce Lee.

Enter the Dragon is arguably Lee's best movie and a good showcase of his talents. What he displays in the movie is not strictly Jeet Kune Do as it is heavily adapted for flash and show, but it does give a good indication. Of course, one must keep in mind that Bruce Lee is able to do things that no ordinary human being can do.

Best of the Best (Tae Kwon Do and other Korean arts)

A tournament-based movie that highlights what Tae Kwon Do, Tang Soo Do and other Korean arts do well: kicking.

The Karate Kid (Okinawan Karate)

This is also a movie in which much of the martial arts action takes place in a tournament, although it illustrates a different style than Best of the Best. Mr. Miyagi trains young Daniel in Okinawan style karate. I was studying an Okinawan style of karate (Ryu Kyu Kempo) at the time this movie came out and I recall that we went to the theater every night for a week and gave a demonstration before the show to illustrate some of the movements shown in the film.

Above the Law (Aikido/Jujitsu)

The first--and possibly the best--of Steven Seagal's films, this movie was one of the first times that American audiences got to see Aikido presented on film. Seagal is a practitioner of Aikido, which is a very gentle art that focuses on using another person's momentum and energy against them. If you have seen the movie, or any of Seagal's movies for that matter, you probably didn't notice a whole lot of gentleness. That is because what he performs in his movies is much closer to Jujitsu, which is a very similar art to Aikido except that where Aikido tends to throw people, Jujitsu tends to break bones.

Fist of Legend (Chinese Martial Arts)

One of Jet Li's best movies. Chinese martial arts, like Wing Chun and others, are very different from traditional Japanese styles and a comparison of a film like this with The Karate Kid, for instance, makes that very clear.

The Perfect Weapon (Kenpo)

This movie starring Jeff Speakman, kind of like Above the Law with Seagal, showcased a distinct martial art that is not often seen in films. Whereas many American films tend to gravitate towards arts like Tae Kwon Do because their fancy kicks often look better on film, arts like Seagal's Aikido/Jujitsu and Speakman's Kenpo rely more on the use of one's hands in unique and often deadly ways.

Billy Jack (Hapkido)

Hapkido is another art that has seen little air time in American film. It is a Korean art that is sort of a mixture of the kicking style of Tae Kwon Do and the the use of throws and joint locks that one finds in Jujitsu. The park scene in Billy Jack where the title character takes on a group of local ruffians well represents this unique art.

The Last Samurai (Iaido)

Iaido -- my personal favorite of all the martial arts I've practiced -- is the art of the Japanese sword. I had a hard time choosing a movie for this one because I have not seen one yet that really captured the essence of this beautiful art. I chose The Last Samurai because it is probably the best American attempt, although the idea that Tom Cruise's character could become a capable samurai with a few months of training is ludicrous. No doubt there are several Japanese movies that capture this art better, though I have only seen a few. One, though, would be the life story of the most famous samurai to ever live, Miyamoto Musashi, whose life story was told in three successive films, staring the famous Japanese actor (and practitioner of Iaido) Toshiro Mifune: Musashi Miyamoto, Duel at Ichijoji Temple, and Duel at Ganryu Island.

Well, that's my list for what its worth.

Dr. Horrible

2008-07-01T10:16:00.002-04:00

Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and the upcoming Dollhouse, has created an interesting new project. It is a 42 minute web-based musical called Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog. It looks to be typically hilarious and will debut for free on the web in three installments on July 15, 17, and 19. After that, you may have to pay to download it or wait for it to appear on DVD. I have placed the teaser trailer for the project over on the right for those interested in checking it out. As fans of Buffy know, Whedon has quite an affinity for musicals, so this should be entertaining.

Random Thought

2008-06-24T17:36:00.001-04:00

The very fact that there is a television show titled "Farmer Wants a Wife" makes me ashamed to be an American.

Incredible Hulk

2008-06-15T18:18:00.002-04:00

I just returned from seeing The Incredible Hulk. When I saw the first Hulk movie that came out several years ago, I enjoyed parts of it but was disappointed on the whole. This new Hulk movie, though, did not disappoint me at all. There really is little plot -- the movie is basically an extended chase sequence -- but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Part of the problem with the first Hulk movie was that it had an overly developed and convoluted plot. This movie focuses on what audiences want to see (at least comic book audiences): Bruce Banner's desperate attempts to contain the monster within and his continued failure to do so. The final confrontation between the Hulk and Abomination also provides the thrill of seeing Hulk fully unleashed and fighting a worthy opponent -- something that has never yet been achieved in a Superman film. With Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk in theaters and The Dark Knight just around the corner, this is shaping up to be the best summer yet for superhero movies.

Smallville, Lex Luthor, and the Superiority of Television

2008-05-27T21:19:00.007-04:00

I am still often perplexed when people view scripted television shows as inherently inferior to film. The fact is that television provides some opportunities for creative storytelling that simply do not exist in the movie industry, due to the truncated nature of film. When a filmmaker wants to tell a story, he or she must compress that story into a two-hour time block, give or take. Much has to be sacrificed in the story in order to do that as anyone who has witnessed the transfer of a beloved novel to film knows well. Yet, a television series plays out over extended periods of time, with one season of an hour-long drama equalling about 15 hours of screen time compared to a two hour film. One thing that allows for is much greater character development on television.

I was reminded of this recently while watching the seventh season finale of Smallville. The steady evolution of this character over the course of seven seasons has resulted in the single most well-developed portrait of Lex Luthor in any live-action medium. Consider the various Superman Movies. Whether played by Gene Hackman or Kevin Spacey, the character of Lex Luthor in all of those films was exceedingly one-dimensional. He was a power hungry megalomaniac with a penchant for selecting dim-witted criminal associates. Now certainly those films could have developed the character with more depth had they chosen to do so, but nonetheless the possibilities would still be horribly constrained by the format.

Smallville, by contrast, presents a Lex Luthor who at different times is sympathetic, tragic, evil, misguided, noble, loyal, deceitful, and murderous. In other words, a complex and multi-faceted character. A character who at the beginning of season one was Clark Kent's best friend and who, for all intents and purposes, wanted nothing more than to earn the love of his father and live up to the person Clark Kent believed him to be. When the series started, I thought, Okay, this will be like every other series. Lex will seem like a good guy for a few episodes and then transition into the villain. Yet to my surprise and delight, that transition took seven seasons to be accomplished. We viewers were treated to the slow and methodical creation of one of the most iconic villains in all of popular culture. We witnessed the various competing affections that tore at his soul -- the tyranny of a demanding father, the ghost of a loving mother who died too young, the task of living up to an impossible ideal. And at his core, Lex always seemed like a person who really only wanted one thing -- the unconditional approval of the people he loved, most notably his father and Clark Kent -- but who had no idea how to attain it. By taking such a villainous character and making us root for him even as we cheer against him, Smallville provides just another testimony to the power of television narrative.

The Shack

2008-05-18T12:57:00.006-04:00

I recently finished reading The Shack, a rather popular recent work of Christian fiction. I am not a fan of Christian fiction particularly. In fact, I believe this is only the second work of Christian fiction I've ever read. My reasons for that is that I find Christian fiction, as with most forms of contemporary Christian art - including music, drama, etc - to be shallow and boring. This is because the focus is almost exclusively on putting a Christian message up front and center with the result that the artistic side becomes an afterthought. Fiction simply becomes a vehicle for preaching rather than a way of telling a good story. This is, of course, only my own personal opinion and I am aware that many find Christian fiction to be very meaningful to them.

As a whole, I was not terribly enamored of The Shack. I found the writing style to be predictable and not very polished, the theology at times to be lacking in depth and accuracy, and the story to be too forced. There were too many instances where the desire to engage a certain Christian issue at a certain time became more important than allowing the story to flow naturally.

Having said all that, however, there is one thing that I really like about the book. One of the things that makes much Christian fiction come across a bit shallow is a tendency to ignore the darkness in life. Christian fiction, like many Christians themselves, often tries to present a face to the world that says, "Being a Christian is easy and wonderful and if you would only make that choice, then your life will become easy and wonderful as well." We want people to believe that we possess all the answers to life and so we avoid anything difficult, challenging, and dark. The Bible doesn't do that. It is a book full of violence and humans doing horrible things to other humans. It doesn't shy away from such darkness but instead meets it head on. And to its credit, The Shack does the same thing.

This is not a book that pretends Christianity has all the answers to the messiness and seeming senselessness of life and it is a book that is not afraid to probe the darkness. It is a story about a young girl brutally murdered by a sexual predator and her father who meets God in the aftermath. In fact, he encounters God in the very shack where his daughter was killed. Even though I believe the author never achieved the potential that is inherent in that setup, I applaud the fact that he was willing to tell a Christian story that unapologetically met the darkness head on and didn't flinch. All of us, and even Christians in particular, I think, need such stories. The Shack was a self-published book because every Christian publisher that the author approached rejected it. According to the author, the reason given was that the book was "too edgy." Of course, it is now a nationwide bestseller. What Christian publishers failed to recognize was not just a secular justification that edgy sells, but that edgy stories are capable of speaking to Christians and non-Christians in meaningful ways.

What I've Been Watching

2008-05-11T13:55:00.003-04:00

During the last nine months or so while I laid off of writing on my blog, I spent part of that time taking in many of the new television shows for the 2007-2008 year. Many of them have already fallen by the wayside, though a few will be returning next year. Of those returning or likely to return, there are six new shows that I watched this year and will continue to watch in the Fall. I present my thoughts on those six in ascending order:

6. Pushing Daisies

This is one of those shows that people seem to either love or hate, so oddly I fall right in the middle. I like it, but am not enamored with it. Lee Pace is perfect as the lead character (The Pie Maker) who can bring people back to life with a touch -- although if he does so for more than sixty seconds, someone else will die. The relationship between he and his childhood sweetheart never really moved me. What I do like, though, is the curious juxtaposition between the look and tone of the show (vibrant colors, fantasy landscapes, lighthearted banter) and the very dark and serious themes of the show: death and forbidden love.

5. Back to You

I enjoy this sitcom a lot, although it is not as funny as it could be.

4. Moonlight

This variation on Angel (good-guy vampire who does detective work) is nowhere near as good as that show. However, it does have promise. Unfortunately, it has gone through so many different show runners and creative teams that it doesn't seem to have figured out yet exactly what it wants to be.

3. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Good story and action, with the heavy dose of apocalyptic speculation always welcome, but it can also be too grim and serious. Needs to lighten up a bit.

2. The Big Bang Theory

Easily the best new sitcom. A hilarious and spot-on presentation of intellectual geekdom. I must admit that I tend to laugh and cringe at the same time when I watch it, because I often see little pieces of myself in Sheldon and Leonard.

1. Chuck

My favorite new show of the season. The interplay between Chuck's geek lifestyle and job at the Buy More and his budding life as a super spy is expertly played.

I'm looking forward to seeing where these shows take me in the Fall, as well as welcoming any other worthwhile newcomers into the fold (I can tell you right now that "Dollhouse" will be in the mix -- more on that later).

Iron Man and the Future of Comic Book Films

2008-05-06T08:36:00.004-04:00

My son and I saw Iron Man the other day. It is the first of three high-profile comic book movies coming out this summer (the others being The Incredible Hulk and The Dark Knight). If Iron Man is an indication of things to come, then this will be a good summer indeed. The movie does an excellent job of capturing the essence of both Tony Stark (the man behind the iron) and Iron Man. What is intriguing about this film is that it is the first one produced by Marvel Comics, which recently decided to get more directly involved in the movie-making business. What is significant about this is that Iron Man represents a comic book movie made by the people who know comics the best. The problem with many comic book movies in years past is that they were often made by people who saw comic books as campy adolescent fantasy. These producers sought to force the comic book property into previously defined molds and often it was a poor fit. This resulted in atrocities like Batman and Robin and Elektra.

By having comic book films produced by the company that made them, what we get in return (if Iron Man is an indication) is faithfulness to the original source material, a greater understanding of the characters, and a situating of the story within the larger Marvel universe (this is represented in Iron Man with the presence of S.H.I.E.L.D). It also, hopefully, may lead to a greater use of crossovers. Marvel recently released plans for an Avengers movie due out in 2011. The Avengers, for those not in the know, are a team of Marvel Superheroes, usually Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America, and Thor. It's an exciting time for comic book fans. I just wish this development had occurred earlier. Daredevil has always been one of my favorite Marvel heroes and he has not gotten the cinematic treatment he deserves. Although I liked the Daredevil movie that came out several years ago, I would greatly have preferred to see what Marvel would have done with it.

Back in the Saddle

2008-05-04T15:16:00.003-04:00

It's been awhile since I've done any blogging (as many of you have kindly reminded me). Frankly, I just got a little burned out on it. However, after a nice little sabbatical, I find myself once again with the urge to share my unsolicited opinions on popular culture, religion, and related topics with people who probably couldn't care less.

I've been keeping myself sufficiently busy during my self-imposed sabbatical: watching a lot of television and playing video games. Oh yeah, I also did some work. In April I delivered a paper at the University of Toledo on "Aesthetics and Moral Discourse in Narrative Television." I also wrote an essay on the television show Supernatural for Benbella Books (the same publisher for whom I wrote the essay on Gilmore Girls last year). It's titled "Is Supernatural Really Supernatural?" That was a lot of fun to do. Next, I have two more pop culture related research projects that should keep me busy throughout the summer. Both are for Sheffield Press out of England for a series of books they are doing on the Apocalypse in Popular Culture. The first is an essay on the influence of the Book of Revelation on comic books. So if there are any comic book fans reading this who know of some good comic titles that utilize the book of Revelation or apocalyptic in interesting ways, please let me know. Currently I am working with Watchmen, Kingdom Come, Strange Girl, Judge Dredd: Judgment Day, and issues 666 of Batman and Superman. I would welcome recommendations on any others. The other project is a study of the apocalyptic metaphor of war as used in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Supernatural, and Battlestar Galactica. So you may be treated to (or subjected to depending on your perspective) snippets of my thinking on these topics over the months to come. Well, that's what I've been up to. Next, I may write about what I've been watching during my sabbatical -- either that or Iron Man which my son and I are heading out to see right now.

Ode To Small Towns: Cheeseburgers and Corn Mazes

2007-08-14T10:47:00.000-04:00

My family and I spent this past weekend in Caseville, Michigan where we took part in the town's annual Cheeseburger Festival. Now, although I come from a small town, I've lived in or near several large cities during periods of my life and I can tell you that no Atlanta or New York is ever going to throw a city wide festival in order to give the cheeseburger its due. No, it takes a small town for that.

Big cities certainly love their festivals but they tend to throw them in honor of things nobody really cares about, like the blues or culture. . . . You are never going to see San Francisco put on a Hot Dog HoeDown or Chicago stage a French Fryapolooza. They don't have the guts.

But in Caseville one can indulge in love of the cheeseburger and the "soon to be famous", if its proprietors are to be believed, cheese hot dog. Just outside of town one can participate in the great Corn Maze. After over an hour spent wandering aimlessly through this maze, I felt sure I was going to encounter a Minotaur at any moment.

Now I'm not a big fan of festivals generally, but if I have to attend one, I'll take cheeseburgers any day over jazz festivals or, God forbid, cherry blossoms. Pass the ketchup.

Pan's Labyrinth

2007-07-22T16:14:00.000-04:00

I've commented several times about fairy tales and particularly how individuals like C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and others who prefer initials over first names have argued that fairy tales function best for adults. Tolkien suggested that adults in fact have more need of fairy tales than do children in large part because adults are more aware of the confusion, fear, and uncertainty that comes along with the world. Whereas the child may fear the imaginary monster under the bed, adults often have to contend with things that are truly fearful and not imaginary at all. (Unfortunately, increasing numbers of children today are forced to do the same).

So I find it interesting that Hollywood has taken in recent years to providing fairy tales for adults. I think of M. Night Shyamalan's tale Lady in the Water, an adult fairy tale addressing the need for faith and community. Or more recently, Pan's Labyrinth. This is a Spanish film that has garnered significant attention here in the US. It is very much a fairy tale movie, but in no way suitable for children -- even though the main character is a young girl.

The movie is set against the back drop of the Spanish Civil War and deals with a young girl whose life is in disarray. She has been moved to a military camp because her mother recently married the leader of the camp. This girl (whose name in the film escapes me) has to contend not only with the violence of the war but with a step-father who is cold and violent. What helps her cope is a fairy tale. She believes that a fairy has visited her and led her to a labyrinth where she learns that in fact she is the daughter of an immortal fairy king, the lost princess, who must complete a series of tasks and prove her worthiness before she will be allowed to return to her father's wonderful kingdom.

The movie is moving and tragic, but what captivates is the intriguing interplay between the real world with all its horrors and the fairy tale world that only this girl can see. Is her fairy tale world real or imagined? The movie is somewhat unclear on this, but what it presents in a crystal clear fashion is the importance of stories and fantasy. It illustrates how fantasy stories can function to help us cope with the harsh realities of life.

There is also an interesting parallel, whether intended or not, between the story of this girl's struggle and the gospel story. She believes she has a loving, immortal father in a kingdom beyond this world. If she shows herself to be faithful, she will join him in that kingdom. Does she make it? Well, you'll have to watch the movie for that. Be forewarned though: as in the best fairy tales and also as in life, not everyone lives happily ever after.

Samson or Spider-Man?

2007-07-16T14:52:00.000-04:00

This morning I was reading America's newspaper of choice and it informed me that Wal-Mart will soon be selling religious action figures. For a mere $7 your child (or yourself for that matter) can soon be reenacting Daniel not getting eaten in the lion's den. Or for $20 you can purchase a 14 inch Goliath or Samson action figure in case your child wants to exercise his or her latent He-Man or Power Rangers muscles.

I find myself bothered by this on many levels. As a whole there is a lot of American Christianity that is fairly shallow to begin with and this just drains a few more inches out of the pool. This is troubling enough. But when David Socha, CEO of One2believe, stated that the purpose of these biblical action figures is to provide a faith-based alternative to the likes of Spider-Man, they crossed the line.

The article states that they want to offer options for parents who would rather have their children play with a Samson figure than Spider-Man because "parents want to give kids wholesomeness." I will pause for a moment and let that sink in. If nothing in that statement bothers you, then perhaps you are not familiar with the Samson story.

Let's compare Samson and Spider-Man for a moment. Spider-Man is driven by a profound sense of moral responsibility; Samson is driven primarily by the need for revenge against anyone who has slighted him. Spider-Man's motto is that "with great power comes great responsibility"; Samson's motto essentially is "I did to them what they did to me" (Judges 15:11). Samson violently slaughtered over a thousand people, often with no more justification than that they ticked him off. Even at the end, Samson's prayer to God to help him kill all the Philistines is mainly a prayer for God to grant him revenge for his eyes. Spider-Man by contrast has always refused to kill anyone -- no matter what the cost to himself. Samson was a notorious womanizer known to dally with prostitutes, while Spider-Man, throughout his comic-book marriage to Mary Jane, has remained faithful to her through thick and thin. Is the model that Samson provides really the one we want our children to emulate?

So what is really going on here when people argue that a Samson action figure is preferable to a Spider-Man one? I suggest that it derives from a naive assumption that anything biblical, merely because it is biblical, is preferable to anything that is not. The fact is that Samson is certainly a more biblical figure than Spider-Man, but Spider-Man is easily the more moral figure. Spider-Man embodies certain biblical values; Samson is just mentioned in the Bible.

The other problem I have is that I see all this as a distortion of the Samson story. By turning Samson into an action figure on par with GI Joe and Superman (and by the way Superman was initially modeled on Samson and Hercules), it puts the focus on Samson. It attempts to turn Samson into a hero worthy of emulation. The point of the biblical story of Judges, however, is not to hold Samson up as a model of virtue and faithfulness. The point is that God faithfully works his will through the people he has chosen, regardless of their character or moral failings. God is the hero of this story, not Samson. Of course, this idea might not be popular with the religious action figure crowd as an action figure of God might seem a bit inappropriate -- although it wouldn't surprise me. They already have talking Jesus dolls available for $15.

Of course, seeing as today is my son's birthday and I bought him a Ghost Rider action figure, maybe I am not the best person to judge.

The King of Horror

2007-07-04T09:17:00.000-04:00

I lament that my summer theater-going experiences have been sub-par this time around. I don't mean in terms of quality but quantity. I blame it on my kids. What movies I have been able to see in the theater have been along the lines of Shrek 3 and Nancy Drew. I did get to take my son and daughter to see The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, which was a good time although it resulted in my being blasted with a string of questions that I found myself profoundly incapable of answering. "Why is the Thing made of rocks? Why are the rocks orange? Why does Ben Grimm's voice change when he becomes the Thing, but Johnny Storm's didn't when he turned into the Thing?"

But I did get to see one movie recently that I enjoyed immensely: 1408. I am a big fan of Stephen King and this film is based on one of his recent short stories. It is a horror movie in the old-school tradition -- big on atmosphere, suspense, and subtle chills -- that creeps one out in a much more effective way than the recent spate of "can you top this" gore films like Saw 8 or whatever number they are up to now.

Movies made from Stephen King writings are a curious lot. The quality scale ranges from outstanding to embarrassing. But when it works, it works well. So seeing 1408 got me thinking about other great adaptations from King's stories. Now when many people think about the best Stephen King movies, they often point to the more highbrow fare: Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption, or The Green Mile. I, however, would not include them on my list, not because they are not great movies, but because they lack one essential feature of a great Stephen King adaptation: they don't scare you. At least not in the nightmare-inducing way. For my money, the best adaptations are:

Misery: This film certainly captures the claustrophobic fear of the book, although it does tone down some of the horrors that the woman inflicts on her favorite author.

The Dead Zone: A relatively faithful and effective thriller about the responsibility one has if one can see the future.

The Stand: King's magnum opus translates into a very effective and very creepy meditation on faith.

It: This book scared me more than any other I've ever read, except perhaps for the directions to the 2006 Federal tax return. The movie does not quite capture the excellence of the book, but seeing Pennywise the clown come to life on screen is a treat. What could be scarier than a clown?

I also have hopes for the future. One of Stephen King's best short works and a personal favorite, a novella called The Mist, is currently filming.

