Over the weekend, I posted a link to something I had written a couple of years ago on a very large turn around I personally had. It was titled: From Vampires to Christ. Now, I realise just how huge it was.
Related link: 'Twilight' of the West – Films with Demonic Influence? ~ Life Site News
Quoting E. Michael Jones on the subject, O'Brien notes that Vampirism is the anti-thesis of Christianity, "Both Christ and Dracula deal with blood and eternal life … Whereas Christ shed his blood so that his followers could have eternal life, Dracula shed his followers' blood so that he could have eternal life."The entire article is worth reading. It deals with the increasing allure of evil through popular culture, especially books, television programmes and films.
“Unprecedented cultural phenomena such as the Twilight series, Harry Potter and Phillip Pullman’s Dark Materials series represent a sliding scale of familiarity with evil. It is time for the people of the West to awaken to the fact that we are in the midst of a cultural revolution that is reshaping our understanding of reality itself in powerful ways. It succeeds in this by rewarding us with copious sensual pleasures stimulating the imagination in all the wrong directions.”
Related link: 'Twilight' of the West – Films with Demonic Influence? ~ Life Site News
As I was telling Dale the other day, according to the rules of D&D, Clerics and Undead will never get along :oP
ReplyDeleteGood article. I bookmarked it last year. You can read the original (longer version) on his site HERE.
ReplyDeleteLOL, Ropata!
ReplyDeleteFletch, yeah, the whole article is great. I read it a while back and have been meaning to write a post about it, but I'm reduced to just this for now.
I'd like to throw a dart at this.
ReplyDeleteA writer with whom I've lost touch, Don Whittington, once said in one of his columns that horror stories, a la mode de Stephen King, express the same fundamental moral as any Bible story. His argument was that it is impossible to construct a rational basis for supernatural evil without assuming supernatural good. I think his point is strong...when applied to "traditional" horror in which the monsters really are predatory and evil.
The modern tendency to humanize classical monsters, particularly vampires, strikes me as pernicious for that reason. It removes the need to balance these predators with a source of goodness that would be implacably opposed to them, and in alliance with which ordinary mortals could defeat them. (There's also an element of "it's just because he was abused as a child" pseudo-justification in the "good vs. bad vampires" trend, which removes the element of free will from the monster's operations, though what a theologian might have to say about that, I can't imagine.)
I must admit to having dabbled in the "good vampire" trend on one occasion, as well as having written a rather bizarre story about an infant vampire. The latter story won several contests, whether or not that's relevant. But here's something else to consider: a number of scathing criticisms were leveled at The Lord Of The Rings, just after Peter Jackson's movies were released, because they depicted all the Orcs as inherently evil. That was condemned, believe it or not, as racist. Just more proof that you can't please everyone.
Here’s where I have a problem. I don’t care if they get married or not, because in this film, “get married” is just code for “now we can do it.” Their marriage isn’t about building something together or creating a family. Their marriage isn’t about time they’ve spent together and time they want to spend together. It’s all hormonal. It’s all impulse. Bella Swan is defined as a character purely by who she wants to sleep with, and I don’t care if she actually consummates the act or not. This movie is driven from start to finish by the real estate between her legs, and if that sounds blunt or harsh, good. I want it to sound ugly, because I think it is ugly. Deeply ugly. She’s the weakest, most dependent lead in a film that I can imagine. There is nothing interesting about Bella aside from her desire for these two boys. It is a narcissistic teenage fantasy taken to a disturbing depth. Nothing in the world of these movies matters beyond the resolution of whether or not Bella is going to bone Edward. And when. And how. And whether she’s going to bone Jacob as well.
ReplyDeleteThere is talk of love, but there is nothing like love in these movies. These are not stories about love.
via Inhabitatio Dei (terrific review, despicable movie)
Lord of the Rings is a wonderful tale of good versus evil, and there is much in it's symbolism that links to Christianity - the returning king, the ring bearer taking the suffering for all man (elf, dwarf and hobbit), the betrayal of the fellowship, the redemption of the betrayer, the temptations of the orthancs, etc etc
ReplyDeleteThose that critique it for the reasons you mention, didn't understand it.
I've got the whole extended LOTR on dvd, but I just can't bring myself to watch them anymore. I've read the books 3 times and I think that's how I will imbibe it from now on.
ReplyDeleteI watched the last LOTR movie again today with my 9 year old Newphew. He brought it over with him. I'm glad he is watching stuff like this with a moral rather than some other stuff (although I'm not sure the movie is age-appropriate).
ReplyDeleteI've read all the books too, but (Tolkien fans avert your eyes) they kind of bored me a bit. I liked the second movie better than the others as well. I thought it was powerful.
ps, ropata, great review you linked to :)
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