Christians continually fail to interact intelligently with culture, and it kills me. It’s a theme I find myself exploring a lot. The first time I tackled the subject was in 2005’s essay about finding truth and beauty in “secular” music, but this one takes a new approach, and suggests that Christians are warming up, while culture cools down. I wrote this for a class called Media, Culture and Criticism in my final semester at university, in April 2006.

Modern Cinema and the Christian Convention

written in April 2006
by Kevan Gilbert

THE ROCKS CRY OUT

Christianity and modern culture have always had a hard time co-existing, but these days, a number of trends have been appearing on the radar that suggest that changes are afoot. Donald Miller, Brian McLaren, Relevant Magazine, the hip resurgence of philosophers like Kierkegaard, and the Emergent Church movement (among others) are all far-reaching testaments that the rocks are crying out: Christians need to engage culture in a more relevant and meaningful way. No longer can we exist in a bubble that rejects the artists, the music and the films – yes, the artifacts that comprise the very culture in which we dwell. And so, the winds of change have been blowing across Christendom: stop judging, start engaging.

But now we’re facing a new problem that’s presenting some difficulty: nobody’s meeting us halfway. The post-modern believer is in transit, yearning for a re-connection to its birth culture, some middle ground between the Creator and the created that doesn’t require a monastic divorce. But the culture we’re reaching out to has its hands outstretched in “stop” gestures. While it’s true that Christians have done poorly at engaging culture, I would like to argue that culture – namely, films and filmmakers – have done a poor job engaging Christians.

What does this mean? Well, the biggest thing the modern Christian has been learning – the theme echoed across Miller, McLaren, and Relevant Magazine – is the idea that the dichotomy between the sacred and the secular is merely a construction. That indeed, there is good and evil inside the Christian and pagan alike, that mankind is fallen, and the best way to be a Christian is to accept one’s humanity, and strive for authenticity before God. The result of this is not necessarily holiness, but wholeness. The simplest truth in this is that a Christian is a human, a complicated being with multiple motives and superfluous struggles, and not merely a pigeonholed salt and light sculpture.

And that’s where it becomes unfair: Christians are thawing out, but culture is freezing up. It has been my observation that modern cinema regularly fails to recognize and portray the complexity and authenticity inherent in Christians, and has instead consistently opted for portraying a tired stereotype of the Christian; a Christian stock character, a caricature, a cliché, a foil, a mere cinematic convention that ignores the true depth and humanity of Christians.

THE CONVENIENCE OF CONVENTIONS

When our coursepack readings brought us to Jacques Ellul’s musings on ends and means, I couldn’t see an immediate application. “Today everything has become ‘means,’” Elull says. “There is no longer an ‘end’; we do not know whither we are going.” (Ellul, 87) His writings are dark and rich, filled with abstract ideas that delve deeply into the major dysfunctions of society, but all I could pull from it was that something was wrong. It wasn’t until I connected the dots between Ellul, modern cinema and the Christian convention that I found the application I was looking for.

In his book Film as Social Practice, Graeme Turner describes the role of conventions in movies. “Popular films need their shorthand,” he says, “Their accustomed routes, to operate effectively.” (Turner, 95) And indeed, without an agreed-upon understanding of how people, places and ideas will be represented, it would become impossible to condense a story into a movie-length narrative. But I worry that this shorthand is parallel to Ellul’s “means” - means that have becomes ends in themselves. It has become outmoded to present assumptions in a new light.

Ellul describes this phenomenon: “…As means increase, and as ends are relegated to the abstract, they become implicit and are no longer questioned.” (Ellul, 99) Later, Ellul outlines how “gradually, technical means became more important than the search for Truth.” (Ellul, 88) It was determined in class that Ellul’s use of the term “technics” most closely resembles the English word “technique.” In our case, this allows us to consider the “techniques” of film-making: the convention. Instead of seeking to discover and portray the true state of a “real-life” Christian, filmmakers have relied on stock characters to propel plot lines.

This is a weakening and unfortunate act. Films do have the power to change culture – Raymond Haberski recognizes this in his book, “It’s Only A Movie!”, acknowledging that films have “the potential to shape mass consciousness.” (Haberski, 79) One way in which they can do this startlingly well is by revealing new dimensions to people and places not previously understood by the viewer. However, Christians are regularly under- or mis-represented in the film industry by a constant dependence on the convenient convention.