Coffee at Luke's

2007-05-31T17:55:00.000-04:00

For any fans of Gilmore Girls out there, the book that I contributed to recently titled Coffee at Lukes: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest has now been released. For a good summary of the book and its contents, you can check out the following link: http://livingreadgirl.blogspot.com/2007/05/missing-gilmore-girls-already.html

The End of Lost

2007-05-10T09:01:00.000-04:00

I assume most of you Lost fans have heard the news that the show is ending in 2010 -- just three more seasons. I think it is a fantastic idea. Some shows, like 24 and Heroes are designed so that they can continue to run indefinitely. Their stories are structured that way. But others, like Lost, that center around a mystery have a definite end point. The traditional Hollywood approach, of course, has been to drag that end point out as long as possible if the show continues to be successful. I applaud the creators of Lost and ABC for having the foresight to take a different approach for a change. It means both that we won't be disappointed by a show that suddenly tanks in the ratings and gets canceled before we have sufficient resolution and that the remaining episodes should be of high quality since the writers can now focus exclusively on moving towards the ultimate resolution. Personally, I would like to see more shows adopt such an approach. There are some shows with a limited story to tell that should just annouce from the outset that they will run X number of years and then end. I think more viewers might be willing to jump on board for the ride if that were the case.

Spider-Man 3

2007-05-05T20:49:00.000-04:00

Here's my Spider-Man 3 review. If you haven't seen the movie, be forewarned that there are spoilers ahead. Proceed at your own risk.

I went into this movie excited, but realistic. Spider-Man 2 was nearly the perfect example of what a comic book movie should be. Consequently, I did not expect the third movie to top the second and I don't believe it did. However, I did enjoy it very much and did not leave the theater disappointed. I have read many of the reviews of movie critics and heard responses from many of my students. Across the board, the response seems to be mixed, with some loving it and some not. Yet, I've noticed that for many of the people who didn't like it that much, it was often because it didn't top the second movie -- an unrealistic expectation to begin with from my way of thinking.

Spider-Man 3 benefits greatly from maintaining the same cast, director, and production team. The quality of the movie is thus on par with the first two. It serves as a fitting conclusion to this initial trilogy by tying up virtually all of the story lines set up by the first two. I'm not sure of what would be the best way to write my review, so I'm just going to list what I liked and didn't like about the movie. Since it's a much shorter list, I will start with what I did not like.

WHAT I DID NOT LIKE:
The occasionally rushed feel of the film. I think Raimi tried to fit too much into this movie and so had to force some things rather than let them unfold naturally.

The script, though good, lacked some of the tightness of the other two films.

The gigantic Sandman at the end of the film. In the comics, Sandman was not able to expand to such gargantuan sizes. By making him bigger, it made him less interesting to me.

I would have liked more of Venom. In fact, he should have his own movie.

WHAT I REALLY LIKED:
The special effects were outstanding. This movie contained some of the most thrilling web-swinging and fight scenes we've seen.

The initial battle sequence between Peter Parker and the new Goblin. The previous two movies shied away from in-air battle sequences because they hadn't quite figured out how to make them work. In this movie, they got it. It really captures the kind of mid-air fights that are a staple of the comics.

The birth of Sandman. His attempts at formation in the particle accelerator are fascinating to watch.

Gwen Stacy. She was always one of my favorite characters. I think she was under-used in this film, but just having her in the movie and the possibilities it creates for future films is exciting.

Black-suited Spider-Man. I always liked the black suit in the comic and it was great to see it come to life. The way the symbiote alters Peter's personality is very faithful to the comic.

Goth Peter. I thought Tobey did a good job of pulling off Peter's transformation to the dark side.

The dance scene. I know some people who found Peter's semi-impromptu performance in the jazz room to be kind of cheesy, but I found it very enjoyable to watch.

The earlier scenes of Sandman. I thought Thomas Hayden Church was perfect casting for that role and he captured the essence of Sandman. He was always a villain who wasn't really sure he wanted to be a villain.

The redemption of Harry Osborn. I could see it coming a mile away as they foreshadowed it early in the film, but I still thought it tied up his story line well.

Venom. Venom. Venom. I love Venom. Always have, always will. Visually, they depicted him very well. I do wish they had kept the Venom face on him more rather than switch to Eddie Brock whenever he wanted to talk. The movie was very faithful to the Venom story, right down to the church bell scene. The reason why Eddie Brock was in that church in the comic was different, but that's a relatively minor point. I'm hoping that the way Venom was dealt with in the movie -- note that we didn't actually see it or Eddie Brock die -- means that we may seem him again down the road.

Again, this installment doesn't scale the heights of Spider-Man 2, but it is definitely, in my humble opinion, a worthy addition to the Spider-Man saga.

If you've seen the movie, I'm curious to hear what you think.

My Top Five

2007-05-01T18:59:00.000-04:00

We are about to embark on my second favorite time of the year (after Christmas): the summer movie season. This summer it appears to be the year of the sequel. I'm okay with that. I'm somewhat fond of sequels, even though usually disappointed by them. But sequels have been getting progressively better. The Powers That Be are finally realizing that what makes a sequel work is not putting the same actors up on the screen and sticking a Roman numeral after the title, but actually continuing the story in a logical and intelligent fashion. But I digress. Here are the five movies of this summer that I am most anticipating. Note that I did not say they would be the five best (in fact, I'm pretty sure they will not be), but the five that I am most eager to see.

1. Spider-Man 3
This is probably not a surprise.

2. Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer
I am not a huge fan of the Fantastic Four, but I enjoyed the first movie quite a bit. It was definitely flawed and certainly not on the level of a Spider-Man or Batman movie, but I found it entertaining. The sequel looks to be even more fun. The Silver Surfer takes the whole movie to another level.

3. The Bourne Ultimatum
I absolutely loved the first movie, The Bourne Identity. I was quite disappointed in the second movie, The Bourne Supremacy, and I blame that on Paul Greengrass. He adopted a shaky camera approach to direction in a misguided attempt to create faux-realism that pretty much ruined much of the film for me. If he can rein himself in and keep the camera-shaking to a minimum, this third outing will have real potential.

4. 1408
This is based on a short story by Stephen King that was the most frightening thing I read last year. This is about a writer who makes a living debunking the paranormal. He travels to a New York hotel to spend a night in room 1408, a room that has a decidely impressive ghostly pedigree. Let's just say he learns the error of his ways.

5. Ocean's Thirteen
Loved the first one. Didn't care much for the second. But if what I hear is true, this third installment should adhere more to the former.

I Am Offended . . .

2007-05-01T18:06:00.000-04:00

I love stories. It's why I am so attracted to film, television, comic books, and novels. Stories are part of the lifeblood of any culture. They have the power to challenge us, move us, and educate us. That's why I love television. I have found nowhere in the last 10 years where more profound and engaging stories are being told in our culture than there.

Now, from a Christian perspective, those stories are not perfect. As has often been noted, they frequently contain sex, violence, and profanity. Let me go on the record as saying I am not fond of that aspect of our culture's stories. I think we as a culture need to think long and hard about the impact that repeated exposure to such elements has on our culture. But frankly, I don't talk about that much in the classes I teach on religion and popular culture or in the writings I do. I sometimes fear that my failure to do so gives off the wrong impression -- that I defend those aspects of our stories. In some instances that may be true, but primarily the reason I don't talk about that is because Christians have never stopped talking about it. We've heard that message over and over again and there's nothing new I can add to it.

Besides, what often happens when people obsess over that aspect of the stories is that they miss everything else that is good, redemptive, and engaging about the stories. Even worse, they focus so much on sex, violence, and profanity that they ignore all the other moral issues in the media that are just as, if not more, dangerous to our cultural identity.

To that end, here is my list of what offends me on television:

I am offended by advertisements that show us pictures of Elmo Dolls, BK Broilers, or the latest Toyota, but are really selling the idea that contentment can only be found in having.

I am offended by game shows that promote materialism and greed.

I am offended by commercials that perpetuate a female body image that says young girls and women need to look, dress, and act a certain way to find acceptance.

I am offended by news programs that feed us a steady diet of fear, misery, and pessimism. (In fact, a fellow colleague of mine is convinced that the most immoral show on television is the news.)

I am offended by political talk shows in which participants sacrifice honesty and depth in favor of soundbites, shouting, and name calling.

I am offended by daytime talk shows that trade in human misery for entertainment.

I am offended by sports programs, tabloid news shows, and American Idol-type competitions that teach children that fame and fortune is the highest ideal to which they can aspire and that reinforce America's cult of celebrity by turning athletes, actors, and musicians into our cultural heroes.

In short, given what else is on television, I'll take Lost, Heroes, and Smallville anyday.

TV Viewer's Bill of Rights

2007-04-12T16:18:00.000-04:00

I would like to put out a call for a TV viewer's Bill of Rights. There are several personal pet peeves that I would like to see addressed in such a bill, like the addition of a twenty-four hour Superhero Channel and a moratorium on daytime talk shows. But the primary thing that bugs me about television these days is the tendency for networks to put serialized shows on the air -- these being shows that tell a continuning story -- and then cancel them before the story concludes. Nobody would pick up a novel to read knowing that the final chapters had never been written. And yet, television studios expect us to commit to shows with ongoing storylines with no guarantee that we will get to see the end of the story.

Studio heads constantly scratch their (studio) heads and wonder why fewer and fewer people are watching. I suggest one reason is because viewers don't trust the networks. When the financial bottom line becomes more important than finishing the story, networks make a grave show of disrespect for their audience.

A Viewer's Bill of Rights would be a good step in the right direction, provided that number one on the list is that viewers who commit their time to a show have a right to see how the creators of the show intended to conclude the story. Now I am not saying that networks should keep shows on the air indefinitely that don't make money. Rather what I suggest is a system that ensures viewers are not deprived of closure.

The Fox Network recently premiered a new show called Drive. I have been interested in watching the show. It stars an actor I like (Nathan Filion) and boasts an interesting premise. However, having been burned many times in the past, I refused to commit my time to the show without a reasonable expectation of closure. So, instead of watching the first four episodes that have aired, I recorded all of them. My intention is to wait and see how the ratings pan out before deciding to view them. This seems to have been a good choice as the ratings for it have so far been less than stellar. Consequently, the show currently appears doomed for cancellation. If so, I won't watch the episodes and so won't be disappointed again by starting a story that never finishes.

The networks themselves have created this vicious circle. Because they cancel serialized shows before the story concludes, people won't commit to their serialized shows, which then leads them to cancel those shows, which leads to people not wanting to commit to them and so on.

But what if, however, there was a fixed agreement between network and viewer that they would take no serialized show off the air without providing resolution. If the Fox Network had in essence said, "We have this new show called Drive that we would like for you to watch and we guarantee that it will not be canceled without story resolution," I would have eagerly watched it from the beginning. If a show's ratings tank immediately, it doesn't mean they have to continue to air it week after week; all it means is that they provide the creators enough advance notice of their impending cancelation to allow them to wrap up the story. It means that decisions about cancellations should be made long before the end of May when season finales have already been aired. By letting the showrunners know earlier in the season that they will not or are unlikely to come back, it would save viewers the pain of watching a season finale cliffhanger only to later find out that the cliff is going to continue to hang in perpetuity. After all, I am still waiting to find out what happens on Joan of Arcadia and Invasion.

Spider-Man and Batman

2007-03-24T09:12:00.000-04:00

I watched the new Spider-Man 3 trailer yesterday (three times). You can get to it by following this link:
http://www.spiderman3oncomcast.com/ This trailer gives us our clearest look yet at Venom. Venom is one of my favoritie villains in the Spider-Man universe. He is the mirror image of Spider-Man if the mirror is of the twisted, fun-house variety. Venom has all of Spider-Man's powers, only magnified and fed by a never-ending lust for revenge against Peter Parker.

That's what makes this movie so interesting. It promises to be darker than the previous two installments. Spider-Man's mantra has always been "With great power comes great responsibility," but what happens when the one with great power chooses to use it irresponsibly -- in the service of vengeance.

This is why I am fascinated by both Spider-Man and Batman. On one level, Batman is sort of a superhero version of Venom. Dark, obsessed, driven by the need for vengeance. Spider-Man and Batman have always been like distant cousins. On one level they are very similar: both possessing great power of a sort, cloaking it behind a secret identity, and prowling the rooftops at night in order to bring criminals to justice. Both are driven by similar circumstances: Bruce Wayne by the violent murder of his parents and Peter Parker by the violent murder of his surrogate father (Uncle Ben). But that is where the cousins become distant. Batman has always been an infinitely darker character than Spider-Man because ultimately what drives him is the need for vengeance. He might call it "justice", but in fact he spends his nights seeking to avenge his parents death by taking out his repressed anger on the criminal underworld. By contrast, what drives Spider-Man is not a desire for vengeance, but a desire for penance. He blames himself for his uncle's death so his campaign against evil is an attempt to make amends for his own perceived past crime.

Batman seeks to punish others for his parents death; Spider-Man seeks to punish himself. What makes Spider-Man 3 so fascinating, at least as far as the trailers suggest, is that it appears to be asking the question: what would happen if Spider-Man chose a different path -- the path of vengeance rather than the path of penance. In Venom, we see the end result of what a Spider-Man would look like when consumed by the need for revenge. Check out the trailer and enjoy.

300

2007-03-13T15:42:00.000-04:00

Recently I saw 300 with a couple of fellow-professors, a historian and a theology professor. My interest in it was two-fold: as a person who teaches Greek and ancient culture as part of my discipline, I was intrigued by the historical story that lies behind the film. However, as a devotee of comic books, I was also intrigued by the fact that the movie is based on a graphic novel retelling of the event. That's appropriate, I think, because comic books have always been in the business of myth-making and 300 is as much myth as history.

Visually the film captures the essence of the graphic novel. The movie is stunning to watch. There are heavy doses of gratuitous sexuality and loads of violence (both of the gratuitous and non-gratuitous nature). In fact, one scene was so gratuitously violent that my friend David and I found it immensely laughable -- that of the decapitated head rotating through the air in slow motion.

From a historical viewpoint, I found the movie fascinating. It tells the true story of how 300 Spartans went to battle against virtually the entire Persian army and were nearly victorious in doing so. The event in question, The Battle of Thermopylae ("Hot Gates"), took place in 480 BC. Because of the sacrifice of these 300 men along with some other Greeks, the Spartan army eventually defeated the Persians the next year in the Battle of Plataea. The Persian army was led by Xerxes who, depending on how you structure your biblical chronology, may be the same Xerxes who married Esther.

The account of this battle occurs in the writings of the ancient Greek historian, Herodotus in book 7 of his History. You can read Herodotus's account on-line at http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Herother.html. For a movie based on a graphic novel, it is fairly faithful to the recorded events, even to the point of including some of the actual recorded dialogue. One of the great lines in the movie comes straight out of Herodotus who records that the Spartan warrior Dieneces responded to a report that the Persian army was so massive its arrows would blot out the sun by saying, "If the Medes darken the sun, we shall have our fight in the shade." The film also captures the essence of Spartan culture. They were so militaristic and single-minded in their devotion to warfare that the other Greeks thought Spartans were strange.

However, 300 is also a graphic novel and graphic novels and comic books are in the business of myth. This movie tries to stay faithful to both of its sources: Greek history and contemporary mythology. To this end, the movie is very much a cross between an epic historical tale and Lord of the Rings. The mythological elements mainly serve to heighten the drama and visual sense of the film. For instance, the Immortals, the elite fighting unit of the Persian army, were real, but I'm pretty sure they didn't look like Ninja. Likewise, I have a hunch that the ancient Spartans did not customarily go into battle wearing little else besides a cape and a leather speedo. But I quibble.

But all in all, my historian and theologian friends and I had a rousing good time. I have to add that, if you can pull it off like I did, 300 is a very interesting movie to watch when you are sitting between a historian and a pacifist.

Update

2007-03-13T09:28:00.000-04:00

In my last post, I mentioned that the Gilmore Girls book, Coffee at Luke's, would be coming out in the Fall. I have since learned that in fact it is due to be released on May 28th. If you wish to see a look at the cover, pre-order the book, or read a brief description about it, you can click on the book link for it on the right side of this site.

Smart Pop

2007-03-06T10:33:00.000-05:00

I recently had opportunity to work with BenBella books in their Smart Pop series. BenBella is a publisher that focuses on pop cultural works -- they have put out books on everything from The Matrix to CSI to Lost. These books enlist various professionals (novelists, philosophers, actors, scholars, etc.) to write educated essays on pop cultural phenomena that are creative and accesssible to a general audience. You can check out their website at www.smartpopbooks.com.

I recently contributed to their upcoming book on the Gilmore Girls television show. I believe it will be titled Coffee at Luke's, although I am not certain about that, and it should be out sometime in the Fall. The assignment turned out to be quite serendipitous for me. I was laid up on the couch most of last summer recovering from knee surgery. So I basically spent my summer watching six seasons of Gilmore Girls -- for research, you understand. I ended up contributing an essay titled "Dining With the Gilmores", which combines two of my favorite things: television and food. It was a good summer.

Battlestar Religion

2007-02-15T09:54:00.000-05:00

My wife recently acquired several seasons of Little House on the Prairie and we have been watching them with our kids. One of the things I find interesting about the show is the simplicity of its moral vision. It is certainly representative of most shows from that era. People either go to church or they don't; people either behave well or behave poorly. And each episode wraps itself around a nice little moral lesson.

The world of television back then is a completely different universe than today -- and I'm not talking about pushing the envelope with respect to sex, violence, and profanity. I'm talking about the embrace of moral and religious ambiguity. Today's shows rarely present clear-cut options where the choice is simply between good and evil, deciding instead to make people think by presenting both sides of an issue as equally attractive and equally problematic. In short, the goal is realism. In contrast to shows of the past where choosing the good path is the only real option when you think about it, today's shows acknowledge the fact that sin and the dark side have such a powerful pull on people's lives precisely because they possess attractiveness and their own internal logic.

On Battlestar Galactica, the embrace of ambiguity shows up in many ways, but particularly in the areas of religion and politics (more on the latter next time). The original Battlestar Galactica of the 1970's was largely guided by the Mormon theology of its creators. In this newer incarnation, the show's theology has become more varied, nuanced, and unpredictable. The show resists attempts to confine its religious outlook to neat categories.

In short, in the world of Battlestar Galactica humans are polytheists. They worship the Twelve Lords of Kobol who are suspiciously similar to the ancient Greek pantheon as they include deities such as Athena, Hera, and Apollo. By contrast, their Cylon oppressors are strict monotheists. In fact, the Cylons claim their one true God, who loves all, was once the God of the humans until the humans rejected him and he then chose the Cylons for his people (an argument not unlike some Christian supersessionist views towards Judaism). The Cylons also claim their attempts to wipe out humanity are at God's command.

What is fascinating about the religious portrait on this show is that it refuses to bow to our preconceptions. We are meant, it seems, to root for the humans who have been nearly abolished and are simply fighting for their survival as a species. Yet it is the Cylons who worship a "one true God", while the humans bow before their molten idols. The genius of the show is that as much as you naturally root for the humans, you can never be quite sure that the Cylons are not right. The Cylons claim they are the agents of God's judgment on humanity for its sin and as they regularly speak about "God's will," you begin to wonder if they are on to something.

Are they like the ancient Israelites who were told by their one true God to conquer and destroy the polytheistic Canaanites and take over their land? Are they like the wicked Babylonians who nonetheless served as the agent of God's judgment on his own people for their sin? Or are they misguided zealots who have fallen under the spell of their own self-deception and simply use God as an excuse for their own imperialist aims? Stay tuned to the show and perhaps we'll find out . . . or not.

Battlestar Galactica and the Question of Humanity

2007-02-09T10:30:00.000-05:00

Several years ago we ordered basic cable. The prospect of having 60 channels at my disposal was nice, but I knew I would never visit most of them. The amount of time I would be spending with the Golf Channel could be measured by the seconds it would take for me to quickly hit the channel button after realizing I had stumbled upon it and my only interaction with the Home Shopping Network was going to be in my attempts to keep my wife away from it. But one channnel I was excited about was the Sci-Fi Channel. Now, to be honest, I have never been a real big fan of science fiction. I much prefer the horror and fantasy genres. However, the sci-fi channel dabbles in those as well and I was looking forward to all of the wonderful programming I could sample.

A few years later, I realized the Sci-Fi channel was among my least-watched channels. Aside from the Twilight Zone marathon on New Year's Day, I stayed far away from it. This is because the shows they typically put on there are mind-numbingly awful. The acting and writing rival that of daytime soaps while the special effects are often on par with sci-fi offerings of the 1970's. Half of the monsters look like bad imitations of the Sleezaks.

In this wasteland, however, is one particularly bright, shining light. The new incarnation of Battlestar Galactica. Good science fiction stories are often inherently religious in the sense that they pose the big questions about ultimate meaning, purpose, and identity. In this sense, Battlestar Galactica may be the most religious show on television today. One of those ultimate questions that it bandies about regularly is the question of humanity. What does it mean to be human? To have a soul?

The catalyst for this discussion are the Cylons. For any BG newbies, the storyline goes as follows. Human beings created machines to serve them. These were called Cylons. However, the Cylons rebelled and a great Human-Cylon war erupted. Eventually a truce was declared and the Cylons left. Forty years later they return and, in a sneak attack, destroy virtually all of human civilization. Just under 50,000 human survivors remain, traveling through space looking for a safe place. The real kicker is that the Cylons have evolved. They created a new line of Cylons who are indistinguishable from humans. They hunger, sweat, bleed, feel pain.

This new breed of Cylon insists that they are alive, that they have a soul. Thus the stage is set. What constitutes a soul? What defines life? The humans insist that the Cylons, for all their fleshly simulations, are merely "toasters" with effective window dressing.

Recently in a class I am team-teaching called "Religion, Media, and Youth Culture," we watched two episodes of BG: "Flesh and Bone" and "Downloaded." These two actively address this question and even appear to provide something of an answer. For there are two Cylons who appear to be almost more human than Cylon - Sharon and Number 6. The question is: what makes these two different? In fact, at the end of "Downloaded," these two Cylons are trapped underground as the result of an explosion. When their Cylon search party finds them, one of the Cylons says, "They're alive!" Sharon and Number 6 reply, "Yes, we are!"

Battlestar Galactica's answer to the question of what makes one human appears to be love. What marks these two Cylons as different is that each learns how to love a human being and in that act also learns mercy and compassion. Throughout "Downloaded," the Cylons, who are strict monotheists (more on that in the next post), keep saying "God loves you" to each other. Then as one Cylon is about to kill a human, the Cylon comments, "God loves me." Whereas the Cylons keep talking about themselves as the recipients of love, they seem incapable of showing it. Except for Number 6 and Sharon, who alone among the Cylons, have learned to give love rather than receive it. That is what appears to identify genuine living (perhaps even the soul) on Battlestar Galactica.

