2 discussions 1 assignment- reserved for someone [[[[[[DISCUSSION 1]]]]]]] PART 1 OF 3
Journal of Religion & Film Volume 1 Issue 2 October 1997
Article 6
12-18-2016
To Commend or To Critique? �e Question of Religion and Film Studies John C. Lyden Grand View University, Des Moines, Iowa, johnclyden@gmail.com
<is Article is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Religion & Film by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@UNO. For more information, please contact unodigitalcommons@unomaha.edu.
Recommended Citation Lyden, John C. (2016) "To Commend or To Critique? <e Question of Religion and Film Studies," Journal of Religion & Film: Vol. 1 : Iss. 2 , Article 6. Available at: h>p://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol1/iss2/6
To Commend or To Critique? �e Question of Religion and Film Studies
Abstract
<is paper examines two approaches to popular =lm to come out of religious studies. <e =rst assumes popular culture is as valid as any culture, in which case "religious" analysis of =lms seeks to identify the iconography and mythology of =lm as expressive of a viable popular religion. <e second method critiques popular =lm as a form of hegemonic discourse to be unmasked as supportive of classist, racist, and sexist ideologies. <is paper accepts the validity of both methods and seeks to balance them by asserting that all =lms should be seen both as viable expressions of culture and also as ideology. Films are both to the extent that all contain multiple "texts" and multiple meanings, held together in an aporial and not entirely rational fusion. We do not need to decide which meaning is fundamental, as all are present in the =lm.
<is article is available in Journal of Religion & Film: h>p://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol1/iss2/6
The study of film from a religious studies vantage point has produced a
broad consensus. Films include religious symbolism, consciously or unconsciously,
and films may project a world-view which functions much like a religion in our
culture.
Films are a creation and a reflection of the popular culture which produces
and sustains them. They support this culture through creating myths, icons, and
values which are celebrated and reinforced in a ritualized fashion. A variety of
methods are used by religious scholars to study films. There are representative of
the range of methods available within film studies generally: semiotics, textual or
formalistic studies, psychoanalytic methods, ideological or political critiques,
reader-response theories, genre and auteur studies, and so on.
There is a fundamental tension, however, between two basic approaches to
the study of film as exemplative of a popular religious tradition. On the one hand,
popular culture may be accepted as a culture which is as valid as any other, and
which expresses its own values through media such as film. Even though the films
are not produced by the people but by a technological industry, they are produced
for the people and (in part) out of response to what people believe in and hope for.
An analysis of their religious impact will then seek to identify the mythology of
popular film with the purpose of establishing how it contributes to the religion of
1
Lyden: To Commend or To Critique?
Published by DigitalCommons@UNO,
popular culture, and will often (at least implicitly) celebrate the values expressed
by this mythology.
On the other hand, the opposed method views films' presentation of popular
culture and its religious aspects with great suspicion. The films are defined as a
form of hegemonic discourse which ultimately supports the status quo of classist,
racist, and sexist ideologies (to name the most significant). In this case, popular
film is to be unmasked as this hegemonic discourse and deconstructed in order to
reveal how it influences our society in negative ways. This method has been shaped
by liberationist and feminist approaches to culture and religion.
Of course, this typology presents an oversimplification (as all typologies
do), as there will be few interpreters of film who rigidly conform to either model.
Most will "commend" the values of some films, and "critique" those of others. After
all, like everybody else, religion scholars are prone to disagree about what
constitutes a "good" or a "bad" movie. But my point here is that one's
methodological assumptions may at the outset give one a bias either for or against
popular film. As a result, one may either uncritically accept the values of the culture
(arguing that they are as valid as any other), or uncritically reject those same values
(arguing that nothing good can come out of Hollywood). And I do not think that
one can avoid this question by claiming to bracket value judgments while one
2
Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 1 [], Iss. 2, Art. 6
http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol1/iss2/6
examines popular culture, as one's values will still affect how one views the
phenomenon, implicitly or otherwise.
