In several previous posts, I have spent a lot of time and energy exposing a lot of the spiritual beliefs and practices within one genre of television--sci-fi--that are either directly opposed to Christianity or, at the very least, worthy of serious concern. So what, right? I mean, television is television, we all know it rots the brain, and well, really, what's a Christian supposed to do, get rid of the TV altogether? That might not be such a bad idea, but I have an even better one for you. Want to hear it? It's simple:
Make BETTER television.
Come on, ladies and gentlemen, the world, the flesh, and the devil have been schooling us in the broadcast media--ESPECIALLY film and television--for at least 4 decades now. When is someone in the Christian community going to wake up and get it in his or her thick skull that WE can use the same medium to broadcast a message of peace, love, and hope to the multitudes of the world? There is no excuse--NO excuse--for Christian programming to be limited to essentially 3 or 4 never-seen networks on basic cable (50% of which don't even play dramas, comedies, or anything REMOTELY akin to what most people find entertaining on television). We are the salt of the world, right? Why, then, are WE not producing the best shows, the best entertainment, using the best actors and the best production teams available? Why are we letting the world, the flesh, and the devil produce all the good television, all the good films, all the good dramas, all the good comedies? Why are we letting the world, the flesh, and the devil use all the good actors, all the good production teams? Come on, man, where's the get up and go within the Christian community here? Are we really so ASHAMED of Jesus that we won't pony up the dough it would take to put together a really world-class TV network or film studio? Come on, where's your loyalty, folks?
I would like just one--just ONE--Christian denomination to put serious money into a film studio.
I would like just one--just ONE--Christian assembly to start putting together a REAL acting school.
I would like just one--just ONE--Christian businessman (or businesswoman) to start a real, live TV network designed to ENTERTAIN audiences.
Christians did it with the book industry and the music industry. Why can't we get it together even a little bit in order to create a first-order FILM industry? Or do we really think that allowing the great teacher of two generations--television and film--to be dominated by messages of hate and selfishness is what the world really needs?
Feeling the heat, reader? I hope you are--because if you're a Christian, you have a DUTY to make sure that your children--and my children--and ALL of God's children--have something to watch that is better than the offerings of this world. Do you REALLY want the next generation--YOUR kids--to view Christianity as a weak, old religion whose day was long gone centuries ago? Do you REALLY want the next generation to get tuned in and turned on to vampires, witchcraft, and paganism--and tuned OUT to Jesus Christ? If so, you'd better check yourself and see if you've really got a heart beating inside of that chest, because everything I've ever learned about my Savior tells me that His heart BURNS for every lost man, woman, and child on this Earth. If you can't bring yourself to support--in a real way--even ONE good Christian television show or ONE good Christian film, you had better not bother with "friendship evangelism" or talking to random people on the street about Jesus, because television is the PRINCIPLE VEHICLE FOR WINNING SOULS--for Heaven or Hell--in ANY Western nation, ESPECIALLY the United States. If you don't realize that, then you are BLIND to the ONE WAY we can GUARANTEE that the lost will be saved in mass numbers within the United States.
Ladies and gentlemen, revival ain't coming to America because of some anointed preacher or cool musician or street witnessing team. There are plenty of people who DO come to Christ via church services and Christian music and street witnessing teams, but there'll be a whole lot more who will come to Christ if we were to get it together enough to consistently provide the best television and the best films that our money and our talents can provide. Ladies and gentlemen, there are millions of Christians out there who are in the middle income and upper middle income bracket, and you're telling me that not even ONE of them can offer up some real, hard-earned money to get GOOD Christian movies and TV shows on the air? Come on! Is the Christian community really so concerned about mortgages and car payments and family vacations that it can't even bring itself to care about God's command to reach the lost? Where's your heart, people?
Here's a challenge I want to leave you with: Two guys--one a semi-known Christian speaker, the other a completely UNknown Christian author--put together a book which I think that both of them would agree is not exactly John Steinbeck or Ernest Hemingway. This book was not even expected to sell very many copies, and I'm sure that it must have appeared, at times, to be a monumental waste of both men's efforts. However, to their astonishment, it not only became a bestseller but also one of the two or three books (other than the Bible) that most people in the United States have come to associate with the Christian subculture. I'm talking, of course, of the Left Behind series, authored by LaHaye and Jenkins.
My challenge to you is this: Do whatever you can to make sure these books get made as movies. I'm not talking about CHEAP movies. I'm talking about GOOD movies. I'm sick and tired of logging onto message boards and seeing Christians harrumphing about the Left Behind series (and the Left Behind movies). You know who you are, man. You're the people I see saying things like "I don't think the authors were biblical when they made this plot point/statement" or "really, I don't think people are interested in that end times garbage anymore" or "how ridiculous that some of you people actually believe in cheesy miracles." Well, maybe the book series DOESN'T line up with your view of Christianity, and maybe it ISN'T the kind of entertainment fare you like, and maybe it DOES present a cheesy view of God . . . but frankly, my brother or sister, I'm a lot more concerned that Jesus gets preached AT ALL in movies and film than that everything the producers say agrees with my pitifully limited, uninformed, and utterly impoverished perspective on God and His Kingdom. Man, you're really telling me that you're more worried that a brother or sister in Christ produces a film that appeases your view of God than that hordes of lost people are producing films that destroy the hearts, minds, and souls of an entire generation? Where are your priorities? Where's YOUR soul?