Now, I say "appears" because I have only watched the first 2 seasons of the show and it is possible that season 3 may turn all of this on its head. That is one of the intriguing things about this show: that it actively seeks to complicate everything you think you know to be true. In fact, in my next two posts I intend to look at how this show embraces moral complexity with respect to both religion and politics and how that says something profound about the state of popular culture today.

Super Sunday

2007-02-02T09:28:00.000-05:00

Whether I attend or throw a Super Bowl party is always a year to year decision. The deciding factor is whether my beloved Steelers are playing. When the Steelers are in the Super Bowl, I isolate myself from all human contact. The intensity of the game demands my total attention -- plus should things start to turn bad for my boys, I become less than desirable company. When the Steelers are not playing, then it's party time.

Super Bowl parties are an interesting phenomenon. A major social event revolving around the television. Although it occurs here on a grander scale, this is actually a more common event than perhaps we realize. Watching television can be a significant social activity. Solitary TV viewing is not as common as many suppose. When most people watch TV, they do so with others. It thus becomes a shared engagement that creates social cohesion. We watch together and talk together about what we have seen.

A great example of this is the watercooler show. In the past shows like Friends, Seinfeld and others were social viewing experiences. You had to watch or be left out of the conversation the next day. Today, increasing numbers of shows function in this way: shows like Heroes, Lost, American Idol, etc. Friends regularly gather together much like in the old days for pinochle or bridge parties, but instead sit themselves down in front of the TV in order to share the experience of viewing their favorite shows. Even solitary viewing today is not really solitary. Even when a person sits down alone to watch the latest episode of Heroes, he or she does so aware that the next morning others in the office or at school will be discussing that night's events and that the web will soon be teeming with reviews and comments on that episode. They thus have an awareness of being a part of a much larger social movement.

Television viewing, for better or worse, is becoming something of a national pastime. As I sit down for the Super Bowl this Sunday, I will do so in a room full of other people, sharing food and conversation as we watch the action unfold. When you think about it from a social standpoint, it's not too much different than being at a real game. Minus the drunken fans and rude outbursts. Go Bears!

Recent Happenings

2007-01-25T10:02:00.000-05:00

I recently returned from a trip to Amherst, Ohio where I spoke several times for their Youth and Family Focus weekend. The topic was the intersection between Christianity and Hollywood. My three main presentations were: "Being Christian in the Twenty-First Century," "Christianity and the Culture Wars," and "Media and Morality."

I think what the Amherst church did is a good model. The focus was not on slamming the entertainment industry, but on learning to become responsible consumers. Too often we have operated with a war metaphor for conceptualizing our relationship with the entertainment industry: they are the enemy and we must attack and defend our ground. If we shift metaphors, however, that changes the entire dynamic. If we define our relationship with the entertainment industry with the metaphor of dialogue as opposed to warfare, that changes everything. It's the model of Paul who went into Athens and instead of attacking their idolatry and beliefs, simply said, "Let's talk about all of this and see what we can learn."

It is important in our media-saturated culture that we learn to how to analyze the products of the entertainment industry. Children and young people need to be trained in how to watch television and film intelligently and how to listen to music just as they are trained how to read poetry or literature. The challenges posed by the rapid advancements of technology are not going to go away, and will probably only increase, so the church cannot afford to sit on the sidelines. Being salt and light in the world means learning how to engage the world.

A Matter of Perspective

2007-01-05T10:42:00.000-05:00

I wanted to include one more posting on Johnson's book Everything Bad is Good For You and then on to other things. There is a passage in his book that summarizes what I have long thought was true but never had the words to express. As my previous post alludes, I am an avid reader and will strongly defend the benefits of reading to anyone. Yet, I get annoyed when people exalt reading as superior to other forms of media engagements such as film/TV watching or playing video games. Language of superiority should never enter the discussion. They are completely different forms of engagement and each comes with its own benefits and drawbacks. Those who exalt reading as a divine experience over against television as a waste of time due so on the basis of preconceived prejudices.

Johnson makes this point well with a little imaginative exercise. He quotes Marshall McLuhan who said, "The student of media soon comes to expect the new media of any period whatever to be classed as pseudo by those who acquired the patterns of earlier media, whatever they may happen to be." We tend to be naturally resistant to change. Those who grew up on reading criticize the advent of radio. Those who grew up watching live theater criticize the film industry. Those who grew up on radio lament the arrival of the television and so on.

One place where this plays out today is the conflict between reading books and playing video games. Cultural critics love to complain about how our childrens' development is being stunted by choosing video games over reading. After all, everyone knows that reading is intellectually beneficial and stimulates the imagination while video games are devoid of any redeeming quality. Well, Johnson raises the issue of how much of this preconception is based upon genuine understanding of video games and how much is simply a reaction against a new form of media that is challengings the long-held truisms of the established media. So he imagines a parallel universe in which the playing of video games arose and became popular before the creation of books. In this universe, reading, because of its novelty, becomes the new craze among youth, threatening the video game establishment. He imagines the kinds of criticisms proponents of the older, more established form of media (video games) might level against this young upstart. The criticism goes like this:

Reading books chronically understimulates the senses. Unlike the longstanding tradition of gameplaying--which engages the child in a vivid, three-dimensional world filled with moving images and musical soundscapes, navigated and controlled with complex muscular movements--books are simply a barren string of words on the page. Only a small portion of the brain devoted to processing written language is activated during reading, while games engage the full range of the sensory and motor cortices.

Books are also tragically isolating. While games have for many years engaged the young in complex social relationships with their peers, building and exploring worlds together, books force the child to sequester him or herself in a quiet space, shut off from interaction with other children. These new "libraries" that have arisen in recent years to facilitate reading activities are a frightening sight: dozens of young children, normally so vivacious and socially interactive, sitting alone in cubicles, reading silently, oblivious to their peers.

Many children enjoy reading books, of course, and no doubt some of the flights of fancy conveyed by reading have their escapist merits. But for a sizable percentage of the population, books are downright discriminatory. The reading craze of recent years cruelly taunts the 10 million Americans who suffer from dyslexia--a condition that didnt' even exist as a condition until printed text came along to stigmatize its sufferers.

But perhaps the most dangerous property of these books is the fact that they follow a fixed linear path. You can't control their narratives in any fashion--you simply sit back and have the story dictated to you. For those of us raised on interactive narratives, this property may seem astonishing. Why would anyone want to embark on an adventure utterly choreographed by another person? But today's generation embarks on such adventures millions of times a day. This risks instilling a general passivity in our children, making them feel as though they're powerless to change their circumstances. Reading is not an active, participatory process; it's a submissive one. The book readers of the younger generation are learning to "follow the plot" instead of learning to lead.

The Joys of Reading

2006-12-21T17:43:00.000-05:00

Recently, my esteemed colleague, Dr. Keith Huey, commented that in addition to the praise of television, video games, and film that I do here, I should comment on the effect that today's media-centered culture has on young people's writing ability. It is an interesting phenomenon. Kids today are actually writing more than ever before and probably reading more than ever before -- they are just not reading and writing literature. Everyday they are reading and writing webpages, email, blogs, text messages, chat room conversations. The good side of that is that they are reading and writing. The downside is that the content of what they read and write tends to be fragmentary, colloquial, and grammatically challenged.

Many students write the way they talk. Since so many today "talk" through email and text messages, those formats are beginning to effect the kinds of college papers they hand in. The result is that many young people, because they are not exercising all of their literary muscles, are losing the ability to follow a narrative thread for any distance or to engage a complex and multi-layered literary world

I spend a lot of time on this blog heralding good television and other contemporary forms of media. Much of the reason for that is that these media forms have often gotten a bad rap. Yet, what is really needed is a balanced diet of media -- one that includes a healthy portion of reading among the portions of games, television shows, and such.

As much as I love good television, video games, and movies, I love reading even more. I am sure that is because I grew up in a family of readers (and oddly enough, the one person who didn't read very much, my mother, owned a book store). In fact, my siblings and I have started an annual competition to see who can read the most in a year. My sister won last year and appears to be the front runner this year as well.

So I've decided that with the year coming to a close and everyone reflecting back, I will provide a short list of the ten best books I read this past year. I have tried to make the list diverse. I read several books by some authors like Barry Eisler, Stephen King, Lee Child and others, all of whom could have easily had more than one book on the list. As it is, the only person with more than one is Stephen King, because the second selection is a collection of short stories and so quite different from the other entry. Anyway, here's my list, for what it's worth. I hope you've read enough books this year to make your own top ten list. Happy Reading!

10. State of Fear by Michael Crichton

A controversial and intriguing study of global warming hysteria in the context of an action novel.

9. Chasing the Dime by Michael Connolly

A man moves into a new apartment and suddenly begins receiving phone calls for the apartment's former resident, a girl named Lilly. Intrigued, he sets off to learn more about her and as a result is drawn into a world of intrigue and murder.

8. The Narnian by Alan Jacobs

A solid and easily accessible biography of C. S. Lewis. Really helps one get inside Lewis' imagination.

7. The Store by Bentley Little

The Store, a transparent Wal-Mart clone, moves into a small town and begins to take over, slowly and insidiously. This book is part horror story, part social satire.

6. Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King

I read the last three books in Stephen King's series The Dark Tower this past year, but this was my favorite of the three.

5. Everything Bad is Good For You by Steven Johnson

I've said a lot about this book already in other posts, so here I'll just reiterate that it is one of the best assessments of popular culture that I've read.

4. Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz

On the day of Jimmy Tock's birth, his dying grandfather predicts five terrible days in the life of his grandson -- and provides the specific dates. This set up sounds like a recipe for a dark and depressing book, but Koontz writes it with a humorous flair that carries the reader along for an entertaining ride.

3. Killing Floor by Lee Child

The first book in Lee Child's fabulous series about an ex-MP who constantly seems to find himself in new and dangerous situations. In this book, he makes an unplanned stop in Margrave, Georgia and almost immediately is arrested for murder.

2. Rain Fall by Barry Eisler

Likewise, this is the first book in Eisler's series about a half-American, half-Japanese assassin who specializes in making his kills look like accidents. Eisler writes with a captivating eye for detail.

1. Everything's Eventual by Stephen King

This is one of King's collections of short stories (fourteen in this volume, I believe). Usually such collections are hit and miss, but this one has surprisingly few duds and even includes one of the more unnerving haunted room stories you'll ever read, simply titled "1408."

Media Morality

2006-12-02T09:32:00.000-05:00

I have a theory. How many times have we heard people complain that television or film was so much better "in the old days"? As Steven Johnson points out in his book Everything Bad is Good For You, what they usually mean by this is that it was simpler in a moral sense. Right and wrong was clearly defined (and the wrong rarely depicted). Moral choices were clear cut if not always easy to make. Sex, violence, and profanity were kept to a minimum. The moral landscape of entertainment media today, of course, looks much more rugged. Sex, violence and profanity are rampant and moral ambiguity rules the day.

The standard explanation given for this by moralists and Christians is that the entertainment media is determined to destroy the moral fabric of our nation and panders to the lowest common denominator. This feeds into the culture war mentality that dominates much of the discussion. Without doubt, there is some pandering to the lowest common denominator going on (Temptation Island, anyone?).

But I think something more significant is going on. Steven Johnson, in his book, doesn't address the morality of media other than in a few tangential comments. His focus is on the intellectual benefits of television, video games, etc. His theory is that over the last two decades, these media have grown increasingly complex and mentally challenging. Compare Lost to Gunsmoke or today's Battlestar Galactica to the 1970's version and it's like comparing Dostoevsky to Dr. Seuss.

My theory is that what is happening with the intellectual landscape of entertainment media is the same thing happening to the moral landscape. As television, for instance, becomes more intellectually complex, it simultaneously grows more morally complex. Creators of media have grown less content with the presentation of clear cut moral choices and instead want to explore intellectually and emotionally the grey areas between. Although it has its downsides in particular instances, this is not necessarily a bad thing as a whole. Christians do a disservice to others and to themselves when they present moral choices as simplistic and obvious. The entertainment media is initiating a profound conversation about morality in our culture and rather than standing outside and criticizing, Christians should become a partner in that conversation.

Media Musings

2006-11-24T14:59:00.000-05:00

Several people have asked me why my postings have become relatively infrequent. Basically, I've just been busy with other things. I am delivering a series of lectures in January and am currently knee-deep in a new book project, hoping to work my way to waist deep soon. I do have a few posts I hope to do soon, but in the meantime I will share some of my random musings.

~Spider-Man 3 is my most anticipated movie of the next year. Sandman, Venom, Green Goblin version 2.0, black costume Spidey, Gwen Stacey. What more could you ask for? Only 160 more days to go.

~I must revise my earlier and premature prediction that "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" was the best new show of the season. The honor now belongs solely and deservedly to "Heroes." A great show that just keeps getting better week by week.

~By contrast, a show that is in decline this year is "Gilmore Girls." Ever since show runner Amy Sherman-Palladino left, things just haven't been the same. For most of the cast, I've noticed no difference. The current show runner, however, seems to have little understanding of Lorelai's character. She was always immature, but has now become downright petulant. Her humor used to be witty; now it's just grating.

~Some of my favorite authors, broken down by genre:
Horror: Stephen King, even though he's drifted away from horror writing a bit, is still hard to beat.

Thriller/Mystery: Lee Child is my new favorite. His Jack Reacher novels are outstanding. A close second are Barry Eisler's tales about Japanese assassin John Rain.

Humor: Whenever I've read Dave Barry's columns, I haven't found them that engaging. However, on a road trip to Texas last year I listened to two of his books on tape and couldn't get enough. Something about having them read aloud really brings out the humor.

Biography: Peter Guralnick's 2 volume, exhaustive, biography of Elvis Presley, "Last Train to Memphis" and "Careless Love," are as good as it gets.

Romance: How would I know?

~For my money, the best "new" Christmas songs of the last 2 decades are "All I Want For Christmas is You" by Vince Vance and the Valiants, "It's Not the Presents Under the Tree" by Eva Cassidy, and "A Perfect Christmas Night" by TransSiberian Orchestra. All three deserve to become Christmas classics.

Radio Link

2006-11-01T17:11:00.000-05:00

I did the radio interview with Dave White and Ron Turner last evening and had a very good time. It was an enjoyable experience. If anyone is interested in it, the interview can be found at the following link:

http://www.geocities.com/ksav_talk/audioarchive.html

Television the New Literacy?

2006-11-01T00:23:00.000-05:00

Television is getting smarter, MTV notwithstanding. Steven Johnson in Everything Bad is Good For You offers up several pieces of evidence for this bold claim. Among this evidence are multiple threading and social networks. To put that in more mundane terms, television shows today involve mutliple story lines that intersect with one another and demand that the viewer mentally juggle all of these story lines, keeping them in the air simultaneously. The old adage that television viewing is a passive enterprise is now officially deceased. Multiple threading requires active audience participation. The viewer must constantly remember plot lines from several episodes back and how they connect to new episodes.

In addition to multiple threading, cast size for many television shows has increased dramatically. This increases the possible social relationships ongoing at any one time exponentially. As with multi-threading, the viewer has to keep a lot of information in mind and constantly apply that information to what he or she is seeing on the screen.

Where we really see current advances in television today is when these two features of multi-threading and complex social networks occur in the same show. Although Johnson's book is a couple years old, several shows on TV today give the proof to his theories. For instance, Lost is a show that practically requires a flow chart for keeping all of the relationships straight. More people visit this island than visited Gilligan (assuming we count the Harlem Globetrotters as a single entity). Numerous storylines are at play at once (both present and past), involving characters in the double digits. Heroes likewise has multiple main characters, most of whom have never met one another. In each episode, four or five different storylines are playing out at the same time, sometimes in isolation and sometimes intersecting with others. Even the traditional sitcom has fallen prey to this phenomenon. The Class has a cast of ten or twelve main characters, each with their own storyline.

I find all of this to be both intriguing and encouraging. Scripted television today demands a level of mental engagement from the audience that was previously found primarily in literature. I suggest that television shows like the ones mentioned above and many others like them are rapidly becoming our culture's visual literature. And I can't help but wonder if David Bianculli is right when he says that it is no longer valid to determine standards of literacy based upon a person's ability to read words. That any standard of literacy in our culture today must include a person's ability to watch television intelligently, or as he callls it, "teleliteracy." Food for thought.

A Buffy Halloween

2006-10-28T14:56:00.000-04:00

On Halloween night, I will doing an hour long radio interview for the KSAV radio station out of California. The show is "Talking Television with Dave White." The topic, appropriately, will be Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It will air during the 8-9 hour Pacific time so if you are on the west coast and have the time, check it out. The show should also be on their website's audio archives shortly afterwards. Now I just have to figure out something to say.

Laughing Out Loud

2006-10-24T14:43:00.000-04:00

A couple weeks ago, I had family visiting and we rented a comedy from the video store. RV. It stares one of the premiere comedians working in film today (Robin Williams) and was billed three times on the cover as being "hilarious." Yet, we watched it in silence. No laughter, no chuckles, not even a giggle. Then we followed it by watching a few episodes of News Radio on DVD and laughed continuously throughout.

This experience just reminded me again of how the quality of television today is often exceeding that of film and comedies are a prime example. It is a very rare movie comedy that is able to achieve the levels of humor and consistent laughter generated by television. I don't know why it is that the relationship of Sam and Diane on Cheers is both more poignant and hilarious than just about any of the generic romantic comedies Hollywood offers up. Two hours of Friends and Seinfeld will make your sides ache far more than sitting in a multiplex watching the latest Adam Sandler movie (and I like Adam Sandler). Even when I watch a relatively bad sitcom (like According to Jim), it is usually guaranteed that I will laugh out loud at least once or twice. Compare that to the countless movie comedies I've seen where I sit bored for two hours.

I haven't figured out the reasons for this, yet, but for whatever reason, comedy writers and actors working in television are putting their movie counterparts to shame.

The Video Game Workout

2006-10-02T22:05:00.000-04:00

It's a scenario I've been in countless times. I'm in the mood to take a break from the rigors of my day -- after all, sitting in front of the TV under the guise of research can be very tiring. So to relax I Isit in front of the TV and play one of my latest Playstation 2 video games. But I'm not relaxing. One minute I turn a corner into a room only to have the door behind irrevocably close. I'm locked in with no discernible exit. Or I pass down a hallway certain that I've come this way ten times before. I'm lost and have no idea where to go next. Or I'm faced with a mind-bending puzzle with no directions on how to solve it, but I must do so if I am to progress to the next task. Or I'm entrenched in a boss battle where my enemy keeps kicking my behind and forcing me to start the whole level all over again.

In frustration, I scream at the TV. I throw the controller. This relaxing thing is going very well.

And yet that is the commen (mis)conception about video games -- that they are mindless entertainment, relaxing fun. Anyone who has played video games seriously knows they are anything but relaxing. They can be endlessly frustrating and challenging. And yet I keep playing.

Why? Because eventually I find the hidden doorway that lets me out of the locked room or I turn down a different hallway and come into new territory. Eventually I crack the puzzle or discern the trick to taking out the big boss. And, oh, what a glorious moment that is. Of course, half the time I have to call in backup - my seven year old son who plays the game for a couple of minutes and invariably sees something that was right in front but I missed all along. But still, a glorious moment. I have triumphed over the forces allied against me.

Steven Johnson has written one of the most intriguing and thought-provoking books on popular culture that I have come across. It's titled: Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter (I've posted a link to it on the right). His thesis is that popular culture is progressively growing more intelligent and mentally challenging. Now this seems odd to so many who see popular culture as a vast wasteland of immorality and stupidity. We have assumed that with each passing year, pop culture lowers the bar for morality. Maybe so, but that is a different discussion. Johnson brackets the whole morality discussion. His interest is not in the morality or immorality of pop culture but simply its ability to challenge us intellectually. And with that, he is right on that it is doing so with rapidly increasing force.

One of his initial discussions revolves around video games and how these games force us to think and act and actively participate in the creation of the narrative. We are helping to create the story as we play the game. Today's video games require players to adapt, to create and test theories in order to progress. They present puzzles and riddles, complex codes that must be cracked. They are mental exercise. I watch my son play and I can see the wheels turning in his brain as he gets stuck and must explore all options and learn to look at the problem from different perspectives in order to find his way out.

I'm only partway through Johnson's book and I intend to offer more reflections on it as I go along. But it offers us an important reminder: before we write off video games and television and such as mindless entertainment, we should try looking at the evidence first.

Personally, I could use a good mental workout. Perhaps I'll play a little Prince of Persia.

"Crazy Christians"

2006-09-24T16:32:00.000-04:00

After watching the first episode of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," I think that the critics who have proclaimed it the best new show of the season may not be far off the mark. It has an interesting premise (the goings-on behind a semi-fictional "Saturday Night Live" type of show), excellent writing, and great acting.

But from a theological standpoint, it also offers promise. Not the promise of "Touched by an Angel" type preaching, but the promise of provocative, nuanced, and challenging exploration of the role of religion in American (and Hollywood) culture. The pilot episode revolves around a censor's decision to forbid the airing of a skit on the late night variety show. The title of the skit? "Crazy Christians."

Matthew Perry plays the newly re-hired headwriter who penned the controversial skit. His comments throughout the show reveal him to be fairly antagonistic towards Christians as a rule. What saves this from becoming another example of Hollywood's irreligion is the revelation that his ex-girlfriend, who also happens to be the star of the show, is a devout Christian. That she was in favor of airing the skit shows that this will not be a simple pro-Christian/anti-Christian debate. Rather the interplay between these two characters will no doubt provide many intriguing layers to explore. As Linda Richman might say, "Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic. Christians are neither crazy nor sane. Discuss."

The Fall TV Season

2006-09-18T12:13:00.000-04:00

There are three new shows on television this Fall that I am excited about watching:

1. Heroes: In what seems like a take-off on "The X-Men", a handful of individuals around the world suddenly manifest superhero-like powers. The question of course is: whatever will they do with them? Plus, the very idea of a high school cheerleader who becomes indestructible is pure genius.

2. Jericho: A small Kansas town is cut off from the rest of the world when America is attacked with nuclear weapons. Are they the only survivors left, we are meant to wonder? It is a blatant attempt to do Lost in small town America, but should be interesting nonetheless.

3. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: I've always been a fan of "Saturday Night Live" and this attempt to do a series showing what takes place behind the scenes of a show like that sounds fun. Plus, it comes from the mind of Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, Sports Night) so it should be thoughtful as well as entertaining.

#1 "Once More, With Feeling" -- Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2001)

2006-09-14T12:17:00.000-04:00

It probably comes as no surprise that my number one favorite television episode comes from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, nor should this particular episode be a surprise to those who are Buffy fans as it tops many best of lists.

To get straight to the point: "Once More, With Feeling" is a musical episode. Now I must admit that when I heard the show was doing a musical episode, I was skeptical that they would be able to pull it off. Adding to my skepticism was the report that Buffy mastermind, Joss Whedon, who wrote and directed the episode had no distinctive musical training and had never written songs before. Nevertheless, he wrote all of the songs for the episode and made all of the cast members do their own singing. The stage was set for abysmal failure.

But then when I watched it for the first time, I was stunned. In my biased opinion, it was the best single hour of scripted television I had ever seen. Now a musical episode might seem like a gimmick to attract ratings, but this was nothing of the sort. It made perfect sense within the overall arc of the narrative and actually tied up many story lines while creating new ones.

The gist of the story is this: a musical demon comes to Sunnydale and causes its citizens to spontaneously break out in song - typically in elaborately choreographed numbers. The trick is that when people sing, they sing the truth of their feelings. Thus, many hidden secrets get revealed and genuine emotions are laid bare.

"Once More, With Feeling" is a good partner to "Hush", my number three listing. Both deal with communication. In "Hush" people communicate best through silence and nonverbal means; in "Once More, With Feeling" we see how emotions are often most truthfully conveyed in song.

Now admittedly, one of the things that makes this episode so powerful is the way it deals with the characters on the show and propels certain long-running plot points. Consequently, one who is not a regular viewer of the show may find its impact to be less. But given the general demise of the musical in our culture today, "Once More, With Feeling" resurrects the genre with distinction.

#2 "Cross Examination" -- Picket Fences (1993)

2006-09-12T17:04:00.000-04:00

Anyone who thinks that all television is mindless, dumbed-down entertainment hasn't been paying attention lately. And I'm not just talking about shows that are all the rage today like Lost and 24. Smart television has been around for awhile. The early 90's gave us a good example in Picket Fences, a show that was not only smart itself but gave viewers a serious mental workout each week.

"Cross Examination" is a Christmas episode. But the first hint that this is no traditional holly and eggnog approach comes in the opening scene where the camera follows the path of snowball sailing through the night sky, as nearby carolers sing "Away in a Manger," until it hits a statue of Jesus square in the head.

At issue in "Cross Examination" is the nature of faith. There is so much going on this episode that a little summary is required. Jimmy Brock, sheriff of Rome, Wisconsin and father of the aforesaid snowball thrower, pulls a car out of an icy lake. Inside is a young woman, who is soon declared dead. As the coroner later prepares to begin the autopsy, she revives. Is this a genuine miracle? For many shows, that question alone would be enough to sustain an hour. But we have barely begun. The young woman, Dana Marshall, is in a coma and her doctor, Jill Brock, wife of Jimmy, announces that she is four months pregnant. How can this be, the coroner objects, since his initial examination of the body revealed her to be a virgin?

The townspeople, no mental slouches themselves, quickly make the connection between Christmas and a pregnant virgin. Are we about to witness the birth of a messiah? A second coming of the Christ? The reactions of various townspeople to this event present a study in the contours of faith. The town clergy try to stay out of the fray -- on the one hand not wanting to shut the door on the possible birth of the messiah, but on the other fearful of looking foolish should it turn out to be a hoax. Science and religion clash in the persons of Carter Pike, the coroner, who discounts any possibility of the miraculous and determines Dana Marshall was delusional and concocted a way to impregnate herself and Dana's gynecologist, a religious man, who chalks it up to a miracle. More interestingly, science and faith are engaged in a battle within the mind of Jill Brock herself. As a doctor and a scientist, she is reluctant to accept a miraculous explanation, but as a person sensitive to religion, she does not wish to discount it either.

Jill seeks advice from her husband, asking him "Do we believe in God?" (interesting use of the plural). He assures her the answer is yes, but then confesses he does not really know what that means. He wants there to be a God, but is not sure he wants to be in the same room with him. Further complicating matters is that the Brock's oldest son, the snowball thrower, decides that this is the time to tell their youngest son that Santa Claus does not exist. The parallel is obvious as the show juxtaposes the question of Santa's existence with that of God, essentially questioning the extent to which faith in one differs from faith in the other.

Further complicating things, as though that were necessary, Dana Marshall contracts pneumonia in her coma and so the pregnancy endangers her life. Her father asks for an abortion to save his daughter's life. The clergy, finally deciding to make their presence known, seek to stop it. Thus we move to the courtroom. On the stand, Jill Brock testifies that she cannot believe the pregnancy to be of miraculous origin; yet when cross examined and asked if she believes Mary had been a virgin when she conceived Christ, she confesses "yes" (but appears visually embarrased to do so).

The judge, Henry Bone, must make a difficult decision: does he abort a child to save the mother and in so doing possibly kill the child of God? Before announcing his decision, Henry Bone enters a church to pray. But alas, we never get to hear the verdict. After all, it doesn't matter what the show tells us to think, but what we ourselves think.

As it turns out, Dana's gynecologist had artificially inseminated her without her knowledge. When asked why, the religious doctor said he wanted to give hope to people all over the world. This raises another question about the nature of faith: is a false hope better than no hope at all?

The episode leaves us with a hint that the world is a mysterious place and that the arrogance of science is best tempered by the humility of faith. Dr. Jill Brock informs Dana's father that there is virtually no hope of her coming out of the coma and it is best to let her die in peace. At that moment, however, Dana cries out and revives. Later, Jill tells her husband, as though trying to convince herself, that such occurrences, as rare as they are, do sometimes happen. Yet, we the viewers, are left to wonder if the citizens of Rome, Wisconsin received their miracle after all.

#3 "Hush" -- Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1999)

2006-09-05T16:24:00.000-04:00

As the story goes, Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was supposedly annoyed at critics who attributed the success of his show to the clever and witty dialogue between the characters. In order to prove that his show was much more than just scintillating conversation, he wrote and directed a "silent" episode, largely absent of any dialogue. And so "Hush" was born -- one of the most frightening and well-crafted episodes in the Buffy catalogue. He proved the critics wrong and garnered two Emmy nominations to boot ("Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series" and "Oustanding Cinematography").

"Hush" is a modern fairy tale. Several fairy tale monsters known as The Gentlemen come to Sunnydale in order to steal seven hearts. Before doing so, they steal the voices of everyone in town. Thus a hush falls over Sunndyale. The episode opens with a creepy dream of Buffy's in which a little girl pleasantly sings a chilling rhyme:

Can't even shout
Can't even cry
The Gentlemen are coming by
Looking in windows
Knocking on doors
They need to take seven
And they might take yours
Can't call to Mom
Can't say a word
You're gonna die screaming but you won't be heard

As a fairytale, Buffy of course fulfills the role of the princess who defeats The Gentlemen and saves the town. But what this episode is really about is communication. In the early part of the episode, while everyone can still talk, we see characters miscommunicating with each other right and left. Sometimes it is due to innocent word choices; other times deliberate deception. Some miscommunicate as a defense mechanism, afraid of revealing their true feelings. The point is that we often use words, ironically, to avoid communicating with one another. We use language to misdirect and conceal the truth.

But when the characters' voices are taken, suddently they have to learn to communicate in a new way. Whedon has said that "Hush" is about how when you stop talking, you start communicating. Without words to hide behind, the characters reveal their true feelings and motivations. They are able to be honest in a way they avoided before.

Newly dating couple, Buffy and Riley, have both been keeping secrets from each other, concealing them with words. Yet in the silence, both of those secrets come to light. The episode ends with Riley coming to Buffy's dorm room (Stevenson Hall, by the way!). As they sit on the bed, their voices now restored, Riley says, "I guess we need to talk." Buffy replies, "I guess we do." Then the camera holds on them for what seems like an eternity as they sit in silence. Communication was much easier when words didn't get in the way.

This episode is a masterful creation because of the challenge of making a silent episode interesting and captivating in our current cultural climate. Whedon employs a variety of devices and crafts such a compelling story that watching characters interact in silence is engaging rather than boring. I could have more to say but as "Hush" demonstrates, sometimes it's better to stop talking.

#4 "Abyssinia, Henry" -- MASH (1975)

2006-09-01T18:03:00.000-04:00

MASH was a series capable of reaching great heights of inspired jocularity and goofiness. That such humor was set against the backdrop of the Korean War made for a curious juxtaposition. In the early years of the show, the humor tended to dominate through the antics of Hawkeye, Trapper John, Hot Lips Houlihan, Major Frank Burns, among others. Colonel Henry Blake was the leader of this motley crew, a mild-mannered and gentle man who ruled the compound by the sincerity of his spirit as opposed to an iron fist.

In "Abyssinia, Henry," Henry Blake receives his orders to return home to the United States. His tour of duty is over. He and the camp rejoice, and we viewers rejoiced with him. If any of them deserved to make it home to their families, it was Henry Blake. The episode concludes with the MASH team in the operating room, joking and conversing as they set about their grim duty. Then Radar O'Reilly appears in the doorway and announces that Colonel Henry Blake's plane was shot down and there were no survivors. After a brief pause, the surgeons and nurses, this time in silence, return to their work. The business of death goes on, you see.

As a nine year old kid in 1975, I tuned into MASH each week for the humor. This episode was the first television episode I ever saw that stayed with me awhile. It was a pointed reminder of the reality of war. This episode set the stage for the remaining years of MASH, which increasingly incorporated the serious into the silly. As a series, it illustrates how life is a tenuous balance of light and dark, joy and grief, life and death,

#5 "The 23rd Psalm" -- Lost (2006)

2006-09-01T17:28:00.000-04:00

"The 23rd Psalm" gives us the background to one of Lost's most enigmatic characters, Eko. Having come off of a 40 day vow of silence, Eko and Charlie make a trek into the jungle to find a downed plane. In flashbacks we learn that Eko, as a child, killed a man and allowed himself to be kidnapped by Nigerian drug dealers in order to spare his brother the same fate. Thus two very different paths emerge: Eko's brother, having received grace, grows up to become a priest, while Eko grows up to become a ruthless and murderous drug dealer.

Drug Dealer: It is true what they say about you,
Eko: And what is that?
Drug Dealer: That you have no soul.

These words are spoken shortly before Eko kills the man. Such scenes add a whole new level of gravity to the giant stick that Eko carries around with him on the island.

But the Eko on the island is a different man indeed. He carves Scripture onto that giant stick. When he gives advice to others, he draws it from biblical stories. "The 23rd Psalm" reveals to us how such a life-altering change could occur in such a despicable individual.

The Eko who as a child sacrificed himself to save his brother a life of misery later learns what it means to receive grace when his brother, to whom Eko had just done a horrible thing, gives his life to save Eko's. For reasons too convoluted to explain, Eko's brother's body ends up in the plane that crashed on the island and Charlie and Eko find it. Before they do, however, Eko has an encounter with the "monster" of the island -- an amorphous column of black smoke in which images flash before Eko. The final image shown to him in the smoke is that of Jesus on the cross. That image of forgiveness and grace through sacrifice now governs Eko's new life. On the island, he is reborn. After he and Charlie find the plane, Eko removes the cross necklace from his brother's corpse and puts it around his own. Charlie, who has been trying to decipher the mystery that is Eko, asks, "So, are you a priest or aren't you?" Eko replies: "Yes,I am" and then proceeds to recite the 23rd Psalm.

It is a rare show that can take well-worn religious themes like redemption, forgiveness, and sacrifice and bring them to life in a new way.

#6 "The Betrayal" -- Seinfeld (1997)

2006-08-31T12:56:00.000-04:00

Seinfeld has earned its place in the pantheon of great television because it rewrote the rules for sitcoms. Its humor is organic and daring, refusing to be confined to pre-established patterns. One early episode that best exemplifies this is "The Chinese Restaurant," noteworthy because the entire episode takes place in one location (the aforementioned restaurant) and because it involves nothing more than Jerry, George and Elaine talking while they wait for a table. More than any other, that episode earned the show its reputation as a show about nothing.

I have chosen, however, an episode from one of the later seasons that I think is both funnier and more daring. "The Betrayal" again illustrates the risk-taking mentality of Seinfeld as the entire episode is told in reverse order. We begin at the end of the episode and then the scenes work backward as the audience has to put the pieces together to form the puzzle. Punchlines land first only to be followed by the set up later on. We first encounter Kramer with his tiny lollipop, which then grows throughout the episode to its original, humongous size. It is a risky and gimmicky episode. But what makes it stand out is that the gimmick works.

#7 “Flesh and Bone” -- Battlestar Galactica

2006-08-27T19:44:00.000-04:00

Number seven on my list of the greatest television episodes is “Flesh and Bone” from the first season of the newly revamped Battlestar Galactica. I never watched the original version from the 1970’s, but I understand the basic storyline to involve humans having created a series of robots called Cylons who then rebelled against them. In the newest incarnation, several decades have passed and the Cylons, who had left to inhabit their own section of the galaxy, now return and wipe out most of humanity in a sneak attack. The kicker is that the Cylons have created a new version of themselves in which they look, feel, and act like humans. They have flesh and blood, they sweat, hunger, feel pain – all the hallmarks of the human race.

In the episode “Flesh and Bone,” a Cylon has been discovered hiding on one of the ships belonging to the human survivors and he claims to have placed a nuclear bomb on one of the ships in the caravan. Consequently, Starbuck interrogates him in order to learn the location of the bomb.

The power of this episode lies in its examination of the nature of humanity. The Cylons gave themselves the ability to feel pain, hunger, etc. because they desire to be human. They even claim to have a soul – placed in them by the God they follow. (Another interesting aspect of the show is the contrast between the monotheistic beliefs of the Cylons and the polytheistic beliefs of the humans. One can even see reflections on contemporary terrorism issues as the Cylons believe their actions to be guided by God).

The contrast between the human Starbuck and the Cylon she interrogates drives this episode. Believing as most humans do that the Cylons are little more than glorified toasters, Starbuck lies to, tortures, and generally demeans the captive Cylon. In between, the two engage in debate over what makes one human. Is the definition of humanity reduceable simply to the presence of a soul or are we defined by our actions? As Starbuck’s torture of the Cylon progresses, one begins to wonder if the line dividing human and Cylon is being erased and whether true humanity must involve more than the possession of flesh and bone.

#8 "Silence" -- Joan of Arcadia (2004)

2006-08-23T09:50:00.000-04:00

Joan of Arcadia is a darker, more grounded counterpart to Touched by an Angel. It tries to present the reality of faith with all its challenges, doubts, and dangers. The premise, a modern take-off on Joan of Arc, is that of a teenage girl who receives visitations from God. God appears to her in a variety of forms tailored to the situation – a handsome young man, a little girl, an old lady, etc.

The episode “Silence” concludes the first season. Joan experiences a crisis of faith in her life and at the one moment when she needs God the most, the God who had always spoken to her in the past, suddenly falls silent. In one scene, God appears to Joan in her hospital room but won’t speak to her. She yells at him, begs him, questions him, and doubts him. No response. It is the harsh reality of one who prays to God in an hour of need, yet perceives only deafening silence in return.

As the episode unfolds, Joan comes to the conclusion that God does not exist. Convinced that all of her past encounters with God have been the result of hallucinations, she voices her denial of his existence. The episode pointedly concludes with Joan asleep in her hospital bed, as God, still silent, enters the room, walks to the side of her bed, and strokes her hair. The honesty of Joan’s lament, coupled with the episode’s assurance that God is present even in the silence, creates a thought-provoking study on biblical lament.

#9 “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’" – The X-Files (1996)

2006-08-21T10:42:00.000-04:00

The X-Files hit so many high points during its run that it deserves to have an episode represented among my top ten, but choosing a single episode is a challenge. I thought about the episode “Bad Blood”, a serio-comic take on vampire mythology that distinguishes itself in the opening scene when Fox Mulder, certain he is on the hunt after a vampire, tackles a kid in the woods and stabs him through the heart with a stake – only to then notice the fake vampire teeth in his mouth. Or, I considered “War of the Coprophages,” which deserves mention if for no other reason than the appearance of beautiful entomologist Dr. Bambi Berenbaum. I repeat, Dr. Bambi Berenbaum.

But ultimately I had to settle on “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’”. Episodes of The X-Files fall into two categories: one shot episodes that deal with a very specific story and mythology episodes that continue the ongoing, overarching narrative concerning Fox Mulder’s obsession with aliens. Several of the one-shot episodes take a comic approach, such as the ones described above. The mythology episodes are often very serious by contrast. With “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’”, however, The X-Files pokes fun at itself by offering a comedic and almost absurdist take on its own mythology. The episode includes faked alien invasions, seemingly real alien invasions, an alien autopsy (in another self-referential moment poking fun at the alien autopsy special that aired on Fox – the network airing The X-Files), and enough twists and turns to keep Agatha Christie happy.

When two teenagers claim to have been abducted by aliens, Mulder and Scully investigate only to learn that nothing is as it seems. The X-Files is known for raising the question of whether the truth is out there, suggesting that we cannot trust our government and may not even be able to trust each other. This episode takes that a step further by questioning whether we can trust ourselves and our own interpretations of the truth.

#10 “Betrayal” -- The Practice (1997)

2006-08-18T17:20:00.000-04:00

On one level, The Practice is just another show about lawyers. Now shows about lawyers are about as common as Paris Hilton embarrassing herself in public. But what makes this show about lawyers stand out in the midst of the crowd is the guidance of David E. Kelley. The signature mark that Kelley brings to his shows (Picket Fences being a good example) is the ability to examine both sides of an issue with equal clarity. Kelley has never met a straw man. He treats opposing views with such respect that it is nearly impossible to determine what side of an issue he stands on by watching The Practice. Most lawyer shows make the outcome of their trials as obvious as Burt Reynolds’ toupee. But The Practice was one show in which I could never be certain how a judicial decision would come down. And beyond that, sometimes I would find myself becoming sympathetic to an argument that I would have given no credence to going into the show.

The episode “Betrayal” represents the best of The Practice. It is a sharply written episode with a killer plot twist. What makes this episode stand out is the Emmy-nominated (I can’t recall if he won) performance of John Larroquette as Joey Heric, a gay man accused of killing his lover. Joey is a supreme narcissist of unusual intelligence. Joey’s ability to stay one step ahead of every one makes for a fascinating game of cat and mouse. He serves as a vehicle for exploring the fairness and accuracy of our legal system. Through his endless machinations and manipulations, Joey reveals the flaws in a system that relies on the letter of the law. The episode suggests that justice may be blind, but sometimes it can be just plain stupid.

10 Best Television Episodes

2006-08-17T17:14:00.000-04:00

I was eating chicken the other day and it made me think of television because, well, most things do. I have claimed elsewhere that the best of television today rivals that of film and often exceeds it. Actors, writers, and directors who up until a few years ago would have considered association with the small screen to be career suicide now frequently adopt it as their medium of choice.

These days some of the most riveting, moving, and thought-provoking stories that our culture has to tell are being told on television, not in movie theaters.

I am also somewhat fond of lists. I admire their simplicity and directness. They are not big on plot or character development, but what they do they do well. Lists neither deceive nor prevaricate. They simply state. They have become an integral part of our society ever since the Ten Commandments – the first Top Ten list.

Movies dominate many of our lists. We list the best movies, best movie moments, best movie kisses, best movies starring rehabilited child actors, etc. But television gets ignored. So in that spirit I am going to produce my list of the ten best television episodes of all time. Not shows, but single episodes.

I will give my number 10 choice in the next post and present one episode at a time, allowing me to give my justification for their inclusion.

As with any such lists, these are merely my personal preferences. I have not seen every show that has ever aired, not for lack of trying, so certainly many worthy candidates will be missed because of it. My criteria for selection varies. Some are on the list because they were innovative episodes that impacted the television landscape from then on. Some are there because of the way they address significant philosophical, ethical, or theological issues, thus provoking healthy dialogue. Others are there due to the sheer quality of the episode. But regardless of the reason, all of these are examples of television at its best.

Modern Fantasy: The Heir to Apocalyptic

2006-08-13T18:34:00.000-04:00

I’ve reached day 25 in my ongoing quest to recover from knee surgery and am told I can look forward to at least 3 more weeks of crutches and knee braces. It’s not been all bad. There are worse things than lying on a couch for three and a half weeks, waited on hand and foot while viewing countless episodes of Battlestar Galactica and Gilmore Girls -- there’s a combination that will give you mental whiplash. I know it’s gone too far when I find myself rooting for Lorelai Gilmore to just pull out her blaster pistol and blow Emily out of the hatch or wondering why Captain Adama and the Cylons can’t just talk out their feelings.

After all this, it’s no wonder my thoughts have turned apocalyptic. While writing my previous post in defense of fantasy, I decided such a defense was not complete without a nod towards apocalyptic. Scholars often note that one of the reasons ancient apocalyptic writings like the book of Revelation, Daniel, 1 Enoch, etc. are so difficult for us to understand is because we don’t write apocalypses anymore. It is a literary genre lost to us.

I suggest that is only partly true. The specific literary genre of an apocalypse has died out, but not without leaving an heir. I contend that the modern fantasy novel is a descendant of apocalyptic – they share a similar DNA. The stark dualism of good and evil, the thin veil between material and spiritual (or magical) reality, and the preference of communicating through symbols such as dragons and other mythical-type creatures inhabit the blood of each genre.

Andrew Greeley in his book God in Popular Culture recounts the major themes that can be found in many examples of modern fantasy and concludes by questioning how anyone can read works of modern fantasy and not see them as religious and theological novels.

Some scholars see the book of Revelation as having an escapist function not unlike that often attributed to modern fantasy novels. They say that those who read Revelation escape this harsh world by retreating into the imaginary world created by Revelation. There they gain a strength from that world that allows them to return to the real world and better deal with their problems.

In my doctoral dissertation, I argued for a slightly different approach, that is that the function of apocalyptic language is transformative. In other words, Revelation does not counsel a retreat from the real world into an imaginative one as much as it suggests that the symbolic world it creates is in a sense the real world. It attempts to transform our understanding of the world by getting us to interpret and experience it in a different way. One example: in a context where people experience the world as a place of suffering, injustice and evil, Revelation provides a vision of God seated on a heavenly throne – the message is that God is in control of this world even when your five senses tell you otherwise.

