Reflections on the movies, Signs

The movie Signs with Mel Gibson and Jacqulin Phenoix is an alien invasion movie. But what makes it unique is that the real drama of the movie is the so much the interaction between the aliens and human beings, but the crisis of faith within a family.

The protagonist of the movie, Graham (played by Mel Gibson), is the father of 2 children. He lost his wife 6 months ago. With that he lost his faith, quit his Church of which he was the priest. Graham is angry at God for letting his wife die in a freak accident. As the aliens visit earth, it raises up existential crisis among earthlings. 

Graham says in the movie that there are two types of people in the world. One who believes in miracle and ones who think that everything is a coincidence. People in the 'miracles' group have hope that there is someone who is looking out for them. Graham, having left his faith, he no longer is in the miracles group. 

The movie of course ends with Graham coming back to faith. He realizes that the death of his wife served the purpose of saving his family during the alien invasion. His son gets poisoned by the alien being. Then Graham prays to God to bring his son to not die. His son lives.

So superficially the movie seems to be a vindication of faith. The faith represented in the movie partially aligns with the kind of faith that the bible talks about. 

Romans 8:28 says that God works all things for the good of those who love God. So in that sense the movie seems to align with Christian faith. In that sense, the death of Graham's wife is something that is worked out for the good. 

At the same time, Christian is not outcome oriented. When we pray we are promised answers. But it is also true that God is not some prayer answering machine. God gives us His presence as a gift through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. The essence of faith is to believe in God as the loving presence, Jesus as the face of God, and Holy Spirit as the power of God. Prayer is a way of being in God's presence. In Psalm 27 David says he wants to be in God's temple all the days of his life, gazing on Him all the time. 

Graham, having lost his wife, is in a state of detached shock. In this he has distanced himself people around him, even his kids. He has distanced himself from God too. The way out of his grief come by his finally getting to a place of address himself to God, the first words he says is, "I hate you." In so doing, Graham acknowledges God's presence. In a sense this way of Graham talking to God is a form of a lament prayer - the Psalms often take the form of lament. These lament prayers is one where God allows the petitioner to just pour our his/her heart to God.

In some ways Graham is going through an experience that is analogous to Jesus saying, "why God have you forsaken me?" which is a quote from Psalm 22, a lament Psalm. The point of the movie Signs is that, at times, our faith we may go through a dark night of the soul. The key in those moments it to keep the communication with God open, channeling our feelings to God, even if that feeling is despair or anger. God works it all for the good. His presence is the best goodness we could ever have!

The Bondian Metamorphisis - Glimpses of Post Materialism

Some of the Bond movie enthusiasts I spoke with said they were disappointed with the New Bond movie, 'Skyfall'. I think they have their valid reasons to be. Traditionally, Bond movies were always about what Bond did and how cool he looked doing it, especially with the guns, gadgets and girls. The new Bond is no longer about being 'cool'. The new Bond is about being 'real' the authentic, broken guy who needs help just as everyone of us do. I think this metamorphosis of the Bond movies says something about the changing trajectory of human needs. Traditionally, human need for movies as titillating entertainment was to see popular movies as an escape from the dreary realities of life and have a good time. Now, that is changing movies are increasingly seen as avenues of seeking depth and meaning within the dreary realities of life itself.

I want to do three things in this post.
1. I want to offer a key difference between the traditional and the new Bond movie.
2. Point at the broader scope of this Bondian Metamorphisis that involves other superhero movies too.
3. Offer one key insight into trajectory of human psychic needs which I believe is driving this Bondian Metamorphisis.

A key difference between the traditional and new Bond movies is the focus on the vulnerable side of the Bond. The movie delves into the depths of Bond's insecurities and how it is related to 'Skyfall', his childhood home. Which Bond movie has attempted to expose Bond's insecurities? In Skyfall, when 'M' dies, the Bond hugs her and grieves for her. I don't know if any Bond in the prior movies ever had to bother with that tender emotion of 'grief'. This is not a sudden metamorphosis, it started with the 'Quantum of Solace' (which incidentally is another movie the traditional Bond enthusiasts did not like). In 'Quantum of Solace' the Bond shows himself a man with a 'heart', he goes after the guys who killed his girl in the prior movie, which the traditional Bond never did. There was a distinct change in Bond characterization which I wrote about here. I should say that I liked to new Bond in 'Quantum of Solace', I like him more now in 'Skyfall'. The old Bond was as a man with great style but as Chesterton would call him, 'a man without a chest' - zero depth. The new Bond on the other hand, is a man with a heart who is affected by the sharp edges of life and who is driven by deeper and meaningful life experiences than just guns, gadgets and girls.

