Not Just a Movie: Super Story Power
by Ted Slater on 11/03/2009 at 2:16 PM
In a sense, I am my stories. And because we're all brimming with stories of our own, we love to hear other people's, too. They entertain. They inspire. They teach -- even if we don't always realize what they're teaching.
Jesuit psychotherapist Anthony de Mello wrote that "the shortest distance between a human being and Truth is a story" -- which may explain why the Bible is full of them.
So begins (well, kinda -- I deleted a couple of his first few sentences) the first article in Paul Asay's 8-part series that, as he wrote in a related blog, "explains why we at Plugged In do what we do."
It's a great intro to the topic of cinematic storytelling, something I brought up a couple of months ago in "Bedtime Stories." Over the next several weeks this octalogy is going to provide some fascinating food for thought and discussion.
Check out Paul's article. Then either leave a comment here or over on the Plugged In blog. If you've got a question specifically for Paul, and you'd rather not leave a comment, you can e-mail him directly at letters@pluggedinonline.com.
1. Sarah P. said the following at 2:59 PM on Nov 3:
How fascinating! Especially since nowadays, in a way, many people come to movies to discover their sense of "spirituality." Yep, they don't go to church; they go to the movies.
I'll be reading those articles for sure, but it'll have to wait. I'm writing final comments for the screenwriters I was blessed to walk alongside through a week-long screenwriting competition recently. And then I have an online class for my scriptwriting M.F.A. program. :D
2. Jeremy said the following at 10:19 AM on Nov 4:
From a comment on the PluggedIn blog:
Now sexual content I can more understand being problematic for some people, but I have never really understood this obsession so many seem to have with language.
Words have no inherent meaning; they have power only insofar as you give them power in your mind. If you train yourself to be offended by certain words, they will offend you. If you choose not to take offense, they will not. It really is that simple. Why do so many people seem intent on being offended?
Let me quickly pre-respond to a couple of the standard confusing responses I have heard:
1. This word degrades God's good gift of sex (or makes light of hell, that sort of thing).
Frankly, this is crap. Take the F-word, for example. 99% of the time it is used, the person saying it is not referring to sex, nor does the hearer think of sex. It is simply an exclamation or expresses emphasis or frustration. The origin of a word doesn't really matter if its common usage is completely divorced from that origin. This objection always struck me as a bit of a cop-out for those who are looking for some kind of support for their offense.
2. Hearing words desensitizes the hearer, and he might use them around others who might be offended.
Maybe, occasionally, but this is blown way out of proportion. We all have to learn how to act and speak appropriately in whatever situation we find ourselves, and most of us are able to do so to a reasonable extent. Some parents don't want their young children to hear the word "crap" -- does that mean we as adults should never use it and insulate ourselves from even hearing it because we will become desensitized and be unable to restrain ourselves when around those children? Or perhaps is a better solution to be aware of our surroundings and act accordingly?
I apologize for sounding rant-y, but this is something that confuses me. There is nothing wrong or sinful about taking offense to a particular set of words, but I would ask that everyone ask themselves why. Why do I continue to be offended at something that I (assuming you have regular contact with the outside world) hear all the time? Would Jesus continue to be offended by mere words? Would he be constantly wincing when eating with tax collectors? Or would he not care because he was concerned with deeper issues?
3. Ted Slater said the following at 4:48 PM on Nov 4:
Jeremy (#2) -- two things:
1) I almost stopped at "Words have no inherent meaning." Why continue reading if your words are inherently meaningless? While phonemes may not directly communicate meaning, it's obvious that words are wrappers for meaning, and so we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss words as without meaning.
God spoke, and the world came into being. The Scriptures are identified as God's word. Satan is conquered, in part, by the *word* of our testimony. Perhaps there's more to words than we give them credit for.
I also can't help but think about the Third Commandment, which tells us to be cautious about how we use "the name of the Lord" ...
2) Of course we shouldn't let vulgarities and profanities inhibit our relating to the unsaved or the coarse. But we *do* have a choice whether or not to spend money to be exposed to vulgarity and profanity. Surely you see a difference between Jesus attending a bawdy play vs. Jesus attending a dinner with "sinners"?