I suggest modern fantasy has a related function, though it plays out in a somewhat different way. The apocalyptic language of a book like Revelation argues that we have misinterpreted reality, that in fact the world IS different than we think it is. The apocalyptic language of modern fantasy suggests, I think, that the world CAN BE different than it is. By holding up the triumph of good over evil, the power of the spiritual world, and the quest for redemption and moral refinement, these works suggest that we can all be the heroes of our own story. We read The Lord of the Rings and feel that, just like Frodo, perhaps we too have the determination and moral focus to defeat the Lord of Mordor. In essence, modern fantasy is the language of hope.

In Defense of Fantasy

2006-08-11T13:56:00.000-04:00

Modern fantasy is the step-child of the literary world. It gets no respect, even less love. Aside from The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, fantasy gets less acclaim than teen chick lit. This is because the literati view fantasy as nothing more than escapist entertainment, the literary equivalent of a trashy TV show.

Fantasy stories are a modern version of the ancient fairy tale and they function in much the same way. They instruct us in the nature of the world and how to live in it. As such, they are subject to many of the same misconceptions that plague fairy tales. One such misconception is that fairy tales and fantasy stories are for children. Don’t be fooled by the dragons, magic, and elves – fairy tales and fantasy stories are stories about life that use the unfamiliar to comment on the familiar.

J. R. R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings was adamant that adults have a greater need for fairy tales than do children. C. S. Lewis whose Chronicles of Narnia stories were more suited for children than were Tolkien’s writings nevertheless shared Tolkien’s view of the function of fairy tales for adults. One of Lewis’ essays even bears the provocative title “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to be Said.”

And yet the belief that fantasy is not real grown up literature persists. Not long ago, Stephen King, in his column he writes for Entertainment Weekly chastised a literary reviewer for referring to a book as “Harry Potter for adults.” King insisted instead that “Harry Potter is Harry Potter for adults.”

C. S. Lewis was a man for whom fairy tales and fantasy was a guide all his life. We see a glimpse of Lewis’ view of fairy tales in the character of Eustace. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Eustace is a boy devoid of imagination. He finds himself magically transported to the world of Narnia but doesn’t know how to live in that world. At several points throughout the narrative, when Eustace reveals his inability to live appropriately in this world, Lewis adds the comment that it is because Eustace has not read the right kind of books. By that, Lewis means books with dragons, magic and elves – fantasy books.

In several posts, I’ve mentioned an excellent biography of Lewis that I read recently: “The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis” (a link to the book can be found to the right). Towards the end of the book, the author, Alan Jacobs, includes a wonderful anecdote. Lewis is in the hospital following a heart attack. It is very near the end of his life. His condition causes him to suffer bouts of delirium. He is visited by an old friend, Maureen Blake, a music teacher who previously had found out that a very distant relative, Baron Dunbar of Hempriggs, had died and the subsequent investigation surprisingly determined her to be the heir. Here is Jacobs account of the meeting between Blake and Lewis.

"When she arrived at the hospital she was told that Lewis had not recognized any of his visitors that day. She entered quietly, clasped his hand, and said, 'Jack, its Maureen.' 'No,' he replied . . . 'It’s Lady Dunbar of Hempriggs.' Maureen was stunned: 'Oh Jack, how could you remember that?' 'On the contrary,' he murmured. 'How could I forget a fairy-tale?'”

U2's Most Spiritual Album

2006-08-01T12:18:00.000-04:00

It is a relatively recent but dependable trend. Whenever U2 puts out a new album, you can bet that within a few months the Internet will be flooded with articles and essays by preachers and other interested parties about how spiritual the album is. Although some people will hearken back to The Joshua Tree album as an example of early spirituality in the music of U2, most of these discussions fixate on the recent works All That You Can't Leave Behind and How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Many of these writers act as though they are putting their readers onto something new, as though their careful ears are the first to have detected these spiritual nuances.

The fact is, though, that the most overtly spiritual album U2 has made is one of their earliest, created when they were barely out of high school. The album is called October. It is an album that, frankly, few people are aware of and even fewer listen to. The band has yet to find their musical voice and Bono is clearly struggling with figuring out how to write a song. Many of the lyrics feel scattered and unfinished. For those who came late to the U2 party, it would not meet the expectations they would have of a U2 album.

Yet for sheer spirituality, it ranks at the top. Written during a period when most of the band members were embracing Christianity with evangelical fervor, the album makes no attempt to hide or shade their devotion. In later times, they learned to present their spirituality in more nuanced and subtle ways. Here it is more raw and open. Consider, for instance, the words to With A Shout (Jerusalem):

I wanna go
To the foot of the messiah
To the foot of he who made me see
To the side of a hill
Where we were still
We were filled
With a love
We're gonna be there again
Jerusalem, Jerusalem

This theme of spiritual longing also finds expression in Tomorrow, a song about the death of Bono's mother. When Bono sings, Who healed the wounds, Who heals the scars, he goes on to answer his own question:

Open up, open up
To the Lamb of God
To the love of he who made me
The light to see you
He's coming back . . .
I believe it
Jesus coming

Praise is a major theme on this album. From the simple song Scarlet whose only lyrics are the repeated refrain "Rejoice, rejoice" to the song titled Rejoice, which sees praise as the appropriate response to God in the world.

I can't change the world
But I can change the world in me
If I rejoice . . . rejoice

The best known song off of the album is Gloria. The casual listener could be forgiven for thinking this is a song about a woman. The fact is that U2 stinks at writing traditional love songs and they know it. U2 employs "Gloria" here as the Latin term for "Glory." It is an unabashed praise song to God, as the largely Latin chorus makes clear.

Only in you I'm complete
Gloria . . . in te domine
Gloria . . . exultate
Gloria . . . Gloria
Oh Lord, loosen my lips

Bono concludes "Gloria" by singing "Oh Lord, if I had anything, anything at all, I'd give it to you." And yet he does have something to give: his music. As the subsequent career of U2 shows, culminating in the most recent albums, Bono has continued to give God that which he has to give: praise through music.

Fantasy Violence and Children

2006-07-24T17:38:00.000-04:00

As a kid growing up in suburban Chicago, I loved stories with a violent edge to them: Hansel and Gretel destroying the evil witch, Jack killing the giant by chopping down his bean stalk, Bugs blowing up Elmer Fudd, or Ultraman kicking the behind of a bad Japanese actor in a giant, rubber monster suit. On the playground, these stories took the form of Cowboys and Indians, where no one ever wanted to be the Indians because they never got to use guns.

As I got older, the stories changed but the violence remained. Be it the balletic violence of Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan, the superhuman violence of Superman or Spider-Man, the widespread carnage in sci-fi or fantasy shows like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, or the more realistic violence of 24, these stories never ceased to resonate with me on some level.

Nevertheless, I am one of the least violent people I know. Despite spending the last 21 years training in various martial arts, I have never been in a real fight in my life nor do I ever want to. I have never owned a gun (although I do confess to an extensive collection of traditional Japanese weaponry) and have no plans to. I detest violence in reality.

When I look at my son, I see a similar pattern taking hold. Ultraman has been replaced by The Power Rangers and the Cowboys and Indians battles of my youth now take the form of epic light saber duels. (For some reason, all of the 14 kids in our complex own toy light sabers and meet behind our place for daily battles). Yet my son is one of the gentlest and most non-violent boys you will meet.

This phenomenon long baffled me. With the consumption of so many violent stories in my youth, why have I not grown into a homicidal maniac? Especially since that is exactly what our society tells us happens. Violence is a problem in our society, as it is in most. Many have decided that the cause of this problem is the portrayal of violent stories in the media. Children who watch violent shows, they say, build up aggression and are taught that violence is the way to release that aggression and solve problems. Thus, they imitate in real life what they watch on screen.

I have long suspected this was a shallow, naive, and ill-informed response to a complex problem. I certainly do not want to minimize the problem of societal violence nor minimize the role that the media may legitimately play, but blaming television or film violence as the primary cause is a bit like blaming the Hostess company for your weight problem. We often crave easy solutions to complex problems.

The truth is that many factors are at play: the abdication of parental responsibility, societal attitudes, school culture, etc. Focusing on the media as the primary problem and suggesting shielding children from all violent content without distinction is problematic for two reasons: 1) It removes the focus from the other significant causes and thus creates a situation where removal of violent content becomes the "solution" that may not solve anything. 2) It distorts the actual role of violent stories in a culture.

When evaluating violence in the media, we must approach it with the complexity that the issue requires, paying attention to the very real difference between fantasy violence and realistic violence, to the form of presentation, to the context in which the violence occurs, to the purpose that the violence serves in that story.

The fact is that violent stories permeate the Bible from beginning to end. We like to tell the flood story to our children because it involves cute animals, but have you actually read it lately? It is a horrific story of death and destruction -- the infliction of violence on a massive scale. Or, why do we tell the story of David and Goliath to our children? A young boy murders another man in the name of God. From Old Testament narratives, through the poetry of the prophets, the parables of Jesus, and the visions of Revelation, violence is never long absent from the pages of Scripture.

One way of relativizing this is to say that these stories are there only as negative examples of how violence is bad. No doubt some are, but in most cases the violence is an inherent part of the message: remove the violence and you distort the message. The violence in the parables of Jesus or in the visions of Revelation serve to communicate a spiritual and moral message.

Do we ignore the role of violence in the Bible or do we acknowledge that violent stories can be valuable catalysts for moral growth?

I did not really know how to address the complexity of the role that violent stories play for children until I read a controversial book by Gerard Jones titled Killing Monsters: Why Children NEED Fantasy, Super Hero, and Make-Believe Violence (If interested, you can find the book at Amazon by clicking the link to the right). Jones has worked both in the media and with children. He argues that fantasy violence is essential for the proper emotional development of children. He tells stories of children who grow up in families where all access to violent stories are removed, and yet the child still cuts their toast into the shape of a gun and plays with it. He consults child psychologists who argue that playing Cowboys and Indians or pretending to be Darth Vader are healthy ways for children to cope with this world and to learn how to live peacefully in it.

And what about all the studies showing media violence makes people violent? Jones examines these studies and demonstrates persuasively that they do not show quite what they claim to show and sometimes actually demonstrate the opposite.

Jones is careful to distinguish between fantasy violence (the focus of his book) and realistic portrayals of violence that are not appropriate or helpful to children. Many would counter that children are not capable of distinguishing between reality and fantasy. For a handful of kids, that is true. But Jones argues, and numerous psychologists back him up, that our children are very capable of making that distinction and often do a better job of it than adults.

Whether you buy his argument or not, we regularly hear so much about how bad fantasy violence is for children that it is important once in a while to look at the topic from another perspective. Jones' book provides that. His book is full of case studies of parents who forbid their children from playing with toy guns or watching superhero cartoons, only to discover that they were depriving them of the very things they needed to learn how to deal effectively with a violent world.

If Jones is right (and you can be the judge of that), maybe there is a reason after all, why we should tell our children the stories of David and Goliath and the flood.

Book Links

2006-07-19T09:38:00.000-04:00

I am adding a new feature to my site. Since I occasionally will refer to, review, or discuss books on popular culture and/or religion, I will add under the "Links" section to the right, links to those books. Clicking on the link will take you to that book's page on amazon.com where it can be easily purchased, should one decide to. I have begun by placing a link to my book on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (shameless plug of the week). I will add additional books as they come up in discussion.

It may be a few days before I post again as I will be going in for arthroscopic knee surgery tomorrow. One of the posts I have planned for then will be on a book that deals with the issue of violence in the media. I have found it to be one of the most fascinating takes on the subject, and will provide a link to it when I do that post.

Christians of the Caribbean

2006-07-14T09:34:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I was passing the time watching the last five minutes of Family Feud and mocking the contestants for their cluelessness -- such as when the question is "Name something bricklayers use in their work" and the word "brick" doesn't come to their attention. Of course, when they were asked what parents put on vegetables to get their children to eat them, the first thing that came to my mind was honey. Now, for the record, I have never put honey on a vegetable, have never eaten a vegetable with honey on it, nor have I ever seen or heard of a person putting honey on a vegetable. Nevertheless, that is how my mind works.

Following this stimulating mental exercise, I switched the channel over to see what was happening on the O'Reilly Factor, only to be greeted with the visage of some member of a film ministry website arguing that the recent Pirates of the Caribbean movie has a Christian message. O'Reilly wasn't buying it and neither was I. I listened to the man's points, but in the end, the most that could be said was that the movie contained some general and very sketchy ideas about salvation and eternal punishment that could be made to resonate with some Christian teaching, but the point is that it would have to be "made" to do so. In short, the evidence did not remotely rise to the level of a "Christian message," in contrast, for instance, to the more overtly and intentionally (according to the director) Judeo-Christian symbolism of Superman Returns.

What was really at stake here for the man making this claim was the opportunity to fire another shot in the ongoing culture war. Whether correctly or incorrectly, many Christians feel under attack in our culture and are determined to attack back. Popular culture has become a fashionable weapon in this war.

I am a firm believer in the power of popular culture, for good and ill, and I believe that it is often a significant artistic vehicle for communication of spiritual and theological ideas. But I wonder: why do some Christians feel the need to co-opt every successful film for Christianity? Even if they were able to make the case that Pirates of the Caribbean has a Christian message, what do they expect that to accomplish? Do they expect mass conversions because a few cinematic pirates discussed issues of eternal damnation? Do they think that by associating Christianity with Captain Jack Sparrow, that it will somehow make Christianity more hip to the mall-going crowd?

Popular culture functions best when it is able to generate substantive dialogue about theological and spiritual issues. That substantive discussion, however, gets lost when popular culture becomes simply a tool to serve an agenda. Typically, it has been conservatives (religious or political) who have made the most egregious missteps in this regard. This is because Hollywood has traditionally been a bastion of liberal thinking -- it represents a turf war in which conservatives have lost most of the ground. So many are fighting to retake some territory. (This problem is not solely the possession of conservatives, though. Recently, I read an angry diatribe by a media democrat who was upset by the recent Republican conference that lauded the TV show "24" and engaged several of the creators and actors in dialogue about it. He wanted to claim "24" for the Democrats by insisting that the villainous President Logan was obviously Republican while the heroic President Palmer was clearly a Democrat, even though the show never identifies them as such and President Palmer possessed some traditionally Republican characteristics such as being pro-military and unapologetic about using extreme violence against terrorists. He was even known to willingly violate civil rights in the pursuit of justice. Is that the image Democrats want to claim?)

When popular culture becomes the tool of an agenda, those wielding it often end up looking foolish (like President Reagan who embraced Bruce Spingsteen's "Born in the USA" as the theme song for his campaign because of its seemingly patriotic title without realizing the song is a bitter protest against America's treatment of Vietnam veterans) or they end up getting more than they bargained for. Back in the 90's, Republicans made a big fuss about how Forrest Gump represented Republican ideals. Maybe so, but do you really want to hold up a dim-witted social misfit who only stumbles blindly into success as a symbol for your party?

What is needed in the church's relationship with popular culture is not a Hollywood PR campaign, but a more astute engagement with the material. Our shallow, devotional approach to film short changes both ourselves and the film itself. Films are visual novels and need to be "read" with the same depth and analytical rigor with which we read literature. Learning to do so can open up a wealth of insight and lead to the kind of cultural dialogue that makes us salt and light in the world.

The Falling and The Rising, Part 2

2006-07-12T09:31:00.000-04:00

In my previous post, I discussed songs on Bruce Springsteen's The Rising that address grief and the desire for revenge in the aftermath of 9/11. These fictional stories help us to work through and process the emotions that such a real catastrophic event provoke.

Another thing that fictional stories and music provide is inspiration and hope. Throughout the album Springsteen balances hopelessness and hopefulness through the juxtaposition of language and imagery: life vs death, darkness/night/evening vs light/day/morning, fire, blood, and tears vs faith, love, and strength. The most pervasive contrast on the album, though, is that of falling vs rising. Ultimately this album, produced in the aftermath of a crisis, is an album about how hope and faith can sustain us all through the darkness. For instance, the song "Waitin' On a Sunny Day" promises that even though "it's rainin' but there ain't a cloud in the sky," we can "chase the clouds away."

The song "Into the Fire" employs the imagery of falling and rising to tell the story of a fireman who gives his life trying to save those in the twin towers, told from the perspective of a loved one he left behind. It opens by telling us that "The sky was falling and streaked with blood." This imagery of falling and devastation is countered by the rising of this fireman into the very building that will fall.

You gave your love to me
and lay your young body down
Up the stairs, into the fire
Up the stairs, into the fire

You can't miss the double meaning in the words ofthe narrator of the song when she says, "I need you near, but love and duty called you someplace higher." This is a song about how the sacrifice of such individuals, about how, as Jesus says, no greater love exists than to lay down one's life for others, can inspire us all to live a more noble life. The chorus of this song takes the form of a prayer on behalf of the fallen hero.

May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love bring us love

In several songs on the album, this hope takes on an eschatological character, such as "Further On (Up the Road)." This song appears to be sung from the perspective of one who died in the attacks as he tells us that he's got on his "dead man's suit" and his "lucky graveyard boots." But the message of this song links back to that of "Waitin' on a Sunny Day", as he sings "One sunny mornin' we'll rise I know, and I'll meet you further on up the road."

I had the opportunity a few years ago to see Bruce Springsteen in concert as he was touring for The Rising. During the middle of the concert, he launched into a series of five songs, both old and new, that I took to be an intentional comment on 9/11. The middle three songs are fromThe Rising album, but the first and last song are much older Springsteen songs. Taken together, however, these five songs summarize well the entire message of The Rising album. The titles of the songs, taken in order, say it all:

"Darkness on the Edge of Town"
"You're Missing"
"Empty Sky"
"Waitin' On a Sunny Day"
"Promised Land"

They present a journey from suffering and tragedy through the emotional responses of grief and revenge to the hope for a better future. It is the movement from falling to rising.

The Falling and The Rising, Part 1

2006-07-08T16:59:00.000-04:00

My earlier post on "Cadillac Ranch" got me thinking about the power of fictional stories, particularly within popular music. The fictional narratives composed by great musical artists function in many ways, but the one that intrigues me at the moment is the use of fiction to comment on and cope with a non-fiction event.

After 9/11 many artists wrote songs as a means of national therapy, but no one harnessed the power of fiction as a means of analysis and comfort quite like Bruce Springsteen with his album The Rising -- a compendium of songs addressing 9/11 and its aftermath. In contrast to some songs that were quickly written and aired as a way of tapping immediately into the cultural mood, The Rising came out in 2002. That gap afforded Springsteen a bit of the perspective and reflection that comes from distance.

The songs on this album are mostly fictional tales of people impacted in one way or another by the events of 9/11. As such, they do not represent a unified point of view, but allow us to glimpse the event through the eyes and thoughts of people with very different viewpoints. One song, "Nothing Man," explores the problem of survivor guilt. "World's Apart" holds out hope for healing of the tensions that separate cultures and peoples. Even the perspective of a suicide bomber seems to find representation in "Paradise." Fiction here becomes a means of understanding the emotional responses of others as well as of ourselves.

A good example is the album's treatment of loss and grief. In the plaintive "You're Missing," Springsteen tells the story of a woman whose husband died in the attack. In listening to it, one feels the overwhelming grief of such loss.

Coffee cups on the counter,
jackets on the chair
Papers on the doorstep,
but you're not there. . .
Pictures on the nightstand,
TV's on in the den
Your house is waiting
for you to walk in
But you're missing,
you're missing.

More than just an ode to grief, this song also touches on the problem of evil that often finds expression in such moments. In the last stanza, the widowed woman states, God's drifting in heaven, devil's in the mailbox. I got dust on my shoes, nothing but teardrops. In a world where the devil is in the mailbox (anthrax attacks) and a young mother is left with nothing but dust and tears (grief and loss), it is a natural human response to wonder if God is paying attention or whether he is just drifting in heaven.

Providing another perspective on the topic is "Empty Sky." The situation here is the same. A husband or wife has been widowed by the attack on the twin towers. The sky that was formerly filled with those towers now stands empty as a constant reminder of what was lost. This symbol of a city's loss becomes for the person in this song a symbol of their more personal loss. Yet although the situation may be the same as in "You're Missing," the response represented in the song could hardly be more different. In "You're Missing" the bereaved responds with grief and confusion. In "Empty Sky" the response is the desire for revenge.

I woke up this morning, I could barely breathe
Just an empty impression
In the bed where you used to be
I want a kiss from your lips
I want an eye for an eye
I woke up this morning to an empty sky

The wronged person of the song cries out for vengeance and sees the murder of their beloved in the same light as the unjust murder of Cain (Genesis 4:10) when he/she cries out Blood on the streets, Blood flowin' down, I hear the blood of my blood, Cryin' from the ground.

One person wallows in grief and questions the presence of God ("You're Missing"); another ("Empty Sky") calls upon the biblical text (Genesis, "eye for an eye") as a justification for seeking revenge. A third song joins these perspectives together in a way that provides hope.

The song "Lonesome Day" opens the album and sets the tone. As with the other two, it is sung from the perspective of one who has lost a beloved in the attacks. He/she feels the grief and loss and desires only to make it through each "lonesome day." As with "Empty Sky", the protagonist of the song desires revenge. But this time Springsteen counsels that revenge may not provide the balm that people seek.

Better ask questions before you shoot
Deceit and betrayal's bitter fruit
It's hard to swallow, come time to pay
That taste on your tongue don't easily slip away

In fact, here Springsteen balances the need for revenge with another approach: faith. While addressing the desire to have this storm of horror and sorrow blow over, the protagonist of the song sings A little revenge and this too shall pass. Immediately after though, he/she states, This too shall pass, I'm gonnna pray. The victim in this song feels the despairing grief that prompts the desire for revenge, yet he/she ultimately seems to turn his/her hurting heart over to God, recognizing that the "bitter fruit" of vengeance will not heal the heart and make the storm pass. But prayer can show the way. Thus the song closes by balancing the chorus of "It's alright" with the declaration:

Let kingdom come
I'm gonna find my way
Through this lonesome day

Superman Returns

2006-07-03T15:41:00.000-04:00

I finally caught Superman Returns. My wife and I celebrated our wedding anniversary by going to a special "dinner and a movie" set up they have at a local theater. For a not-insignificant price, one is treated to a gourmet buffet meal at the theater followed by a showing of a film in a special theater decked out with recliner-like chairs and complimented with all the free popcorn and drinks one would like.

