Remember how “The Passion of the Christ” was supposed to be a wet smack in the face for those jaded sybarites of Hollywood/Babylon? How church basements, not focus groups, would be the new proving ground for America’s blockbusters? After the success of Mel Gibson’s thanato-pic, the theory went, the suits on Melrose would finally get it, and they'd greenlight a host of imitators, full of spiritual intensity and religious relevance.
If today’s Oscar nominations are any measure, it’s clear that Hollywood still doesn’t get it. If Mel were handing out the awards instead of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences--call them the “Mels” instead of the Oscars--which of the current crop of nominees would win big? “Brokeback Mountain,” in which two cowboys get it on in the heart of Red America? “Capote,” in which an effete New York writer seduces a murderer to tell him his tale in ghastly detail, and then roots for the dead man walking to hang for the sake of book sales? Spielberg’s ambivalent take on the events of Munich in 1972?
The Oscar nominations, of course, may not be an adequate measure. “The Passion,” after all, didn’t get a nomination either. But if Gibson’s film has a legacy at all, we’re still waiting for it to show up somewhere in Hollywood. Even the one spiritual film of the year, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” neither sought nor got prior approval from the evangelical Christian community that Gibson rallied before going wide with “TPOTC.”
Actor Chad Allen and I have two things in common: (1) We share the same birthday, and (2) we both like boys. That's right, the man chosen to play the dual role of evangelical missionary Nate Saint and his son Steve Saint in the film "End of the Spear," is gay.
Based on Steve Saint's book of the same name, "End of the Spear" follows five Christian missionaries who make first contact with the Waodani tribe of Ecuador, a society that is thought to be the "most violent that ever existed." The missionaries are slain by the tribesmen, but some of their widows and children, including young Steve, go to live in the Waodani village and befriend the tribe, including the men who killed the missionaries. Steve later becomes a successful businessman in the U.S., only to return with his wife and son to live, again, with the Waodani. He and the man who killed his father, Mincayani, become close friends--an inspiring story of acceptance and forgiveness.
As for Chad Allen's association with the film, Christianity Today reports:
Allen told Christianity Today Movies that he didn't tell "End of the Spear"'s filmmakers about his sexuality until after they had offered him the job in late 2003. The filmmakers also say they didn't know about Allen's lifestyle until after they offered him a contract, but they felt obliged to honor it even though it had not yet been signed.
The explanation is hard to accept; in Hollywood, even a signed contract isn't a guarantee that you will end up on screen. Actors get replaced all the time. Just ask Stuart Townsend ("Nightstalker"), who was replaced by Viggo Mortensen in "The Lord of the Rings" after just four days of filming. But perhaps, being Christians, the producers felt they answer to a power higher than Hollywood legalese and that the right thing to do was honor the contract.
But I'd say that Every Tribe Entertainment, producers of the movie, need to hire new casting directors or at least find a production assistant to do a search of Chad Allen's name on IMDB.com. If they would have done that, they'd have learned that the actor has been featured in The Out Traveler magazine and runs a production company with actor Robert Gant from "Queer as Folk." Just to be clear here, the "out" in Out Traveler doesn't mean Outward Bound, and "Queer as Folk" is all about folks who are, well... you get the point. In fact, Steve Saint himself said in an email to Christianity Today Movies, "I could not imagine how something like this could slip through a professional screening process."
Indeed, Allen is probably the least-closeted celebrity this side of Elton John. Very publically outed in 1996 by "The Globe" tabloid while he was still on "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," he has since gone on to pose on the cover of publications such as "The Advocate" and works with charities such as the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which helps elect gay candidates to political office, and a suicide hotline for gay, lesbian, and bisexual teens. In fact, when I first heard that Allen would be starring in an evangelical Christian film my confusion meter went off the scale. But at the same time, would there be a brouhaha if Allen--who was clearly chosen because he was right for the role--was not gay but also not Christian?
Perhaps Allen
, who attends All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif., should have been more upfront about his homosexuality before he was offered the role. But, again according to Christianity Today, he did offer to “walk away from this—contract or no contract, even if that means I'm liable for breaking the contract."
But then, God does work in mysterious ways, according to Steve Saint himself:
[In a dream I was] being chased by a mob of Christians who were angry with me for having desecrated "their story." The answer to their hostility was easy: Just ask Chad to remove himself. But as quickly as this thought came to me, I found myself standing before God. His look was not as compassionate as I had expected. God said, "Steve, you of all people should know that I love all of my children. With regard to Chad Allen, I went to great lengths to orchestrate an opportunity for him to see what it would be like for him to walk the trail that I marked for him. Why did you mess with my plans for him?"