Someone out there needs to take the challenge. Someone out there needs to put together a team, invest a few million dollars, do whatever it takes to get these movie adaptations made. Time is wasting, my brothers and sisters, and if we can't even get this little 12 book series on the big (or small) screen, then it is not only an embarassment to us but a slap in the face to the God we serve.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Stargate SG-1: Emancipation
This first season episode brings us to the ancient Mongolian civilization (albeit via a race of Mongolian descendants who have been transplanted to another world by the evil Go'auld) and a world in which women are viewed as slaves and/or merchandise to be sold or traded or married off at will. The obvious message in this episode--preached via our heroes Jack, Tealc, and Carter--is that women should be free to fulfill their own destinies, to show their own faces, and to live their own lives as they see fit. This is a good message, and I think that any Christian should be willing to support it. (After all, the Bible says that in the kingdom of God, there is neither "male nor female," so I would think that a believer in Christ should be the first to challenge a view of women--or anyone--that calls for their enslavement and oppression.)
However, there is an underlying narrative here that I want you to be particularly aware of as you watch this or other episodes like it across the genre spectrum. The underlying message is this: that after millennia of ignorance, we in the past two centuries have finally seen the light and have lifted women out of the status of dependence and second-class citizenry. This is a common theme in our society, and it is touted heavily in both our schools and our entertainment media.
The problem is, the message is flawed. I have spent the better part of my life studying ancient and medieval history, and I can tell you with some confidence that almost no women from those periods, despite what we would view as apparent evidence to the contrary, would have seen themselves as second-class citizens. Women, after all, were the bearers of children, weavers of fabrics, and chieftains of everything that had to do with the home (which included management of workers, motherhood, and a degree of manual labor that most of us--including men--would find completely overwhelming). They had power that most women today would find impossible to wield in their households, for the simple reason that the agrarian structure of the family, as expressed during the ancient and medieval eras, necessitated a clearly defined family unit. The husband/father was "chieftain" of the family unit, in charge of everything that his sons and daughters did, the protector of the family unit, and (as circumstances dictated) an elder in his community. The wife/mother was in charge of the household, the daily manual labor involved in keeping the household running, and the daily responsibilities of parenting.
The best way to translate this structure of the home is to use the model of a platoon. Every platoon has a commanding officer, but there is also a second officer who takes care of the daily responsibilities of keeping the unit operational. In ancient and medieval societies, it was understood that the woman held this "second in command" position in the home. The reason she was "second in command" and not in charge of the home itself was simple: childbirth. Until the past century or so, childbirth everywhere on the planet was a deadly serious enterprise for women with immense risks for the new (or not so new) mother. Forget what we today consider the common ailments of pregnancy. Pregnancy and childbirth for women during those centuries was potentially fatal, and the very least a mother could hope for was to be somewhat incapacitated for nine months. Hence the need for men to be protectors and leaders--without the possibility of becoming pregnant themselves, men could literally stand guard over their wives while they were in the process of giving birth.
Many people within the Christian community talk about the evils of feminism. I personally don't think that feminism (even with some of its excesses) is to blame for the breakup of families or any other major social ills we are experiencing in America and the West today. The fact is, feminism itself is simply a symptom, a symptom of man's abandonment of a lifestyle that had served him for 5800 years for a new, technologically driven, unnatural lifestyle in which no one farms but everyone expects to eat. Without the old ways of tilling the ground for our food, we have simply lost any real reason to keep the family structure the way it has been for thousands of years. As a result, men began to leave their homes en masse in the nineteenth century for factories. Their wives and daughters followed shortly thereafter in the twentieth century, having realized that there was no reason for them to be at home. Now the family unit is breaking down, and increasingly, we are seeing people grow up without a real sense of what family is.
Yes, we've made advances as a society. However, we also have a tendency to see the way we do things today as "better" or "smarter" than the way people did things 20 or 30 generations ago. That arrogance keeps us from seeing just how vulnerable we really are, and how little we would have if it were not for a simple flip of a switch. The Bible tells us that God has a special plan for families. That plan is not a plan of oppression or domination, but it is also not the plan currently held to be right and good in our society today. It may be that if we want happy homes and happy families, we may need to reevaluate our own perspective on the generations of the past. Their wisdom, as different as it may be from our own, is wisdom we dare not ignore.
However, there is an underlying narrative here that I want you to be particularly aware of as you watch this or other episodes like it across the genre spectrum. The underlying message is this: that after millennia of ignorance, we in the past two centuries have finally seen the light and have lifted women out of the status of dependence and second-class citizenry. This is a common theme in our society, and it is touted heavily in both our schools and our entertainment media.
The problem is, the message is flawed. I have spent the better part of my life studying ancient and medieval history, and I can tell you with some confidence that almost no women from those periods, despite what we would view as apparent evidence to the contrary, would have seen themselves as second-class citizens. Women, after all, were the bearers of children, weavers of fabrics, and chieftains of everything that had to do with the home (which included management of workers, motherhood, and a degree of manual labor that most of us--including men--would find completely overwhelming). They had power that most women today would find impossible to wield in their households, for the simple reason that the agrarian structure of the family, as expressed during the ancient and medieval eras, necessitated a clearly defined family unit. The husband/father was "chieftain" of the family unit, in charge of everything that his sons and daughters did, the protector of the family unit, and (as circumstances dictated) an elder in his community. The wife/mother was in charge of the household, the daily manual labor involved in keeping the household running, and the daily responsibilities of parenting.
The best way to translate this structure of the home is to use the model of a platoon. Every platoon has a commanding officer, but there is also a second officer who takes care of the daily responsibilities of keeping the unit operational. In ancient and medieval societies, it was understood that the woman held this "second in command" position in the home. The reason she was "second in command" and not in charge of the home itself was simple: childbirth. Until the past century or so, childbirth everywhere on the planet was a deadly serious enterprise for women with immense risks for the new (or not so new) mother. Forget what we today consider the common ailments of pregnancy. Pregnancy and childbirth for women during those centuries was potentially fatal, and the very least a mother could hope for was to be somewhat incapacitated for nine months. Hence the need for men to be protectors and leaders--without the possibility of becoming pregnant themselves, men could literally stand guard over their wives while they were in the process of giving birth.
