(no subject)
I feel like Joe Strummer in my grandfather's motercycle jacket.
Some how I have become more rebelious at this age,
then when I attacked everything.
When I first knew I wanted to make films,
I thought that menat making indie films with a christian story.
After earning my degree, and spending time in LA,
in the industry that I love,
I have learned that is not the life God has for me to live.
I love the camera, and lighting aspect.
But I am not going to tell people about Jesus with them.
My demeanor on set will tell of Chirst.
The mission field is not the cineplexes,
But the set.
I will not win the support of the church by making films
that extol the gospel,
I will piss them off by seeing God in every film I see.
He has blessed me with an understanding of how the industry works,
and the skills to disect films.
Which makes me a dangerous man.
People ask me what have i been working on.
I have not written, or directed a film lately.
My skills have been but to use helping others make there films.
But I have been writing papers.
what follows is a paper I wrote for asthetics on Theology and Film.
It is 9 pages a long, but it is a good example of what i have been doing.
I have been training my eyes.
Jesus was a punk rocker:
The counter-culture as the church in SLC Punk and Ghost World
“Movies, like life, are first experienced then reflected on. . . and one’s gut level response becomes itself part of what is later reflected on.” (Johnston 162) Upon the first viewing the films SLC Punk and Ghost World appear at first viewing to be about young people rebelling against the cultures in which they live. While one can take them as cultural critiques, with deeper probing they can become completely different stories. The settings of the films can be seen as representative of the church, and the main charecter of a christian. The way that they each react to the world around them repersent different reactions to the church. SLC Punk tales a tale of a young man lost in the ritual of religion, and Ghost World is about rejecting the path that the world tells you to. Both are very real reactions to the church.
Steveo is a fundamentalist, which would be the last thing anyone would think about after first seeing him. His blue hair and tattered clothing signify to the rest of the world that he is a member of the punk rock sub culture. His mohawked best friend Bob accompanies him through Salt Lake City in some undisclosed year in the Reagan eighties. Though the film is written about what it was like to be a punk in this time period, the punk rock scene can be viewed as a version of the church. The scene is small, and the complications of being a punk in Salt Lake City bond them together. They are the outcasts in the Mormon capitol, much like the early church. Steveo is plagued through the film with doubts about the faith that he follows. When he sees a poser(a person who is not only superficially following the punk life style) he looks on as a friend knocks his head into the wall, but all the time he is wondering if he himself is a poser. Mary Elizabeth Williams describes him this way in her Salon.com review of the film,
“A decent young man with a filthy rich, corporate lawyer for a dad, he's wise enough to not buy into rampant, "greed is good" consumerism, autonomous enough to be revolted by fellow punks who live their lives according to stupid song lyrics. He can debate chaos theory and deconstruct his reasons for batter ing local cowboys, but is he smart enough to justify turning into his father?”
This struggle is not unlike that of a christian. Going to church, fellow-shipping with other believers, and reading the bible sometimes becomes a ritual. In Steveo’s world something similar is happening. In the punk rock scene, a concert is similar to a church service where punk rock songs become hymns. Parties become bible studies. For example in one scene Steveo debates a friend on one of his core beliefs, the chaos theory, at what he calls a party. The punk rock records become a bible of what beliefs are crucial to the punk scene. In one of the film’s most memorable scenes Steveo denounces the arguments of over the origins of punk rock music, “I don't know who started it and I don't give a fuck. The one thing I do know is that we did it harder, we did it faster, and we definitely did it with more love, baby. You can't take that away from us.” This statement that he is trying not to get caught up in the fashion and culture. The irony is that as he says this he is dressed similar to the posers he denounces. At first it seems the film uses narration to allow the audience to understand what is going through Steveo’s mind. Upon subsequent viewings it becomes apparent that it is a defense of the life he lead in his youth. When looking back at this defense, it becomes clear that he sees that he was never what claimed to be. That the persona that was Steveo, was not fully the person he that he was.. Looking back he sees that his rebellion was contradicted itself. For example he loves to fight but realize that went against his belief in anarchy. No defense is offered for this. A similar thought is written in the seventh chapter of Romans, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”(Romans 7:14) Steveo is asking the same question that this verse asks. As the film reaches conclusion these questions become more important.
The presence of God is not seen in this film through organized religion, which is seen as one of many political entities. Taking punk subculture as the church, and the style of dress and behavior as the physical manifestations of the “religion”. The film becomes a story about one man’s realization that God exists outside the walls of the church. Rebellion is what he seeks to find. The punk subculture shows how to rebel, but this a hollow a rebellion. In the third act this idea that rebellion has nothing to do with blue hair, or safety pins. This idea is given form in the character of Brandy, the women Steveo says that he will marry. On the night of their first meeting she asks him,
“Wouldn’t it be an act of rebellion if you didn’t spend so much time buying blue hair dye and going out to get punky clothes? Seems so petty. . . you want to be an individual right, you look like your wearing a uniform. You look like a punk, thats not rebellion thats fashion.”