Saint continues:
Mart [Mart Green, Founder and CEO of Every Tribe Entertainment] has told me that he feels responsible for putting me in a difficult position by hiring Chad.... I don't think this is Mart's doing. God planned the death of his own Son. I believe he planned the death of my dad and his four dear friends. Now, I believe God is at work again. I don't pretend to know what God is going to do with this controversy, but I am confident that he is behind this.
Perhaps God knows that one good story of forgiveness and acceptance should beget another. Or maybe He just knows there's no such thing as bad publicity.
According to a Friend of a Friend, who just happens to be a big-shot Hollywood producer, “Son of Man,” which I blogged about here yesterday, is not the only movie dealing with issues of spirituality and redemption at this year’s Sundance Festival. In fact, he told me yesterday he is fascinated that the majority of films he has screened this week have wrestled with issues of faith in one way or another--a trend that he hasn’t seen in years past. So I thought I would pass along this Friend of a Friend of Mine’s (seriously, if I told you who he was, you’d be impressed) recommendations of the best of Sundance, which may be coming to an art-house theater near you in the coming months.
“Forgiven”: In a modern day Greek tragedy about our country's racial and social divide, writer/director/star Paul Fitzgerald plays Peter Miles, a district attorney running for state senator. On the eve of his campaign launch, the governor pardons Ronald Bradley, a man who Peter had put on death row. When pressed by the media, Peter chooses to stick to his story that Ronald is guilty of the cop killing. However, Ronald--suddenly a free man--knows that Peter has for six years possessed information proving Ronald's innocence and chose to ignore it. Ronald decides that it’s time for a confrontation with Peter, which ends with surprising consequences.
“Stephanie Daley”: Amber Tamblyn ("Joan of Arcadia") plays a high school student who denies knowing that she was pregnant and that she killed the child after giving birth in a ski resort bathroom. Tilda Swinton ("Chronicles of Narnia") is the psychologist hired by the prosecutor to evaluate the girl and find the truth, but in the process the doctor must face her own hidden pain over a loss of her own. In the process, both women confront pain, guilt, and grief.
And if my Friend of a Friend’s recommendations aren’t good enough, check out the Journal of Religion and Film’s glowing reviews of several other faith-based movies at Sundance, including "Adam’s Apples," about a middle-aged neo-Nazi who has been assigned community service at a country church, and "Jewboy," a story about the son of a Hasidic rabbi and his spiritual journey in the wake of his father’s death.
Now that NBC’s controversial show “The Book of Daniel” is no more, it brings up the question, again: What does a television show look like that is both viable and Christian? Not all spiritual shows are Christian. One of the most successful shows in the history of the medium, “Touched By an Angel,” was a weekly tearjerker that featured angels. But angels are not exclusively Christian, and anyway God’s messengers were closer to Greek Fates, posted at life’s doorways to create an aura of cosmic control and well-being. The show did well in part because it was TV’s version of comfort food.
"TBAA" did, however, focus on human suffering--how to respond to it and God's role in it. This elemental spiritual question seems to be good for ratings. CBS’s short-lived hit, “Joan of Arcadia,” portrayed a family dealing with a wheelchair-bound brother, among other crises. Often, God expected Joan (and us) to translate her own pain into compassion for others.
With five people with edgy problems and visits from the Other Side, “The Book of Daniel” seemed to pattern itself after HBO’s “Six Feet Under,” which for a time was the most spiritually challenging show on TV. Not coincidentally, perhaps, it was intent on the question of why we suffer and die. So why didn't "Daniel" fly? NBC’s mistake, apparently, was putting Aidan Quinn in a dog collar. For every “Seventh Heaven,” there are two or three shows starring priests that misfire, including Dan Akroyd’s brief strut on “Soul Man,” and now “Daniel.”
One of the many reasons I enjoy watching Lost week after week is that the show can always be counted on to provide thought-provoking spiritual images that add to the fascinating mythology of the characters as well as the island. Last night’s episode centered around yet another religious image--water as a symbol of being baptized. However, unlike previous episodes, this time I was disappointed to watch the series writers give only the shallowest of treatments to a significant ritual.
Recovering addict and has-been rocker Charlie begins having surreal dreams about fellow survivor Claire’s baby, Aaron. Even as Claire continues to voice her distrust of Charlie after discovering he had been hiding a statue full of heroin, Charlie is increasingly convinced that he must stay close to Aaron because Aaron is about to be placed in some kind of danger and only Charlie can save him. Charlie also becomes fixated on something Mr. Eko said to him about having Aaron baptized. The problem is that in Charlie’s state of mind, baptism means placing Aaron in the raging ocean surf to drown.