There is a parallel here with the study of non-Christian religions by western
Christian scholars of religion. It is only recently that western theologians and
historians of religion have been able to enter into genuine dialogue with other
religions, listening to what they are saying rather than uncritically rejecting their
views or uncritically accepting them (usually without really understanding them, in
either case). I would argue that the study of popular film by religion scholars is at
a similar place, as it is only very recently that they have begun to seriously examine
how the whole range of popular films function, religiously and culturally. And yet
the question still lurks in the background as to whether this popular filmic religion
should be accepted in tolerance or torn down like an idol.
Many have tended towards the latter view; but I will argue it is too easy to
condemn without analyzing the texts of popular film, and perhaps there is
something to commend in them even as we critique them. I will argue that it is
possible to balance the two approaches insofar as the films themselves can be
considered both forms of viable religion, and ideology. We do not need to decide
which "meaning" is fundamental, as many may exist in the same film in an aporial
and not entirely rational fusion.
3
Lyden: To Commend or To Critique?
Published by DigitalCommons@UNO,
First let us examine those who "commend" popular film. In this view, one
seeks to appreciate the values of popular film as a valid expression of the culture
they mirror. As Catherine Albanese has observed in regard to the study of religion
and American popular culture in general, no American scholar of popular culture
can exist outside of the culture she or he describes, and so there are no "Olympian
heights," of superior knowledge or taste, to which one might escape to level value
judgments on the culture.1 There is really no way to "bracket" value-judgments
regarding one's own culture, so that the scholar (as participant/observer of it) will
probably at least tacitly accept its values - unless he or she consciously rejects them.
In regard to the study of film, religious scholars have accepted some of what
films do for the culture, as they have experienced some sense of the power of the
movies to convey a distinctive religious vision of the world. Thus Darrol Bryant
writes that "the profoundly spiritual significance of film lies not so much in content
or subject matter as in our experience of the film itself - an experience of order and
harmony that stands in counterpoint to our experience of the everyday world.2
Michael Bird has said that a film can be a "hierophany," a manifestation of
the sacred in our midst, drawing on Paul Tillich's view of culture as "open" to the
transcendent which it may symbolically reflect.3 Even the earlier studies which
were primarily interested in connections with Christianity mirrored this
appreciation of the religious power of film. In 1970, Carl Skrade wrote that
4
Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 1 [], Iss. 2, Art. 6
http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol1/iss2/6
"contemporary film-makers force their audiences not only to examine the structures
of destruction and peer into the depths of the human predicament, but they also
offer filmic forms of symbols of renewal."4
Recent studies of religion and film also evidence this approach. In New
Image of Religious Film, editor John May notes that in viewing popular films as
being worthy of theological consideration, the essays in the book acknowledge but
regret the tendency of many theologians to "distrust" popular film. May, in contrast,
argues that popular culture should be considered an "ally in the process of
evangelization."5 Further, the predominantly Roman Catholic authors in May's
volume see film as expressing the sense of mystery and of the sacred to the modern
world in an especially effective way. For example, Joseph Marty here claims that
"cinema awakens homo religious" because:
"It brings back to life the sense of mystery by making us love what is not immediately perceivable, what is beyond appearance and evidence. It suggests the invisible ... Thus, cinema binds us again with the poetic and religious expression of humanity ... Everything that is human, every relationship to the world and to nature, treated artistically by the cinema becomes a poem, a tale, a re-reading, a proposal of meaning, a celebration - in short, something that resembles a first religious step."6
Another example of a collection of essays which includes some that "commend"
the religious aspects of popular films is Screening the Sacred: Religion, Myth, and
Ideology in Popular American Film, edited by Joel Martin and Conrad Ostwalt. In
this volume there are a number of articles which indicate some appreciation for the
5
Lyden: To Commend or To Critique?