4. Jeremy said the following at 6:11 PM on Nov 4:
Ted (#3):
Words have no inherent meaning, but that does not make them meaningless, as you observed. Words exist to communicate concepts from one mind to another. And if a word (for instance, a vulgar exclamation) is not conveying any sort of negative concept, then offense arises solely because the hearer either chooses or has been trained to be offended, and that seems counter-productive to me.
Sure, but bawdiness does not arise from word selection, it arises from underlying concepts. And just as focusing on a dinner guest's number of naughty words while ignoring his spiritual condition would be a sad waste, so too is focusing on the number of naughty words in a movie or book or play while ignoring its themes, message, and aesthetic power. Both are minor distractions, and I think that as believers it is much more useful to train ourselves to see past these minor things.
I remember when this idea first came into sharp focus for me. I attended a Christian university, and one evening a club held a screening of the movie The Big Kahuna. It is a powerful film, a fascinating character study that I found provided some insight on how non-believers can sometimes view certain approaches to evangelism as disingenuous, and made me rethink certain interactions I have had with non-Christian friends. I was very interested to hear other people's takes in the discussion that followed, but that discussion was dominated by several people complaining that Kevin Spacey's character cussed too much. It just felt like such a waste, that these people were too distracted to get anything more out of the movie.
5. Befuddled said the following at 7:19 PM on Nov 4:
I read the reviews in the New Yorker before-hand to see if the book or film is worth my while. Most of the appraisals written by the staff at the New Yorker are quite informative and are very concerned with the morality of the piece. I'll never forget the piece David Denby wrote on the Dark Knight, one of the most subversive and socially destructive films I've ever seen. Denby flat out writes that it is a film devoted to perversity. After taking a dozen paragraphs or so to reach this conclusion, the Plugged In review is ultimately less interested in what happens when a generation of youngsters find entertainment in terrorism as noting each type of violence that ensues.
Denby writes that: “"The Dark Knight” has been made in a time of terror, but it’s not fighting terror; it’s embracing and unleashing it—while making sure, with proper calculation, to set up the next installment of the corporate franchise."
No doubt the violence is abhorrent (he did call the film perverse), but reviewers should be more concerned with what the impact of the violence and grim themes are than the violence and themes themselves. This isn’t a discussion that should be reserved for adults who read the New Yorker, because it’s having an effect on our children now.
My apologies for focusing so much on a single film. I think that this is transferable to most any film. Perhaps another good example is the very popular film, Inglorious Bastards. The Plugged In review again was more interested in the scalping than by what was meant by the scalping. There were deeply troubling themes in the film that threatened to nullify the Shoah, yet were not touched on. The New Yorker on the other hand...
I find it disappointing when we have to skip Christian reviewers and camp out at secular publications for a review more concerned with morality.
The Plugged In reviews are nice and they mean well, but often the reviewers just miss the mark on what is actually going on socially in the film and what effect that will have in society.
6. Sarah P. said the following at 3:35 PM on Nov 10:
Jeremy (#4) said: It just felt like such a waste, that these people were too distracted to get anything more out of the movie.
Isn't that a good enough reason to leave out the cuss words? I mean, what's the value added? In which case, it is definitely an artistic judgment more than a moral one to complain about the cuss words, just as you would complain about any deadweight added into a story.
In comment #2, Jeremy said: Words have no inherent meaning; they have power only insofar as you give them power in your mind. If you train yourself to be offended by certain words, they will offend you. If you choose not to take offense, they will not. It really is that simple. Why do so many people seem intent on being offended?
That's one view -- that the reader/audience creates meaning. Others posit that the author creates meaning. Still others (and I lean this way) say that communication works in partnership. An author tries to communicate something; a reader attempts to decode that meaning.
Now, I really don't think people use cuss words in general in order not to be offensive. They use them on purpose because they have shock value. In which case, it is again bad writing to use too many, because that lessens the shock. Without the shock, again, they are empty and worthless.