Despite Charlie’s odd behavior , Claire does approach the “priest,” Mr. Eko, about baptizing her child in a more traditional way. To my horror, Mr. Eko then gives one of the worst explanations of baptism I have ever heard. Claire asks Eko what would happen if Aaron was baptized and she wasn’t; would Aaron go to heaven and she to hell? Eko responds by telling her that that wouldn’t happen if she simply decides to become baptized too, so she agrees. With no moment of confession, no sign that she believes in baptism as anything other than an insurance policy, Mr. Eko still performs this religious rite for both Claire and Aaron, and the ensuing montage is meant to have us believe all is well with their souls.
While baptism practices vary by religious affiliation, most baptism rituals have something in common--in a pure sense, baptism is meant to be a sign of connecting or identifying with something greater than ourselves in a way that brings significant change to our lives. It is not intended to be treated as a “get out of jail free” card or to be used as coercion to convince someone to convert to something. The fact that we don’t see Eko, a supposedly repentant man of God, explaining the true nature of baptism or encouraging any type of acknowledgment from Claire that she wishes to be spiritually connected or changed in some way before he baptizes her left me feeling that this is one time where the true spiritual meaning of an important religious rite was completely lost and no new insight for us as an audience was gained.
One of the movies causing the biggest buzz this week at the Sundance Film Festival, one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world, just happens to be a movie about Jesus--and Mel Gibson has nothing to do with it. Made in Capetown, South Africa, “Son of Man” turns the life of Christ into an African fable and takes selected events from the Bible and places them into a fictional modern-day African country filled with poverty and strife. In this film, Christ is a black child growing up in a shanty, and his mother, Mary, argues with angels. Later on, some of Christ's 12 disciples are women.
Director Mark Domford-May, in a recent interview with Reuters, explained his choices in portraying the life of Christ this way by saying, "We wanted to look at the gospels as if they were written by spin doctors and to strip that away and look at the truth."
While some in the religious community might not completely appreciate Domford-May’s implication that the gospels were written by a bunch of propagandists selling the latest ideology, I am excited at the discussion this film seems to be sparking. One blogger reports that the person at Sundance who introduced the film said the movie made him realize he was a “closet Christian.” CNN has also been covering the reactions to this film and did a piece on why this movie is speaking to some people in a way that “The Passion of the Christ” didn’t. Hmm... maybe that is in part because, unlike “The Passion” or even “The Last Temptation of Christ,” these filmmakers are relative unknowns and are not carrying the personal and professional “baggage” that Mel Gibson or Martin Scorsese brought with them to their projects about Christ.
Regardless, I hope that many truth seekers, as well as indie film buffs, will give this film a chance and enter into the dialogue about the Christ narrative.
Resident New Yorkers have long enjoyed a love affair with a famous confectionary institution called The Magnolia Bakery, made ever-more famous by the "Sex & the City" foursome who couldn't get enough of Magnolia's trademark cupcakes, and more recently, by the "Saturday Night Live" skit "The Chronic of Narnia Rap" (a must see if you haven't already watched it), which features a narrated trip to Magnolia.
But can cupcakes extend your life?
I certainly can't get enough of Magnolia's cupcakes (the best is when they have a daily special with cream cheese frosting), and am willing to stand in the lines that go out the door and around the corner on sunny days, but I can't imagine going so far as to special order cupcakes made with Borba Age Defying Water. That's right! With just a phone call and a special request, The Magnolia Bakery will make you as many Borba-Age-Defying-Cupcakes as you so desire.
Perhaps you can pre-order your honey a Borba-infused red velvet one for Valentine's Day this year and hope for immortal love as well?
It may seem like a movie such as "The Aristocrats," out this week on DVD, would hardly be fodder for a self-respecting spirituality blog like Idol Chatter, but My Friend the Rabbi offered up some wise insights about this film, which consists entirely of well-known comedians reciting their own versions of a raunchy joke--and trying to outdo each other in making the joke filthier and filthier. The joke always starts with the same opening and ends with the same punchline, but everything in between is up to the teller's imagination (and those featured in the film have quite, um, vivid imaginations). It may not sound like the most promising premise for a feature film, and as I said, hardly the usual fare for spiritually-minded folks.
But My Friend the Rabbi points out that the movie really is depicting the transmission of a faith. Think about it: There is a a defined group, in this case professional comedians (who, the movie tells us, don't generally tell this joke to audiences, instead reserving it for their own post-show, backstage sessions amongst themselves). And there is a text that is at once unchanging and in need of interpretation, a scripture of sorts that serves as a guide.