The Bond is not the only Superhero movie where the story delves deeper into the human soul and attempts to unravel the mystery and meaning behind things. This trend is apparent in Christopher Nolan's Batman movies too. The Batman does not just come to do cool stuff, much of the movie focuses on who he really is and what part of his soul drives him to do what he does. From the trailers to the next version of the 'Superman' movie, it looks like the Superman movie will take the psychological plunge too. Interestingly, even the Supervillians in these Superhero movies have become people with deep souls, albeit sick ones. In traditional Bond movies, the Supervillian, for some inexplicable reason, is intend on World Domination. In 'Skyfall', the Supervillian Silva isn't so. Rather, Silva is a 'hurt soul' seeking his revenge for M's old 'sins'. In the 'Dark Knight Rises', Bane is a Supervillian - the movies goes into his soul to explain the cause of its twisted nature. With these supervillian's one almost gets to have some pity for them. One gets to see a part of their soul that is soft and tender seeking love and acceptance as anyone else. The Supervillian is just trying to cope with the dreariness of life, albeit the wrong way. Hence, these new Super Hero movies aren't just about providing a good time enjoying the titillating entertainment, but delves into deeper meanings behind things.

I think there a key reason behind this new need for depth and meaning in action movies is that as a society people increasingly crave more for meaning than superfluous titillation. Fredrick Neitzche in his book 'Thus Spake Zarathustra' has a poem about the 'Superman'. He believed if evolution created man from the ape, then naturally it would create a Superman from man. And the last of the (current) man-species he called 'lastman' in his poem. The lastman's last achievement would be to invent happiness...

'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink.

Indeed, in ushering the age of materialism, the modern man has invented happiness. All it take is a click of a button or the swipe of a card. We live in a world of titillation at our finger tips. Nirvana's song Teen Spirit epitomizes this when it says 'here we are now, entertain us'. Inventing happiness is the height of materialism.

Neitzche was prescient in his prognosis that man will invent titillative happiness. But he is wrong in that after finding this titillating happiness, the lastman will be stuck in the evolutionary ladder and 'blink'. The Lastman isn't a man on the evolutionary ladder, paving way for a higher being. Contrary to Neitzche's belief, instead of becoming obselete in an ocean of titillating happiness, the lastman (in the fallen image of the 'Everlastingman' - G.K.Chesterton's Christ) realizes the bankruptcy of his predicament and yearns for something in life beyond titillating happiness. He looks for depth. He craves meaning in spite of dreariness.

This change of trajectory seeking deeper meanings isn't noted only by the Hollywood Script writers and Directors. In fact, it has been happening in Music industry for a long time now. Much of Rock music from Rolling Stones to Pink Floyd expressed the need for deeper meaning. In fact, sociologist/futurists predicting future economic trends notice it too. In the book 'A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers will Rule the Future', the author talks about the importance that search for 'meaning' will take in people's lives. The author quotes the astute psychologist Victor Frankl, "It is not so much that people try to seek pleasure and avoid pain, but that they really are in search for depth and meaning".

The Age of materialism perfected the art of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, we had 'invented happiness'. We realize that it does not satisfy. We have begun moving into the post-materialistic age of search for meaning. Back in the day, movies were made for audience who looked to materialism, and movies as an expression of materialistic titillation  as diversion from the dreary realities of life. People were just there to have a 'good time'. But now, that we have lived through the age of materialistic titillation and found it to be the empty thing that it is, things have changed. We don't just need a 'good time', we need a meaningful time. In this Bondian Metamorphosis, we are seeing the grounds shift away from the age of materialistic titillation to one of seeking meaningful experiences.

So yes, traditional Bond enthusiasts will be disappointed with this trend. But they need to remember the pendulum swings both ways. After having swung for too long into joy-ride of materialism, it is beginning to lose inertia and is starting to trend towards the depth and meaning-ride of the age of post-materialism. The 'Skyfall' Bond gives a glimpse of how entertainment of the Post Materialism age will look like. From the looks of it, it looks like it will have a lot more mystery, meaning and depth, kind of like life itself.

The Brilliance of 'Dumb and Dumber'

Friday night, we had a guys-night with some Church friends at my buddy Matt's house. We saw the movie 'Dumb and Dumber' (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dumb_and_dumber/). I was the only one who hadn't then seen the movie. Everyone promised me that it would be one of the funniest movie I would ever have seen... When I saw Jim Carey's face, I could agree my friends were right. When the movie was over, I totally agreed that it was indeed one of the funniest movies I had ever seen. Matt challenged me to write blog on it and he wanted me to tie it back to the Gospel... The Gospel is so brilliantly all encompassing that in theory I should be able to tie it to anything... If the Gospel doesn't quite fit into the context of this post, it has no bearing on the Gospel Truth, it only reflects my mediocrity as a writer. So here it goes...