Published by DigitalCommons@UNO,
"mythologies" of popular film. Thus Avent Childress Beck writes of Platoon that
the film is: "a mythic reinvention of the war that displaces grand historical
statement on the involvement of the United States with an assertion instead of the
primacy of an individual's or a small group's religious or psychological experience
of the war" so that "in dark theaters, we are treated to the balms of religious myth;
in the case of Platoon, to the ordered familiarities and emotive comfort of the
Christian narrative."7
Similarly, in the same volume, Caron Schwartz Ellis writes in regard to
Science Fiction films which feature "saviors" from the sky that "our spacemen are
important to us. They give us hope in a world in which our vision of the stars is
obscured by pollution and the potential for nuclear holocaust."8 And Andrew
Gordon's essay, written in 1978, analyzes the mythological form of Star Wars
(which George Lucas developed out of Joseph Campbell's work) and so argues that
the film is a "myth for our times." He then concludes:
"The fact is that each generation must create its own myths and heroes or regenerate those of the past. We are in a period in which the heroes have been cast down through such national catastrophes as Vietnam and Watergate, when the lines between good and evil grow cloudy, and when sexual identities have been redefined by the women's movement. Meanwhile, we have created a machine world for ourselves, a world that seems drained of spiritual values, a world in which we feel impotent and alien. We desperately need a renewal of faith in ourselves as Americans, as good guys on the world scene, as men and women, as human beings who count, and so we return to the simpler patterns of the past."9
6
Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 1 [], Iss. 2, Art. 6
http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol1/iss2/6
It is Gordon's remarks in particular which show the problematic nature of this sort
of analysis. In being ready to applaud the fact that the film makes the viewer "feel
good," he has concluded it is valuable precisely because it offers an easy dualism
between good and evil, so avoiding the ambiguity of world politics and feminism.
Americans fall into this sort of dualism easily enough in any case. Should one
commend those films which encourage in our "popular culture" a dualistic attitude
of "us versus them"? Are such films flawed in seeking to avoid any challenge to
our hegemonic structures? It can be asked whether Star Wars really does this (or
whether it only does this), but the question here is, are the values Gordon cites really
the sort one should uncritically accept as an aspect of popular film?
This question leads to the other type of approach to the values of popular
films, and it is probably the more common among scholars of religion. Drawing on
liberationist and feminist critiques of hegemonic discourse, religious scholars
trained in these approaches have viewed popular American films as a prime
example of that which secures and perpetuates ideology in America. As scholars of
religion, they have been able to identify the theological or mythological forms used
to secure this ideology. This approach has also been able to draw on much in film
studies proper, as ideological critique of popular film is a well-established method
in that field. Again from Screening the Sacred, Joel Martin's treatment of Rocky
engages in this sort of analysis by viewing the film as one which scapegoats blacks
7
Lyden: To Commend or To Critique?
Published by DigitalCommons@UNO,
as the cause of America's economic problems. The film appealed to white working-
class Americans precisely because it engages in this sort of racism which
"aggressively and ideologically reinterprets recent history.10 Similarly, Janice
Hocker Rushing interprets *Aliens* as an anti-feminist film which pits the "Good
Mother/goddess" against the "Bad Mother/monster/goddess" and so reaffirms
conservative visions of femininity which have bifurcated the feminine
consciousness and so stigmatized certain types of women who do not accept their
'"proper" role in the patriarchy.11
Brandon Scott has also critiqued the ideology of popular films in his book
Hollywood Dreams and Biblical Stories. His method is to establish a dialogue
between the Bible and popular film and so he juxtaposes texts from both "canons"
in regard to particular themes (e.g., gender, war, apocalyptic, etc.). He shows that
the mythology transmitted by popular film works to legitimate (for example)
violence and revenge (in the Dirty Harry films),12 racism (in The Birth of a Nation
and Gone with the Wind),13 and female embeddedness (in Mr. Mom and Fatal
Attraction).14 In this sense, mythology functions as ideology, as it reinforces
cultural hegemonies by suppressing conflict through an overarching narrative
structure. Here Scott is drawing on the work of Roland Barthes (as expressed in his