The joke always contains three sections--the standard opening, involving a family act and a talent scout who says he doesn't represent family acts; a middle that is improvised, describing the raunchy act that the family performs for the scout; and a set punchline, in which the scout asks what the act is called and is told, "The Aristocrats." This joke, which is not even funny in any inherent way, is dutifully passed on from generation to generation in the comedy world, with each generation adding its own layers of interpretation and seeing it through its own unique eyes. Why this joke? Tradition. It was the favorite of the iconic comedians of years past, men (and the occasional woman) who are worshipped by every comic who's come along in years since. Where'd the joke come from? No one's sure, but there may have been earlier, slightly different versions that spawned this one.
And should you see the movie and convert to Aristocratism or something like that? Well, only you can decide for yourself if you've got "The Aristocrats" in your heart.
“End of the Spear” is the story of how Jim Elliot followed the spiritual promptings within him --and set in motion an unexpected series of events. In short, he and some buddies believed they should give their lives to reach one of the most brutal groups the world had ever known. After he and his friends were speared to death, two of the widows—and their children—followed in their footsteps, including Jim’s wife Elizabeth.
What makes the story powerful is the spirituality of a man who said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” It is a kind of spirituality that we should talk about more.
In our current culture, most spirituality is about “what works for me.” What makes me feel good? What makes me feel better? What helps me solve my problems? What gives me strength against my challenges? What is an entertaining way to engage in spirituality? What gives me a natural high? What did I get out of the book, show, movie, text, song, poem, etc.?
The musician Scott Wesley Brown, who was one of the millions who’ve had their lives transformed by the Elliots’ sacrifice, attempted to capture Jim’s sacrificial walk when he wrote:
I've lost track of all the Sundays The offering plates gone by And as I gave my hard earned dollars I felt free to keep my life. I talk about commitment And the need to count the cost But the words of a martyr show me I don't really know His cross.
Jim’s decision to go—and his wife’s decision to follow in his footsteps—was about a kind of spirituality that wasn’t saying “what’s in it for me?” It was about saying, “What, God, do you want me to do?” And, "please give me the strength and courage to do it."
"End of the Spear" is worth watching, if only to direct our reflections about whether our spiritual journey is truly about discovering God, or if it’s more like a trip to the mall... looking for something that makes us feel good at a bargain price.
John Lennon declared the Beatles to be bigger than Jesus Christ, but at least they didn’t try to be Jesus Christ.
Kanye West, the multi-platinum selling rap artist and outspoken celebrity who criticized President Bush's Katrina relief efforts last year, will grace the upcoming cover of Rolling Stone as Jesus Christ, complete with a crown of thorns atop his head--ensuring that he'll be drumming up plenty of controversy in 2006.
To be fair to West, he's not the first rapper to play God, in the person of his Son, Jesus. In 1999, Nas stirred up quite a bit of controversy playing a "Christ-like" figure who is crucified and stoned in his video for "Hate Me Now." Mentor, producer, and collaborator Sean "Puffy/P. Diddy/Diddy" Combs is also shown being crucified. Apparently, Combs had second thoughts about his inclusion, the video was re-edited to remove the image--but the wrong version aired on MTV's Total Request Live. Within minutes of the broadcast, Combs reportedly barged into the offices of Nas's manager and beat him about the head with a champagne bottle. So much for turning the other cheek.
And on the cover of his posthumous release "Makaveli," 2Pac (Tupac) Shakur is seen crucified like Jesus Christ, adding to conspiracy theorist speculation that the rapper isn't actually dead.
But Kanye West's Mel Gibson-like devotion doesn’t stop with his coverboy imitatio Christi. West, whose hit single “Jesus Walks” was prominently played in the “Jarhead” trailer, has a reproduction of the Sistine Chapel ceiling in his dining room, and has--with the help of Jacob the Jeweler, jeweler to the stars--designed a line of jewelry featuring diamond encrusted Jesus heads.
Still, West does his bit for ecumenicism, also posing for Rolling Stone as boxer Muhammad Ali, the world-famous convert to Islam.
Albert Brooks may be getting all the press for "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World," but his costar, Sheetal Sheth, deserves a moment in the spotlight, too. In the film, Sheth plays the young assistant hired to help Brooks in his mission to discover what makes Muslims laugh. It's her highest-profile role to date, and she handles it gracefully--just as she does the press junket in which a bunch of reporters, including me, screamed questions at her for half an hour.
"Looking for Comedy" opened to lukewarm-at-best reviews--including that of my colleague Dilshad Ali--but Brooks and Sheth are obviously proud of the film and discuss it passionately. You can read what they had to say about "Looking for Comedy" here, but since much of what Sheth talked about in the interview was interesting but off-topic, here are some interview "outtakes," Idol Chatter's version of DVD extras.
As a young actress trying to establish herself, Sheth has had to battle Hollywood's pigeonholing of people of color. An NYU film-school graduate born in New Jersey, she's often forced to audition for "ethnic roles"--only to be told that she's not actually "ethnic," despite her dark skin and Indian heritage.