Many people within the Christian community talk about the evils of feminism. I personally don't think that feminism (even with some of its excesses) is to blame for the breakup of families or any other major social ills we are experiencing in America and the West today. The fact is, feminism itself is simply a symptom, a symptom of man's abandonment of a lifestyle that had served him for 5800 years for a new, technologically driven, unnatural lifestyle in which no one farms but everyone expects to eat. Without the old ways of tilling the ground for our food, we have simply lost any real reason to keep the family structure the way it has been for thousands of years. As a result, men began to leave their homes en masse in the nineteenth century for factories. Their wives and daughters followed shortly thereafter in the twentieth century, having realized that there was no reason for them to be at home. Now the family unit is breaking down, and increasingly, we are seeing people grow up without a real sense of what family is.
Yes, we've made advances as a society. However, we also have a tendency to see the way we do things today as "better" or "smarter" than the way people did things 20 or 30 generations ago. That arrogance keeps us from seeing just how vulnerable we really are, and how little we would have if it were not for a simple flip of a switch. The Bible tells us that God has a special plan for families. That plan is not a plan of oppression or domination, but it is also not the plan currently held to be right and good in our society today. It may be that if we want happy homes and happy families, we may need to reevaluate our own perspective on the generations of the past. Their wisdom, as different as it may be from our own, is wisdom we dare not ignore.
Battlestar Galactica--Lost Planet of the Gods
I have one thing to say about this 2-parter:
This
is
the
dawning
of
the
age
of
Aquarius
age
of
Aquariuuuuuuuuuuuuuus!
Many of the same themes that run through sci-fi movies from the late '60s and early '70s are clearly present here--the pagan cosmology shrouded in Eastern mysticism, the use of terms such as "life force" to refer to souls, and the reverence of kings, princes, and rulers from bygone eras as if they were gods. The spiritual content of this 2 hour opus' final half is so devastatingly demonic that not only would I not recommend it for Christian families to show their children, but I would also be loath to view it again as a believer in Christ myself. This fascination with mannish accomplishments, such as the ancient Egyptian Pyramids, the Parthenon, and the Sphinx (all of which are shown here), as well as the use of stars (i.e. astrological signs--"Caprica," get it?) as guiding symbols that allow men and women to locate themselves in the void of uncertainty (or, in this case, the void of an unexplicable deep darkness in space) is openly symbolic of both the New Age movement which became popular in the '70s, '80s, and '90s and of millennia-old occultic practices.
Usually, I like to see at least one thing--something--that a Christian viewer can take out of an episode of television without feeling like he or she has to compromise his or her values in the process. In this episode, however, there is nothing that a Christian can look at and say, "I relate to that on a spiritual level." Even the loss of Apollo's new wife to the Cylons, while tragic (and well-acted), is without virtue. Remember that only one episode previous to this one (Saga of a Star World), Serena is married to someone else (presumably her son's real dad) who dies in the Cylon holocaust that descends on the 12 colonies. What happened to her widowhood, her period of grieving? As we used to say in my hometown, you need to wait until the body's cold before you start thinking of falling in love again. The sexual inuendo, not only in Serena's actions toward Apollo but in the "replacement squadron"'s actions toward Starbuck, reeks of sleaze, not romance, and while it might be believable for the couple to come together over time (i.e. years) after grieving their own personal losses, the way this relationship blossoms on the show is, I fear, more indicative of the values of the production staff than it is of the deep feelings that a real man or woman would experience in their situation. (By the way, the human race has been reduced to a rag-tag flotilla of spaceships, right? Then why are they letting women--who constitute a clear vehicle for the human race's continued survival--risk their lives flying vipers in combat? Isn't procreation a priority for these folks, now that their population is down to only a few thousand?)
Not even Baltar can redeem this episode. Come on, Baltar ends up stuck with Lucifer after pleading his case with the other humans? What are the show's producers saying here, that once you sin, you can't ever find hope or salvation again? Clearly this is what we are to gather from the fact that we even have a character on the show named "Lucifer" at all, and from the New Age-style cosmology that seems to be developing here. It would have been better for the producers to have had Adama and his officers seize the chance to use Baltar to strike at the Cylon homeworld. Even that outcome, while utterly ridiculous (wasn't he the one that brought the Cylon onslaught in the first place?), would be more in line with what a believer in Christ could accept as truth.
Simply put, there is nothing in this episode that a Christian can look at as positive. This show--like movies such as 2001, Barbarella, and Logan's Run--contains content of such an openly demonic nature that, while indicative of the principles and priorities of the lost souls who produced it, cannot be said--at any level--to be appropriate viewing for Christian families who want to raise Christian sons and daughters. You are welcome to disagree, of course--I am as interested in being your personal censor as I am in having my face branded with a hot iron--but as a believer, I came away from this episode feeling more soiled, more dirty, and less in tune with my Creator than I ever did watching an entire season of other sci-fi fare. You can expose your children to this episode if you want, but you'd better be prepared for uncomfortable questions--questions to which I hope you will have sound Bible-based answers.
This
is
the
dawning
of
the
age
of
Aquarius
age
of
Aquariuuuuuuuuuuuuuus!