So having been well-fed and seated in my comfortable chair with popcorn at the ready, although a little concerned at how my bladder would hold up through a two hour and forty five minute movie after just downing a humongous amount of Pepsi and having my freshly refilled cup sitting next to me, I awaited the beginning of the show.

First, however, we were treated to the trailer for next summer's Spider-Man 3. Allow me to say again that it looks mind-numbingly awesome! The film is set to explore the dark side of power. The brief shot of the Sandman looked great. The movie is clearly following the black costume saga from the comic books which, as any true fan knows, means Venom cannot be far behind. I dare say that if the trailer lives up to its promise, Spider-Man 3 has the potential to surpass Spider-Man 2 as, in my humble estimation, the greatest superhero movie ever made -- and Spider-Man 2 is a pretty high bar to live up to.

But, oh yeah, this is a post about Superman. I thought the movie was very good. I would probably rank it 6th or 7th on my list of the best superhero movies, thus bumping the Hulk off. I thought the plot was solid and engaging. The idea to have the movie follow Superman 2 in continuity was bold and generally works. Kevin Spacey retains certain aspects of Gene Hackman's version of Lex Luthor while suitably making him more menacing. Brandon Routh similarly captures the essence of Christopher Reeve's portrayal, both sounding and looking like his version of Clark Kent. At the same time, I think Routh's Superman has a little more gravity (pardon the pun) to him.

Oddly what I found to be the most disappointing part of the film were the action sequences. The special effects are outstanding and the plane sequence is one of the more exciting action scenes in any movie, but as a whole some of the action had a "ho-hum" quality about it.

Of course, a feature that will be of interest to many is the christology of the film. Superman has always had a bit of the "Christ-figure" tint to him, what with being an only son sent to earth as a savior for humanity. This film not only does not shy away from this angle but plays it to the hilt, complete with death and resurrection imagery. There is no indication to my knowledge that Jerry Siegel, the creator of Superman, designed him with such implications. In fact, he is on record as stating that the initial inspiration for the character came from Hercules and Samson. But we seem to like our superheroes messianic, whether its the overt Messiah complex of Neo Anderson (The Matrix Trilogy) or Spider-Man's cross-like sacrifice on a hurtling train in Spider-Man 2.

Although I think Bryan Singer did a better job with X-Men 2 as a whole, I found Superman Returns to be an engaging and thoroughly enjoyable movie. It accomplished what any good comic book film should -- making me want to see the next installment.

Cadillac Ranch

2006-06-27T12:38:00.000-04:00

In the summer of 1984 I spent my days playing basketball, reading Stephen King novels, hanging out with friends, and mentally preparing myself for the daunting challenge that lay ahead -- senior year of high school. Then an event hit the popular music scene like an earthquake, the reverberations of which were felt even in my tiny midwestern town. June 4, 1984 saw the release of Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" album. At the time, this album sparked a tsunami of critical praise and fan adoration for Springsteen. It was also the album that captured my attention.

However, I am a bit of a completist (pardon my creation of new vocabulary). When I like a singer or group, I do not simply acquire one of their albums. I feel that if I am to listen at all, I should be a loyal listener and hear everything they have to sing. It's part of the explanation for why I currently own over 90 Elvis albums. I won't start on my Barry Manilow collection. (If you are one of those people who can't understand why anyone would choose to listen to Barry Manilow, then I am afraid you are beyond help and must remain forever unenlightened.)

So following my introduction to "Born in the USA", I went back and collected Springsteen's previous albums and was surprised to learn that an album prior to "Born in the USA" was actually superior in my estimation. That album was "The River." On this album is a fascinating song called "Cadillac Ranch." Springsteen's success in part stems from his position as a musical storyteller for the common person. Through his music, he addresses, comments on, deconstructs, and all around revels in the mundane occurrences of everyday life. Whether its hanging out on the boardwalk, going to a dead end job, or driving around in a stolen car, Springsteen shines a light on the unsung men and women who inhabit America's towns and, in the process, teaches us all something about life.

The message of "Cadillac Ranch" is simple compared to most of Springsteen's other songs. It is a song about the inevitability of death. Yet this dire message comes through a rousing rock song with pounding drums and an infectious beat. It reminds me why I like the Gin Blossoms. Their music is fun, bouncy, pop - yet have you ever listened closely to the lyrics? Underneath that patina of rocker joy lie some of the most depressing lyrics this side of the blues.

The title "Cadillac Ranch" derives from a famous landmark in Texas. Resting in a wheat field along Route 66 is a row of ten Cadillacs buried nose first in the ground. It is essentially a Cadillac cemetery. This visual seems to have prodded Springsteen to pen a song about Cadillacs and death. A cursory listen to the song makes one think he or she is listening to a joyful ode to cruising in a Cadillac. A closer listen, however, reveals that the Cadillac in question ("Cadillac, Cadillac, Long and dark, shiny and black") is a hearse. Essentially the message of the song is that none of us will escape a visit to the Cadillac Ranch.

James Dean in that Mercury '49
Junior Johnson runnin' thru the woods of Caroline
Even Burt Reynolds in that black Trans-Am
All gonna meet down at the Cadillac Ranch

I believe this is a song in which the message of the lyrics cannot be divorced from the music itself. These dire lyrics when coupled with the upbeat joyfulness of the music tell us that even though we cannot escape a trip to the Cadillac Ranch, we can still enjoy the journey there. The inevitability of death does not nullify the enjoyability of life. Or in the more poetic words of Springsteen:

Eldorado fins, whitewalls and skirts
Rides just like a little bit of heaven here on eartth
Well buddy when I die throw my body in the back
And drive me to the junkyard in my Cadillac

My Top 15 Superhero Movies, #1-5

2006-06-21T15:57:00.000-04:00

Well here are my top five. I feel very confident that all 5 of these movies deserve to be in the top 5 and I feel very strongly about my number one choice. Beyond that, though, many of these could be shuffled around within the top 5 and, in fact, I have shuffled them a bit myself before settling on this order.

5. X-Men 2

Although X-Men 3 might rise some in my admiration after a second viewing, I believe that this second installment in the series is easily the best. Whereas the first X-Men film was heavy on plot and light on action, the third film was light on plot and heavy on action. X-Men 2, however, got the balance between plot and action just right. The action scenes are top-notch, especially the opening scene with Nightcrawler, and these action scenes further the plot along.

4. Batman

The first Batman film is single-handedly responsible for the rise of the modern superhero film as it exists today. It did this by taking its subject matter seriously and attempting to represent the contemporary comic-book universe accurately on film. Batman is called The Dark Knight for a reason and this film demolishes the campy residue left over from the dated Batman TV series. It presents a Batman who is tortured, dark, and on a mission of vengeance - in short, the Batman of the comics. Michael Keaton does a superb job in the role and Nicholson's Joker has become a classic cinematic villain.

3. Spider-Man

It pains me to put this movie third rather than second. I love Spider-Man and this movie captures the character brilliantly. Sam Raimi made a smart choice in presenting the story of Spider-Man primarily as a love story, which is not far off the mark. Raimi also reportedly resisted studio pressure to have Spider-Man kill the villain at the end. Spider-Man simply does not kill. Period. It is a violation of his moral code ("With great power comes great responsibility.") The only mark against this film is that the special effects in a couple of early scenes in the movie are not as seamless as they should be. The only thing keeping this movie out of my number one spot is the strength of the remaining two films.

2. Batman Begins

This film retains the same dark take on Batman the first Michael Keaton/Tim Burton outing used, but it sets the story in a more real world by removing many of the gothic and fantastical elements. By treating the origin story of Batman, this film is able to dive more deeply into the psychological underpinnings of the character. More than in any other Batman film, we get a clear sense of why Batman does what he does. The villains are capable and interesting without overshadowing the real character of this story. This is Batman's story from beginning to end and Christian Bale captures the brooding, psychologically scarred persona of both Bruce Wayne and Batman admirably.

1. Spider-Man 2

The superhero of superhero movies. One of the many things that distinguish it is that for all of the exciting action sequences, Sam Raimi never allows his film to lose sight of the story. As with Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2 is a love story masquerading as an action film. The movie also remains true to the character of Peter Parker/Spider-Man as the misunderstood, hard-luck kid unexpectedly blessed with superpowers. What has always made Spider-Man the most relatable of all superheroes is that Peter Parker is just an ordinary guy who struggles to pay the bills, maintain relationships, and live a normal life, but who finds that his extraordinary gift often makes accomplishing those very difficult. He is the ordinary everyman with an extraordinary talent. The villain, Doctor Octopus, equally holds his own in this film. Always one of Spider-Man's most iconic villains, here he provides the perfect alter-ego to Spider-Man: two science geeks granted great power who must decide how to use that power.

Well, that's my list. As with most lists, it is constantly in flux and I trust that the next couple of years will provide new superhero movies that would bump some of these off. And there are plenty coming up with great promise: Spider-Man 3, Wolverine, Fantastic Four 2, Ghostrider, and Iron Man, among others. It's a good time to be a fan.

My Top 15 Super-Hero Movies, #6-10

2006-06-20T12:42:00.000-04:00

10. Superman 2

The action in this movie, combined with the always intriguing plot of one who sacrifices everything for love, puts it a notch above the first installment. Compared, however, with the advances in technology today and the increased emphasis on producing superhero movies that have serious acting weight and profound ideas behind them, it does not hold up as well now as it did in the 80's. As such, I have very high hopes for Superman Returns as it is directed by Bryan Singer who gave depth to the first two X-Men films. I suspect that the new film, had I seen it already, would find a high place on this list. After all, Superman deserves to soar.

9. Fantastic Four

I know many people didn't like this movie, finding it lightweight and a little too campy. I, on the other hand, went into it with fairly realistic expectations and so found it to be a fun movie. Personally, and I may be wrong on this, but I think that a serious film of the Fantastic Four wouldn't work very well. I think the airy lightness of this movie works in this case. If you tried to do this with a Batman movie, however, it would be a tragedy of epic proportions - as was proven by a Joel Schumacher film that shall remain unmentionable.

8. Daredevil

Daredevil is Spider-Man's dark cousin - a combination of Spider-Man and Batman mixed together in a boiling cauldron with a touch of cat's eyes. If you go into this film expecting a dark treatment of the theme of vengeance, you won't be caught off guard. It is a movie that is probably not to everyone's taste, but I found it very well-done. The irony of a blind lawyer seeking justice as a vigilante is intriguing. Of course, the main reason to see this movie is Jennifer Garner's performance as Elektra -- better in her few scenes in Daredevil than in the entire Elektra movie.

7. Batman Returns

Almost spoiled by the Penguin, but then redeemed by Catwoman. And any movie with Christopher Walken is a plus. Unfortunately, though, Batman himself pretty much plays second fiddle in this one.

6. X-Men

The first film in this series benefits greatly from Bryan Singer's attempt to approach the movie as a relatively serious take on prejudice. The opening scene set in a German concentration camp sets the tone well. Although the film is a little light on action as a whole, it is carried forward by an engaging plot and the even more engaging Wolverine as played by Hugh Jackman.

My Top 15 Superhero Movies, #11-15

2006-06-15T14:27:00.000-04:00

First, a few ground rules. I have excluded animated films from the list, although had I chosen not to, then The Incredibles would not doubt have made it. Likewise I am excluding made-for-television movies which regrettably knocks the two-hour pilot episode of The Flash off.

So here is my list of the greatest superhero movies in ascending order.

15. Hulk

This movie represents the anguish of unfulfilled promise. All the pieces appeared to be in place: a well-respected, artistic director (Ang Lee) and a solid cast of Oscar-nominated actors in service to one of the most well-known and intriguing superheroes in the marvel pantheon. Where did it all go wrong? It seems to me that Lee's artistic instincts got in the way of this one. His attempt to film the movie as though it were a comic book, complete with a paneled layout, did not work for me. I find it needlessly distracting. The saving grace of the film are those scenes when Bruce Banner is Hulked out. Although some criticized the movie's special effects, I found the Hulk himself to be riveting. Unfortunately, the movie drags whenever the Hulk is not on screen.

14. Batman Forever

I love the Batman character and am quite fond of this film as a whole, but certain features conspire to keep it near the bottom of the list. First, this film represents the beginning of the downward trend for the Batman franchise due to director Joel Schumacher's decision to move the franchise into a campier mode, eventually culminating in his next Batman movie -- a film of which we shall never speak. Second, the film wasted a couple of potentially outstanding villains. I like Jim Carrey, but the film could have exploited his role as The Riddler in a better way. Likewise Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face. Two-Face is such a multi-faceted (pardon the pun) villain that he is wasted in what amounts to little more than a supporting role. Finally, the scene at the end where Batman decides that he is Batman not because he needs to be, but because he chooses to be, is a violation of the very nature of the character. What makes Batman interesting is the desire for vengeance that drives him and, at times, almost consumes him.

13. Blade

Not your traditional superhero, Blade is a part human, part vampire, hunter of all that is Undead. I could attempt to wax eloquent about the metaphorical use of vampires in horror movies throughout the century, but the fact is that what makes this movie work are the intense and seemingly non-stop action sequences.

12. X-Men 3

Another example of a new director taking over an established franchise and moving it in a different direction. In this case, Brett Ratner does a good job of sticking with the ongoing story line, but he largely removes from the film the underlying angst and dramatic tension that made Bryan Singer's first two attempts so effective. The metaphor of the X-Men as representative of the outsider, be it racial, social, sexual, etc, was employed subtly and to great effect in Singer's movies, but here is made too obvious. Some of the action sequences are outstanding, but the film ultimately adds up to little more than action scenes linked together by plot contrivances.

11. Superman

The first Superman movie was great for its time, but the special effects don't quite hold up as well today. Gene Hackman does a fine job as Lex Luthor, but the whole villain angle here comes across as somewhat campy, thus robbing it of full resonance.

The Golden Age of the Superhero

2006-06-13T19:32:00.000-04:00

I owe my fascination with comic books to ice cream. My father owned the Dipper Dan ice cream shop (a playful nod to the Dapper Dan hair treatment that is the pride and joy of Everettt McGill -- a connection I never made until a recent viewing of O Brother, Where Art Thou) in our local mall. One evening when I was twelve, he was leaving the mall after work and stopped by the dumpster. The book store owner had thrown away a huge trash bag full of comic books -- rather than returning entire unsold comic books to the distributor, the practice was to rip off the cover and return that for a refund. So my father brought the bag of cover-less comics home and my brother and I had a fun week pouring through all of them.

Of all the different super-heroes I read about, the one that most captured my imagination was Spider-Man. I began collecting every Spider-Man comic book I could get my hands on and have continued that habit to this day. Of course, it made it a whole lot easier when my mother bought the book store that was across the hall from Dipper Dan. Those were the days -- sitting in our book store reading comic books and then taking a break to walk across the hall and get free ice cream.

I have no patience for high-culture snobs (Is that transition rough enough?). The distinction between high culture and popular culture (often termed "low culture") is rather artificial. Popular culture has the ability to move, engage, and challenge its audience in ways that sometimes transcend that of the designated high culture. A concert of classical music no doubt connects with its audience in a profound way, but even that pales in comparison to U2's ability to spark something akin to a revival among an audience that is singing along to "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." When Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) holds weekly Shakespeare readings at his home for the cast of his show or when a show like the Gilmore Girls can mix knowing references to Marcel Proust and Xuxa without catching a breath, the veil between high and low culture becomes awfully transparent. I believe in the transparency of that veil. It is one of the reasons why I choose to teach readings in ancient Greek literature while wearing my Spider-Man ties. (Unless, of course, it is approaching the Super Bowl at which time I wear my Steelers tie -- or if its finals week in December when my Grinch ties seem more appropriate).

This post began as my attempt to provide a lame academic commentary on X-Men 3. We were going to discuss metaphor and the cultural role of tolerance. Yet it appears that my train of thought has taken me somewhere else. In the last two decades we have seen the rise of a new genre of film - the superhero movie. Some of these are far better films than just about anything you will find languishing under the gaze of the high culture snobs (the foreign and independent films). Others, alas, not so much. So I think for my next few posts, I am going to rate in installments of 5 (with brief comment) what I consider to be the fifteen best superhero movies. I hope you will be interested in checking some of them out - just don't forget to bring the ice cream.

Jesus of the Gospels or the Jesus of the Church?

2006-06-07T11:15:00.001-04:00

I came across an interesting passage in the C. S. Lewis biography I have been reading. Prior to his conversion to Christianity, Lewis was a thorough-going atheist who strongly resisted the biblical depiction of God and particularly of Christ. As he began opening his mind to Christianity, he started to read the Gospels and was surprised by the depiction of Jesus he found there. The Jesus he encountered there was not at all the Jesus the church and society had led him to believe could be found there.

Most Americans today, even more so than the Europeans of Lewis' time, operate with a faulty perception of Jesus. This misperception grows out of gospel illiteracy and is perpetuated through the depictions of Jesus we find in films and television. But make no mistake about it, popular culture is not at fault here. The primary source of this misperception is the church itself. Christians have bought into and perpetuated the idea that Jesus was all about love, forgiveness, and compassion. Love, forgiveness, and compassion are absolutely true representations of Jesus, but they are only part of the picture. When Christians talk about Jesus as their "friend," "buddy", or "big brother," they turn him into little more than a divine Mr. Rogers ("Jesus is my neighbor").

We operate with a watered-down version of Jesus because we don't read the Gospels completely and carefully. As Lewis found out, the Jesus one meets in the Gospels is a Jesus with an edge. He can be harsh, uncompromising, and , frankly, terrifying. I'm just flying off the top of my head here, but it seems to me that whenever people encounter Jesus in the Gospels, they experience one of four responses: joy, confusion, anger, or terror. Some of the parables that Jesus tells are extremely violent (this says something about how violence functions within fictional stories, like parables, and raises certain questions about how one should evaluate the portrayal of violence within popular culture -- but that is a post for another day).

I don't know why we prefer to hide behind our stained glass, Sunday School versions of Jesus rather than the Jesus of the Gospels. Or maybe I do. Perhaps we don't want to face the fact that fear may be just as accurate a response to Jesus as is joy.

Doc and Dustin

2006-05-29T12:14:00.000-04:00

The other day, at a random impulse, I picked up the 1992 World Book Encyclopedia and flipped open to the "H's". I found a nice article, complete with picture, of Dustin Hoffman. Completely absent, however, was any entry on Doc Holliday. This, to me, says a lot about our society.

As big a fan as I am of popular culture, I confess to being a little disturbed when we hail actors as being worthy of greater mention than some of the most iconic figures of American history. There is simply no way that Dustin Hoffman, as fine an actor as he is, is anywhere near as cool as Doc Holliday. If you know a person by the praise given him or her by his or her peers, then consider this. Dustin's fellow actors hail him as the one of the finest performers of his generation, a "Jewish Deniro." Doc's fellow gun man, Wyatt Earp, called him "the most skillful gambler, and the nerviest, fastest, deadliest man with a six-gun I ever saw." Case Closed. After all, how can you beat a southern gentleman DENTIST who suddenly decides he'd rather spend his days in knife fights and gun battles? (Although on second thought, I can imagine some dentists to whom that might appeal.)

Here's further evidence for your consideration: Dustin married respectable ladies named Anne and Lisa; Doc traveled with a loose woman known as "Big Nose" Kate. In I Heart Huckabees, Dustin played a man named Bernard. Doc Holliday killed people for having names like that.

In one of my earlier posts on The Da Vinci Code, I lamented the problem of people learning their history from fictional novels and films. Of course, fiction can be an accurate portrayer of historical events; however, the problem lies with people simply accepting what they are presented with at face value because they have no historical knowledge from which to assess it. They take it all in and it becomes a part of their historical framework without them knowing what is true and what is not. This results in people thinking that Mary Magdalene was actually at the Last Supper or that one of the highlights of WWII was when our boys saved Private Ryan.

Nevertheless, fiction can be a catalyst for historical investigation. In the 1990's, Hollywood produced two movies featuring Doc Holliday as a character, neither of which starred Dustin Hoffman. In the first, Tombstone, Doc was played to perfection by Val Kilmer in one of the shining moments of his career. In the second, Wyatt Earp, which came out shortly after, Dennis Quaid strapped on Doc's six-shooter. Although I love Kilmer's portrayal more, Dennis did a better job, I think, of capturing the physical look of Holliday, although it's close call (That's Doc first followed by Kilmer on the left and Quaid on the right).

After seeing these two fictionalized accounts of very real historical events, I was intrigued by the story and so checked out of the library a variety of books on Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp to learn what was fact and what was fiction in these films. Watching the two movies in close succession and comparing their differing portrayals of the same event can be very illuminating. For instance, they take very different approaches to the shootout at the OK Corral. In a sense, both capture different aspects of the event as eyewitnesses from the time gave several competing descriptions of what really happened. Although Tombstone is definitely the more Hollywoodized version, while Wyatt Earp presents the story in a seemingly more historical fashion, there were interesting moments where Tombstone was more historically accurate than the other.

Most intriguing is their portrayals of Doc Holliday. In Tombstone, Doc is played by Kilmer as a fun-loving, if fatalistic, killer, while Quaid's version is more morose. The wit remains, but it is more biting and dark. The tuberculosis, which gave Holliday his fatalistic outlook, is certainly present in Tombstone, although often under the surface, while in Quaid's portrayal it is never far from one's mind. He lost much weight for the role so that he looks like a dead man walking.

The two movies have very different sensibilities to them. They both present many of the same historical events, but Tombstone aims for a standard Hollywood blockbuster. The goal is to capture the attention of the audience and bring them along on a thrilling ride. It succeeds admirably. Wyatt Earp, by contrast, is a three-hour epic that attempts to address the topic of mythmaking. There is a scene at the end of the film where Wyatt Earp as an old man is approached by a kid who asks him about one of the famous events of his career. It is clear from the way he asks that the real event has already become colored over with the tint of legend. In short Wyatt Earp wants to show us how the man became the myth.

And that is what movies are all about. They perpetuate myth -- an important enterprise that is not to be sneezed at, but it also makes the viewer's task of distinguishing truth from legend more of a challenge. But what a fun challenge it can be.