"A lot of times what I find is that when they want to cast 'diverse' or 'ethnic' they think it means black. I'll literally go in for something, and they'll say, 'You're not ethnic,'" she says. "It's funny they even think like that. I go through interesting things every day in terms of that whole thing."
And then there are the times when directors are looking for someone who looks just like her--but putting on an exaggerated Indian accent is the only punch line in the script.
"There's a difference between something being funny because of the character vs. the ethnicity," she says. "And then I'm like, 'Here's the deal. I'm not funny right now because of what you've written or because of the character. You're laughing at my accent and this persona you have, the idea of this stereotype, and I'm not interested in it.'"
"Looking for Comedy" offers her a role with a funny character and an Indian accent, Sheth says. As someone who's spent extended periods in India visiting family, the question, she adds, was what that accent should be. "I didn't want to do this very general accent that you hear a lot, that's this kind of stereotypical thing that you hear a lot, like Apu from 'The Simpsons,'" Sheth says. "And so it felt like, from her education and the way she was brought up, it's very British influenced in India, and so we needed to be that."
With roles in indie-flicks like "ABCD" and "American Chai"--together with her appearance in "Looking for Comedy"--Sheth says she's been happy with the work she's found and is working full-time as an actress, despite the hurdles she's faced. So whatever the accent she uses, you may be hearing Sheetal Sheth's name more and more in the coming years--though, if she'd listened to the veteran show-biz people who advised her in years past, it would actually be some other name you'd hear.
"When I graduated from NYU, and I was meeting people, and I met with my very first manager... we had this great meeting, and at the end of the meeting, she's like, 'Great, can't wait, so excited, which one of your names are you going to change?'" Sheth says. "It may sound
naive and silly, but it really never occurred to me it would be a conversation I would have to have as often as I do... All of a sudden, I'm a professional actor, and it's something I deal with every day."
You can watch a clip of Sheth in "Looking for Comedy" by clicking here.
There's a people in this country clamoring for wholesome but engaging entertainment that speaks their language and addresses the concerns of their Scripture-based lifestyle. I refer, of course, to haredi Jews--the fervently observant, sometimes called ultra-Orthodox. At last, they are getting a movie of their own. Shot in Monsey--a New York ex-urb and one of the major hubs of Orthodox life--"A Gesheft" ("The Deal") is said by its producers to be the first completely Yiddish-speaking movie to made in the United States since the once thriving Yiddish-language film industry collapsed some 60 years ago.
"We decided that religious Jews needed their own movies far from the dangerous influence of Hollywood," explains a press release from Mendy and Yakov Kirsh, who make up Kosher Entertainment. What's so kosher about it? Though full of drama, car-crashes, and lots of dudes in traditional black hats and topcoats, the movie has no women, out of respect for Orthodox rules restricting men from being entertained by the opposite sex. The unisex cast is not as striking, however, as the total dedication to the tongue of Eastern European Jewry: Even an African-American cop speaks his one line in Yiddish. The filmmakers are looking to make a tour of festivals later this year.
The promotional campaign last summer for TNT's "The Closer," a Law & Order-like crime-solving drama (but way, way quirkier), featured the show's main character, Chief Brenda Johnson (played by Kyra Sedgwick), announcing: "Confession. It's good for the soul." For those of you who ignored her appeal and missed this excellent show, you have a second chance to tune in (and confess away): Season One of "The Closer" is re-running now on Tuesdays at 10 p.m., in preparation for Season Two, which starts this summer.
I happened to catch the pilot episode in June and was immediately addicted to Chief Johnson's humor, no-nonsense crime-solving style, and Southern charm, as well as the show's totally engrossing stories. And as I kept tuning in, week after week, to see what cases came across Chief Johnson's desk, I couldn't help but notice, during the commercials, how TNT was using Chief Johnson's trademark style--sweet talking the suspect into spilling the beans--as a means to lure viewers into watching this confession-centered drama. Time after time, Chief Johnson would appear on screen to advertise "The Closer" and announce in her syrupy Southern drawl that confession is "good for the soul." And every time she said those words, I thought about the paradox this set up. In Christianity, confessing is literally a means of soul-cleansing and a way of gaining God's forgiveness--truth-telling your way to liberation--but on the show and in Chief Brenda Johnson's mind, confession might indeed make you feel better, but it will inevitably land you in the not-so-forgiving slammer.
All paradoxes aside, it's a fantastic show. Give it a chance.