After she says this him, effectively tearing down the belief system he lives by, she says “Rebellion happens in the mind. You can’t create it, you just are that way.” Steveo is someone looking for more then what the structure of religion has shown him. When confronted withe the idea that his rebellion is just another form of conforming, it is like he his seeing clearly for the first time. The concept frees him. The world that he has categorized, and painted in black and white is not the same. Much they same is done by the church. Everyone is categorized, by sex and age. Much like the punk world was by music choice and dress. When Steveo realizes he realizes something Robert Brimlow mentions in his essay in “The Church as Counterculture, “The gospel has freed us from captivity in our political, economic, and cultural milieu. We are at home in no nation because in Christ, ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female’ The gospel liberates us from those presumably fundamental distinctions.” In the terms of the film there is no mod or punk. The rebellion against that Steveo waged against the system was futile, because the blue hair dye was just a way to make him self distinct. He was no different then anyone else. When he realized rebellion was not just fighting and partying, but something more, he became an individual. The same happens when one realizes that knowing God is not based on ceremonies, but on knowing him.
The title “Ghost World” evokes a sense of loneliness, and when first meeting Enid, it seems that she just does not fit in with the rest of her suburban town. She is cynical beyond her years, and sees everything through this cynicism. When the film begins most of her time is spent with Becky. Dan Hobert on MetaPhilm.com describes her as,
“Rebecca could be considered a more typical teenager. Freed from the shackles of education, all she wants is to live with her friend and get a job, thus achieving independence. She is looking forward, looking to the future, even if the immedi ate future involves spending most of her waking life at Starbucks. Rebecca is a “Ms. Practical”-someone so wrapped up in actually getting on with life that she hasn’t the time or inclination to stop and ponder.”
Her charecter seems to repersent the viewpoint of the typical american teenager. She likes to laugh at the world like Enid, but also wants to be apart of it. That desire leads to a rift forming between the two best friends. The other main charecter in the film is Seymour. He repersents the exact opposite of Becky. He is much older then Enid, and a loner who seems trapped in the past. His main interest is old blues, jazz and ragtime music. Which he collects on hundreds of old 78s. What makes him so interesting is that he realizes that his hobby is unhealthy, “You think it's healthy to obsessively collect things? You can't relate to other people, so you fill your life with stuff... I'm just like all these other collector losers.” Enid and Seymour seem to get the world that they inhabit is full of fakes and counterfeits. For example, Wowsville, a retro fifties diner that plays hip hop music. Much of our modern world is like this, manufactured to give a certain feeling. All this fakeness leave Enid feeling like an outsider from all of it. The problem is not that Enid does not understand the world in which she lives, it’s that the world does not understand her. Take for example the scene in which after dyeing her hair green she dresses as a punk and no one seems to understand it, “ It's not like I'm some modern punk, dickhead. It's an obvious, 1977 original punk rock look. I guess Johnny fuckface over there's too stupid to realize it.” When Becky admits that she did not understand it either, Enid retorts, “Everyone's too stupid.” Not even the audience understands hat the point of her outfit until she mentions it.
As in SLC Punk, the setting of the film must be taken allegorically to see it as a tale about the church. The church today is much like the commecrilism driven world of Ghost World. Trying to keep the world and the body interested in the gospel with powerpoint, rock influenced praise bands, and using cultural references in sermons. Not to condemn the practice, but not everyone is going to enjoy all the flashy additions. Enid and Seymour are those people. Not getting what everyone else is all excited about, even more then that they she what everyone else sees as normal as something strange. In the beginning of the film Enid and Becky are eating in Wowsville when they run into a ditzy former classmate. She thinks that the diner is cool, and tells the girls that it’s her favorite restaurant. In the final scene of the film Enid gets on a bus that is not supposed to be running. In essence she very literally steps into the unknown. This can be seen as both a step of faith and a final refusal to join the vapid reality that the city represented. She left the the bells an whistles of the church to go and find something real. When film nears its end Enid has realized that she does not want to be like Becky, or Seymour. She can not accept becoming apart of the status quo and buying into the hype, nor can does she want to become a loner clinging to a past she never knew. The trappings of religion have left her cold, it has no meaning to her. Telling no one she gets on a bus and leaves town. This act is metaphorical, some people see this action as suicide act. It seems a simple rejection of the life that everyone else was leading, and of the culture that inhabited the church.
