I struggle with this same thing and realize that …
David on Creative Contradictions…:Whoops, I meant “Shaun”, not Sean. That’s what I …
Paul Mitchell wins the ”Name That Photo” contest with his entry “Redneck Day Spa.” I confess, Redneck Neighbor did influence the decision this time around.
You’re Your iTunes gift card is coming, Paul. Thanks for playin’.
Ted Slater has a very clever and thought-provoking post up about the movie Fireproof. (HT: TC) But I don’t agree with it.
Ted argues that despite the film’s production shortcomings, we Christians should still cheer this film because of its transforming message. I disagree.
The way the message is conveyed is less effective at accomplishing the goals of its makers than it could be, I think. So I’m not bashing Fireproof, but I’m not cheering either.
The thinking of Fireproof‘s makers may go something like this: More people go to movies every year than go to church or to sporting events. People currently watch movies about sex and violence and are influenced to be promiscuous and violent. So let’s make a movie about Jesus-y stuff and those same people will come see it and act more Jesus-y.
Putting theological, historical and sociological problems with this kind of Constantinian thinking aside for a moment, let’s think about the efficacy of these films as it relates to their makers’ expressed intent to influence audiences.
Have you ever seen a movie that came right out and said, “The solution to your problem, everybody, is to hate your neighbor?” Ever seen that? Heck no.
Have you ever seen the movie gang member or the mafia guy or the serial killer go to his son and explain his philosophical and moral position on violence in a long chunk of dialogue? Again, heck no.
This is because nowadays a movie’s message (and every movie has one right?) is shown, not told. Because it works.
What we’re likely to see in a movie advocating violence is a sympathetic character in a situation that motivates him to commit a violent act. Then we see the favorable or ambivalent reaction of other characters to that violence. If the protagonists commit the violent acts and approve of them, the message is stated clearly enough to the audience. Indirectly. Every movie goer is shown, not told, that violence is acceptable in the situation depicted. Then each individual chooses whether what they’ve been shown is applicable to their life outside the movie theatre. And Christians boycott and criticize these violent films (or used to) because they’re convinced this method of communication works.
But when Christians go to make movies/music of their own for the purpose of communicating a message, they don’t always adopt the same method. Instead, what Christian movie and music makers often do is tell more than show. In Fireproof, in just the few scenes I’ve watched, there is an awful lot of telling. No doubt there is some showing too. But Fireproof’s makers try to connect the dots for the audience with sermonettes.
I don’t know why this was done. I know why I’m so tempted to do the same thing (and have done it) in my own music. I’m afraid of two things (at least): 1)Not being Christian enough to please my Christian audience. If Christians aren’t happy with what I’ve made, I won’t make money or get to make anything else for the Christian media subculture. And, I fear (know) any subtlety in my lyrics will be scorned as “shame of the gospel.” 2)My audience might not get the point I’m making unless I spell it out in big bold letters. And that last sentence, by the way, contained a metaphor and I fear (know) many Christians on a diet of Christian media don’t get those these days. (How many people still think “Welcome Home” is about heaven and stare blankly at me while I sing about being a hummingbird?)
Still, I prefer showing over telling simply because it works - it’s an effective memorable way to communicate a message. Popular movies, books and music do influence, to varying degrees, the way we perceive ourselves, God and each other. And, like olympic figure skaters, they do this without looking like they’re trying - without preaching, using mostly story. And more than one camera, a multi-million dollar budget, and a household-name director. But is that any excuse for making yet another Christian flick that tells us to do the right thing?
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Becky’s big eyes and blonde hair. My father-in-law’s booming voice, charisma and athleticism. My dad’s brute strength and the muscles that go with it. Energy that came from I don’t know where. And Ken Lay’s, um, appetite. That’s Gresham.
Today he turned six and all he wanted to do was eat out. He planned the day accordingly. First, we would have breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Then, lunch at Logan’s Roadhouse. Last, dinner at Chick-fil-A. It struck me as an odd agenda for a little boy’s birthday, of course, but just seconds after walking through Cracker Barrel’s doors this morning it all became clear.
“Tell them it’s my birthday so I can have ice cream,” he said.
At lunch: “Tell them it’s my birthday so I can have ice cream.”
And dinner: “If we take it home can I still have ice cream?”
That, my friends, is learning the rules and playing the game with strategery. Use your skills for good, boy.
