The Good Fight

For a time I had decided to boycott violent films. My media studies, observations of children (especially boys) fantasizing about violence, and the presence of violence in the world led me to categorize violent entertainment as inappropriate content. No exceptions. For a while, that boycott kept me from watching my beloved X-Men in their new film, X-Men: First Class, but I recently gave in, watched the film, and was thoroughly enchanted.

I credit the film’s success to its focus on Charles Xavier. What fascinates me about Xavier is his commitment to peace and that he risks his own life to defend those who hate him. His virtue is almost Christ-like and his reluctance to fight is heavily rooted in Just War Theory: a theory that is at the core of my personal view of violence in the world and media. Xavier’s pacifistic philosophy was enough to redeem the X-Men in my eyes, but I still find flaws in the X-Men’s distribution.

Not all of the X-Men share Xavier’s nonviolent philosophy and that is the primary conflict of the series. The battle of wills in X-Men is complex and requires a mature, contemplative audience. However, the X-Men and other superheroes are often marketed to children in the forms of cartoons and action figures. Children will catch the explosions and the punches, but miss the debate on violence’s merit. We need to take a step back and consider the risk we are taking by packaging such mature content for immature minds.

The Descendants

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many is a motion picture worth (I can’t be the first person to ask that, can I?)? When it comes to Alexander Payne’s The Descendants, the answer is quite a few. And if I tried to put the film’s rich message on the nature of human connection into words, so much would be lost in translation (which is funny because it’s based on a novel). I don’t know how much of the insight is from the novel (I’ve never read it) and how much is originally Payne’s, but insights do abound.

Films that prompt so much thought and conversation are very rare, and are to be cherished. None of the performances, dialogue or production stand out because they all work together to support the story and its message, just as the elements of a great classic film should. And this is a great film. Each of its elements form a beautiful tapestry about human relationships. We are capable of doing tremendous harm and tremendous good to others, and The Descendants explores that with such grace.

Midnight in Paris

Sometimes settling for something simple, instead of being extremely ambitious is an admirable thing. Such is the case with Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. It doesn’t aspire to be anything extravagant, just a clean, compact, well-acted, cleverly-written pleasant film. Its message about dealing with feelings of discontent is similarly not groundbreaking, but extremely welcome. It’s sheer brilliant escapist fun. This refreshing, fun piece of art seems so easy, but I think Allen just has a lot of practice.

Jesus in the Top 40

“Jesus Walks” by Kanye West and “Coming Home” by Diddy Dirty Money are two of the most Christian hip hop songs to infiltrate this millennium’s Top 40. I have found the songs to be both beautifully confident Christian messages and troubling artistic expressions.

One reason for my troubles is the coarse lyrics: each song contains the word “shit.” I don’t believe that Christians are obligated to remove all expletives from their vocabularies—I believe that there are much bigger fish to fry, AND I believe that there are times and places for profanity—I’m just slightly puzzled by the inclusion of profane language in public messages (pop songs) with such clear associations with to the Christian faith.

Another reason for my troubles is that the very same albums on which Kanye and Diddy make such powerful Christian claims, feature some morally questionable songs. Kanye’s “The New Work Out Plan” is a celebration of sexual promiscuity featuring lyrics like “Tell me who’s invited // you, your friends and my dick.” Diddy Dirty Money’s “Ass On The Floor” repeatedly instructs its audience to (take a guess) “get your ass on the floor.”

I have often felt slightly disappointed listening to “Jesus Walks” and “Coming Home”. I felt as though the artists botched opportunities to make great art honoring our Lord. I felt as though the artists should have taken a little more responsibility when associating with a humble, Holy Savior.

Then the grace of God softened my heart.

The message of Jesus is one of grace. The Christian victory does not lie in the work of Christians, but the forgiving work of Christ. We are not instructed to fix ourselves. We are called to come to Christ as we are, broken and flawed. The songs “Jesus Walks” and “Coming Home” are two of the best examples I’ve witnessed of that behavior. I don’t think the songs validate the messages of the entire Kanye and Diddy canons, but I do think that the complete and utter submission on these two songs is something to be celebrated.

And it’s nice to be able to consider these songs worship because they are SO much better than most other “Christian” music.