Monday, January 22, 2007

Amen, Amen, Amen

From Barbara Nicolosi
So, if you look at the culture today, there are many infections out there
that I would rather not contract. Radical cynicism, sexual degradation, horrific
cruelty -these are kinds of disturbing evils that most people would never
encounter, except that they are shoveled at them on the screen. Maybe they
aren’t ready to have these images imprinted on their spirits. Maybe their life
would never have taken them to the kinds of hells that filmmakers routinely put
into their movies – just to get the kudos of the industry which mistakes
outrageousness too often for courage. My question to the filmmakers who want to
sneer at and debunk everything beautiful is, just because you have lost your
hope and faith, does that mean you have to be busy about trashing mine? Just
because you have lost your own innocence, does that mean it is a socially
responsible thing to destroy mine? Many films today offer some small goods of
insight to the audience. But, the insights are cloaked in so much depraved
barbarity that the teeny good of the content is not worth the sliming journey of
its method. I am someone who actually believes that there is a place for decorum
and graciousness in human society. Many of the movies out there today are just
way to full of things that fall into the realm of what St. Paul meant when he
said, “There are some things that should never be mentioned among you.” In my
mind, there are some shameful things which should be the fodder for prayer and
sacrifice, but should never be served up with popcorn as entertainment. Beyond
just perversions like bestiality, which is getting a few screenings at Sundance
this year, this means things that are just crass and purely voyeuristic and
degrading. Movies like this are “Little Children” and “Little Miss Sunshine.”
They have something good to say, but they violate your innocence and defile you
so much on the way that it just isn’t worth it. It is like if you told me you
have a headache, and I said, “Oh, well I know where there is an aspirin for you!
You just have to walk through a putrid sewer for a few miles to get it.” So, on
the way to curing your headache, you pick up diptheria and typhoid. Peachy.
Thanks for that.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Robert,

Do you think that, perhaps, we are finally at the end of the age? the eschaton? Perhaps, humanity has come to full self-consciousness and there are only two choices left: Christ or boredom. The boredom is what is at the heart of the nihilism and barbarism in contemporary society. If my memory serves me right, then I think that Hegel thought that the age of art was at an end. Perhaps, he was right. I'm teaching aesthetics this semester and for the past few months, I've been thinking that perhaps there really isn't anything left to do anymore. There isn't any new art worth doing. There aren't any new thoughts worth thinking. Perhaps, there is only Christ or despair?

Joe

Robert Gotcher said...

In condemning Joachimism the Church pretty much ruled out putting some kind of temporal template on the eschaton. Joe, you need to read more de Lubac!