Relics

Cookie jar (4.00 / 19)

🙂

by Morgan on Thu May 4th, 2006 at 15:02:06 PDT

For a Pagan (4.00 / 10)

The list can be quite long, however, I offer these travesties:

• The Craft (or, as I call it, “Salem 90210”)
• To Save a Child (a real piece of excriment foisted upon the nation by, of all places, Lifetime, where a child is “abducted” into Pagansim and must be “rescued”.  It’s working title was “The Craft”, and it was to air on ABC, but controversy from the Pagan community made them at first scuttle the film, and then air it on Lifetime under another name.)

I’ll post more later.

Blessed Be

Taliesin Athor Govannon
HP, Coven of Caer Arianrhod
Taliesin’s Witchcraft Page

by Taliesin on Thu May 4th, 2006 at 15:30:32 PDT

Interesting idea. (4.00 / 10)

But I think I’d have to say that I have never seen a film that doesn’t misrepresent just about everything, not just religion. Film is not intended to be the image of life, just the image of life that the director/producer thinks he’d like, or what we’d like to see isn’t it?

Given the discussion over on the coffee hour, I suspect the problem is some people take film (and YV) far too seriously.

by Aunt Arctic on Thu May 4th, 2006 at 15:52:23 PDT

What?? (4.00 / 8)

I thought all witches could levitate, fly on brooms, change shape, teleport, freeze or blow things up, and, even travel through time.
Oh wait, that’s Charmed!
Never mind.
Think I’ll go Wiccaning a baby now…
😛

(Wiccaning, the Wiccan version of Christening… I guess…. makes my solitary practicioner boyfriend want to retch. :P)

Then again, I can’t bitch too much, I actually like the show…

Our gift is Free Will. Infinite in Potential, limited only in Experience.

by R Elland on Thu May 4th, 2006 at 16:47:46 PDT

Hoping no one’s offended by this (4.00 / 9)

I’ve  been wanting  to write a diary about how network television has an aversion to stuff that deals with religion that asks hard questions, but I haven’t gotten around to it.  Anyway, consider: “Nothing Sacred” ran only one season.  “Joan of Arcadia” ran two.  And there was “Insight”, the wonderful anthology show produced by the Paulists some years back with casting worthy of prime time, but it didn’t run at night on the networks. All tremendous, finding faith  at the margins stuff.  All shows that dealt with hard questions in ways that weren’t always neatly tied up by hour’s end.  

Instead we get my nomination for this category, which featured during its long run guest shots by none other than Muhammad Ali, Kirk Douglas, and Rosa Parks.  Yes, I’m talking about the much beloved (and much different than its original concept) “Touched By An Angel”.  I don’t think it misrepresents religious beliefs or practices (as do “The Craft” and the Lifetime movie Taliesin mentioned).  But it oversimplifies faith to the point of a glow in the dark bumper sticker, with an annoying turn by Della Reese to boot.

TBAA was not, like “Joan of Arcadia”, concerned with life as a puzzle with God’s answers not always clear or satisfactory.  When John Masius created TBAA, he had a more complex idea in mind than the final product.  Something closer to original vision was reflected in his cable series (and answer to TBAA), “Dead Like Me”.  Instead, in the hands of producer Martha Williamson, TBAA turned into a pat celebration of bumper sticker platitudes.  Faith was not to be found at the margins, but instead by accepting all too easy answers to hard questions.    And you could always set your watch by this show — 45 minutes in, Roma Downey would glow in the dark and offer a simplistic “God has a plan” pep talk in that Irish brogue of hers.  And the plot would end, week in and week out, with an (almost literal) deus ex machina plot device.  (To see how  a quality TV show deals more realistically with questions about faith and life and death are really dealt with, check out the last three episodes of “House, MD”, particularly the one with the young faith healer from a couple of weeks back and the last scene between House and Wilson).