Happy Birthday, Gresham.
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The Bush family is about to be one bigger. But they need some help from us first. Please stop by stevenbush.org today and purchase one of his photographs. All proceeds will go toward bringing his boy home.
The petite figure clothed in the black pajamas of the Viet Cong, slinks his way through the foliage and smoke. A bridge burns in the background. All manner of destruction sizzles and whizzes around him. He’s the only survivor of his gang. But he won’t survive.
One man, face painted and body clad to blend with his environment, steps from the backdrop of vegetation, slips a knife under the enemy’s jaw and pulls upward. The man in black folds to the ground. “Cut!” the man with the knife yells, walking over to a camera the size of a Pinto and pressing the stop button.
Jesse James Jones Jr. was the best director/action hero/friend I had in the seventh grade. Almost as cool was his dad. His dad drove a Delorean at a time in our nation’s history when teenaged boys liked nothing more than Deloreans - especially boys who watched lots and lots of movies. The only movies Jesse and I liked more than Back To The Future involved U.S. soldiers single-handedly killing dozens of communist-allegiant Vietnamese bad guys while uttering fantastic one-liners. And, lucky for Jesse, with a few props and zero dialogue I made quite a convincing communist-allegiant Vietnamese bad guy. And I died very very well.
In high school, Jesse and I remained friends. Both in the band (he played baritone). Both in an accelerated art class for kids who hoped to be artists for a living some day. Both enjoying our daily sketch assignments in the class immensely - at least for a few weeks.
You see, we didn’t like our teacher Mrs. Lillianstern. (I called her Mrs. Lilliansperm behind her back because, well, I was a seventeen year-old boy at the time.) Every day, when she wrote the sketch word on the board, we had some fun with her and a little competition with each other. The word for the day might be “swing” and then we were supposed to draw the most creative representation of the word in no more than five minutes. It was an exercise to warm up the creative part of our brain. But it was more fun to utilize the diabolical areas instead.
So, for a word like “swing” - that’s way too easy - I might draw a guy swinging an axe to lop another guy’s head off and Jesse - much more creative than I - might draw some torture device with a swinging chain saw attached and a small kitten strapped to the conveyor belt below. We were actually good kids, I swear: went to church, never broke any (major) laws, etc. (We did commit arson once, but it was mostly an accident.) More relevant, we were completely sane, no matter what evidence to the contrary our sketches might have been.
But Mrs. Lilliansperm didn’t know that did she? And that was the fun - to hand in our sketches and watch her face crinkle up into a million lines of disturbed and then ask us how everything was going at home. My thirty-four year-old mind feels sorry for the woman today but my adolescent mind hummed with anticipation all morning until sketch time arrived - it was the best time I had all day - even better if my sketch was more warped and vile than Jesse’s: a hard thing to accomplish.
The fun didn’t last. Mrs. Lilliansperm sent me to the counselor’s office to “meet someone you can talk to if you ever need to.” Jesse, to my knowledge got away uncounseled.
After graduation I fell out of touch with Jesse and about a zillion other people I swore I’d keep up with. I heard from people in our hometown that he was shooting video for weddings at one point, maybe in the military before that, but that was more than a decade ago.
Then, today, while checking some messages in my much-neglected Facebook account, I found him. Jesse James Jones Jr. is still a brilliant artist. He does art direction stuff for Prologue Films. If that name rings a bell it’s because they single-handedly turned film credits into mini-features, into an art form of their own. (I’m a nerd. Somehow I know these things.) You’ve seen their work on flicks like the Spiderman franchise and Across The Universe. And more recently on Tropical Thunder, that flick about guys pretending to fight communist-allegiant Vietnamese bad guys while uttering one-liners. Jesse is doing exactly the kind of thing I imagined and hoped he’d be doing after all these years.
Don’t know why I felt like sharing this today. I really don’t. Maybe it’s just good to hear about people who grew up to do what everyone always thought they were made for - it’s re-inspiring I guess. Maybe I wonder what Jesse figured I’d grow up to be - probably not what I am. Or maybe it’s just good to remember parts of our story we’ve forgotten and who all had a hand in making us who we are - and giving us that bullet wound scar. Or maybe I’m just hoping Jesse finds this post some day, feels guilty about the whole shooting me thing, and let’s me die in one of his big time movies...or drive his Delorean. I’m certain he has one.
