Posted by
gyates on Tuesday, February 27, 2007 7:34:35 PM
Judging by the bloviations at the Academy Awards, poets are not the unacknowledged legislators of the world, media celebrities are – and they loudly proclaim themselves. The default position of the media is to oppose religion – unless it is, in some way, new, exotic or dangerous. Media celebrities will embrace truncated forms of Yoga, Buddhism, Hinduism, New Age non-sense or Astrology – anything as long as it is not Orthodox Christianity. The spectacle illustrates the rule that non-belief is not possible. If you cease to believe in God you will begin to believe in almost any absurd superstition, including, but not limited to, Islam, secular humanism or Darwinism. “Darwinism” gives the game away. Nobody thinks to question the “ism” attached to “Darwin”. I recently saw a notice posted in a liberal bookstore announcing a meeting of the local Darwinist Society. The manner of the notice, its location and wording were the same as a notice for an evangelical prayer group.
Here we have the answer to the question of why there has long been enmity between the stage and the pulpit – professional jealousy. I love the Mass, especially in an ornate, well appointed church. The robes worn by the Priests, deacons and alter servers remind me of the costumes of actors on a stage. The mass is the only place one can still get a hint of how it must have felt to sit in the Globe Theatre – to be close enough to see living actors, to discern the facial features and see the emotion, or lack thereof. No electronic machine is required to enable the viewing, no retakes are allowed to impose an artificial, unreal perfection.
No wonder that Cromwell suppressed the stage during England’s brief experiment with a Republican government. Religious fanatics do not like competition. Upon his restoration to the Throne, Charles II immediately legalized the Theatre. By the simple expedient of allowing people to buy a ticket to a play, Charles Stuart guaranteed the survival of the Monarchy for the foreseeable future.
I love the movies, particularly when shown in a large, ornate theater. I like sitting with a large crowd of people, all sharing a common vicarious experience. Watching the DVD is simply not the same experience. It’s like the difference between going to Mass and sitting at home watching a televangelist.
For my ticket price, and for the hours I spend in the dark with a few family and/or friends and a lot of strangers, I want some benefit. A few hours diversion is not a sufficient return on investment. There must be something else. At Church one gets a repetition of a well worn message. OK, that’s worth going to. If the message is worthwhile, it bears repetition, particularly since people forget what is not repeated.
The movies are different, however. They do not repeat as obviously as the Mass and the spectacle is clearly artificial. If the movie is to be anything other than a mere stimulation of the sense of sight and sound, thematic content must, in some way, be instructive. The most obvious, and easy, instruction is history. I have a particular fondness for movies which present some snippet of actual history -- which brings me to the most recent movie well worth seeing: “Amazing Grace”. Since the people who make movies are, for the most part, anti religious, I should be suspicious of any religiously themed movie. However, I am willing to accept St. Augustine’s contention that the efficacy of a sacrament does not depend on the virtue of the Priest. By analogy, the worth of a movie is not determined by the good or bad intentions of the actors and directors – at least not completely. Bias there may be but as long as one is aware of the bias, its effect may be mitigated. “Amazing Grace” contains a currently popular media bias. It is “anti war”. On the surface, it would not seem particularly ant-war. The Napoleonic War is never more than a background conversation piece – no bloody battle scenes – no sermonizing about civilian casualties but it is, subtly, an anti war movie. Whether this was a conscious decision of the director or a mere product of bias, I do not know but here is the reason: the gist of the movie made much of the Quaker’s (who, as a matter of historical fact, were strict pacifists) gospel based opposition to slavery vs. the greed and self interest of their opponents. For example, an MP with all the charm of Snidely Whiplash briefly presents to parliament an argument that abolition of the slave trade would have no effect because it would induce the West Indies to rebel and, with French and Spanish support, such a rebellion would likely succeed. The impression is created that the argument is a cynical attempt to befuddle the pure of heart abolitionists. Except to evoke the emotion of contempt for the argument, nothing more is heard of it. After defeating Wilberforce’s bill year after year, Parliament suddenly passes the bill with only 16 nay votes in 1807. Why? What changed? The movie provides not a clue. Yet anyone with only a cursory knowledge of history should immediately recognize the reason for the change. The reason was, in one word: Trafalgar. In 1805, Admiral Lord Nelson completely destroyed the combined navies of France and Spain in a single battle. Before Trafalgar, England could not abolish the slave trade, regardless of what laws Parliament might pass, the trade would go on without them. The Honorable Mr. Whiplash’s argument was entirely correct. After Trafalgar, England could do as it wished without regard to how the French, the Spanish or the West Indian planters might respond. To mention any of this would make people aware of how much they owe the military. It would glorify war in human affairs. To mention the real reason for the sudden collapse of opposition to Wilberforce’s bill would “send the wrong message”. Instead of leaving the theater hissing at the descendants of West Indian planters, people might leave the theater more willing to support a larger appropriation for the Navy. This is not the result people who make movies usually want to produce.
However, “Amazing Grace” is an excellent movie, well worth seeing -- but it did miss an opportunity to present a more well rounded account of the complexity of the human experience as well as a more historically accurate account of the long struggle to abolish slavery.