book, Mythologies,15 which has influenced numerous film theorists). Scott also
cites Claude Levi-Strauss' understanding of myth, which lies behind Barthes'
8
Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 1 [], Iss. 2, Art. 6
http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol1/iss2/6
application of the notion to popular culture. In Levi-Strauss' view, cited by Scott,
"the purpose of myth is to provide a logical model capable of overcoming
contradiction (an impossible achievement if, as it happens, the contradiction is
real).16 We use myths to hide contradictions in the beliefs of our societies. As film
genre analysis sees it, the film western, for example, mediates the contradiction
between civilization and savagery in American society. That is, we approve of
violence in our need to keep order. But the contradiction is overcome in film when
the violence is evacuated from civilization after its occurrence: hence the need for
the hero to leave after he saves the family in Shane, The Searchers, and innumerable
other westerns.17
Although myth may be the dominant form in popular film, Scott also
recognizes that popular films sometimes challenge and even subvert the myths of
society. For example, he analyzes Bronco Billy as a myth-subverting western,18 and
Private Benjamin as a film which attacks the myth of female embeddedness19 -
though one might note that it does so by reinforcing myths about the military. John
May has also noted that non-mythological films exist, and he draws a parallel
between these and the form of parable (drawing on John Dominic Crossan's work),
in that such films do not reassure us but challenge us to change our world-view.20
He cites the work of Kubrick and Altman as examples of this form of parabolic
cinema.21
9
Lyden: To Commend or To Critique?
Published by DigitalCommons@UNO,
Margaret Miles, in her book, Seeing and Believing: Religion and Values in
the Movies, evidences yet another approach by a scholar of religious studies. She
utilizes a cultural studies (rather than a textual-based) approach to assess the values
projected by films within the socio-politico-cultural matrix in which the film is
produced, distributed, and seen.22 In doing so she seeks to avoid the automatic
rejection of the values of the movies (which so often is the approach of conservative
religion) as well as some of the assumptions of some ideological critics.23 And yet,
even though she claims she wishes to avoid "cultural pessimism,24 her analysis
draws considerably on ideological criticism in its rejection of the values of popular
film. Out of all the films evaluated in her book, Miles seems able to approve the
values only of one: Daughters of the Dust (1992).25 And this one is hardly typical
of popular films as it was an independent film made by an African-American
woman.
Even films such as Jesus of Montreal, Thelma and Louise, and Jungle
Fever, which could all be seen as challenging hegemonic structures, finally end up
in Miles' analysis as films which make white males comfortable and do not deliver
on the challenges they begin.26 In her analysis, the cultural context in which such
films are produced and received, as well as the content of the film images,
disqualify them from being legitimate sources of values. "The many choices made
in the production of a film," she writes in conclusion, "often undercut the radical
10
Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 1 [], Iss. 2, Art. 6
http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol1/iss2/6
topic filmmakers intended to present sympathetically," thus indicating the
"profound conservativism" of Hollywood films.27 The main value of popular films
therefore lies merely in their ability to articulate the problems and anxieties of
society, not to provide solutions.28
Miles' tendency to reject the values of almost all popular films and to
embrace mainly independent films made outside the Hollywood system also
mirrors a tendency of ideological criticism. Popular films tend to be lumped
together as ideological, largely due to the fact that they are created by a major
American capitalist industry which is more interested in profit and producing
pleasing fantasies than in making challenging and subversive art films. This
judgment can be traced to the analysis of "mass culture'' developed by Theodor
Adorno and Max Horkheimer, German intellectuals of the Frankfurt School who
fled Nazi Germany only to come to Hollywood. Ready to see the seeds of
totalitarianism everywhere, they viewed all Hollywood films as commodities of
capitalism which injected their ideologies into passive audiences, discouraging
thought or questioning of authority. In fact, Adorno and Horkheimer viewed all
popular films as having basically the same plot and the same characters, as mass
production eliminated any significant artistic individuality of the filmmakers.29 The
only films which could be viewed as legitimate were avant-garde art films made
11
Lyden: To Commend or To Critique?