The culture has been furiously digesting religious fundamentalism of late, and that process hasn't been kind to Mormons. The history of the Church of Latter Day Saints, after all, has plenty of violence and controversy, and besides, they live way out in Utah. The media, at any rate, seems to regard them as fair game. As this New York Times article makes clear, the Church of Latter Day Saints' anni horribili continue with a movie due out this Spring about the Mountain Meadows massacre of 1857, when a group of Mormons joined forces with Indians to kill 128 non-Mormon emigrants passing through on their way to California.
Mormon faithful might be made hopeful by the fact that Jon Voight, fresh from his role as Pope John Paul II, plays a fictional LDS elder in the film, called "September Dawn." Hopes may be crushed by the fact that the film's director previously worked on such thoughtful screen gems as "The Next Karate Kid" and "Gone Fishin."
Just past the two-hour mark in Terrence Malick's "The New World," a character named Opechancanough--one of the "naturals," as the film calls Native Americans--tells Rebecca, known as Pocahontas before her baptism, that he is being sent to England to "meet this God they talk about so much."
The irony of this statement is twofold: (1) There is very little actual dialogue in the first two hours of the movie, and (2) a small fraction of that dialogue is given over to talking about God. Which left me scratching my head over Opechancanough's rather humorous comment.
At this point, I must disclose that I am not a real fan of Malick's style. A philosophy student at both Harvard and Oxford, who later taught philosophy and translated Martin Heidegger's works, Malick's films are slower than expected, more sensitive to the voices within and without, and tend to dote on questions about nature and the place that humans make for themselves in it. Some find this liberating, others find it laborious. In this case, I felt like I was watching a Nature Channel special on the ecosystem of the Chesapeake Bay, blended with a continuous loop of Calvin Klein "Obsession" commercials--lots of shots of people strolling through tall grass, asking esoteric questions.
Using the star-crossed relationship of John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher) to illuminate the conflicts between the "civilized" white settlers of Jamestown and the "natural" people whom they believed they found in a new Eden, the movie is typical Terrence Malick--deliberate pacing, some might say plodding, with an intense focus on the natural world.
Apart from that reference to Eden, which was made by Governer Christopher Newport (Christopher Plummer), along with a scene where Smith wonders aloud if he has gone against God's wishes in loving Pochantas, the most obvious reference in "The New World" to the Christian God is the giant cross looming above the English fort, the same cross the "naturals" seemed to be trying to knock down earlier in the film. However, only a few times in the film do we get a glimpse at the role religion might have actually played in the Jamestown colony, such as when Captain Edward Wingfield (David Thewlis) strips Smith of his command based on a chapter from Leviticus and when Pocahontas is baptized and given the name Rebecca.
We see a bit more of the Native Americans' spiritual lives--dances, sun salutations, prayer, and other rituals--but they are never explained in any detail. I understand that Malick intends for the audience to experience things just as Smith did, confused, scared, awed, and not clued in to what is happening, but it would have added to my experience and enjoyment of the movie if Malick had offered a few more clues to orient us.
And yet, a few days removed from seeing the film, I realize "The New World" is imbued with spiritul and religious notes that never quite took form for me while actually watching it. I can appreciate, if not completely agree with, Malick's somewhat over-simplified sentiments about the purity and superiority of the Algonquin's spiritual lives as compared to that of the English settlers; perhaps I was just expecting more spirituality and faith from a movie set in the 17th century, an era in which settlements came to be known "as plantations of religion." Perhaps, though, it just takes a few days back in the real world to really appreciate "The New World."
As Carlos pines away for a baby, Sister Mary uses religious and psychological brainwashing to get him away from Gabrielle. Eager to recruit Carlos as a more devout Catholic, Sister Mary goads Carlos into believing his marriage can't be saved; Gabrielle is only keeping him on a leash by being wishy-washy about having a baby, she tells him. The marriage, therefore, is not a real covenant in God's eyes and the only solution to an ungodly marriage is to get an annulment (a pamphlet of which Sister Mary has "conveniently" kept in her car's glove compartment).
After Gabrielle is threatened with an annulment, she goes to confession to complain that she is jealous of the nun's relationship with Carlos. When asked by the priest whether Carlos and Sister Mary are having an affair, Gabrielle is forced to choose between a truth ('no') and a lie ('yes'). Choosing the lie, Gabrielle then quickly soothes her conscience by confessing--to a different priest--that she lied to a priest, but her lie has already ensured Sister Mary's quiet transfer to another church in Alaska.
With Sister Mary banished to cold and darkness, Gabrielle shockingly proves that (sometimes) lies are worth telling to get what one wants, even if the future may cause the lie to backfire. For now though, Gabrielle seizes her victor's title and rewards Carlos with the promise of a baby.
Watching this season of '24' continue to unfold, I'm moved to continue the debate I've been having with fellow Idol Chatterer Donna Freitas on the show and its hero, Jack Bauer. (Read my original posting here, and her response here.)