But imagine a movie that doesn’t do this, and how powerful it would be. Why did Crash win Best Picture this year? Why did Brokeback Mountain win so many awards? Crash, because it was a “gritty race drama” that showed both the good and bad sides of both the victims and the perpetrators. Brokeback Mountain because it did the same. Both movies do what C.S. Lewis praises about Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings: the breaking down of the “rigid demarcation of black and white,” where “motives, even in the right side, are mixed.” (Lewis, 126) This is by no means suggesting that Crash and Brokeback Mountain are on the same level as Lord of the Rings, but all have one thing in common: a remarkable resonance amongst its viewers and readers. It is clear that people are impacted when shown a new side of things, when conventions are broken.

“Within popular film,” writes Turner. “It is never easy to challenge or disregard existing conventions.” (Turner, 95) He continues: “Such images will continue to be produced until the convention itself is overturned.” (Turner, 93)

But before we can overturn it, we must first encounter and explore it.

THE CHRISTIAN CONVENTION

What do Mandy Moore, Ned Flanders and I Heart Huckabees have in common? All of them have manifestly represented the typical Christian convention on which filmmakers tend to rely.

Mandy Moore is the manipulative co-star of the movie Saved!, part of which (incidentally) was filmed right here in Walnut Grove. A summary: Christian high school with over-the-top youth-groupy zeal for God finds everybody name-dropping Jesus but nobody acting out his commands. There’s plenty of prayer and praise-singing, but not a lot of honesty. Then a girl named Mary finds out her boyfriend is gay, and tries to “save him” by giving up her virginity to him in an attempt to make him like girls, and then accidentally gets pregnant. The people around her recoil and mistreat her when they find out she’s pregnant – Mandy Moore’s character leads this witch-hunt. The only people who stay by her side are mostly non-Christians, or else her lefty hipster “fringe” Christian friends. In sum: Saved! is a parody of religious culture that highlights the ironic and often hypocritical behaviour of many Evangelical Christians.

It’s also nothing new. Yes, Saved! is funny, snarky and true. The journey of Mary mirrors the expected journey of the viewer, too: the process of “snapping out of it,” of growing disillusioned with the way crowds of Christians operate. However, does it point a way forward? Does it give us a suggestion for how to do things better? Not really. It’s like we discussed in class, this is the same problem that many academic writers encounter: the problems are easy to diagnose, but hard to prescribe. In Saved!’s case, the conventions are easy to poke fun of, but hard to say anything interesting about.

The Christian convention as modeled by Saved!’s cast is best described by this collection of adjectives: self-righteous, Bible-quoting, sheltered, fundamentalist, shallow, God-obsessed and trite.

It’s a common theme across many cinematic and television productions. In The Simpsons, the age-old character of Ned Flanders represents what many people think of Christians: naïve, friendly, and morally strict simpletons. Because of the duration and popularity of The Simpsons, Flanders has become almost iconic in nature, creating a bizarre and contorted understanding of the Christian faith within culture. Although it’s true that Flanders is granted his beautiful and authentic moments, for the most part, he remains the archetypical Christian convention displayed throughout the media.

One last example of this convention is found in the movie I Heart Huckabees. In a scene from this film, a suburban Christian family is confronted by a pair of rabble-rousing existential nihilists who question them on every aspect of their lifestyle, from their vehicle and meal choices to their motives for adopting their Sudanese son. Throughout it, the family is poignantly (and hilariously) portrayed as a collection of cliquey, stubborn, hypocritical and narrow-minded fools.

I cringe at what it all does for Christ’s message. The image impedes and distorts. It hurts and embarrasses. It makes me want to disown these people, disown this religion, and set up camp in some remote hillside and come back when everything has blown over. But the truth is, it is within these very conventions that we find the path. It is not by disowning our stereotypes, but by embracing them, that we can become whole. Authenticity means embracing the bad along with the good. The entire point of Christianity is that Christ’s love and grace extends to all who seek Him, from those who actually fall into these categorical conventions, to those who perpetrate them in film portrayals, to those who are actively trying to break the stereotypes and create a “new kind of Christian.”

A NEW KIND OF CHRISTIAN

It’s not like there are no movies that are sympathetic to the Christian cause. In fact, there are countless movies that put forward powerful Christological metaphors and feature overt Christ figures: Babette’s Feast and Les Miserables, even Braveheart,The Matrix and Gladiator, just to name a few. They do great jobs of using metaphor and analogy to show us what Christ has done. There are plenty of Jesus films, too. In his book Jesus at the Movies, W. Barnes Tatum chronicles over 18 films that have been made over the past hundred years that deal specifically with the life of Jesus (Tatum, 13), and that doesn’t even include The Passion of the Christ. But we’ve read the gospels before, we’ve seen the ubiquitous Jesus film, and it still seems like something is missing. I think many of us know “WWJD”, and a lot of us are wondering: what should we do?

