Anties & Heroes
“Finally brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report: if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things… and the God of peace shall be with you.” – Philippians 4:8-9
“John,” I heard my wife Patricia say, “I want you to come and look at this!” “Patricia,” I answered, “I am really busy right now.” “John,” my wife repeated with a little more emphasis, “I want you to come and look your son’s high school reading assignment now!” There are times when every married man knows that the economies of time management demand some flexibility – accordingly, I did as requested.
Indifferent at first but completely involved before long, the school assignment had me engrossed. Not only did I read the assigned story, I read every story in the entire book. Every chapter of the reader at issue was a story about a weirdo, a misfit, a failure or an oddball. Good-bye Horatio Alger – Hello to the modern Anti-Hero!
I believe John Garfield was Hollywood’s original angry young man. Regardless, his career dissipated in the 1950’s communist witch-hunt spearheaded by late Senator Joe McCarthy. The next member of this genre to catch wide public attention as a great method actor was Marlon Brando. Eventually, Brando stuffed cotton in his mouth and hung around wise-guys for his portrayal of Don Corleone in the Godfather movies, as crime families were glorified.
But in my opinion, it was Paul Newman who was the most successful in glorifying the anti-hero as Lucas Jackson in Cool Hand Luke. There, the WWII soldier becomes a hero in the Pacific Theater because he simply didn’t like anyone, including the Japanese, telling him what to do. Back at home in Florida, he didn’t like rural parking meters and showed his drunken displeasure by cutting off their heads with a massive wrench. His refusal to submit to the prison camp system and defiance of a heartless Captain and prison guard bosses ended with his being shot and dying from treatment the Captain deliberately delayed. For reasons known only to them, the United States Library of Congress deemed the movie to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and chose it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Many years after the incident described above with my wife, I experienced a moment of déjà vu while helping my granddaughter with her literature assignments. This time, it was a novel about a teenage girl who was raped and became an outcast high-school freshman unable to communicate with her parents, cut off from all friends and failing her classes. The girl eventually finds her voice by expressing herself in her school art classes – hence the title Speak. It was a New York Times and Publisher’s Weekly Best Seller, a Printz Honor Book in 2000 and became a movie in 2004. Publishers Weekly called it “stunning.” However, the book had its detractors to whom the author responded by stating, “Censoring books that deal with difficult adolescent issues does not protect anybody – our children cannot afford to have the truth of this world withheld from them.” So I and my wife were left to pray and counsel with a granddaughter left extremely disturbed about the content of this “highly acclaimed” book and the negative behavior and attitudes it produced in her classmates after they read it.
But all of this raises the question: Why are all the “truths” of these people and stories so negative? Why do so many seem to choose to wallow in the beggarly and degrading elements of life? And why is it that the real life of the anti-hero actor has so often mimicked aspects of the role they portrayed?
The truth is you become the part you play and the thing you admire. I think I’ll admire old heroes like those in Hebrews chapter eleven and new ones like Tim Tebow. Alger and Tebow have profoundly impacted America – so can you and I.
By John G. Cathcart
www.wme.org
Jack & Jane
Jack and Jane were seeking fame,
Each in their own quarter;
Jane pushed the bar and went too far,
And Jack came to the slaughter.
“…but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.” – II Corinthians 10:12
I was half-watching the Academy Awards from Los Angeles a couple weeks ago when something happened that grabbed my attention – the presentation of awards paused to air a video memorial of actors and actresses that had died in the preceding year.
As it happens, I started out in the ministry in California in the very early fifties. Los Angeles was a much tighter knit community back then. And at that time I came to know, or at least meet, a number of actors, directors, musicians, cameramen, peripheral talent and wannabes involved in the entertainment business.
Some of the people featured in the 2012 video memorial tribute were of special interest to me, including Ben Gazzara and Jackie Cooper. But the one who really got my attention was Jane Russell. Jane had played with Bob Hope in the movie Buttons and Bows where Hope was the bumbling, innocent, good-hearted dentist from the East trying to make his way in the West, and Jane was the gun-toting, hard-bitten, worldly “lady” of the prairie towns. Sultry-eyed and raven-tressed, Jane Russell was a natural fit for the part of the femme fatale. By contrast, Jane’s mother was a committed believer in the Lord Jesus Christ who held fellowship meetings in her home for those in the entertainment industry who were seeking the Lord. For her part, Jane Russell eventually came to know the Lord.