This year’s storyline is based on Jack’s having begun a new life as a humble day worker, complete with a girlfriend and her adolescent son. In last year’s finale, we saw a hero who was willing to risk his life and career—and sacrifice his identity—to save the President, and eventually, millions of people in the path of a nuclear bomb. Now, he seems more than content to have left the daily do-or-die decisions of CTU (the Counter-Terrorism Unit he worked for) behind him and engage in a more normative lifestyle. It took the deaths of several of his friends and the assassination of the former President to bring him out of hiding, and it took a false accusation of multiple murders to to re-engage him in the kind of antics that make the show what it is.
While the plot twists and internet guessing games about what will happen to his character continue, I hope the conversations among spiritual journeyers will move to the more compelling questions the show asks:
1. What, really, do we believe is worth fighting for? 2. What, really, do we believe is worth dying for? 3. What, really, am I personally responsible for?
At a time when American soldiers are risking their lives every day and what passes for Intelligence is at the center of several national debates, this is a show that brings to light the complicated questions about what it takes to protect a nation, more so than any show I can remember since the end of “Three Days of the Condor.”
With all respect to Donna, I don't believe that the character of Jack Bauer is a “martyr in the making” so much as he’s a fanatic about the responsibility he’s taken on, a trait that more of us could and should incorporate into our spiritual journeys and lives. The “human side of heroism” has included, for Jack, the loss of family and friends and a reluctant re-entrance into the hidden world of terrorists and spys. Each of us who aims to be spiritual should take inventory of the responsibilities placed in our path and consider our own levels of commitment and willingness to sacrifice, and examine how our courage can make the world a better place.
Rolling Stone’s story on Scott Stapp, lead singer for the late crypto-Christian band Creed, is by turns hair-raising and eyebrow raising. The magazine details Stapp’s spectacular fall from rock-and-roll grace, tracking him from his rock-free Pentecostal upbringing in Florida to the garishly inebriated performances that resulted in lawsuits from disappointed fans, failed attempts to free himself from successive addictions to Percocet and Oxycontin, and the eventual breakup of the band. At one point Stapp had so worn out his welcome with his fellow musicians that a tourmate from another band donned a T-shirt that read "Even Jesus Hates Creed." Not much of this, the hair-raising part, is news. (It will have you questioning Stapp’s Christianity, though the interviewer notes that Stapp keeps a Bible etched with his name close by during their chat). The eyebrow-raising part comes when Stapp tells Rolling Stone, "My problems were not what ended Creed."
Stapp, who is getting married next month, released his first solo album, "The Great Divide," in November and heads out on tour on Feb. 23rd. It would be nice to think he's got his affairs straight, but as recently as Thanksgiving he had an allegedly alcohol-fueled run-in with the band 311 in a Baltimore hotel bar.
The much-anticipated "Superman Returns" won't be released for several months, but the trailer is out and contains this shocker: He's become a Christ figure. We're used to thinking of Superman as something of a Jewish tale, but it seems like he may have switched teams for this latest movie.
Like so many of the people behind the classic American comic-book heroes, Superman's creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, were Jewish, and more to the point, their creation had a distinctly Jewish feel. Superman was the Golem, the supernatural figure who wreaks havoc on evildoers, fighting for good and expecting no reward. It should come as no surprise that he first emerged in the late '30s, as Hitler's campaign to eradicate European Jewry (which included, no doubt, close relatives of Siegel and Shuster) was underway. As Michael Chabon so poignantly dramatizes in his 2001 novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay," the fantasy of a Golem denying victory to Hitler was just about all that most Jews could cling to as the horrors unfolded.
The premise of the new film is that Superman has been away from Earth for some time and, as the title implies, returns, presumably to halt some imminent cataclysm. But in the trailer for "Superman Returns" we hear a deep, authoritative voice addressing Superman (using his given name, Kal-El), telling the superhero that, though he has been raised as a human being, he is not one of them--and yet he still has a mission to accomplish among the humans. The voice continues:
They can be a great people, Kal-El. They wish to be. They only lack the light to show them the way. For this reason above all--their capacity for good--I've sent them you, my only son.
And there you have it. The second coming of Christ... I mean Superman... hits theaters June 30.
(Special thanks to my old friend Jeremy for alerting me to this.)
Naveen Andrews, who plays the Iraqi character Sayid on “Lost,” recently admittedly that he had impregnated a woman—pardon, “fathered a love child”—while on hiatus from his longtime girlfriend Barbara Hershey. Unfortunately, that news preempted a bunch of more interesting tidbits from the British actor, which had appeared in a Gannett interview just days before the fathering bombshell.
