“When a kid watches the animated movie Shrek, he probably doesn’t know about Carl Jung’s theories of psychological types and the collective unconscious, but he is ingesting them nonetheless through those characters and that story adapted after the Jungian model . . . The screenwriters admit Shrek’s Jungian ideas: ‘The book is very clever, because …
One for the Many
“Caiaphas is stating the same political reason we have given for the scapegoat: to limit violence as much as possible but to turn to it, if necessary, as a last resort to avoid an even great violence. Caiaphas is the incarnation of politics at its best, not its worst. No one has even been a …
Sensibilities and Powers
Let me begin with an outrageous conclusion, and then try to defend it. This is not usually a good procedure because it just gets everybody’s back up, but if the outrageous conclusion is actually the voice of sweet reason, then why not? Here is the conclusion, in a short series of statments. The only genuine …
Stories As Preachers
“Movies are finally, centrally, crucially, primarily, only about story. And those stories are finally, centrally, crucially, primarily, mostly about redemption.” (Brian Godawa, Hollywood Worldviews, p. 54).
The Uncooperative Psalmist of Israel
“The victim who speaks in the Psalms seems not in the least ‘moral,’ not evangelistic enough for the good apostles of modern times. The sensibilities of our humanists are shocked . . . The display of violence and resentment ‘so characteristic of the Old Testament’ is deplored, and is seen as a particularly clear indication …
There Are Slugs On the Bottom of the Salad Too
“Two of the most frustrating replies to hear when asking people what they thought of a movie are ‘I liked it’ or ‘I didn’t like it,’ accompanied by an inability to explain why . . . We have already established that stories do not exist in a vacuum of meaninglessness. Movies communicate prevailing myths and …
Whether We Know It Or Not
“The Bible enables us to decipher what we have actually learned to identify in persecutors’ representations of persecution. It teaches us to decode the whole of religion . . . The Gospels do indeed center around the Passion of Christ, the same drama that is found in all world mythologies . . . We are …
No Neutrality On the Screen
“Every story is informed by a worldview. And so every movie, being a dramatic story, is also informed by a worldview. There is no such thing as a neutral story in which events and characters are presented objectively apart from interpretation” (Brian Godawa, Hollywood Worldviews, p. 25).
Scapegoats Everywhere
“Almost no one is aware of his own shortcoming. We must question ourselves if we are to understand the enormity of the mystery. Each person must ask what his relationship is to the scapegoat. I am not aware of my own, and I am persuaded that the same holds true for my readers. We only …
Why Ad Rates for Super Bowl Halftime Should Be Inexpensive
[Michael Medved] “points out the hypocrisy of those in the dream business who proclaim that movies don’t influence belief or behavior while charging millions of dollars for advertising and product placements in movies and receiving awards and prestige for promoting trendy social agendas.” (Brian Godawa, Hollywood Worldviews, p. 17).