This week’s prescriptions are born out of prep work for a literature, film, and theology course I’m co-teaching with Tony Jones later this month. One of the textbooks we’ve assigned is Deep Focus: Film and Theology in Dialogue by our friends Rob Johnston, Craig Detweiler, and Kutter Callaway. In it, they outline a methodology for engaging film from a theological perspective. This is important, they write, because “movies function as a primary source of power and meaning for people navigating the complexities of life in our contemporary world.” Thankfully, they argue that we must approach films on their own terms, which will create the space necessary for personal, spiritual transformation. If we first force a film to fit into—or judge it solely on the basis of—our theological or religious views, then we will miss what it might be saying to us about ourselves, the world around us, or even the ways in which our belief systems or blindspots contribute to ongoing injustices in our communities and beyond. With decades of collective teaching experience, Johnston, Detweiler, and Callaway have seen firsthand the power of film (and storytelling in general) to change lives. The following prescriptions did something like that for me.
FILM
Normal
A film that now seems to have been ahead of its time, 2003’s Normal (written and directed by Jane Anderson) stars Tom Wilkinson and Jessica Lange. After a 25-year marriage to Irma (Lange), Roy (Wilkinson) shocks his family when he reveals that he is, in fact, a woman trapped in a man’s body and that he plans to have a sex change operation to address this. Roy's (now Ruth’s) co-workers are baffled and members of his church reject him, while his children, son Wayne (Joseph Sikora) and daughter Patty Ann (Hayden Panettiere) have mixed reactions. Wayne is embarrassed by his father’s actions, while Patty Ann, who is undergoing her own physical changes with her first period, is more open to his desire to transition.
I don’t know if I knew any trans individuals when I watched this film, and trans rights and/or experiences weren’t something that was frequently discussed in the circles in which I moved at the time. After graduating from a conservative Christian college, I enrolled in a more progressive seminary, where my views on everything from theology and religion to human sexuality and gender began to evolve, as they continue to do so even now. Set in a small, conservative community, the reaction of most of Ruth’s neighbors range from curiosity at best to outright scorn and abuse at worst. The depiction of the faith community and specifically Rev. Dale Muncie (Randall Arney) struck me as instantly recognizable. They embody that fine line between how we can choose to react in the face of ignorance…how we can either respond to what we don’t know with fear and hatred or empathy and love. Rev. Muncie is kind, but profoundly ill-equipped to meet the moment before him.
Far more complex, understandably, is the relationship between Irma and Ruth. There is a moment in their interaction with one another that is worth mentioning at length as it is as powerful an embodiment of sacrificial love as I have ever seen on screen. To keep the peace at home, Ruth moves into an apartment. When Irma invites Ruth over for the weekly family meal, Ruth’s father heaps insult after insult on her. Combined with the trauma of ridicule and rejection she has experienced at work and at church, Ruth goes to the barn behind their house, kneels, and, weeping, puts the barrel of a shotgun under her chin. Moments later, Irma, who has quietly waged her own internal battle of whether or not (or how) she will stay in relationship with Ruth, walks into the barn and tearfully pleads for Ruth to put down the gun. When she doesn’t, Irma moves behind Ruth and places her head on top of hers. With this act, she signifies her commitment to Ruth, come what may, and the two embrace as Irma tells Ruth, “I think for now you should come home.”
I can’t recall how long I had been married when I watched this film, but it was earlier in our nearly seventeen years together thus far. When Irma and Ruth walked out of that barn, my vows and my very understanding of what marriage meant suddenly deepened in ways with which I am still reckoning. What does it mean to love someone unconditionally? What makes a person who they are? How does our love grow as we and our partners inevitably change as we age? These are questions that were captured onscreen in a matter of seconds and that will reverberate for a lifetime.
Originally airing on HBO, Normal is unfortunately not streaming on HBOMax, but you can watch it on YouTube if you don’t mind bending the rules a bit…or you can purchase it on DVD for about $3 if you still have something on which to play it!