No, instead of Roma Downey glowing in the dark, give me Kevin Anderson’s young, very human priest at the pilot of “Nothing Sacred”, putting on Lena Horne’s “I Don’t Think I’ll End It All Today” and taking satisfaction with his work after a long, hard day.  Or Joan, debating God and coming through a trying process to a greater understanding of herself.  Or Keenan Wynn as God in one episode of “Insight”, insisting that Adam question him.  Or Lt. Worf on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, coming to terms with the idea that sometimes the words uttered by a prophet (in his case, the Klingon messiah figure Kahless) are more important than the man who uttered them.  And just think: Joan didn’t have to glow in the dark, either.

“Too many Christians use the Bible as a drunk does a lamppost — for support rather than for illumination.”- William Sloane Coffin

by Theodoric of York Medieval Liberal on Thu May 4th, 2006 at 20:47:25 PDT

In the (4.00 / 3)

Transcendently Lame Representations of Paganism category, my vote would have to go to The Guardian, an almost unbelievably bad offering from William Friedkin.  Fresh from his triumph over the Catholic Church in the Exorcist, in this one, he has at Druidism as personified by a murderous psychopath nanny whose simple faith in oak trees requires her to use her little charge as a human sacrifice.  

by True Blue on Fri May 5th, 2006 at 12:47:52 PDT

This isn’t really so much offensive. . . (4.00 / 3)

But in Japan, the popular view of Christianity and Judaism is about the same as the popular western view of, say, Buddhism: That is, as mysterious and mystical. So in a huge number of Japanese TV shows and movies, you get really bizzare representations of Western religion. My favorite example is Neon Genesis Evangelion, a fairly famous anime, which features Japan being attacked by Angels, giant, cross-shaped explosions, and references to about half the stuff in the Kabbalah. And its surprisingly entertaining.

by Caliban120 on Fri May 5th, 2006 at 13:21:52 PDT

Twofer. (4.00 / 3)

A friend once made me endure The Wicker Man, which managed to f-up both Christianity and Paganism.  The music was often interesting, though.

The Wine of Youth ferments this night in the veins of God – Alfred de Musset.

by dirkster42 on Fri May 5th, 2006 at 14:00:06 PDT

Back to films:How do we overlook (4.00 / 3)

Mel’s “Passion”?  This film misrepresented the essence of Christianity by placing 99.9% of the focus on Christ’s torture and death.  In fact, the slight nod given to his life, love and teaching was an add-in after the original cut took too much flack.  Not only do I think it misinformed any non-Christians in the audience, I think it caused a great many Christians to take their “eye off the ball.”

by RussellKing on Sat May 6th, 2006 at 06:48:58 PDT

Ok, so what did you guys (4.00 / 3)

think of “The Last Temptation of Christ?”  I had a mixed reaction myself but I’m not a big William Dafoe fan.

by goldenglove on Sat May 6th, 2006 at 14:14:34 PDT

Joan and Temptation (4.00 / 3)

My wife and I watched Joan of Arcadia regularly.  I was disappointed, but not surprised when it was canceled.  It was done in by its demographics.  The viewership skewed too old. The writing was inconsistent, but when it was good it was very, very good. Also, I was not excited by the direction the show was being turned for the season that didn’t happen.

To me the two biggest issues with Last Temptation was Jesus being played by anglo westerner, and his lack of charisma.  Jesus must have had great charisma to draw the crowds he he did and cause the response he had among the Pharisees, etc.

“All them gods are just about the same” John Prine

by jakethesnake on Sat May 6th, 2006 at 16:22:24 PDT

David and Bathsheba (4.00 / 2)

I showed the gregory Peck movie to a “born-again” friend of mine and she wound up going on and on about unbiblical and antibiblical both the movie and Hollywood was.  

Mind you, the verses on which the movie was based could be read in less than a minute or two.  I would imagine an absolutely accurate, true to the Bible movie would be a very, very short subject.

by grada3784 on Thu May 11th, 2006 at 08:56:30 PDT

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