Many of the same themes that run through sci-fi movies from the late '60s and early '70s are clearly present here--the pagan cosmology shrouded in Eastern mysticism, the use of terms such as "life force" to refer to souls, and the reverence of kings, princes, and rulers from bygone eras as if they were gods. The spiritual content of this 2 hour opus' final half is so devastatingly demonic that not only would I not recommend it for Christian families to show their children, but I would also be loath to view it again as a believer in Christ myself. This fascination with mannish accomplishments, such as the ancient Egyptian Pyramids, the Parthenon, and the Sphinx (all of which are shown here), as well as the use of stars (i.e. astrological signs--"Caprica," get it?) as guiding symbols that allow men and women to locate themselves in the void of uncertainty (or, in this case, the void of an unexplicable deep darkness in space) is openly symbolic of both the New Age movement which became popular in the '70s, '80s, and '90s and of millennia-old occultic practices.
Usually, I like to see at least one thing--something--that a Christian viewer can take out of an episode of television without feeling like he or she has to compromise his or her values in the process. In this episode, however, there is nothing that a Christian can look at and say, "I relate to that on a spiritual level." Even the loss of Apollo's new wife to the Cylons, while tragic (and well-acted), is without virtue. Remember that only one episode previous to this one (Saga of a Star World), Serena is married to someone else (presumably her son's real dad) who dies in the Cylon holocaust that descends on the 12 colonies. What happened to her widowhood, her period of grieving? As we used to say in my hometown, you need to wait until the body's cold before you start thinking of falling in love again. The sexual inuendo, not only in Serena's actions toward Apollo but in the "replacement squadron"'s actions toward Starbuck, reeks of sleaze, not romance, and while it might be believable for the couple to come together over time (i.e. years) after grieving their own personal losses, the way this relationship blossoms on the show is, I fear, more indicative of the values of the production staff than it is of the deep feelings that a real man or woman would experience in their situation. (By the way, the human race has been reduced to a rag-tag flotilla of spaceships, right? Then why are they letting women--who constitute a clear vehicle for the human race's continued survival--risk their lives flying vipers in combat? Isn't procreation a priority for these folks, now that their population is down to only a few thousand?)
Not even Baltar can redeem this episode. Come on, Baltar ends up stuck with Lucifer after pleading his case with the other humans? What are the show's producers saying here, that once you sin, you can't ever find hope or salvation again? Clearly this is what we are to gather from the fact that we even have a character on the show named "Lucifer" at all, and from the New Age-style cosmology that seems to be developing here. It would have been better for the producers to have had Adama and his officers seize the chance to use Baltar to strike at the Cylon homeworld. Even that outcome, while utterly ridiculous (wasn't he the one that brought the Cylon onslaught in the first place?), would be more in line with what a believer in Christ could accept as truth.
Simply put, there is nothing in this episode that a Christian can look at as positive. This show--like movies such as 2001, Barbarella, and Logan's Run--contains content of such an openly demonic nature that, while indicative of the principles and priorities of the lost souls who produced it, cannot be said--at any level--to be appropriate viewing for Christian families who want to raise Christian sons and daughters. You are welcome to disagree, of course--I am as interested in being your personal censor as I am in having my face branded with a hot iron--but as a believer, I came away from this episode feeling more soiled, more dirty, and less in tune with my Creator than I ever did watching an entire season of other sci-fi fare. You can expose your children to this episode if you want, but you'd better be prepared for uncomfortable questions--questions to which I hope you will have sound Bible-based answers.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Battlestar Galactica: Saga of a Star World
This 3-parter marked the beginning of the short-lived (but oh, so technically savvy) Battlestar Galactica series which aired on television in the late 1970s. What amazed me when I first watched this show as a kid were the special effects, which at that time were almost movie-like. What amazes me when I watch it now is the realism. More than I ever did watching Star Trek, I FEEL as if I'm on the Battlestar or flying in one of those fighter jets at unbelievable speeds. The battles seem real, the explosions seem real, and the logistical gymnastics required to send fighters into space from what is essentially an extraterrestrial version of an aircraft carrier come across as VERY real. I even like the battlestar design (efficient, functional, and aesthetically pleasing).
The overwhelming trauma of watching an entire civilization die around them is palpable in the words and actions of the characters as well, all of whom are well-acted, and I think this has something to do with the fact that Lorne Greene was one of the 4 male leads in the series. I could feel the gut-wrenching horror, depression, and shame that the characters face in this 3-parter as they are transformed--in a matter of hours--from proud citizens of a twelve-planet civilization to fugitives escaping the destruction of everything they have ever cherished. Oddly enough, Apollo (whose farewell line to his brother struck me as one of the coldest lines I had ever heard--come on, man, your brother is making the ultimate sacrifice for you so that you can warn the fleet, and all you think of is "You can fly with me anytime?") captures this transformation eloquently when he says, "We're starting over."
Despite the overwhelming merits of "Saga of a Star World," the 3-parter does have two drawbacks (not including the ridiculous decision by the Imperius Leader to hide his ship behind the planet Carrollon when it is in the process of exploding--guess he didn't read the technical reports on the mineral his civilization was mining there . . . ): First of all, we have a character whose job description is "socialator." This is a term that is utterly meaningless in and of itself (which I suspect was the producers' way of getting around Broadcast Standards and Practices back then), but in the show, it is pretty obvious that a "socialator" is, in fact, a prostitute. This is not necessarily bad (I don't have any qualms about showing prostitution--or any of the other sins man has invented--on national television), but once again, we see the "liberated" culture of the 1960's sexual revolution (which by the time Galactica first aired had become the culturally dominating force of the 1970s) influencing the way that certain practices are portrayed on the small screen. Cassie's trade is not only presented in a positive light here, but she and Apollo's sister appear to be in a contest to win Starbuck's sexual advances. Most importantly, both of these activities are presented as normal and even positive, and this is something that a Christian television watcher should be aware of.
