After our class last week and our latest discussions about the depictions of Christianity in films and television, I was reminded of a film I had watched a couple years ago, Saved!
Saved! is a teen comedy/drama film from 2004 that was directed by Brian Dannelly and starred Jena Malone, Mandy Moore, Macaulay Culkin, and Mary-Louise Parker. The film deals with issues related to religion, particularly Christianity, homophobia and teen pregnancy.
Something I find interesting about the film is that in the beginning the characters that are depicted as the most devout Christians by the end of the film are the characters I sympathized with the least, and the characters who committed actions that go against Christianity-related lifestyle choices, ended up being the characters that were in actuality more Christ-like in their treatment of others.
The film begins with Mary, played by Jena Malone, underwater in her pool as her boyfriend tells her he's gay. She hits her head and sees Jesus who tells her to save him. When she regains consciousness, she thinks to herself, "How could my boyfriend be gay, he's like the best Christian I know." She asks, "Why had he been stricken with such a spiritually toxic affliction?" In an attempt to save him from this 'spiritually toxic affliction,' she decides to have sex with him justifying it as the means to 'save' him and that Jesus would understand as she is doing it to save him from his homosexuality.
Hilary Faye, Mary's friend played by Mandy Moore, and Mary have a talk about spiritually restoring your virginity and how Jesus is able to grant you a virginal heart so that you can be pure again. Mary sleeps with her boyfriend and then prays to Jesus, asking him to restore her emotional and physical virginity in exchange for 'curing' her boyfriend of his homosexuality.
Later on Mary finds out that her boyfriend's parents sent him away to Mercy House, a Christian treatment facility that deals with everything from drug abuse to alcoholism, "de-gayification" and unwed mothers.
At one point, the principal at the Christian school Mary attends, during an assembly refers to Jesus as "the ultimate rebel, the ultimate CEO and the biggest celebrity of them all" --- this really reminded me of our first conversations about Jesus in class. I found his description of how he and his students regard Jesus humorous but at the same time, an interesting way to describe Jesus using modern metaphors.
There is an obvious parallel between the character Mary and Mary, Jesus' mother, the virgin mother. I found it interesting how the film depicts a teen girl who becomes pregnant as a result of trying to follow her faith believing that Jesus would support her doing so, especially when so often people regard teen pregnancy as going against Christian values.
At the end of the film, Mary says, "Why would God make us all so different if he wanted us to be the same?"--- a sentiment I couldn't have expressed better myself. I really wish people would stop using religion as a way to conform all people and wish people would use it more as a way of creating tolerance, peace, acceptance, and love.
By the end of the film Mary realizes that getting pregnant was not what Jesus had in mind when suggesting that she help her boyfriend but that she's not the first person to get Jesus' message "screwed up." I really liked how this film deals with faith and the obstacles Christians face when trying to do the right thing as well as trying do the "Christian thing." I liked how by the end of the film you really get the message that the "Christian thing" to do is to treat those around you with acceptance and to not always try to categorize people and their actions as either right or wrong, Christian or Anti-Christian. By the end of the film you really get the sense that the film's title is ironic in that ultimately the only person who can save you is yourself.
The parallels of the "Saved" movie's Mary and Jesus' mother Mary, speaks volumes in how Christianity is appropriated to suit ones needs in this movie. In cheapening the sanctity of Christian values in the movie to seem like a bunch of fanatics, rather than the essence of Christian movement, this movie helps to erode the benefits of Christianity ethos and fictionalize the narrative around the birth of Jesus.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it is interesting that you mention that in the movie, the character "Hilary Faye" includes the citation of "the bible not being used as a weapon", when the NIV version in Ephesians 6:17 cites, "Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God", (http://bible.cc/ephesians/6-17.htm. March 3, 2012) and so many Conservative Christians rely on this passage faithfully.
It is not uncommon in the Bible Belt of the U.S. that you see this dialogue take place on news media (CNN, Fox and others) around topics depicted in the movie "Saved". One great example is the Republican Nominee debate process that has been taking place in the U.S. over the last few months. This includes churches being obligated to providing contraception to women and a law student for being chastised by Rush Limbaugh in the media forum debates.
But I think the ethos of Christianity is that Jesus came to the world to "save" Christians from their sins, and it is only through Him that Christians are saved. The interpretation of how and who is saved helps popular culture to subvert and leave behind the foundational precepts of Christianity of getting saved through Jesus and presenting it as a impediment rather than a tenent of Christian values.
Moreover, when popular culture outlets encourage, stream or pick for people through movies like this, to "pick and choose" what Christian values they ought to subscribe to, I think the need for spirituality slips down a slippery slope that society may not recover from. Media outlets push these issues so hard that people get addicted to the consumption of the debate like an alcoholic to the bottle. What's even worse is the the glamorization of the teen pregnancy shows that polarize the lack of skills and money issues they face and forego the Christian values all in the name of marketing these reality television shows.
Oddly enough as a side note, CNN has included images of people praying and then saved from the path of disastrous tornadoes this weekend. I only am left to wonder, why people have to appear to be desperate to talk about the "safety" of spirituality and how much better ratings will be with these images included.