Published by DigitalCommons@UNO,
outside the Hollywood system, as these did not participate in its decadence but
could critique it.
In spite of the fact that the study of film has developed beyond Adorno and
Horkheimer's analyses, many film theorists have been unable to shake their view
that popular film is by nature ideological and that only avant-garde cinema has
value.30 But Pierre Bourdieu has argued that this denigration of popular film is just
another form of elitism, as cultural elites reject the taste of the "masses" in order to
defend their own tastes, and hence secure their own cultural hegemony as the
supposedly "legitimate" evaluators of culture.31
Besides being a not-too-subtle form of classism, this dualism between
"popular" and "avant-garde" over-generalized about the content of films. If one is
to evaluate popular film fairly, one cannot force a monolithic judgment on it
without reference to individual films. Sometimes ideological film analysts are so
certain of the content of the films they are discussing that they utilize a priori
categories of interpretation which are in principle non-falsifiable and ignore details
of the individual films; e.g., in Barbara Creed's psychoanalytic feminist analysis,
all movie monsters are symbols of the feminine (because the female is defined as
'monstrous" by our culture), even when the monsters are literally male in the film
narrative.32 This sort of analysis has determined what the film has said before ever
12
Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 1 [], Iss. 2, Art. 6
http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol1/iss2/6
examining the text, and so has identified all popular film with ideology rather than
letting popular films speak for themselves.
This is not to say that all ideological film critics over-generalize in this way,
nor to suggest that the religion scholars cited here have necessarily done so in every
case. Rather, my purpose is to point out the danger present in ideological criticism
if it is the primary method of interpretation. Just as Andrew Gordon's mythological
analysis of Star Wars (see fn. 9, above) demonstrates the dangers of uncritical
acceptance of the visions of popular film, so ideological critique may fall into an
uncritical rejection of the worldview of popular film. Many interpreters have
engaged in forms of both types of methods, and so have balanced them; but what
principles should determine when one method is employed, and when the other?
What criteria found in the films themselves might assist us in deciding whether to
make peace or war on a particular film? Is it all just a matter of "taste" based on
idiosyncrasies of our own worldviews, or are there principles that can guide the
religious interpreter of film in regard to this question?
I would suggest that another look at the idea of "myth" may help solve this
puzzle. Although mythology has been identified with ideology by some (e.g.
Roland Barthes), even in following Levi-Strauss's basic definition of myth one need
not conflate mythology with the original Marxist sense of ideology (as that which
maintains hegemony). Myth holds together contradictions that cannot be mediated
13
Lyden: To Commend or To Critique?
Published by DigitalCommons@UNO,
logically, but those contradictions are not always or merely accepted in order to
conserve hegemonic structures. The Christian myth of the atonement holds together
the aporia of a just-yet-loving God. How can God avoid sanctioning sin, and yet
forgive it? The myth of God's Son dying for our sins is designed to overcome this
aporia, but it does not do so in an entirely rational way. Though Anselm and others
have tried to reduce the myth to a series of logical axioms, the effort has never been
fully successful; one cannot logically explain how one person's death can pay for
another's sins. There is something irreducible about the myth, the narrative of the
story itself, which does not allow itself to be fully "explained" by any doctrine.
Hence there has been no "authoritative" doctrine of the atonement in the history of
Christian thought, and rival views have stood side by side.33 This could be said of
all religious myths, and the newer narrative theologies would support this non-
rational mythological core of religion as essential to its nature. Indeed, it has been
observed that there is something about classical narrative itself which contains a
contradiction, as it seeks to resolve a conflict and so "end" - but in reality, there
would be no end, as more events would transpire after the story finishes, upsetting
the neat conclusion.34
All narrative then asserts a myth of wholeness which does not jar with our
experiences in life. However, this does not in itself imply the reinforcement of
hegemonic power structures; it only shows that we need the illusion of myth to
14
Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 1 [], Iss. 2, Art. 6
http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol1/iss2/6
make sense of our lives, which do not conform to the neatness of narrative. Myths
can then exercise a positive function for societies by giving us a meaningful
structure to live by, hopes to aspire to, ideas to believe in. Star Wars, for example,
is not merely a movie that reinforces ideological dualism. It promotes a cosmic
confidence in reality as governed by a higher power in which we can share, in spite
of evidence to the contrary. Myths seek to reconcile the disparities and
contradictions in our experience not by eliminating them, but by holding them
together in a paradoxical and non-rationalizable fusion. And although myths may
be inherently conservative of culture, cultures do need conserving and not simply
critiquing.