More importantly, with the introduction of a robot named "Lucifer," we see the beginning of the otherworldly arc within the Battlestar Galactica series. I'll write about this arc in more detail later, but suffice it to say, the interpretation of Christian names and concepts throughout the show should ring hollow to anyone who has a passing knowledge of the Bible. Obviously, the show's producers want to paint an image of a ragtag remnant of humanity (or is it a ragtag remnant of the "righteous?") fleeing the clutches of the devil, which is strangely evocative of the "party line" version of early Mormon history (as well as a few ragtag fringe cults that have sprung up over the years). To use the '70s parlance, I dig where the producers are coming from here, and I respect anyone who is sensitive to spiritual concerns. However, as a Christian, I know that my Bible says nothing about a remnant being pursued by anyone (much less the devil)--only that God will preserve a remnant for Himself (that is, the people through the ages who have been born again in Christ Jesus). The trials, tribulations, and terrors are for THIS life, not the next one.
This may all seem like nitpicking--after all, as I used to say whenever I encountered arguments like this one, it is just a TV show--but what I am trying to illustrate here is that what we watch on television has an influence on us--especially when we IGNORE that influence and passively take in what we are seeing. Television, especially when our children are exposed to it, is a teacher--a teacher of morals, a teacher of history, a teacher of science, and a teacher of spirituality--and however hotly this teacher's message may be dismissed by those of us who are parents, it is certainly not lost on our children.
The overwhelming trauma of watching an entire civilization die around them is palpable in the words and actions of the characters as well, all of whom are well-acted, and I think this has something to do with the fact that Lorne Greene was one of the 4 male leads in the series. I could feel the gut-wrenching horror, depression, and shame that the characters face in this 3-parter as they are transformed--in a matter of hours--from proud citizens of a twelve-planet civilization to fugitives escaping the destruction of everything they have ever cherished. Oddly enough, Apollo (whose farewell line to his brother struck me as one of the coldest lines I had ever heard--come on, man, your brother is making the ultimate sacrifice for you so that you can warn the fleet, and all you think of is "You can fly with me anytime?") captures this transformation eloquently when he says, "We're starting over."
Despite the overwhelming merits of "Saga of a Star World," the 3-parter does have two drawbacks (not including the ridiculous decision by the Imperius Leader to hide his ship behind the planet Carrollon when it is in the process of exploding--guess he didn't read the technical reports on the mineral his civilization was mining there . . . ): First of all, we have a character whose job description is "socialator." This is a term that is utterly meaningless in and of itself (which I suspect was the producers' way of getting around Broadcast Standards and Practices back then), but in the show, it is pretty obvious that a "socialator" is, in fact, a prostitute. This is not necessarily bad (I don't have any qualms about showing prostitution--or any of the other sins man has invented--on national television), but once again, we see the "liberated" culture of the 1960's sexual revolution (which by the time Galactica first aired had become the culturally dominating force of the 1970s) influencing the way that certain practices are portrayed on the small screen. Cassie's trade is not only presented in a positive light here, but she and Apollo's sister appear to be in a contest to win Starbuck's sexual advances. Most importantly, both of these activities are presented as normal and even positive, and this is something that a Christian television watcher should be aware of.
More importantly, with the introduction of a robot named "Lucifer," we see the beginning of the otherworldly arc within the Battlestar Galactica series. I'll write about this arc in more detail later, but suffice it to say, the interpretation of Christian names and concepts throughout the show should ring hollow to anyone who has a passing knowledge of the Bible. Obviously, the show's producers want to paint an image of a ragtag remnant of humanity (or is it a ragtag remnant of the "righteous?") fleeing the clutches of the devil, which is strangely evocative of the "party line" version of early Mormon history (as well as a few ragtag fringe cults that have sprung up over the years). To use the '70s parlance, I dig where the producers are coming from here, and I respect anyone who is sensitive to spiritual concerns. However, as a Christian, I know that my Bible says nothing about a remnant being pursued by anyone (much less the devil)--only that God will preserve a remnant for Himself (that is, the people through the ages who have been born again in Christ Jesus). The trials, tribulations, and terrors are for THIS life, not the next one.
This may all seem like nitpicking--after all, as I used to say whenever I encountered arguments like this one, it is just a TV show--but what I am trying to illustrate here is that what we watch on television has an influence on us--especially when we IGNORE that influence and passively take in what we are seeing. Television, especially when our children are exposed to it, is a teacher--a teacher of morals, a teacher of history, a teacher of science, and a teacher of spirituality--and however hotly this teacher's message may be dismissed by those of us who are parents, it is certainly not lost on our children.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Star Trek: Mudd's Women
This is perhaps one of the sleaziest episodes of television ever to air, primarily because it was so overt in its content and themes. The Enterprise essentially rescues a pimp fleeing in a smaller vessel with his "cargo"--3 women who are (for all practical purposes) prostitutes. Bio-genetically "enhanced" to be super-attractive through the use of an alien substance, the women drive the men on the ship to distraction before serving as their pimp's means of extorting the Enterprise. The Enterprise's fate, of course, rests in the captain's ability to attempt to convince 3 ecstatic miners to tear themselves away from their new brides long enough to give the ship the crystals it desperately needs to stay in orbit.
Remember that this was 1966, and television had not gone nearly as far in showing overt sexual sin as it does today. This episode may well have been the first to show prostitution in a positive light--a dashing, debonair con artist selling unbelievably beautiful young women to the highest bidder. The women's bio-genetically enhanced beauty, of course, seems to have been one of the easiest special effects for the production staff to put together. The actresses--all of whom must have been models before starring in the show--simply wore the make-up needed to make anyone look good on camera, and this, coupled with some simple cinematography, resulted in the effect of "enhanced" beauty. To simulate the effects of the alien drug wearing off, the producers undoubtedly filmed the actresses without make-up and without the special cinematography. (I'm sure there was more to it than that, but the transition between make-up and no make-up would definitely explain the transition between "beautiful" and "ugly" that occurs when the women's drugs wear off, as heavy make-up is required to make both men AND women look good in front of a camera.)
