The embarrassing Ricky Gervais usually convinces me to skip the Golden Globes award show that aired last night. This time, Viola Davis looked so spectacular she was a good reason to tune in. As it turns out, there was another reason, as well. Did you notice a theme running through the nominated dramas?
CAROL
1950s married women find unexpected love and complications.
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
Furiosa frees sex slaves.
THE REVENANT
Vengeance in the frozen north. Hugh Glass frees a native sex slave.
ROOM
Sex slave and her son escape.
SPOTLIGHT
Sexual abuse in the Catholic church is finally exposed.
I am not sure what is going on. But if the movies reflect our reality at all, we appear to be very angry and sex is not working out for us. We have been abused and our imaginations run to the most heinous of situations. Our master movie makers are creating stories that focus on the horrible. We are desperate for connection, but not that hopeful.
What do you make of the movies? Angrier or more honest? Looking for some vicarious suffering because we are bored or more vulnerable? Running out of things to exploit or telling untold stories? Unhinged or unafraid?
In a negative way the Globes stoke my hope. The movies tell stories of people who find reserves to endure horrible situations. But they also expose the suffering that reduces people to broken survivors. In that condition, God comes to me in Jesus to save me. When life is horrible and we carry the scars of evil, God repeats a promise first made to Abraham and continuously renewed in Jesus. Written in Hebrews 6:
Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf.
May your year have an alternative theme running through it: hope. God would like us to be encouraged. Jesus, who entered our suffering has also entered our future as a forerunner. He is intimate with us, even in the most horrible things we have experienced, and we are intimate with God as a result. He is our hope, our anchor in a troubled world.
I really like the connection you’re making as well as your insight about it. Hollywood does seem to channel the latest “worst case scenario” in a lot of ways.
I saw Fury Road, Room, and The Revenant. I thought they were all great for different reasons. They all dealt with the need for redemption through suffering, and recovering our humanity. Faith in Jesus remains so central to the way that I recover, cope, and try to make possibilities for others…hopefully we don’t just have to kill the oppressors to be truly free.