Of course, there are times when popular film critiques itself, at least to some
extent (as Scott and others have observed). At this level, the myth exposes some of
its own aporial nature, even though this is usually suppressed by the end of the film.
Still, in raising questions about itself, the myth grows and develops to incorporate
the changing values of society. This also serves to conserve society (which myths
do best) but in this case by allowing the myth to stretch with society as it seeks to
develop its values. In this way, films of the 50's and 60's began to critique racism,
even though the issues were dealt with in a carefully controlled fashion. For
example, the harmonious liberal vision of interracial romance expressed in Stanley
Kramer's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) is a far cry from the critique of the
15
Lyden: To Commend or To Critique?
Published by DigitalCommons@UNO,
same in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever (1991), as Kramer's vision belittles racial tension
through the myth of integration and assimilation. Yet Kramer's vision is also
equally far from the overtly racist depiction of predatory black men attacking chaste
white women in D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915). The values of films
develop as society develops, and they reflect and encourage that development.
Affirming the importance of film as myth, however, should not erase the
need to see film as ideology. In reality, films are both. As films already contain
contradictory messages within them - as they both support and subvert established
structures, or conserve society's values even while they critique them - so also the
multiple texts within a film may be seen as conserving and developing society's
values in a valid way, as well as illegitimately preserving power structures which
ought to be dismantled. I would borrow a concept from my own Lutheran
theological background to elucidate this, that of the Christian as "simul justus et
peccator." According to this idea, the Christian has been justified by God even as
and while a sinner, and so can be a subject and vehicle of God's grace in spite of
human imperfection. Similarly, popular films may act as windows to transcendence
which express messages seen as valuable by those of us in religious studies, as they
open us to new visions or reassert what is valid in old ones - and films may also
support class, race, and gender structures which deserve deconstruction. They may
do both simultaneously, even within the same film, so that it is not a question of
16
Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 1 [], Iss. 2, Art. 6
http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol1/iss2/6
dichotomizing "good" vs. "bad" films, or "popular" vs. "avant-garde." The same
film can convey both sorts of messages, and although some readers will be more
sensitive to one than the other, neither can be discounted as present.
This does not mean all films are created equal. We may regard some as more
or less valid than others. But we need at least to accept the possibility that any film
can convey valid messages even while it contributes to ideology. And the presence
of ideological content in a film does not somehow invalidate what the film might
be said legitimately to accomplish as mythology of a popular religion which
preserves values of society at least some of us might commend. Both the myth and
the ideology are present in the film, and neither can be regarded as "the"
fundamental meaning.
In evaluating a popular film, then, we should look at the ways in which it
may provide not only an ideology, but a mythology which can provide the basis for
meaningful life and action--in spite of, or even (like religion?) perhaps because of,
its illusionism and idealism.
1 Catherine L. Albanese, "Religion and American Popular Culture: An Introductory Essay," in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. LXIV, number four (Winter 1996), p. 737.
2 M. Darrol Bryant, "Cinema, Religion, and Popular Culture" in Religion in Film, John R. May and Michael Bird, eds. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982), p. 112.
3 Michael Bird, "Film as Hierophany," in Religion in Film, pp. 322.
17
Lyden: To Commend or To Critique?
Published by DigitalCommons@UNO,
4 Carl Skrade, "Theology and Films" in Celluloid and Symbols, eds. John C. Cooper and Carl Skrade (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970), p. 21.