There are two things very wrong with this episode, in spite of what it seems to be saying at the end (one of the miners choosing to stay with his new bride even after finding out that her beauty has been bio-genetically enhanced). For starters, what happened to all the leggy female crew members in skin-tight "uniforms" who have been serving on the Enterprise for the previous several episodes? They seem to disappear in this one--both in the eyes of their male crewmates and (apparently) in the eyes of the production staff as well. One would think that Lieutenant Uhura or Nurse Chapel or Yeoman Rand would do whatever they could to expose Mudd's scheme simply on the basis of female competitiveness, but it takes one of the bio-genetically enhanced women themselves to finally come clean before the truth is revealed to the ship's captain.
More disturbingly, while no actual sex takes place between crew members and Mudd's women, the suggestion of the POSSIBILITY of sex is very potent throughout the episode, and this is one of the reasons why I consider it to be one of the sleaziest episodes of television ever to air. This was 1966, and while sexuality had been introduced in an overt way in film (although not nearly as overt as it is displayed in modern cinema), it was still a brand new part of small screen television, which mostly featured family shows and Westerns. To show what essentially amounted to prostitution in such a positive way (yes, the women are exploited, but yes, they also seem to be ENJOYING the exploitation) was to make a complete departure from what had been the norm in television's portrayal of sexuality. Roddenberry was, in many ways, a cultural trailblazer, and shows like this one blazed the way for the sexual revolution which took place during the late 1960's. The counterculture was, in a very real sense, "tuning in" to shows like Star Trek, and young men and women were seeing a vision of the future that did not fit inside the walls of the stale portrayal of sexuality and marriage they had seen on the small screen for over a decade.
Television has an immense influence in the family home. It is, in a very real sense, a teacher. Unfortunately, most of the lessons it teaches seem to fall under our radar, including the lesson that sex is conquest and adventure with multiple people (and, presumably, without kids to get in the way of the fun). I'm not saying that sex isn't an adventure or that sex isn't fun--quite the contrary--but I AM saying that sex is not the frolicking romp through multiple partners that the entertainment industry says it is. After all, the whole point of having sex--biologically--is having children, right? The drive to unite with someone of the opposite sex is inexorably bound up with the drive to procreate, so much so that even young men who want to "play the field" before getting married still refuse to wear condoms during their sexual encounters. Why do you think they do that, ladies? It's because deep inside of them, there is a drive to procreate that is part of what ultimately comprises their sex drive, and even though they don't understand it themselves (and certainly, on a conscious level, don't want--at the time--to take up the responsibility of being fathers), they still can't bring themselves to use birth control.
This is why divorce is proliferating in America, why American families are becoming so divided and dysfunctional--because our society, via television, has divorced sexuality from procreation. Sex without procreation is sex without love, however, and most people discover, to their horror, that "playing the field" leaves them far more lonely than they ever felt before they played. I would suggest that part of being a Christian in our day and age is teaching--through example--that sex and procreation are fundamentally intertwined, that indeed one does not have "good" sex WITHOUT first committing to the possibility that one will be a parent and a spouse. Teaching our children to view sex in this way is a very important part of teaching them to approach their culture from a Christian perspective.
Remember that this was 1966, and television had not gone nearly as far in showing overt sexual sin as it does today. This episode may well have been the first to show prostitution in a positive light--a dashing, debonair con artist selling unbelievably beautiful young women to the highest bidder. The women's bio-genetically enhanced beauty, of course, seems to have been one of the easiest special effects for the production staff to put together. The actresses--all of whom must have been models before starring in the show--simply wore the make-up needed to make anyone look good on camera, and this, coupled with some simple cinematography, resulted in the effect of "enhanced" beauty. To simulate the effects of the alien drug wearing off, the producers undoubtedly filmed the actresses without make-up and without the special cinematography. (I'm sure there was more to it than that, but the transition between make-up and no make-up would definitely explain the transition between "beautiful" and "ugly" that occurs when the women's drugs wear off, as heavy make-up is required to make both men AND women look good in front of a camera.)
There are two things very wrong with this episode, in spite of what it seems to be saying at the end (one of the miners choosing to stay with his new bride even after finding out that her beauty has been bio-genetically enhanced). For starters, what happened to all the leggy female crew members in skin-tight "uniforms" who have been serving on the Enterprise for the previous several episodes? They seem to disappear in this one--both in the eyes of their male crewmates and (apparently) in the eyes of the production staff as well. One would think that Lieutenant Uhura or Nurse Chapel or Yeoman Rand would do whatever they could to expose Mudd's scheme simply on the basis of female competitiveness, but it takes one of the bio-genetically enhanced women themselves to finally come clean before the truth is revealed to the ship's captain.
More disturbingly, while no actual sex takes place between crew members and Mudd's women, the suggestion of the POSSIBILITY of sex is very potent throughout the episode, and this is one of the reasons why I consider it to be one of the sleaziest episodes of television ever to air. This was 1966, and while sexuality had been introduced in an overt way in film (although not nearly as overt as it is displayed in modern cinema), it was still a brand new part of small screen television, which mostly featured family shows and Westerns. To show what essentially amounted to prostitution in such a positive way (yes, the women are exploited, but yes, they also seem to be ENJOYING the exploitation) was to make a complete departure from what had been the norm in television's portrayal of sexuality. Roddenberry was, in many ways, a cultural trailblazer, and shows like this one blazed the way for the sexual revolution which took place during the late 1960's. The counterculture was, in a very real sense, "tuning in" to shows like Star Trek, and young men and women were seeing a vision of the future that did not fit inside the walls of the stale portrayal of sexuality and marriage they had seen on the small screen for over a decade.