TV
Euphoria
When Euphoria first premiered on HBO back in June 2019, to substantial buzz, Amy and I watched the pilot. At the time, we felt it was too dark and potentially exploitative. While I have a higher tolerance for that sort of content, Amy’s job brings her into daily contact with severe trauma and suffering, which means she doesn’t want much of that in her entertainment. I recently took another shot at it, binging the entire first season and quickly catching up on the second in time for the season two finale. I am so glad that I did, because I found that finale (and much of the second season) to be some of the most spiritually resonant hours of TV I’ve watched in quite some time. Euphoria a testament to the power of stories to shape our lives, both the stories we inherit, hear, or watch and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. This series is so good, that a short recommendation like this feels almost ridiculous. Consider this a call for papers for a collection of essays about it. Who’s in??!!
If you haven’t watched it, Euphoria follows Rue Bennett (Zendaya) and her high school classmates, all of whom are dealing with trauma in one form or another. As part of the now legendary Twitter thread about dating in this generation states:
This post-9/11 generation has moved from one crisis to the next. No wonder they’re looking for relief wherever they find it. After Rue’s father dies, she descends into a drug addiction that nearly kills her. Much of the series follows her efforts to get and stay sober, to wildly varying degrees of success. As the second season draws to a close, the episodes build to a performance of a play written by one of the characters, Lexi (Maude Apatow), who has essentially been a wallflower observing, like us, the drama around her. As Rue watches her life (and the lives of her peers) unfold on the stage, she is transformed. Lexi had endured trauma too, but she took those experiences and turned them into art, into a story. Seeing this changed how Rue saw her own trauma, and wherever this series goes in its third season, she will be better equipped to handle her own. I had just started reading Deep Focus when I watched this finale and immediately texted Craig and Kutter to let them know that this critically acclaimed, provocative series was exemplifying the book’s central point about about the role of stories as tools of meaning-making in contemporary life.
Like Normal, Euphoria did a work on me, fueling more empathy for a generation that we/I often ridicule, because we/I are ignorant. It’s also a powerful glimpse into both addiction and the impact it has on families and the hard road of recovery. Euphoria won’t be for everyone (few series are): there are profoundly triggering sequences of substance abuse and sexual violence. But for those of you willing to sit with this series and to set aside a rush to judgment, it is a deeply rewarding experience. All episodes of Euphoria are currently streaming on HBOMax.
Lamb
In my three years of seminary at Wake Forest University Divinity School and about four and a half years of doctoral work at the Graduate Theological Union, the most memorable work of theology I read came not from traditional sources like Moltmann, Johnson, or Barth, but rather from a comedic novel, Christopher Moore’s hilarious re-imagining of the life of Jesus, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal.
Theories abound about the missing years of Jesus from around twelve years old to his reappearance roughly eighteen years later and the start of his ministry. But no matter what theologians or historians speculate, no one really knows where he went or what he did. One theory (that historians often reject) is that Jesus traveled widely to places like Great Britain or India, probably financed by the gifts of the magi. Moore takes this theory and transforms it into a buddy, road trip comedy in which Jesus (here called Joshua) and his best friend Biff travel to Persia, India, and China to visit the three wise men that visited him as an infant. Along the way, their antics are responsible for everything from the origins of judo and cappuccino to the proliferation of the Kama Sutra. But Joshua really wants to know what makes him so special and how this will impact his life going forward. His time with these wise men equip him to return home and lead his people. Returning to Jerusalem, Joshua’s life follows much of what we’ve read in the Gospels, but with an imaginative and laugh-out-loud twist. It also features a profoundly heart-wrenching depiction of the crucifixion and how it deeply traumatized his friends and followers.
Lamb invites readers, especially those that grew up in more conservative environments, to reconsider Jesus’ humanity, his miracles, and the salvific nature of his ministry. But this will likely only be possible for those readers who hold their interpretations of scripture loosely. Paradoxically, by taking scripture too seriously, readers can be in danger of not taking it seriously enough. Resigning ourselves to one singular interpretation of any narrative robs the text of its ability to speak to us in new and different ways as we grow. Lamb is ultimately a book about faith, Joshua’s faith in himself and in God, his followers’ faith in him, and our faith in the traditions born out of those relationships and that persist thousands of years later. I often joke that we need new or additional sacred texts. Lamb would be a good place to start.
Lamb is available wherever books are sold, but consider purchasing your copy from an independent bookseller like Booksmith in Moore’s San Francisco.
Lamb could also be a future TV prescription, if I could find the right partner(s). Seriously, I’ve got scripts!
LOVED Lamb! Just superb. Can’t wait for your script!