What Was That Movie Saying?

Some insights from Inside Catholic, that I think have the potential to shift your paradigm:

You and I and our grandmother’s friends would never think of going together as a group to sit and watch a live sex act. We wouldn’t enjoy it — and if we did, we would feel like perverts (for good reason). It would disgust us to learn that a group of coworkers had gone to see such a thing. But many Hollywood producers want us to believe that getting together to watch a sex act in enhanced form — in giant color images, intercut with close-ups and punctuated by music — is a perfectly normal way to spend a Saturday afternoon. 

It’s easy to buy Hollywood’s “artistic merit” and “realistic depiction” arguments, but what it comes down to is just that - we are watching sex, and if it were real and right in front of us, we wouldn’t watch.  So why is it ok in a darkened theatre with strangers?  As long as it’s framed by a “story” that makes it ok?

Gore also crowds out drama. If you or I saw a person get shot or knifed or blown up in a movie theater parking lot, we wouldn’t simply remember it for the rest of our lives, it would become a focal point of our history. If it came up in conversation, we’d tell people “we’re dealing with it.” But movies assume we can watch the same thing in billboard-sized slow motion without consequence.

Not Al.  Violence is traumatizing, and violence on screen desensitizes.  We know this.  So what is the purpose behind our pursuing of such desensitization?

By looking inward, one finds the resources necessary to create the fate one wants. Hubris wins the day.

 

All this is the reverse of the classic literary arc. In traditional literature, a protagonist triumphs; the bad guys fight back and get the hero into an impossible bind; if the hero believes only in himself, it’s called hubris, and he fails. This kind of story was called a tragedy.

…What the kids need to triumph in these movies are gizmos to wield with swaggering confidence. The trope is so prevalent that Toy Story 2 even jokes about it: The toy dinosaur is surprised that “believing in yourself” isn’t the way to defeat Zerg in a video game.

 

This movie mistake comes from, and feeds, radical individualism. In these stories, the self is the important thing; others are just props, obstacles, or boosters on the hero’s stage. But this error leaves audiences ill-equipped for the real world, where true success comes only to those willing to see their shortcomings and trust others.

Blowin’ that individualism horn again.  But yeah, most stories these days do seem to be about “believing in yourself”.  It is a message that some need to hear, but it does need to be balanced as well.

Since most people in Hollywood aren’t religious, they don’t seem to understand what religious people are all about. In fact, their knowledge seems limited to knowing that we believe weird things and want to spoil their social lives. As a result, they often portray religious people as creepy or scary.

It is a bit of a challenge to find movies that portray deeply religious people as good people in movies.  And you know what they say - if you repeat something often enough, it becomes “truth” to the listener.

And then there’s “love” -

Yet, in the movies, “I love you” isn’t about what I give my beloved; it’s all about what my beloved provides for me. One of the best known scenes in modern film has Tom Cruise bursting into a divorce support group meeting and begging for Rene Zellweger to return (Jerry McGuire). He had her at hello. Unfortunately he got the love thing all wrong: “You complete me,” he told her.

 

To which she should have replied, “Complete yourself, buddy, then look me up when you’ve matured past narcissism and are ready to love.”

 

…Love for pleasure is the most common movie love. You’re cool and you please me; therefore, I love you. That shows up in everything from High School Musical to Lost in Translation.

This is especially bad on TV in “relationship” shows.  I get something from you, therefore I love you.  Over and over and over.  When I stop getting something from you, I stop loving you.

I agree with the author though - this isn’t a screed against all movies.  A lot of movies have fantastic, deeply moving content.  A lot of them are uplifting and teach us something that we need to know about humanity.  But it is important to recognize where they fall short too - and awareness and discernment are invaluable for recognizing where movies lie to us.