Jane Russell’s ultimate “claim to fame” was her role in a movie titled The Outlaw which included a scene where there was a suggestion of “kindly” fornication. The industry was scandalized, outraged, indignant and “thoughtful.” Standards and ratings were emphasized afresh, and Jack Valenti from Houston received the nod to ride morality detail on the Hollywood herd…Thank you, Senator.
Time and entertainment have obviously moved on. Teenagers watching The Outlaw today would probably be bored. If they were told it included a scene that once was regarded as “too sexually explicit” to be suitable for public audiences, they would be hard pressed to pick it out. Compared to the content of today’s films, many would consider The Outlaw to be closer to an episode of Leave It to Beaver or Father Knows Best.
Over time, Hollywood has become a sink-hole that threatens to change our culture, destroy our moral fiber, and justify the antagonism of Islamic enemies who equate Christianity with the cesspool we call “entertainment.” Now if you’re under twenty and reading this, you may not see any problem because these things haven’t changed much in your lifetime. However, compared with the moral baseline of the early fifties, the decline is precipitous.
The bottom line is it’s time to quit measuring and comparing ourselves with ourselves, compare ourselves with the Biblical word, and pray the day will come when we can look at the big screen and say like Jack Nicholson in As Good as it Gets – “You make me want to be a better man.”
By John G. Cathcart
http://www.wme.org
Class & Crass
“Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking smell: so does a little folly in him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor.”
– Ecclesiastes 10:1
“Let you speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man.” – Colossians 4:6
After the Japanese attacked British holdings in the Far East at the start of WWII, Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote the Japanese Ambassador to Britain saying, “…His Majesty’s Ambassador at Tokyo has been instructed to inform the Imperial Japanese Government in the name of His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom that a state of war exists between our two countries” Having so written, Churchill signed off, “I have the honor to be, with high consideration, Sir, Your obedient servant, Winston S. Churchill.” This old-world formality was too much for many who criticized Churchill for his flowery language. In his personal memoirs describing the war years, Winston Churchill commented about this letter, “Some people did not like this ceremonial style. But after all when you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.”
I think it was about 1975 when I realized Churchill’s England was no longer the land of civility. I had been invited to meetings about proprietary technology with the British Gas Council in London. While walking down a city street, I was made painfully and unpleasantly aware that targeted, crude and offensive behavior toward foreign visitors was replacing the former public good manners of England.
Nowadays, it’s not just in distant public places we see occasional crass and classless behavior; it has become standard fare on public broadcasts as panel members interrupt and shout each other down. Rush Limbaugh has furnished us with the latest example. I agree with Mr. Limbaugh that three thousand dollars per year of individual contraceptive care funded out of the public pocket is a questionable proposition. However, that can be said without referring to a young female law student as a slut and prostitute or suggesting she provide pictures of her sexual activity in return for funding. These comments cost Limbaugh sponsors and credibility. It wasn’t humorous – it was crude, crass and tasteless.
“Shock-jock” humor like that of Don Imus and Howard Stern has a finite life span. Eventually, it wears extremely thin. I noticed this year’s Academy Awards resorted to the classier style of Billy Crystal in place of the nasty verbal punch-in-the-gut-before-I-hand-you-the-mike stance of other emcees they considered.
Many years ago there was a man in the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Association with a reputation for the “gift of wisdom.” As this man was entering the crowded lobby of a convention center with entourage in tow, he deliberately engaged a young preacher in a conversation that he knew held some extreme doctrines. The man of wisdom decided to “de-horse” the youngster while demonstrating his wisdom and authority in public. The young man stayed calm and stuck quietly to his position. The “man of wisdom” became flustered, finally lost it and made a public spectacle of himself. When all was said and done, the young minister went on his way unruffled while the great man of wisdom started his descent into obscurity.
Being the smartest and/or most abrasive guy in the room can carry a very pricey cost. The press calls it a “Don Imus moment.”
Avoid the crass style so common in this day and age. Instead, remember how Jesus instructed us to conduct ourselves before all men: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
By John G. Cathcart
http://www.wme.org
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