The characters of Steveo and Enid are representative of how modern youth respond to religion and the culture that it creates. These two films deal with two views on the trappings of humanity’s pursuit of God. Both do not directly mention God or Christianity. The situations in the film become an allegory for how humans deal with religion. Not many people look at these films and see God. “It is in the ‘not expected’ that movie goers are often graced by the ‘not possible’ as God meets us and speaks to us through movies.”, writes Robert K Johnston in Reel Spirituality. These stories are not expected to be about religion, or the church. Most people would view these films and say that they present negative views of God. What these films do represent is a reaction to religion, and the trouble it causes. Eugene Peterson describes religion this way in the Message Remix.
“It seems odd to have to say so, but too much religion is a bad thing. We can’t get too much of God, can’t get too much faith or obedience, can’t get too much love and worship. But religion- the well intentioned efforts we make to ‘get it to gether’ for God- can very well get in the way of what God is doing for us. . . but instead of improving on the purity and the simplicity of Jesus, we dilute the purity, clutter the simplicity. We become fussily religious, or anxiously religious. We get in the way.” (Peterson 2183)
The practices of religion have an important part in the life of a Christian. That is not being discounted, but the ceremony can overtake one’s perception of their faith. The symbols and ceremony becomes all that they see. This is paralleled in Steveo’s life as a punk. He points out those that are not true punks, kids trying to look like him. When he questions there motivation, “Posers are punks, but they do it for fashion!” How often have you heard a fellow christian question some one else’s faith? The point is that the church like the punk scene is full of people who only know where they stand with there faith. People in the church can caught in the fashion of religion and lose track of why they are christians in the first place. Similarly in Ghost World, the world seems preoccupied with itself. Nothing seemed real, or good intentioned. Enid felt lost in this world of fakeness. The same thing happens within the church. Sometimes there are so many events, meetings and trips. That it becomes easy to forget what the reason behind it all is. Enid never finds a reason, she just leaves. Unlike Steveo, her rebellion is never given a chance to mature. It seems unfair to go as far to say that she is lost. The filmmakers end it on an ambiguous note intentionally. The simplest answer is that she needed away from the symbols and hollow traditions of what can be considered her church. These two different reactions to religion are rooted in reality, and accurately portray the feelings of young people.
When the credits roll at the end of Ghost World and SLC Punk, both Enid and Steveo have changed from the people they once were. Seeing God instead of religion happens when you grow up. The minds behind these films probably did not put intend for the stories to be about the church. This is just one interpretation of what these films mean, “No movies’ effect on their viewer-ship has also to do with the nature of story itself. For stories are not received as a string of linear facts. Rather, stories create images, the give us ‘pictures inside our heads’ to which we respond.” (Johnston 162) The struggles of youth will have different meanings to different viewers. When viewing these films in your youth the reaction is much different then seeing them while being a little older and wiser. The feeling is still the same as the credits roll, the possibilities of the future seem endless. The audience is left wondering what happens to Steveo and Enid as they grow up.
Happy Holidays
Some how I have become more rebelious at this age,
then when I attacked everything.
When I first knew I wanted to make films,
I thought that menat making indie films with a christian story.
After earning my degree, and spending time in LA,
in the industry that I love,
I have learned that is not the life God has for me to live.
I love the camera, and lighting aspect.
But I am not going to tell people about Jesus with them.
My demeanor on set will tell of Chirst.
The mission field is not the cineplexes,
But the set.
I will not win the support of the church by making films
that extol the gospel,
I will piss them off by seeing God in every film I see.
He has blessed me with an understanding of how the industry works,
and the skills to disect films.
Which makes me a dangerous man.
People ask me what have i been working on.
I have not written, or directed a film lately.
My skills have been but to use helping others make there films.
But I have been writing papers.
what follows is a paper I wrote for asthetics on Theology and Film.
It is 9 pages a long, but it is a good example of what i have been doing.
I have been training my eyes.
Jesus was a punk rocker:
The counter-culture as the church in SLC Punk and Ghost World
“Movies, like life, are first experienced then reflected on. . . and one’s gut level response becomes itself part of what is later reflected on.” (Johnston 162) Upon the first viewing the films SLC Punk and Ghost World appear at first viewing to be about young people rebelling against the cultures in which they live. While one can take them as cultural critiques, with deeper probing they can become completely different stories. The settings of the films can be seen as representative of the church, and the main charecter of a christian. The way that they each react to the world around them repersent different reactions to the church. SLC Punk tales a tale of a young man lost in the ritual of religion, and Ghost World is about rejecting the path that the world tells you to. Both are very real reactions to the church.