Andrews--who wears a cross, calls his mother a “Christian maniac,” and believes “there are many ways to God”--will appear as Egyptian prince Menerith in a version of “The Ten Commandments” coming to ABC this Spring. On the list of things Andrews won’t be saying again once network publicists get to him is this observation: “Our Moses is portrayed as a nut case.” Also: “God basically orders genocide in the name of 'you do what I tell you.' In this sense, the miniseries, he says, “is a study of dogma” and the dangers of fundamentalism. (Lest you think the film set was all furrowed brows and deep thoughts, Andrews admits in another interview, that the actors had a hard time shaking off the feeling that they were in a remake of Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.”)
It may be old news, but in light of his recent statement regarding the health of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Pat Robertson’s moral compass is an open target for scrutiny.
Although not as attention-grabbing as his verbal forays into the world of public embarrassment, Pat Robertson’s August 2001 introduction of a recipe for “Pat’s Age-Defying Shake” raised some eyebrows—and some questions. For someone so ready and willing to express the word of God by spinning Scripture into something of an admonishment for the world, Robertson, it seems, is just asking for a taste of his own medicine.
Touting his concoctions’ curative properties, Robertson offers two recipes for time-halting foodstuffs on the Christian Broadcasting Network's website: one for "Pat Robertson’s Age-Defying Shake," and another for "Pat’s Age-Defying Protein Pancakes." The instructions for self-manufacture of these miracle products are available for free after registration. Although this may offer the illusion of legitimacy, it is perhaps the “age-defying” property of these foods that calls for further examination. Does it not defy God to pursue the vanity of youth? Is it not God’s will that you should age gracefully, on His terms? It seems Pat Robertson has failed to consider one of the most ignored of the seven deadly sins, the sin of pride.
Even more provocative is the televangelist’s turn as entrepreneur; a similar product he developed for weight loss has become a readymade vehicle for profit. In a deal with national health and nutrition chain GNC, Robertson is marketing “Pat's Diet Shake” in two flavors: classic chocolate and its milder counterpart, vanilla. Although there is no co-branding with his nonprofit endeavors evident on the label or in its marketing, the use of his name, a moniker synonymous with “The 700 Club” and the Christian Broadcasting Network, is as easily identifiable as, say, “Atkins” or “The Zone.” So even though Mr. Robertson has the freedom to explore business ventures outside the confines of his media empire, profiting off his already well-publicized personality is neither a righteous nor an ethically sound means of adding money to his coffer.
Just as Jewish culture isn't all about black hats and beards, and Jewish humor isn't all about guilt and your mother, stereotypical Jewish foods such as bagels, matzah balls, and gefilte fish may soon have to share the plate with lesser-known Jewish delicacies hailing from the traditions of Bukharian Jews from Central Asia.
Thanks to a recent New York Times article touting the flavor of the Bukharians living in and around Queens, N.Y., chebureks and kebabs--savory deep fried pies and hunks of crisp lamb fat--get their chance to shine as Jewish food with a culinary conscience.
I came to know the Bukharian culture through my first boyfriend, the child of Russian-speaking Jewish parents living in the Queens neighborhood Forest Hills. His character was spicy and pungent, just like the dishes his mom prepared when I met her for the first time. I was thrilled to have landed a Heeb who didn't seem, well, the stereotypical bagels-and-lox Jew. But it was always a challenge to explain to friends--Jewish and non-Jewish alike--that even though he had dark skin and listened to music with Arabic-inflections, he was in fact a member of The Tribe. I would tell them he was Bukharian. What? BUK-HAR-IAN.
They didn't get it at the time, but if the Times article is anything of an indication that the world is ready to broaden its image of Jewish culture, let's pick up our forks and do so one bite at a time.
Cumin-scented pilaf of rice anyone? Yes, please.
posted by Alana B. Elias Kornfeld @ 12:07 PM | Permalink |
Add to Del.icio.us 
Digg This 
Fave on Technorati
Actor Chad Allen and I have two things in common: (1) We share the same birthday, and (2) we both like boys. That's right, the man chosen to play the dual role of evangelical missionary Nate Saint and his son 
Now that NBC’s controversial show “The Book of Daniel” is no more, it brings up the question, 
Resident New Yorkers have long enjoyed a love affair with a famous confectionary institution called 
John Lennon declared the Beatles to be bigger than Jesus Christ, but at least they didn’t try to 
Albert Brooks may be getting all the press for "
The promotional campaign last summer for TNT's "
Just past the two-hour mark in Terrence Malick's "
The much-anticipated "
Even more provocative is the televangelist’s turn as entrepreneur; a similar product he developed for weight loss has become a readymade vehicle for profit. In a deal with national health and nutrition chain GNC, Robertson is marketing “Pat's Diet Shake” in two flavors: classic