The Necessity of Fiction

2006-05-27T09:52:00.000-04:00

I mentioned that I was going to post on Doc Holliday next, but another thought popped into my head in response to a comment left by BW on the previous post. He talks about how fiction can work its way into the reality of our lives. Yesterday I was reading a book on C. S. Lewis that was discussing his connection to G. K. Chesterton. In one of Chesterton's early writings from 1901, he discusses the role of the sort of pop culture off his day versus high literature. Chesterton makes the intriguing statement that "literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity." That thought intrigues me. Fiction, paradoxically, is a necessary force for constructing and dealing with our reality. I'll have more to say on this in the future, but for now wanted to throw that thought out there.

Entertainment or Theology?

2006-05-25T19:45:00.000-04:00

One final post on The Da Vinci Code and then I will shut up about it -- at least until I see the movie. A recent editorial dealt with the movie's treatment of history and concluded with the comment that we really shouldn't get too worked up over the issue because, after all, the movie is entertainment, not theology. I agree that debates over the historical claims of the work should be tempered in light of its obvious fictional nature, but to claim that The Da Vinci Code is not theology is misguided. Pop culture is all about communication. Any show, film, novel, or song, no matter how seemingly banal or vacant, is preaching a message of some kind, intentional or not. Despite being fiction, this movie is doing theology (although it may be doing it poorly) and until we take seriously the fact that every work of art to some degree grows out of a philosophical or theological worldview, we will fail to engage these works appropriately. Enough ranting -- next time I plan to talk about a real meaty subject: Doc Holliday.

Orthodoxy, Heresy, and The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-16T19:11:00.000-04:00

A recent editorial in USA Today questioned why the media obsessed about the historical accuracy of The Passion of the Christ, yet seems largely uninterested in raising the issue of the historical accuracy of The Da Vinci Code. The author of the editorial does recognize that one purports to represent a historical event while the other is a fictional story, but nonetheless suggests that there is a double standard in how the mainstream media treats topics related to Christianity. There may be a valid point here. The media has a history of criticizing films that contain an overt or positive Christian connection (The Passion, Chronicles of Narnia), while giving a pass to films which themselves are critical of Christianity.

Although many factors are involved, I want to suggest one reason for this dichotomy. In 1934, a book came out in Germany that had a revolutionary impact on the study of early Christian history: Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity by Walter Bauer. This book altered the entire landscape of the study of early Christianity by arguing that great diversity of thought existed among the early Christians and many of these ideas were in comptetition with one another. Bauer argues that the ideas that eventually won the day and crystallized into our current orthodoxy (correct doctrine) did so not because they were the most correct or truthful ideas, but simply because the people who held to those views were in the majority and possessed the most political power. They thus suppressed competing versions of Christianity, like Gnosticism, and silenced their voices.

Implicit in Bauer's book is the suggestion that these suppressed, alternate versions of Christianity need to be allowed to speak anew and, if so allowed, might in fact reveal to us deeper truths than can be found in the "official" teachings of Christianity. This idea took hold in liberal circles of Christian scholarship and led to many embracing Gnosticism and other early Christian "heresies" as more true than the teachings of the canonical Scriptures. Essentially Bauer's work led to the belief for many that traditional Christian orthodoxy is in fact heresy and that which the Church identified as heresy is in fact orthodoxy.

Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, essentially works out of this radical reinterpretation of early Christianity. Where things have taken off in mainstream culture recently is that this radical stream of Christian scholarship has dovetailed nicely with our broader cultural emphasis on tolerance of competing voices, lifestyles, etc. The idea that truth is all relative and that any form of institutionalized "truth" (as in the church) is only a matter of power and suppression has dug its roots deep in contemporary American culture. Consequently, Christianity as a whole is viewed by many as an oppressive, power-hungry institution that still seeks to silence any alternate ideas or views.

I've heard many people wonder why those in our society who push for tolerance of all viewpoints and beliefs are often so intolerant of Christianity. I believe the reason lies in their belief that orthodox Christianity is the cause of most intolerance in society -- Christians appear intolerant of other religions, of differing viewpoints, of alternative moral choices, and of alternative lifestyles. In their way of thinking, traditional Christianity must be deprived of its cultural power or else it will only continue to suppress diversity. Consequently, they seek to defend all those whose voices have been supposedly silenced by the oppression of Christianity, while simultaneously chipping away at the perceived cultural hegemony that Christianity is believed to enjoy through its ungodly exercise of political power.

If we are aware of these historical currents, the actions of today's mainstream media should come as no surprise. Of course the media will seek to undermine The Passion of the Christ because it dares to present a version of the crucifixion that is in line with the official Gospel accounts, thus perpetuating Christianity's suppresssion of alternative interpretations of the cross.

Of course the media will knowingly hint that The Chronicles of Narnia are nothing but Christian propaganda because C. S. Lewis is a torch-bearing representative of orthodox Christianity.

Of course the media will gleefully trumpet The Gospel of Judas because it represents one of those early strands of Christianity (Gnosticism) supposedly silenced by the established church and so it must now be allowed to speak loudly and clearly.

Of course the media will feed the Da Vinci Code frenzy because Dan Brown is fighting the good fight in suggesting that the church has used its political power to suppress what was really at the center of early Christianity: the sacred feminine. It is the church's characteristic oppression of women, according to Brown, that obscured the truth about Mary Magdalene.

The problem with this is not Walter Bauer's claim for the diversity of early Christianity. This was in fact one of the benefits of his work. Furthermore, acknowledging that early Christianity was very diverse in its teaching and practice should come as no surprise, since the writings of the New Testament are themselves a witness to the great diversity of thought and practice in early Christianity. In short, the church canonized diversity. The problem is Bauer's reconstruction of the development of early Christian history. Orthodox Christianity won out not because of the strength of its political position but because of the power of its beliefs.

Da Vinci Dementia

2006-05-12T17:35:00.000-04:00

I've stayed on the sidelines during the whole Da Vinci Code furor. I haven't read the book. I will probably see the movie if only to be able to discuss it intelligently with my students and others. Nevertheless, I am fascinated by the reaction it is causing among Christians.

There seems to be great confusion over how to respond to this phenomenon. Some view Dan Brown as the pen name of Satan and would burn every book and frame of film they could get their hands on. Others counsel boycotts of the film or similar strategies designed to "send a message" to Hollywood. Still more, realizing that such "messages" rarely get through and often only serve to garner more attention for a film, suggest we just ignore the whole thing altogether. Then there are those who feel we should embrace it as an opportunity for dialogue with others about the Christian faith.

What's the best approach? I don't know. A case can be made for each option, some stronger than others. What bothers me the most about the whole ordeal is simply that this book/movie is even an issue to begin with. I don't understand people who think they are getting accurate history out of a fictional novel. From what I do know about the book, the factual and historical errors that undergird Brown's story are so blatant and obvious to anyone with a minimal knowledge of ancient history that he makes Oliver Stone look like a paragon of historical responsibility. This book/movie's claims about Christianity are so far off-base historically that it poses no threat to authentic Christian faith. Unfortunately, we live in a society in which most people consider ancient history to be synonymous with the events of the 1950's. And frankly, this historical ignorance extends as much to Christians as to others. As Keith Huey, Rochester College's church historican, has noted, most Christians don't know how the Bible was formulated or who the early Church Fathers are or what other gospels were written beyond those in our canon. For Christians, perhaps the real battle here should not be against the Da Vinci Code, but against our own apathy towards in-depth historical and theological study.

Lost Spirituality, Part 2

2006-05-08T11:27:00.000-04:00

[SPOILER ALERT: If you have not yet seen this week's episode of Lost, be forewarned that the following comments reveal important plot points. Proceed at your own risk.]
This week's episode of Lost effectively revealed the double edge of the title. The poor souls stranded on this island are not so much lost geographically as they are lost spiritually. All of the crash survivors have dark secrets, character flaws, or difficult struggles from their past that they need either to atone for or overcome. They appear to have lost their way in some form or another.

Previous episodes have hinted at the idea that these people are on the island in order to find some measure of redemption or healing (literal or figurative as the case may be). As Sara noted in an earlier comment, it is interesting that the mysterious "Others" only kidnap those survivors who they deem to be "good" -- in whatever way they define the term.

The most recent episode made me think about the function of death on the show. I wonder if, whenever a main character dies on the show, they do so after first achieving some form of redemption. For instance, Shannon, whose primary flaw was a deep and abiding self-centeredness died shortly after genuinely learning to care for others in a selfless way. The apparent death of Ana Lucia in this past week's episode (assuming the death holds true) follows a similar pattern. Henry Gale, one of the Others, informed her earlier in the episode that one of his number saw in her the potential to become one of the "good" ones they seek. Ana Lucia's dark secret was that she had once killed a man in cold blood who had early tried to kill her. After Henry Gale attempts to kill her, she finds herself reliving the past. With a gun in her hand, she stands prepared to kill another man in cold blood in retaliation for his atttempt on her life. This time she chooses not to kill. Shortly after, she dies. I don't know if this pattern holds true for Boone (I haven't thought enough about him), but I find it intriguing food for thought.

Walden Media and the Moral Story

2006-05-05T13:20:00.000-04:00

Keep your eye on Walden Media, an up and coming power player in the Hollywood business, as noted recently by Entertainment Weekly (America's magazine of choice). The story of this company's rise is an interesting one, and one that illustrates how many Christians fail to grasp what a "moral" story really is. In our constant attempt to wring all complexity or ambiguity out of stories, we have traditionally defined moral stories solely with reference to the amount of sex, violence, and profanity present. This despite the fact that the Bible contains sex, violence, and even vulgarities, thus demonstrating that such things can be present in the telling of "moral" stories. We have largely ignored the most central element of a "moral" story, which is the overall perspective or moral vision that the story communicates. Failing to recognize this has led to many Christians embracing shows as wholesome (due to the lack of sex, violence, and profanity) that are in fact communicating immoral messages. On the flip side, it also leads to rejecting shows with a sound moral vision because of certain undesirable content elements (Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes to mind, as I argue in my book).

Walden Media is run by a man with the awesome name of Cary Granat. Formerly, Granat was the President of Dimension Films where he produced the Scream and Scary Movie franchises. He left that company to create Walden Media, which specializes in turning great children's literature into film: Charlotte's Web, Holes, The Chronicles of Narnia. Why the change? He became disillusioned with the messages that were being communicated through his prior films. What bothered him, however, was not the sex, violence, and profanity that characterizes the Scream and Scary Movie franchises; it was the cynicism that such movies promote.

A movie may be quite pristine in content, yet loaded with cynicism or other unhealthy perspectives. Because Christians have naively equated "good" and "bad" media with either the absence or presence of sex and violence, we have missed out on much in popular culture that is beneficial and embraced much that is not.

The Movie Marathon

2006-05-02T09:31:00.000-04:00

In my college and graduate school days, a perfect weekend was getting together with a couple friends, stockpiling pizza, ice cream, and other assorted junk foods, and then settling in for a mini movie marathon. I've decided that the right length of a mini movie marathon is three movies. Anyone can do two, four is right out, and with five the nervous system begins to shut down. So three is the magic number.

However, these days I find precious few opportunities for such frivolity. Most of my movie-watching buddies now live in other states from me and having young children pretty much means that six-hour blocks of uninterrupted time are now non-existent. Yet, I often find myself getting nostalgic about such times. One such period of reminiscing led me to imagine ideal movie groupings. Typically, our movie selections for these marathons were eclectic and random, with little to no forethought involved. This often led to combinations like Face Off, JFK, and Tommy Boy, thus creating a form of cinematic whiplash. So I began to devise my own list of movie trilogies that would be fitting for juvenile movie sessions (I use "juvenile" here in the sense of lack of maturity, not lack of age).

I created a few ground rules, though. First, sequels do not count. Watching Die Hard 1, 2, and 3 lacks creativity. Second, there must be a unifying theme to the movies that has more depth or oddity to it than something like all Adam Sandler movies (not to say that such a collection would not produce a fine night indeed). I'm thinking more along the lines of comedies that involve fruit.

I'll share three of the trilogies I've devised over the years. One would be "Movies Involving the Classic Monsters from Universal Films Starring Respected Hollywood Actors in the Titular Roles." This night would kick off with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Robert Deniro), followed by Wolf (Jack Nicholson), and concluding with Bram Stoker's Dracula (Gary Oldman). My second trilogy would be "Recent B-Movies of the Horror Genre Invovling Unnaturally Large or Genetically Enhanced Creatures." This set includes Lake Placid (gargantuan crocodiles), Deep Blue Sea (gargantuan, genetically smartened sharks), and Anaconda (gargantuan, well, anacondas). My final entry in this trilogy of trilogies is "Thrillers on Air Planes Involving Deranged, Self-Absorbed Criminal Types," such as Air Force One, Flight Plan, and Red Eye. However, I suspect that in the near future I will need to substitute Air Force One with a new cinematic tour de force coming this August to a theater near you: Snakes On a Plane. In fact, if the filmmaker could see fit to make these gargantuan, genetically-smartened snakes on a plane, I could neatly overlap two of my categories.

Now I only need to find some new buddies to watch them with.

Are Lost, Alias, Invasion Too Intellectually Demanding?

2006-04-27T14:03:00.000-04:00

As a follow-up to my previous post, I came across a newspaper article yesterday by a television critic (Robert Bianco) attempting to explain why Alias and Invasion have struggled to hold onto the audience of Lost, which preceeds them on Wednesday night. Although there are no doubt other factors involved as well, his suggestion is that these three hours of televsion demand too much attention from the audience. All three series require active intellectual engagement in order to follow the complex interweaving of plots and subplots, the extensive character development, and the employment of metaphor. No show currently combines all three of these better than Lost, prompting Bianco to claim this is "why Lost may be the best show on TV at the moment."

Whether right or wrong, it is an argument that illustrates the rapidly improving state of serialized television today. Back in the days of Three's Company and The Brady Bunch, it would be hard to imagine anyone arguing that fictional television shows demanded too much mental work from viewers.

Television vs. the Book

2006-04-25T09:55:00.000-04:00

Let me start out by saying I love to read. I read almost anything I can get my hands on (academic works, novels, newspapers, magazines, comic books) and I read at all hours of the day. You would be hard-pressed to find a stronger proponent of the benefits and wonders of reading than myself. However, I am also an avid TV watcher. (People sometimes ask me how I have time to do both. I have found that it helps to do both simultaneously, a wonderful skill I trained hard for during my many years of graduate school).

As a staunch defender of both enterprises, one of my pet peeves is when elitists argue that the act of reading a book is superior to the act of watching television. (Please notice my emphasis on "act." I am not talking about comparing content -- that is another discussion). The arguments are familiar and, when coming from avid readers, often hypocritical. Television viewing is contributing to the obesity problem in America, they say, because it makes people sit in sedentary fashion on their various couches. All the while, of course, readers are burning numerous calories as they sit in sedentary fashion on their various couches holding a book. If we really want to counteract the obesity problem, we have to be serious about giving up television AND reading.

Or, literary elitists suggest that watching television is an anti-social activity that cuts us off from necessary human interaction. They are able to say this because sitting alone in a chair with one's face stuck in a book is a highly social activity.

Perhaps the one that gets to me the most, though, is the claim that reading is an intellectually active exercise while watching TV is intellectually passive. "You just sit and take images in with no intellectual or emotional engagement," they say. "You are a passive receiver rather than an active participant," they helpfully add.

People who say such things are people who do not watch much TV (at least not good TV). Those who do know what an active exercise, emotionally, socially, and intellectually, it can be.

Some Evidence:

I was not a passive viewer when the 2005 NFL Playoff game between the Steelers and the Colts nearly put me into cardiac arrest (for those who do not know, I am a lifelong Steelers fan). I have friends who regularly yell, scream, and jump up and down while watching TV, sometimes even when sports events are on.

I think of the social and intellectual benefits of sitting in a dilapidated graduate dorm room in Memphis with Tony, Bruce, and George, while The Simpsons sparked communal laughter and dialogue about the truth of its satirical worldview.

I think of Dave in Atlanta, and how every Friday night we would gather to watch and discuss The X-Files and The Practice. Group television viewing has replaced the book club as the place for social and intellectual engagement. Engaging in dialogue over a book requires locating someone else who has recently read the book. If not, it requires extensive summarizing of the plot (after which the other person is still ill-informed) or waiting an extended period until they finish it. By contrast, all across the country people are gathering together for Lost parties or communal 24 viewings and discussing as they watch. Television provides an immediacy of active intellectual engagement with others that reading simply cannot possibly attain.

Television is a family activity where members do more than passively sit in a room together. They engage the show together and discuss it both during and after. Television likewise creates a kind of national community through the "watercooler" effect. A nation may be hopelessly divided over who killed Nicole Simpson, but they will band together in unity to discover who shot J.R.

On an individual level, good television stimulates thinking. Two years later I find myself continuing to revisit and think about the episode called "Silence" that concluded the first season of Joan of Arcadia. My initial viewing of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode, "Once More, With Feeling," provided one of the single most provocative TV viewing experiences I've ever had. Likewise, the Buffy silent episode "Hush" still has me dwelling on its message about nonverbal communication. The mysteries of Lost regularly present viewers with a mental puzzle for them to dwell on and discuss throughout the week.

There are benefits that come from reading that cannot be replaced by television viewing; but the reverse is also true. The problem with comparing TV viewing to reading is that they are completely different enterprises that engage us in different ways. I suggest we need to appreciate the value of both. I would write more but the latest John Sandford novel and the recent episode of 24 beckon me.

The Passion of the Saved!

2006-04-15T11:24:00.000-04:00

Hollywood-induced Christian schizophrenia seems widespread. How else to explain that Christians consistently complain about the amount of violence coming out of Hollywood and yet, as a recent study indicated, Christians tend to go see violent movies in the theater more often than do non-Christians. Of course, the inconsistency works both ways. Has anyone noticed the irony in the fact that so many Hollywood artists and producers who regularly flood the market with violent content were some of the most outspoken critics of The Passion of the Christ due to its violent content?

One week ago USA Today (America's newspaper of choice) published an article on the front page titled "Hollywood Turns to Divine Inspiration." The point of the article is that religiously-themed movies are flooding the market this year and thus, to some extent, re-shaping the Hollywood landscape. Given Hollywood's long-standing aversion to movies with substantive Christian content, this may come close to qualifying as one of the signs of the apocalypse. For many Christians, though, this represents an answer to prayer.

But when dealing with Hollywood, I think these same Christians are learning to be careful of what they pray for. Because when you play in Hollywood's sandbox, they may help you build a castle, but then they will just knock it down. These believers applaud when The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe hits a theater near them, but then weep and wail when it is shortly followed by The Davinci Code.

We've seen this before. A few years ago, church members were doing somersaults of joy when The Passion of the Christ hit the screen. Just a few short months later, though, another Christian-themed movie came out called Saved! The producers of this film thought that their movie would benefit from The Passion feeding-frenzy because it proved that Christians wanted to see movies with Christian content. Boy, were they wrong. Saved! was savagely attacked by many Christian reviewers and denounced by churches. What the producers of Saved! failed to realize was that Christians do not want Christian-themed movies; what they want are movies that present a pristine, idealistic, uncomplicated and unrealistic vision of Christianity.

The problem with Saved! was that it did not do this. (A little disclaimer: I have not seen Saved! and so what I say is based only on what I have read about the film). Saved! is a satire of the Christian high school experience. As such, it pokes fun at Christianity with the intent of revealing certain truths about it -- both positive and negative. I find it interesting that the positive reviews of the film by Christians that I was able to find came from individuals who had attended a Christian high school and claimed that the film captured the essence of the experience in all its complicated reality.

I am not recommending this film, as I have not seen it, but I like the way that it exposes the difficulty that Christians are having with identifying just what our relationship with Hollywood should be. As I see it, two different camps have been staked out on this issue, both of which are represented by quotes in the USA Today article. The first comes from a minister in Arizona who applauds the increase of faith-based films, stating, "We're looking for things that help us deliver our message." That right there is the heart of the problem. Too many Christians have abdicated their responsibility to Hollywood. It is the church's job to get its message delivered, not Hollywood's. If you hope for Hollywood to deliver your message for you, of course you are going to be upset when movies like Saved! and The Davinci Code come out because they are not delivering the message you want. The first step to dealing responsibly with Hollywood is to stop expecting Hollywood to do our job for us.

Only when we learn to let go of this unrealistic and misguided expectation, can we begin to recognize the real value that Hollywood's product can have for the church. We are pointed in this direction by a man who speaks as a member of the Hollywood community. J. J. Abrams, the creator of Alias and Lost, a show which regularly examines faith issues, states: "We're seeing more religion in mass entertainment because it has become so topical. Given all the conflict in the world based on religion, I think there's a real hunger for that kind of dialogue." He's right. There is a hunger out there for religious dialogue. The value of film and television lies not in its ability to communicate our message for us but in its insurmountable ability to create dialogue about issues of life and faith. They do not deliver the message for us, but they can get the conversation started. And, ironically, movies like Saved! and The Davinci Code may do a better job of opening those avenues of dialogue than do movies that simply repeat the Sunday sermon.

Is Buffy the new Hamlet?

2006-04-15T11:21:00.000-04:00

Historical perspective is an interesting phenomenon. When I was a kid I thought Ultraman was the coolest show going, but now it seems awfully cheesy, even by today's Power Rangers' standards. The simple passage of time allows us to see things in a new light. Popular culture certainly represents this phenomenon. It is often mentioned how Shakespeare was considered something of a populist and not all that well-received by the cultural elite of his time.

While reading a biography of C. S. Lewis (The Narnian), I came across a passage that got me thinking. The author, Alan Jacobs, discusses how the modern novel as a literary genre is a relative newcomer on the literary scene (about 300 years old) and has, consequently, had to struggle for acceptance. He says that for the first hundred years of the novel's existence, people viewed it as a lightweight and inconsequential piece of popular culture that paled in comparison with epic poetry. As such, the works of people like Charles Dickens were held to be mere entertainment and not real artistry. Of course, eventually perspective shifted and the novel is now credited with contributing numerous examples of classic literature.

I can't help but wonder if we are in the midst of a similar cultural shift with respect to film and television. How much of the negative evaluation of film and particularly television is due to objective analysis as opposed to culturally constructed biases? In fact, the historical perspective appears to be shifting already . Whereas film and television was long denigrated by academics as nothing more than lightweight entertainment, now numerous academics are treating film and television as pieces of art requiring academic study. A small group of academics are even suggesting the creation of a canon of classic television, in which select television shows would be treated with the same reverence and academic interest as classic literature. Many of these same academics argue that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the new Shakespeare. I am not willing to go quite that far, but I don't deny their point.