Television has an immense influence in the family home. It is, in a very real sense, a teacher. Unfortunately, most of the lessons it teaches seem to fall under our radar, including the lesson that sex is conquest and adventure with multiple people (and, presumably, without kids to get in the way of the fun). I'm not saying that sex isn't an adventure or that sex isn't fun--quite the contrary--but I AM saying that sex is not the frolicking romp through multiple partners that the entertainment industry says it is. After all, the whole point of having sex--biologically--is having children, right? The drive to unite with someone of the opposite sex is inexorably bound up with the drive to procreate, so much so that even young men who want to "play the field" before getting married still refuse to wear condoms during their sexual encounters. Why do you think they do that, ladies? It's because deep inside of them, there is a drive to procreate that is part of what ultimately comprises their sex drive, and even though they don't understand it themselves (and certainly, on a conscious level, don't want--at the time--to take up the responsibility of being fathers), they still can't bring themselves to use birth control.
This is why divorce is proliferating in America, why American families are becoming so divided and dysfunctional--because our society, via television, has divorced sexuality from procreation. Sex without procreation is sex without love, however, and most people discover, to their horror, that "playing the field" leaves them far more lonely than they ever felt before they played. I would suggest that part of being a Christian in our day and age is teaching--through example--that sex and procreation are fundamentally intertwined, that indeed one does not have "good" sex WITHOUT first committing to the possibility that one will be a parent and a spouse. Teaching our children to view sex in this way is a very important part of teaching them to approach their culture from a Christian perspective.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Star Trek: The Enemy Within
Unlike the Stargate SG-1 episode of the same title, this episode of Star Trek involved something much more philosophical than a worm, worm, worm that takes over a man's body and attempts to blow up a U.S. military base: the separation of a man--via malfunctioning transporter technology--into 2 selves, a "good" self and an "evil" self. This is, in many ways, one of the most fascinating episodes that Star Trek ever offered, and I think it shows us a particularly eye-opening glimpse at some of the perspectives that informed large sectors of the 1960's counterculture. The principle is simple: Kirk, having transported from an ice planet, is split by the transporter into 2 versions of himself--one of which is kind, benevolent, but indecisive, and the other of which is authoritative, vicious, and greedy. Of course, both selves cannot exist apart for long, so after a series of episodes involving mistaken identity (during which Kirk's first officer, Spock, of course, gets what is going on), Kirk's "good" and "evil" selves come together in a climactic conflict, then consent to an attempt to fuse them together into the original Kirk (who contains both of these selves meshed into one personality) via the transporter.
I like a lot of what this episode says about the goodness and evil present in every man, but let's take note of something here. Note that Kirk (and presumably anyone else) needs BOTH his good and evil natures in order to function adequately as a captain (and as a human being). Without his "evil" self, he becomes a dimwitted, pitiful excuse for a man who cannot make his own choices.
This perspective of good and evil is highly reminiscent of Taoism and other Eastern philosophies which suggest that we need a BALANCE of good and evil inside of us to function properly. The problem with this perspective, of course, is that we (yes, that's right, we--the same people who muck up every important thing that we encounter in this life) are the ones who are vested with the responsibility of determining what that balance is. How much evil is too much? How much GOOD is too little? These are questions that none of these Eastern philosophies seem willing to answer.
The fact is, as those of us who have been born again can tell you, it's not that simple. We have an "evil" side because we ADDED that "evil" side to our human matrix through our disobedient attitude toward God. We no more "need" that evil side than a gunshot victim "needs" the bullet that threatens his or her life. If we were to lose that side of ourselves, the wonders we would have attained as a species would have far surpassed anything our inventions, clunky technologies, and new political ideologies have ever wrought during our fledgling 6000 years of existence. A world without hunger, a world without war or disease--these were God's intention for us all when he first formed man and woman from the dust of the ground. It is only because of our arrogance, our refusal to listen to the still, small voice inside ourselves that says we can be something better, that we continue to wreak atrocity after atrocity on each other, unleashing torrents of death and misery on a world that God intended to be a happy one. Our "evil" side is what causes hate and war and prejudice and pollution and a thousand other ills that all of us bemoan but none of us--in our heart of hearts--really want to change.
Therefore, if one of us were to be "split apart" in the same way that Kirk was in this episode, I think she would be surprised not only at how destructive her "evil" side really is but at how little she finds her "good" side needing it.
I like a lot of what this episode says about the goodness and evil present in every man, but let's take note of something here. Note that Kirk (and presumably anyone else) needs BOTH his good and evil natures in order to function adequately as a captain (and as a human being). Without his "evil" self, he becomes a dimwitted, pitiful excuse for a man who cannot make his own choices.
This perspective of good and evil is highly reminiscent of Taoism and other Eastern philosophies which suggest that we need a BALANCE of good and evil inside of us to function properly. The problem with this perspective, of course, is that we (yes, that's right, we--the same people who muck up every important thing that we encounter in this life) are the ones who are vested with the responsibility of determining what that balance is. How much evil is too much? How much GOOD is too little? These are questions that none of these Eastern philosophies seem willing to answer.
The fact is, as those of us who have been born again can tell you, it's not that simple. We have an "evil" side because we ADDED that "evil" side to our human matrix through our disobedient attitude toward God. We no more "need" that evil side than a gunshot victim "needs" the bullet that threatens his or her life. If we were to lose that side of ourselves, the wonders we would have attained as a species would have far surpassed anything our inventions, clunky technologies, and new political ideologies have ever wrought during our fledgling 6000 years of existence. A world without hunger, a world without war or disease--these were God's intention for us all when he first formed man and woman from the dust of the ground. It is only because of our arrogance, our refusal to listen to the still, small voice inside ourselves that says we can be something better, that we continue to wreak atrocity after atrocity on each other, unleashing torrents of death and misery on a world that God intended to be a happy one. Our "evil" side is what causes hate and war and prejudice and pollution and a thousand other ills that all of us bemoan but none of us--in our heart of hearts--really want to change.