For anything to be dumb and funny, it actually has to be pretty intelligent. The brilliant journalist G.K.Chesterton said that in the Newspaper the easiest page to write for is the center-page editorial. The most difficult piece is the two line jokes on the last page. It takes a special brilliance to be able to write two-line jokes. The reason why it takes considerable intelligence to write a good joke is because the joke has to be based on an element of Truth and the joke has to render the Truth in a caricature that well contextualized for people to identify with. A good joke writer has to have more than just an understanding of Truth, it requires a firm grasp of the quirkiness of human nature within the context of a given culture.

'Dumb  and Dumber' is no different... it is based on a Truth which is that human beings, will do anything for love - even if odds in favor is just 1 in a million, 'there is still a chance' :P. 'Dumb and Dumber' renders this Truth as a caricature by twisting the context a bit... This twisting of context is what makes the movie so much fun. Here is an example of that twisting of context... Jim Carey thinks the guy banging the door is the 'gas-man' wanting money. The guy banging the door, when addressed as the gas-man, wonders how Jim Carey could have known about his 'gas-troubles' if he hadn't been following him already. So he thinks that Jim Carey is a professional killer who knows his business, which is an absolute lie. In the movie, you see how Truths, when rendered in a twisted context ends-up being absolutely funny, instead of just being a lie.

Now, let us focus a bit on the cultural contextualization part of the joke. If someone from the middle-ages would watch 'Dumb and Dumber', they may not find the premise of the movie funny at all. That is because they do not quite have our culture's idea of "I'll do anything 'crazy' for love" as in travelling to Aspern penniless and hoping to meet the beautiful girl and impressing her enough to make her fall in love. The reason being, back in the middle ages, love was sort of like food, taken for granted. They lived in joint-family setups where familial love held life together. They did not have to do anything 'crazy' to earn the right to be worthy of love. Love just was... But we, living in a fragmented society, unless we do something for love, will not be loved. The idea of "I'll do anything for love" is deeply ingrained in our society. The script writers of 'Dumb and Dumber' skilfully exploited this deep need for works-based-love our culture.

Even kids movies exploit this works-based-love. In the Disney movie, "How to Train a Dragon", the hero, a nerdy little guy is treated like a worm by the girl he desires. Siding with her hot-handsome boyfriend, she ridicules him. Then this nerdy kid has to go train a sick Dragon and do some incredible stuff with his friendly Dragon to impress this girl. He finally impresses her enough to make her fall in love him. He had to work for love. As romantic as this sounds, this works-based-love has quite paradoxically, wrecked our society - the suitor works hard to get the woman he wants, once he gets her, in and of himself, he does not see a need to work for love anymore. He stops working on his love. Soon he loses love and wonders what the heck happened to his first-love. The SpaceX Founder and CEO Elon Musk is classic example... a year after marrying his super-model girl friend, to justify divorce he said "I still love her, but I am not IN love with her anymore... everyday marriage is just too much hard work."

The Gospel gives the solution to this problem of works-based-love. The gospel is ALL about love, but one does not have to work for this love. Gospel love is the opposite of works-based-love. It is the unconditional love of an ever-loving Father. You can't do anything to earn His love. But this does not absolve the Christian's need to work, rather the gospel-love becomes the fuel for him/her to work harder to love others unconditionally as Christ loved him/her. A Christian who knows the Love of God will work hard, not because he is wants to earn something new, but because He wants to be true to His calling of being his loving Lord's Servant, Scholar and Soldier. In fact, whether it be providing clean water in Africa or rescuing trafficked-women from Malaysia, this 'love of God fueled work' done by Christians is the saving Grace of our increasingly apathetic world.

Unfortunately, when the Christian message is presented to the society it often is presented in such a twisted context that the message of love becomes branded as the 'the religion of a bunch and dumber people' by the popular opinion makers of the likes of Richard Dawkins. He has said that he wonders if Christians have lesser IQ. His rabid atheism apart, there is something to what Richard Dawkins thinks about Christianity. Without the right context, even the best presentation of the Gospel wouldn't even rise to the dignity of a joke. We live in a society where everyone is familiar with the name 'Jesus Christ', but they do not have the right Gospel context to know Him for who He is.

To make Christianity not look 'dumb and dumber' in the eyes of the world, what we need is not just right words, but right words that are put into the right context. The question is, "How is this context built?" This context-building comes when our lives become Christ-like and we become the embodiment of His unconditional love. When people we interact with do not have to work to earn our love, when we would love them as God loves us, we wouldn't look dumb and dumber when we present the Gospel to them. Our lives will look brilliant that they would look at us and wonder what kind of God we worship to be so radically loving. In fact this is precisely what Jesus says...