Steven Johnson is a science writer who looks to have written an intriguing book (thanks to Emily Dial-Driver for turning me on to it). The title says it all: Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter. He suggests that film, television, and, yes, even reality shows are engaging us in beneficial ways. I hope to read the book over the summer and offer a series of reflections on it as I go. But for now, I leave this thought behind: Two hundred years from now, will people be looking back at shows like Lost, Gilmore Girls, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer with the same reverence that we study Nathaniel Hawthorne, Dickens, and Poe?

Faith, Science, and The Simpsons

2006-04-12T09:18:00.000-04:00

In response to my post on "The Worship of U2, Part One", my friend Bruce left a comment questioning the relationship between post-modernism and science. My reply to his comment began to grow so long that I just decided to adapt it here as a post. As I am not an expert on post-modernism, my comments are part guesswork, but I think he is right in exposing the often inconsistent attitude that post-moderns can have towards science and other products of a modern worldview. I think, however, that this is natural. Very few people are wholly consistent in their worldview and I suspect that most are really a mixture of modern and post-modern thinking. This may be part of why the term "post-modern" is so highly problematic in the first place. In fact, I think this inconsistency has marked the relationship between faith and science as well. Christians are quick to attack science as an unholy discipline whenever it appears to impinge on cherished beliefs, but then praise it to high heaven whenever it appears to support cherished beliefs.

One of my favorite representations of this dichotomy comes from The Simpsons in an episode dealing with faith vs science (although I think the application of post-modern vs science works here as well). Following the purported archaeological discovery of an angel skeleton in Springfield, a riot between pro-religion and pro-science people breaks out . Moe is part of the pro-religion mob which is running around attacking science as an outdated and failed discipline. Of course, this being satire, the character of Moe functions here as a representative of the often inconsistent Christian worldview with respect to science. In one scene, Moe loudly proclaims in response to a televised news report on science, "Science. What's science ever done for us? TV off!" (as the TV responds to his voice command). Later, Moe helps to lead an enraged mob in an attack on scientific institutions in Springfield. As they are setting fire to the Museum of Natural History, a dinosaur skeleton falls and pins Moe to the ground, prompting Moe to exclaim, "Oh, I'm paralyzed. I just hope medical science can cure me."

Later, this leads to a court trial in which Lisa is accused of having destroyed the angel skeleton. Judge Snyder announces that in addition to addressing this potential misdemeanor, the trial will also settle "the age-old question of Science vs. Religion." When the skeleton is found intact, Judge Snyder issues his decision: "I find the defendant not guilty. As for Science vs. Religion, I am issuing a restraining order. Science must stay 500 yards away from religion at all times."

That of course is not possible. Worldviews are not simply replaced by another one like switching out spark plugs in a car. "Post-Modern" is certainly a misnomer if it is taken to represent a brand new worldview that is uninfluenced by what came before. Most younger members of churches are really, I think, I curious blend of older and newer ways of looking at the world. That may be where the challenge lies.

The Worship of U2, Part Two

2006-04-11T08:20:00.000-04:00

As increasing numbers of young people are becoming disillusioned with organized religion and are turning to more subjective expressions of spirituality, church leaders are desperately struggling to engage them in meaningful ways. Unfortunately, no blueprint exists for how best to go about it. Consequently, some attempts succeed while others go horribly awry. I think contemporizing worship, as important as such a thing may be, is seriously misguided if it is taken to be the solution to the problem. One difficulty is that it can lead to the church becoming too heavily influenced by the culture rather than being a prophetic voice to the culture. This results in churches with McDonald's drive-throughs attached to their buildings and ATM's in the church lobbies (I am not making this up), or churches that turn the worship assembly into a spiritualized version of the AMC Plaza, thus creating a Christian form of one-stop shopping. I can't help but think of the church in Kansas that decided to entice young people with beer by holding weekly meetings in a local bar. When the church becomes dominated by marketing strategies designed to fill seats, we have gone seriously off-course. When the church becomes indistinguishable from the culture around it, it ceases to be the church.

Having said this, I'm not quite sure what to think of a recent development that was brought to my attention (thanks to Patrick Mead for turning me on to this). An article in the "Scotsman" refers to Episcopal churches that have created "U2 Eucharists" in a stated attempt to attract more young people. First off, it worked. These Friday night U2 Eucharists have been attracting as many people as typically attend their Sunday morning services. The service involves the use of U2's music within the context of a prayer service.

My response to this is somewhat mixed. In line with my previous post, there is a fine line between worship and idolatry that can be easily blurred and I wonder where a U2 Eucharist stands with respect to that line. Is this simply an attempt to utilize the language of the culture as a way to open people's eyes to God or is it a well-meaning marketing ploy that obscures the distinction between fandom and worship? I don't know the answer to that question so I will leave that up to whoever reads this. I do, however, find it ironic that Bono has become more of a prophetic voice to the church than the church currently is to the culture. As of late, Bono has made a career out of calling Christians to task for failing to live out an authentic Christian existence characterized by helping the poor and seeking social justice. There is great irony in a church using U2's music as an attraction to get people into the church building while Bono is trying to use his music to get Christians out of their church buildings and into American ghettoes and African villages.

On the other hand, I am intrigued by the Episcopal church's use of U2's music. Two of the songs included in the service are "Peace on Earth" and "40", both laments. Since we in the church have such a paucity of lament songs in our hymnbooks, perhaps we need to look outside of them to find the words to lament. In fact, one of the Episcopal church leaders interviewed for the article suggests that it is only a matter of time until some of U2's songs become a part of the church's authorised hymnal. That would be an interesting day. This past weekend I spoke at a retreat in which I lectured on the role of the Psalms in U2's music. During the worship period after, Chris, the worship leader, led us in singing a medley of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and the contemporary hymn "Open the Eyes of My Heart." The seamless blending of these two songs perfectly captured the seeking language of lament and the confidence of faith, thus more faithfully representing the spirit of the Psalter than virtually any current hymns in the church's musical canon.

I'm not sure where all of this is leading, but it seems to me that as churches continue to seek creative ways to engage the culture with the gospel message, some of which will lead to success and others to widespread embarrassment for the entire Christian community, it will at least be anything but boring.

The Worship of U2, Part One

2006-04-10T15:00:00.000-04:00

I am not sure anyone really knows yet what exactly post-modern spirituality is, for the whole phenomenon strikes me as being like someone who takes a photograph of a raging river -- as soon as the picture is snapped, the subject has already changed. But one characteristic that experts in the field point to is that post-modern spirituality involves a rejection of institutionalized religion in favor of a more open, less constrained spirituality.

In this sense, I suppose U2 represents a form of post-modern spirituality. Their lead singer, Bono, once commented that religion is what's left over after the Spirit has left the church. Of course, much of this sentiment derives from the highly charged political context in which the members of U2 experienced religion growing up in Ireland. Regardless of the cause, the result has been that Bono turned to his music as his form of worship to God. Their concert tours over the past half decade have increasingly taken on a worship feel to them, prompting Bono during at least one concert to comment, "This is church." It is hard to argue his point when Bono's quotations from Scripture merge with U2's songs to the point where sometimes the two are indistinguishable.

But there is a danger here as well. It can be a moving experience to watch Bono live, vocally praising God to a chorus of 15,000 cheering people. Yet that is also the point: at what moment does the worshipper become the worshipped? Bono no doubt sees himself as a worshipper when he sings his songs to God, but that's a distinction that can be hard to maintain when 15,000 fans are screaming his name.

I lay this foundation here because, in my next post, I want to address the double-edged sword of Christian appropriation of U2 in worship.

The Terminator and the Dragon

2006-04-06T14:34:00.000-04:00

Good stories persist. This is why I can still read "Where the Wild Things Are" to my children thirty years after my father read it to me. And good stories, what one might call living stories, are adaptable. They are able to conform to the times, change with the setting, and thus live to speak anew another day.

One such story is the combat myth. Most ancient Mediterrannean cultures possessed a version of this story which deals with combat between the forces of good and those of evil (typically represented by a dragon). One Greek version of the combat myth is the Apollo-Leto story. Leto is a pregnant woman about to give birth to the god Apollo. Python, a dragon, learns of a prophecy that Apollo will grow up to destroy him. So Python, the dragon, pursues the woman to kill her and the child, but Zeus intervenes and rescues the woman. She gives birth to the child who then defeats the dragon.

This was a popular story, told and retold in the literature of the time, depicted on vases and coins and through sculpture. In short, one could say it was part of the popular culture of the day.

We find a version of this story in Scripture as well -- Revelation 12. A pregnant woman is pursued by a dragon who wants to kill the woman and her child because it knows that the child will grow up to defeat it. But God intervenes and rescues the woman, and the child grows up and defeats the dragon (Rev. 12:1-11). John here takes the story of Christ (the child) and retells it in the form of a popular story from the culture as a way of getting his audience to hear the story of Christ in a new way. Paul does much the same thing when he relates the story of God's involvement with his creation by reciting Greek poetry about Zeus (Acts 17:28).

We encounter this story anew today as well, with a little help from Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Terminator is simply a modern version of the ancient combat myth. In the place of a dragon, we meet a "terminator." If you are familiar with Revelation 12, the story of The Terminator should be a familiar one: A pregnant woman is pursued by a destructive creature from outside our world because it knows that the child is fated to destroy the machines who will one day take over the world. But as the terminator pursues the pregnant woman, another from outside our world intervenes and rescues the woman so that the child can live to fulfill his destiny.

The Terminator is a new apocalyptic story that is basically a retelling of an old apocalyptic story. Good stories never die but are constantly reborn. (Although it would probably be a service to humanity if someone could find a way to kill off the American Pie franchise.)

Lost Spirituality

2006-04-06T09:11:00.000-04:00

Lost's creators have a habit of doling out relevant information in the midst of red herrings and ambiguous clues. This only adds fuel to the fire for speculators who hope to unravel the mysteries of this island, which seems awfully well-populated for a place that no rescue ship can find. In fact, the existence of the Others (a mysterious group of people already inhabiting the island when our plane crash survivors arrive), has been a prime source for the rumor mill. One of the prevailing theories that has been passed around for Lost is that the island is really purgatory and the crash survivors are all there to find a measure of redemption for mispent lives.

On last night's episode, one of the Others offered an intriguing statement that might (or might not) support such a theory. The conversation between Locke (one of the crash survivors) and the man known to us as Henry Gale (one of the Others) went about like this:

Locke: God only knows how many of you there are.
Gale: God doesn't know.
Locke: What?
Gale: God can't see this island anymore than the rest of the world can.

It is interesting to note that Gale does not deny God's existence, only His involvement in the events of the island. However, Gale's perspective is somewhat countered by that of Eko, the former African drug lord turned priest, who seems to believe that God is very much active on the island.

Studying the spirituality of Lost could be a very fruitful enterprise, but the difficulty is compounded by the paucity of clear answers to the mysteries of the island. But maybe that is part of the benefit. To an extent, Lost forces viewers to search continually for an understanding of how its world works and the role of God within that world. And is that not exactly what all of us do on the island we inhabit?

About Caritas

2006-04-04T14:13:00.000-04:00

I have been asked why I chose to name this site "Caritas." The suggestion for the name actually came from my good friend, Ron Cox, Religion professor at Pepperdine, thinker extraordinaire, and general co-conspirator. The more I thought about the suggestion, the more it began to take hold because I realized the name will work on multiple levels.

First, "caritas" is the Latin word for "loving kindness" (used as the translation for "agape" in the Vulgate). It points to the perfection of the human spirit as a reflection of the glory of God. It is also one form of the Greek word for "grace." As such, Caritas represents the religious angle of this blog and my attempts to find hints of God's grace within popular culture.

Second, Caritas is the name of a karaoke bar run by Lorne, aka Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan (from whom a quote adorns the top of this page) on the TV series "Angel." So the name not only represents the religious interests of my blog but the pop culture interests as well.

Third, the point of this karaoke bar named Caritas on "Angel" is that whenever patrons get up to sing, Lorne, who is kind of psychic, is able to read their soul and their future while they are singing. I particularly enjoy the fact that whenever Angel himself gets up to sing, he always chooses Barry Manilow tunes. So this third angle represents the idea that this blog is a place where I reveal my own self through my writings, but also hope to reveal, in a sense, the soul of popular culture.

The Golden Age of Television

2006-03-31T09:38:00.000-05:00

It has always amused me that people who attack television as a negative influence and proclaim a desire to give up watching never seem to express the same desire to abandon seeing movies, as though the movie is somehow a higher art form. In the past, such a distinction might have been possible to maintain, but not anymore. Television has experienced a monumental revolution in quality over the past 5-7 years. Of course, I am not suggesting that there no longer exists morally degrading shows on TV. The bad always coexists with the good in any medium. What I am suggesting is that good television has, in the past half decade, gotten immeasurably better.

Part of this is due to the cream of the Hollywood crop (writers, actors, directors) realizing that television allows them creative opportunities that film could never accomplish, such as the ability to develop characters and plot lines over the course of twenty-two episodes rather than having to try and cram them into two hours. Consequently, many of the top artists in their fields now employ television as the canvas on which they now express their art.

So I was intrigued to find confirmation of my theory in the newest issue of Entertainment Weekly. In an article titled "TV is King!" EW's film critic (notice this is written by a FILM critic) argues that what appears on television today is of greater quality than what is appearing in movie theaters. She writes:

Any episode of any Law & Order is better than half the feature-length dramas released each week. Any episode of The Office is better than 80 percent of the comedies. Any episode of The Wire is as good as anything nominated for an Oscar. Television is where interesting indie filmmakers like Michael Almereyda and Darnell Martin go to direct episodic dramas when Hollywood runs out of uses for them, where Crash writer-director Paul Haggis goes after he wins an Oscar, and where great actresses like Jean Smart and Stockard Channing go to dazzle when they age out of Hollywood's camera range. It's where I go every day for cultural grounding, amazed at what point-and-click riches there are to be found while sitting in my sweatpants.

In line with this, here is my list of what I consider the ten best dramas on television right now.

1. 24
Provides more suspense, dramatic tension, and adrenalized action per minute than any film released in the last ten years.

2. Lost
Part mystery, part morality tale, part spiritual meditation, all genius.

3. Battlestar Galactica
This apocalyptic space drama offers intriguing reflections on religion and the quest for meaning and purpose in the universe.

4. Smallville
This show is about much more than simply the birth of a superhero. It is preeminently a show about how fathers shape the lives and destinies of their children. (Jonathan Kent and Lionel Luthor shape their boys in quite different ways.) The very first episode of this show set the tone for its emphasis on moral and character development. Young Clark Kent is walking into the first day of classes at high school when he drops his books. Lana Lang picks one up and says, "I see you are reading Nietzsche. So, what are you, man or superman?" Clark Kent replies, "I haven't decided yet."

5. Veronica Mars
Clever dialogue and great acting combined with intricate mysteries.

6. Invasion
A roller-coaster ride of a story that also works as an allegory about the strangers among us.

7. Gilmore Girls
To be honest, I have never watched an episode but I do have four seasons of the DVD's to pour through this summer. I include it here because of all the high praise I have heard from others and, especially because if I didn't, I would have to answer to my sister and niece.

8. Supernatural
One of the few televised attempts at horror that genuinely succeeds at being scary.

9. CSI
A show so culturally influential it has spawned articles on the "CSI Effect." Also the favorite of some college president's I know.

10. Everwood
A quality drama with strong characters that regularly addresses moral issues in all their complexity.

One final note: In the same issue of EW, Stephen King writes an article titled "Confessions of a TV Slut," in which he confesses to having ignored TV much of his life until he recently came to recognize the dramatic increase in quality. He lists the six shows to which he is currently most addicted, four of which find a place on my list as well (Veronica Mars, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, 24).

Stephen King's Religious Stories

2006-03-27T13:09:00.000-05:00

I was putting my daughter in bed awhile ago and as I was pulling the blanket up over her, she said, "Daddy, tell me a scary story." Ah, the scary story. Children love the scary story -- the suspense, excitement, the thrill of being scared in an environment that is at the same time safe and comfortable (kind of like Burger King -- the fat content in the Whopper is terrifying, and yet eating it makes me feel all warm and cozy).

But many adults love scary stories too. This is a fact that Stephen King knows well and it has made him quite a bit of money. During the summer of my nineteenth year, I read "IT," after which I refused to go near a storm drain for the next six months. My friend Brant, who read the book at the same time, discovered that chance encounters with balloons tended to ruin his day ever after.

Recently, I finished reading a Stephen King novel titled "The Wolves of the Calla." It is the fifth book in a seven book series called "The Dark Tower." It got me thinking again about why people are drawn to fantasy stories that have an edge of the horrific to them.

Andrew Greeley, Roman Catholic priest, Professor of Sociology, and author of the book God in Popular Culture, has a theory. He suggests that fantasy, science fiction, and horror stories are ultimately religious stories. Now the pairing of Stephen King with religion to many might make about as much sense as a union between Janet Jackson and Paul Tagliabue. Stephen King's stories are populated with zombies, vampires, demonic cars, and child-eating clowns. But notice he does not say "Christian" stories. By "religious" he means stories that are all about meaning and hope. As if to test his theory, Greeley once attended a literary guild cocktail party in New York and Stephen King happened to be present. According to his book, Greeley approached King and questioned him about his writings. The conversation went like this:

GREELEY: You’re writing religious stories.

KING: Of course I am. Most people don’t believe me, but that’s exactly what I’m doing.

GREELEY: Anyone who writes about hope is writing about religion.

KING: Absolutely.

According to Greeley, some of the features that mark these as religious stories are the emphasis on hope, the achievement of salvation through suffering, and the dualism of good versus evil.

In The Dark Tower series, which is a mingling of the fantasy, horror, and western genres, a group of gunslingers journey across several worlds in a quest to save the Dark Tower, which represents the nexus of all worlds and reality, from the clutches of the evil Crimson King. It is an apocalyptic battle between the forces of good and evil for the salvation or destruction of the world. "Wolves of the Calla" is indeed a story about hope and so, according to Greeley at least, it is a religious story. This battle between hope and hopelessness is perhaps best revealed in the following exchange between Walter, an agent of the Crimson King, and Callahan, one of the protagonists of the story:

"No one's above ka, false priest," the man in black spits at him. "And the room at the top of the Tower is empty. I know it is."
Although Callahan is not entirely sure what the man is talking about, his response is quick and sure. "You're wrong. There is a God. He waits and sees all from His high place."

It is not my intention to recommend these novels. If you are not a fan of horror or fantasy novels, you probably will not take to them. But they serve as another reminder that just as with the violent and frankly terrifying parable that Jesus tells in Luke 19 in line with the expectation of his kingdom (check out verses 22-27) or Revelation's violent visions of demonic entities, religious stories may come in surprising packages.

Does Christianity Need a New Language?

2006-03-24T09:18:00.000-05:00

In his book Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue, Robert Johnston suggests that theological discussion is more likely these days to occur following a movie than a sermon. To support his point, he quotes Ken Gire as saying that movies give their viewers "an experience of transcendence" more consistently than many worshippers find in church. In his review of Reel Spirituality, Princeton professor C. Clifton Black responds boldly to this point by stating: "Gire may be right. If so, something in Christianity has gone terribly wrong." (Theology Today, July 2001, p. 274).

This whole issue may not make much sense to those who view film and television shows as nothing more than "entertainment." Until church members break free of this restrictive evaluation of film and tv, they will likely find themselves sitting among congregations whose median age is rising faster than an audience at a Tom Jones concert, wondering where all the young people have gone.

Now I am not saying that we need to turn our worship services into a spiritual version of the local cineplex, although some have done so. Ironically, I have never been greatly in favor of the use of film clips in worship, in part because they are often used so poorly as just an aid to prop up bad preaching. But Black's question continues to hover: what has gone wrong in Christianity that people, particularly younger people, are engaging these Hollywood stories more effectively than the communication of the church?

Pierre Babin, a specialist in Christian communication, has stated that "audiovisual-oriented people [are] being born, and we [can] no longer speak to them as we had spoken to them in the past." People being born today are coming into a very different world than many of us entered into. It is a world that trains them to think and communicate in a visual, story-driven way. There is a reason why people today become so emotionally invested in a show like Lost or allow a movie like Star Wars to consume their life (as I once had a student confess to me that "Star Wars is my life"). Stories are the means by which a culture creates meaning and shared identity. In an earlier post, I raised the issue of why TV matters. One answer is because it matters to the young people in our culture and churches. These are the stories that speak to their soul in a way that many churches are not. Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, recognized this when he said that he had no interest in creating a show that would be forgotten as soon as it was over, but he wanted to make a show that would be loved, that people would have a need to see.

What is the church to do? Many church leaders are struggling to communicate in a meaningful way with the younger members of our society, but finding that the messages and methods that connected in the past are no longer doing so. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a moment of prophetic insight, suggested many decades ago that for Christians to continue to impact the culture, they would need to find a new language. He says:

All Christian thinking, speaking, and organizing must be born anew . . . It is not for us to prophesy the day (though the day will come) when men will once more be called so to utter the word of God that the world will be changed and renewed by it. It will be a new language, perhaps quite non-religious, but liberating and redeeming, as was Jesus' language; it will shock people and yet overcome them by its power. (Letters and Paper from Prison, 300)

How can the church discover (or perhaps recover) this new language? Might Hollywood give us a clue? One of the reasons why the stories of Hollywood resonate so powerfully with the youth of this country is because many of the people producing them understand the power of story and metaphor for communicating in today's culture. These are elements that we have long neglected in the church because story and metaphor deal in indirection and implication rather than direct propositions. They show rather than tell. And yet story and metaphor are one of the primary methods of communication in Scripture (psalms, prophecy, parables, apocalyptic). There are not a lot of sermons I've heard in my life that I can recall to this day, but the few that I can are sermons that engaged the language of story and metaphor (several by Mike Cope from my days at the College Church).

My students sometimes accuse me in my classes of raising more questions than I answer (especially when I teach "Revelation" which is an intentional strategy), and I am basically doing that here as well. I don't know what the solution is, but I do know what some of the questions are. Such as: Do we in fact need a new way of communicating in the church? Is this the time for the language revolution of which Bonhoeffer speaks? If so, how do we create this new language? How can we embrace story, metaphor, and symbolism in a way that allows the gospel message to speak to our culture with renewed force and power?