5 Introduction to New Image of Religious Film, ed. John R. May (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1997), p. ix.
6 Joseph Marty, "Toward a Theological Interpretation and Reading of Film: Incarnation of the Word of God - Relation, Image, Word," in New Image, pp. 135-136.
7 Avent Childress Beck, "The Christian Allegorical Structure of Platoon" in Screening the Sacred: Religion, Myth, and Ideology in Popular American Film, Joel W. Martin and Conrad E. Ostwalt, eds. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), p.54.
8 Caron Schwartz Ellis, "With Eyes Uplifted: Space Aliens as Sky Gods" in Screening the Sacred, p. 93.
9 Andrew Gordon, "Star Wars: A Myth for Our Times" in Screening the Sacred, p. 82.
10 Joel W. Martin, "Redeeming America: Rocky as Ritual Racial Drama" in Screening the Sacred, p. 130.
11 Janice Hocker Rushing, "Evolution of 'The New Frontier' in Alien and Aliens: Patriarchal Co- Optation of the Feminine Archetype" in Screening the Sacred, p. 114.
12 Bernard Brandon Scott, Hollywood Dreams and Biblical Stories (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), pp. 102-117.
13 Scott, pp. 158-165.
14 Scott, p. 247. Numerous other films receive this indictment, including Working Girl and Baby Boom.
15 Roland Barthes, Mythologies (New York: Hill and Wang, 1957).
16 Claude Levi-Strauss, "The Structural Study of Myth" in Structural Anthropology (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), p. 229, quoted in Scott, p. 5.
17 Thomas Schatz, Old Hollywood/New Hollywood: Ritual, Art, and Industry (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1983), pp. 9-10.
18 Scott, pp. 118-123.
19 Scott, pp. 225-227
20 John R. May, "Visual Story and the Religious Interpretation of Film" in Religion in Film, pp. 32-33.
18
Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 1 [], Iss. 2, Art. 6
http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol1/iss2/6
21 May, "Visual Story," pp. 38, 41.
22 Margaret R. Miles, Seeing and Believing: Religion and Values in the Movies (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996), p. xiii.
23 She rejects Laura Mulvey's thesis, for example (proposed in an article which influenced almost all subsequent feminist film analysis, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," Screen 16, 3 (1975), pp. 6-18), that in order to challenge the values of mainstream film, one must "destroy" the pleasure produced by it. Miles finds Mulvey's approach unacceptable as she believes it to be based on the ascetic notion that only what has overcome pleasure has value. Miles, p.10.
24 Miles, p. 22.
25 Miles, pp. 127-134.
26 For Miles' analysis of Jesus, see pp. 40-47; Thelma, pp. 141149; Jungle, pp. 158-167.
27 Miles, p. 190.
28 Miles, pp. 192-193.
29 Joanne Hollows, "Mass Culture Theory and Political Economy," in Approaches to Popular Film, eds. Joanne Hollows and Mark Jancovich (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), pp. 18-23.
30 Mark Jancovich gives this criticism of recent screen theory (Jancovich, "Screen Theory," in Approaches to Popular Film, p. 126, 144, and passim).
31 Joanne Hollows and Mark Jancovich, "Introduction: Popular Film and Cultural Distinctions," in Approaches to Popular Film, pp. 4-5.
32 Noted by Mark Jancovich in "Screen Theory," Approaches, p. 147; he refers to Barbara Creed's The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (London: Routledge, 1993).
33 It may have been Gustaf Aulen who first recognized the impossibility of rationally explaining the myth of the atonement, in his classic book, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement, tr. A. G. Hebert (New York: Macmillan, 1966).
34 The view of Colin McCabe, "Realism and the Cinema: Notes on Some Brechtian Theses," Screen, 15:2 (summer 1974), pp. 21-27, referenced in Jancovich, "Screen Theory," Approaches, pp.128-129.
19
Lyden: To Commend or To Critique?
Published by DigitalCommons@UNO,