John 13:
34)  A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35)  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

If the script writers of the same caliber that made "Dumb and Dumber" were to make movies today, it wouldn't be based on the caricature of the Truth of 'i'll do anything for love'. It would I suspect it would be based on, 'i'll do anything to not be bound by love'. If you have been following social trends you'll know that for the first time in human history there are more singles than married people (across the globe). There are more and more books written about the glories of 'going solo' as against being bound in marriage which is increasingly being looked upon as an obsolete social institution. Having lived increasingly fragmented lives for a few generations now, as a society we are losing the motivation and the ability to build truly loving relationships. This makes the Gospel, the dire need of this society. If Christians do not act, like now, our society might end up in a tail-spin of some sort.

John 4:35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.
Matthew 9:37
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;
Matthew 9:38
therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Just like the brilliance of 'Dumb and Dumber' is in the context in which the truths are presented, the brilliance of the Gospel too is in the context, the context being Christ-like love. Instead of being bottled within our selfishly contextualized lives, if Christians would only look-up, we would see that the fields are ripe for harvest, waiting for God's love exemplified in the Brilliant Gospel. If the Gospel does not appear Brilliant within the context of modern day living, the problem is not with the Gospel. Society's caricatured understanding of the God's love reflects only upon the mediocrity of Christian-love. Christians without an understanding of the loving context within which the Gospel Truth needs to be rendered, make it look Dumb and Dumber.

The Nikki Minaj Phenomenon

I enjoy music. But I do not consider myself sophisticated enough to critique it. Yesterday I saw a performance of Nikki Minaj's at the Emmys. Nikki walked on the red carpet dressed as red riding hood with a dude dressed as the Pope and then performed what seemed like a confused parody on the Church. The sole motive of the whole deal seemed to be nothing other than being outrageous for the sake of being outrageous. This has now inspired me to try to critique music and so I'll try to bite something I probably can't quite chew.

I respect Nikki Minaj's achievement in making it to the top. It requires a lot of talent and hard work. She is as old as I, yet her achievement is many thousands times greater than anything I have ever done in my life. But I don't think her music, as I saw in the Grammys, is good music and I think it worth the time pondering why.

I think there are two kinds of music, the ones that bring a tear to the eye and the ones that add a rhythm to the stride. Listening to the Adagio in G minor or some Pink Floyd stuff can move one to tears. On the other hand, the Hungarian Dance or the Black Eye Pea can add a rhythm to one's stride. There is one thing both of them exploit, that is that God has created an intelligent universe in which any sound that adheres to musical norms/laws resonates deeply within human beings. Such music evokes the deepest emotions brining about a psychological contentment. Whether it is Beethovens' 5th or LMFAO's Party Rock, both follow the musical norms that resonate with the part of us that is patently human, as God created us to be.

The goal of musicians through the centuries has been to find newer expressions of the musical norms/laws that deeply resonate with us. So whether it be Beethoven or Black Eye Pea, the goal of music is to conform of the norm/law of music thereby eliciting deeply human responses.

The two apart, there is the third kind of music, where the goal is not to conform to the norms of music but to 'stand out' by non-conformance and make that the point of appeal. There is not a lot of ways this non-conformance can be achieved, because beyond a certain point, 'standing out' just gets too jarring even to the ones with the most jaded of senses. So the goal of this performer is to 'stand out' by manifesting non-conformance non-musically. The easiest way of non-musical non-conformance is through bombastic visuals - popes and priest and exorcisms and gothic cathedrals and speaking in tongues and ancient hymns... as Nikki Minaj did at the Emmys. Sometimes it can just be some 'accidental' wardrobe malfunctions, just saying...

If we look at human history, until the 20th century the goal of living was to conform to the ideal of what it meant to be human. Idealism was the highest goal sought. The question that troubled philosophers and prophets and priests and the peasants was the question of the 'highest good' and how to conform to it. Everyone endeavored to move towards the norm of what it truly meant to be human - reflecting the image of God in us. But with the advent of modernism and ultra-modernism, 'individual expression' has taken the place of the ideal. So the new goal is not to conform to the norms, but to 'stand out' in every arena, music included.

People will do anything to 'stand out' and people will admire everything that 'stands out' as long as its titillative value is high enough to appeal to the jaded sense that no longer has the patience or the nuance to enjoy the music that adheres to the norms. Nikki Minaj is not the first to ride this way of egregious individual expressionism, she will not be the last.

Nikki Minaj can 'stand out' by do everything from belittling Priests to disparaging Christianity. She is after all, the new Madonna (remember the burning cross). But there is no way she can stand up against God designed timeless norms/laws of what makes music enjoyable to the human ear. As the legendary Cecil De Miller's said before the screening of his timeless classic, 'The Ten Commandments', "man cannot break the law of God, anyone who tries will only find himself breaking against it".