Therefore, if one of us were to be "split apart" in the same way that Kirk was in this episode, I think she would be surprised not only at how destructive her "evil" side really is but at how little she finds her "good" side needing it.
Lost: The Pilot
I recently saw the first 2 episodes of Lost, the acclaimed television series that seems to have launched J.J. Abrams into his movie career, and I must say . . . I was not impressed. Original? Hardly. The first hour of the show was very reminiscent of another "castaway" television show that aired a few decades ago. That show was called Gilligan's Island, and it also began with passengers emerging from a wrecked mode of transportation (this time a sailboat), attempting to get their bearings and trying to discover what they could of the new island. (Incidentally, the passengers spent the rest of the series having a lot of strange adventures on the island, just as I presume the passengers of the doomed airliner had throughout the rest of their series.) The second hour reminded me of another show that aired several decades ago--The Prisoner.
I'll give the show kudos for narrative pacing and for its special effects (which were, in the first hour, reminiscent of the movie Castaway and its plane wreck scene). The characters' fear and bewilderment at being trapped in a seemingly deserted island comes across as real and forms a kind of underlying "heartbeat" for the show. Also, I get the impression that perhaps those 48 people who made it onto the beach alive probably didn't make it through the rest of the series unscathed, which (if true) is a nice change of pace from most television series, in which the creators make clear who the "disposable" characters are and who they are not from the very first episode.
However, even though there is a lot to admire technically in this show, the plot strikes me as derivative of social Darwinism: Who will survive on this island? Who DESERVES to survive on this island? What tools of ingenuity will these human beings discover within themselves as they attempt to remain alive without technology long enough for someone to rescue them? All of these questions spring from the same motto which has become the hallmark of what we know as Darwinism today: survival of the fittest. Oh yeah, and we're invited to join in the "selection" process through our suspicion of the characters and their motives, too.
Natural selection (or "survival of the fittest") is a concept that also undergirds much of reality television these days, and I find it ironic that Lost aired shortly after a famous reality series--Survivor--had begun its legendary run. I saw enough bare backs, bare bellies, and small (but strategically placed) bikinis to remind me of that series, and the mutual suspicion among the characters also reminded me of the mutual suspicion engendered among Survivor's contestants. Ultimately, this show teaches by example, rather than by precept (see my posts on Stargate SG-1 and Star Trek), what any good believer in evolutionary theory should know about not only the world but how to live his or her own life.
Atheism is a major driving force within our culture, and it makes sense that atheism is going to drive every article of mass media entertainment our culture produces. That is why, even though shows like Lost appear innocent on the surface (no fornication, bloodletting, or denunciations of God/religion within the pilot episode), they still bear the stamp of the culture which is producing them. To be unaware of this is to be unaware of the fundamental philosophy that, unfortunately, all too many of us are allowing our television sets to teach our children. If you want your children to have the same heart for the God of the Bible (and the God of Christianity) that you do--if not better--you need to be aware, at every step of the way, what you may be allowing others--without your knowledge--to teach your children, and as always, the teacher that most undermines your influence with your children may not be someone you hire or pay with your tax dollars. It could easily be what you have, with comparatively little expense, brought into your living room.
I'll give the show kudos for narrative pacing and for its special effects (which were, in the first hour, reminiscent of the movie Castaway and its plane wreck scene). The characters' fear and bewilderment at being trapped in a seemingly deserted island comes across as real and forms a kind of underlying "heartbeat" for the show. Also, I get the impression that perhaps those 48 people who made it onto the beach alive probably didn't make it through the rest of the series unscathed, which (if true) is a nice change of pace from most television series, in which the creators make clear who the "disposable" characters are and who they are not from the very first episode.
However, even though there is a lot to admire technically in this show, the plot strikes me as derivative of social Darwinism: Who will survive on this island? Who DESERVES to survive on this island? What tools of ingenuity will these human beings discover within themselves as they attempt to remain alive without technology long enough for someone to rescue them? All of these questions spring from the same motto which has become the hallmark of what we know as Darwinism today: survival of the fittest. Oh yeah, and we're invited to join in the "selection" process through our suspicion of the characters and their motives, too.
Natural selection (or "survival of the fittest") is a concept that also undergirds much of reality television these days, and I find it ironic that Lost aired shortly after a famous reality series--Survivor--had begun its legendary run. I saw enough bare backs, bare bellies, and small (but strategically placed) bikinis to remind me of that series, and the mutual suspicion among the characters also reminded me of the mutual suspicion engendered among Survivor's contestants. Ultimately, this show teaches by example, rather than by precept (see my posts on Stargate SG-1 and Star Trek), what any good believer in evolutionary theory should know about not only the world but how to live his or her own life.
Atheism is a major driving force within our culture, and it makes sense that atheism is going to drive every article of mass media entertainment our culture produces. That is why, even though shows like Lost appear innocent on the surface (no fornication, bloodletting, or denunciations of God/religion within the pilot episode), they still bear the stamp of the culture which is producing them. To be unaware of this is to be unaware of the fundamental philosophy that, unfortunately, all too many of us are allowing our television sets to teach our children. If you want your children to have the same heart for the God of the Bible (and the God of Christianity) that you do--if not better--you need to be aware, at every step of the way, what you may be allowing others--without your knowledge--to teach your children, and as always, the teacher that most undermines your influence with your children may not be someone you hire or pay with your tax dollars. It could easily be what you have, with comparatively little expense, brought into your living room.
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