Religion and Film

Religion and Film was a course I took in university, where they forced us to watch Spiderman and Star Wars. I know. What a travesty. We also got to watch some lesser known works about religion. I remember one of them about a soldier in Iran who's trying to make a movie about the time he wooed his wife. Interesting look into the politics of the region, from a different perspective than we're used to.

Anyway, what I'm writing about should probably be more entitled Religion in Film, or Religion and Culture as Portrayed in the Media, only not as pretentious.

Religion often gets a short shrift in the media these days. Either they're portrayed incorrectly, simply, or generically. My main point of reference will be an episode of Eureka. I like the show. It's usually good-hearted. It carries on some season-long story lines. It has great humour, and it pairs up nicely with Warehouse 13.

Eureka is about a town called Eureka in Washington or Oregon (the Pacific Northeast is all they're willing to specify on, but it's filmed in Vancouver). Eureka was founded to be the home of America's brightest scientists, so they could all work on making the future of mankind a better place. So there's a whole bunch of really intelligence scientists, most of whom are eccentric as well. And Jack Carter, who's of average intelligence, but he's the town sheriff. Each episode usually has an experiment or project go wrong, and Carter has to fix it, with whatever help he can scrounge from the people nearby. There's a lot of Hollywood Science in it (something like "Lets run a nuclear topology scan to find the tachyon wavelength displacements"), but mostly it's about the fun of Carter interacting with (slightly) mad scientists.

The episode in question deals with Biblical phenomenon. Water turns into blood, someone starts glowing (transfiguration), and some people are struck dumb. There is a church in Eureka, and the opening scene takes place there. It's Sunday morning, and it's almost empty. The pastor is talking about science interacting with faith. It only lasts about 20 seconds before we cut to church singing Amazing Grace and then letting out, but that 20 seconds is informative. Because the pastor has been around for a number of years, surely this sermon has been given before. In fact, it would probably be one of the first given. All the parishioners would have reconciled science and faith by now, making the sermon pointless. It's only there to provide the audience with an introduction to why faith and science come into conflict, and maybe why they don't have to. Also, Amazing Grace? Seriously, there's more than one hymn that churches sing.

Throughout the episode, there are a few mentions of the Bible, and some of God. But none of Jesus, which is weird, because he's pretty central to Christianity (it's implied that the church is some denomination of Christian). Later on, we find out that all these problems have centered around a device built by the organist for the church. She had lost her husband a few months previously, and built an inter-dimensional portal to heaven.

All of this makes me think that most atheists (or agnostics) don't understand Christianity that well. Firstly, Heaven is not simply located in another dimension (or at least, I highly doubt it). It's not a portal or gateway away. There will be no technological device to take you there.

Secondly, Jesus is a pretty big thing. You can mention him from time to time. Christianity is not a bland religion where God answers our prayers from time to time and nothing else. So please, stop trying to be inoffensive and start being honest, even if you have to piss people off.

Thirdly, Amazing Grace? Is there only one hymn in Hollywood? Unless there's a large, black church in the movie or TV show, we'll hear Amazing Grace. Never mind that there are several hundred other hymns out there. Is it the only one that the writers can remember from their childhood upbringing in the church?

As for other religions, I unfortunately don't know much about them. However, being Jewish does not simply mean wearing a yarmulke and going to Temple on Saturday. Maybe you guys should watch The Believer again. Being Muslim is not about wearing a turban (that's sikh) and even women are allowed to go Burqa-free in a majority of Muslim nations. Finally, do not get Muslim and Arab mixed up. It’s both incorrect and insulting.

Culture has almost the opposite problem from bland religion. A lot of media add to cultures to make them more interesting. This is most evidently seen in real life, actually, with the Bushido code that Samurai apparently lived by. It’s actually fictitious, having been invented as a model for people to look up to and be inspired by.

Luckily, most other cultures are portrayed more realistically. Sure, they might exaggerate the “eh’s” of Canadians, or the studiousness of Asians, or the redneck-ness of parts of American, but for the most part, it’s on the ball. The parts that writers make up are for little-known or fabricated cultures, because it opens up the plot possibilities.

As an example, say that the protagonist was searching for a homeopathic cure for his one true love, and journeyed into the heart of a remote jungle to find it, and the tribe of people who guard it. In real life, he could ask the tribe for the cure (and they might give it to him, because they’re nice), or he might trade money, gold, medicine, shiny rocks, TV’s, movies, or food for it. So he’d go there, and come back with it.

In movies or TV, he’d have to undergo tests to prove he was worthy of speaking to the tribe. This is a chance for him to prove how badass he is, because one of the tests will undoubtedly involve hand-to-hand combat (hey look, The Rundown. And Brotherhood of the Wolf). Another test might be free-climbing a mountain located conveniently close to the village (in the heart of a jungle?) and the third test will probably involved some sort of riddle, which will prove how smart the protagonist is.

I used to think that making up weird things for cultures to do was silly, until I looked at my own. How funny would handshakes look to an alien (“why do the engage their upper appendages in a vigorous vertical motion?”) or bumping fists, slapping hands, bowing, or any hundred other greetings we have for each other? Instead of shaking hands, maybe we should have short martial arts bouts. Sure, we’d all be bruised, but we’d all be more badass.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve notice about religion and culture in different types of media. Now, if you want to ask me why Christians should be Jedi, you’ll have to ask me yourself.