One movie that starts to show us how to represent Christians in the movies is called The Big Kahuna. This is a character-based, dialogue-driven film that approaches a number of different major life issues through the interactions of three characters, within the time-span of one day, within the confines of one hospitality suite. The three characters in this film are salesmen who work for an industrial lubricant company called Lodestar Laboratories. They’re stationed at a sales convention in a hotel in Wichita, Kansas, hoping to score a big-time contract with big-time lubricant hotshot, Dick Fuller – a.k.a., “the big kahuna”. Each of the characters are at three different stages in their lives and careers: Phil Cooper (Danny Devito) is a worn-out, old-time, middle-aged salesman on the brink of a divorce and on the edge of his career; Larry Mann (Kevin Spacey) is a sarcastic, articulate, fast-talking sales king at the peak of his profession; and Bob Walker (Peter Facinelli) is a naïve young Baptist rookie from Research.

Bob the Baptist, again, is the same caricatured Christian convention who possesses that naïve and dogmatic worldview. It is Phil and Larry who show Bob how to be a more sincere, more loving, and more authentic human being. In doing so, the two characters show filmmakers and viewer alike how to represent Christians in the movies.

Larry and Phil, the seasoned salesmen, are broken characters. They’re dirty and they’re flawed. However, they model a sincere love for one another, an earnest respect of the rules of their trade, and a clear understanding of their place in the world. Bob, on the other hand, is a polished would-be evangelist who needs to grow up a little.

Although he is on a business trip, conducting business with business partners, Bob has a hard time actually doing business. Instead, he is compelled to “talk religion”, because he feels it is more important than industrial lubricants. It is commendable that Bob would think like that – indeed, God is more important than industrial lubricants – but unfortunately, Bob misses the bigger picture. When Bob blows the final big deal with the big kahuna by talking religion instead of business, his partner Larry confronts him.

“You’re part of the company,” Larry explains to Bob. “You’re like the hand, and the hand can’t just go ‘Oh, I’m just gonna go over here and do my own little thing.” Rather than listening, Bob only quotes scripture back at him. Soon after that, Larry explodes: “I’m talking about something bigger than God!” Bob can’t understand this – to him, there is nothing bigger than God. But Larry’s point is not that the sales of industrial lubricants is more important than God, it is that Bob’s concept of “God” is so underdeveloped that it cannot recognize that God’s jurisdiction and presence encompasses the whole realm of life, including one’s vocation, which includes the sale of industrial lubricants.

Consider the metaphor, applied to film instead of industrial lubricants. There is no such sharp dichotomy, where Christians and culture separate. Bob, like many Christians, and like most filmmakers would be greatly helped if they could realize that God, culture, faith and life are all present in the same, unified world. Imagine making films that represent this.

That’s my vision for Christians being portrayed in films. That they would be a little more like Larry and a little less like Bob: fleshed-out, real and honest. Embracing culture, not stepping away from it, more than just stock characters. In real life, there are things going on under the surface, there are real flaws, there is subtlety and complexity and beauty and imperfections. Perhaps the breaking of the Christian convention could incite a turnaround in modern cinema that begins to make the message of Jesus a little more accessible, acceptable and authentic.

Bibliography

1. Ellul, Jaques. The Presence of the Kingdom. New York: Seabury Press, 1967. Comm 411 Course Pack, Spring 2006; Kevin Schut ed.
2. Haberski, Raymond J. It’s Only a Movie. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001
3. Lewis, Clive Staples. “Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.” C.S. Lewis Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces. London: HarperCollins, 2000. Comm 411 Course Pack Spring 2006; Kevin Schut, ed.
4. Tatum, W. Barnes. Jesus at the Movies. Santa Rose: Polebridge,1997.
5. Turner, Graeme. Film As Social Practice. New York: Routledge, 2001

Notes

Donald Miller is the author of Blue Like Jazz and Searching for God Knows What, two books which have caused a major buzz throughout many Christian communities. In these books, Miller’s poetic prose attempts to restore a sense of “narrative” to the Christian story, infusing an earthier spirituality into what he perceives to be a mistakenly formulaic understanding of Christ’s original message.

Brian McLaren is the author of (most notably) A New Kind of Christian and A Generous Orthodoxy. His books are of a slightly more academic nature than Miller’s, but they address a similar theme: something has to change in the way we do Christianity, something that is a little less secluded and a little more accepting.

Relevant Magazine’s tagline is “God. Life. Progressive Culture.” It is focused on finding truth and beauty in pop culture; discerningly digesting media and presenting it with wisdom and hipness. It is the first magazine of its kind: an openly Christian magazine that interacts with openly “secular” culture.