Steveo is a fundamentalist, which would be the last thing anyone would think about after first seeing him. His blue hair and tattered clothing signify to the rest of the world that he is a member of the punk rock sub culture. His mohawked best friend Bob accompanies him through Salt Lake City in some undisclosed year in the Reagan eighties. Though the film is written about what it was like to be a punk in this time period, the punk rock scene can be viewed as a version of the church. The scene is small, and the complications of being a punk in Salt Lake City bond them together. They are the outcasts in the Mormon capitol, much like the early church. Steveo is plagued through the film with doubts about the faith that he follows. When he sees a poser(a person who is not only superficially following the punk life style) he looks on as a friend knocks his head into the wall, but all the time he is wondering if he himself is a poser. Mary Elizabeth Williams describes him this way in her Salon.com review of the film,
“A decent young man with a filthy rich, corporate lawyer for a dad, he's wise enough to not buy into rampant, "greed is good" consumerism, autonomous enough to be revolted by fellow punks who live their lives according to stupid song lyrics. He can debate chaos theory and deconstruct his reasons for batter ing local cowboys, but is he smart enough to justify turning into his father?”
This struggle is not unlike that of a christian. Going to church, fellow-shipping with other believers, and reading the bible sometimes becomes a ritual. In Steveo’s world something similar is happening. In the punk rock scene, a concert is similar to a church service where punk rock songs become hymns. Parties become bible studies. For example in one scene Steveo debates a friend on one of his core beliefs, the chaos theory, at what he calls a party. The punk rock records become a bible of what beliefs are crucial to the punk scene. In one of the film’s most memorable scenes Steveo denounces the arguments of over the origins of punk rock music, “I don't know who started it and I don't give a fuck. The one thing I do know is that we did it harder, we did it faster, and we definitely did it with more love, baby. You can't take that away from us.” This statement that he is trying not to get caught up in the fashion and culture. The irony is that as he says this he is dressed similar to the posers he denounces. At first it seems the film uses narration to allow the audience to understand what is going through Steveo’s mind. Upon subsequent viewings it becomes apparent that it is a defense of the life he lead in his youth. When looking back at this defense, it becomes clear that he sees that he was never what claimed to be. That the persona that was Steveo, was not fully the person he that he was.. Looking back he sees that his rebellion was contradicted itself. For example he loves to fight but realize that went against his belief in anarchy. No defense is offered for this. A similar thought is written in the seventh chapter of Romans, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”(Romans 7:14) Steveo is asking the same question that this verse asks. As the film reaches conclusion these questions become more important.
The presence of God is not seen in this film through organized religion, which is seen as one of many political entities. Taking punk subculture as the church, and the style of dress and behavior as the physical manifestations of the “religion”. The film becomes a story about one man’s realization that God exists outside the walls of the church. Rebellion is what he seeks to find. The punk subculture shows how to rebel, but this a hollow a rebellion. In the third act this idea that rebellion has nothing to do with blue hair, or safety pins. This idea is given form in the character of Brandy, the women Steveo says that he will marry. On the night of their first meeting she asks him,
“Wouldn’t it be an act of rebellion if you didn’t spend so much time buying blue hair dye and going out to get punky clothes? Seems so petty. . . you want to be an individual right, you look like your wearing a uniform. You look like a punk, thats not rebellion thats fashion.”
After she says this him, effectively tearing down the belief system he lives by, she says “Rebellion happens in the mind. You can’t create it, you just are that way.” Steveo is someone looking for more then what the structure of religion has shown him. When confronted withe the idea that his rebellion is just another form of conforming, it is like he his seeing clearly for the first time. The concept frees him. The world that he has categorized, and painted in black and white is not the same. Much they same is done by the church. Everyone is categorized, by sex and age. Much like the punk world was by music choice and dress. When Steveo realizes he realizes something Robert Brimlow mentions in his essay in “The Church as Counterculture, “The gospel has freed us from captivity in our political, economic, and cultural milieu. We are at home in no nation because in Christ, ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female’ The gospel liberates us from those presumably fundamental distinctions.” In the terms of the film there is no mod or punk. The rebellion against that Steveo waged against the system was futile, because the blue hair dye was just a way to make him self distinct. He was no different then anyone else. When he realized rebellion was not just fighting and partying, but something more, he became an individual. The same happens when one realizes that knowing God is not based on ceremonies, but on knowing him.
The title “Ghost World” evokes a sense of loneliness, and when first meeting Enid, it seems that she just does not fit in with the rest of her suburban town. She is cynical beyond her years, and sees everything through this cynicism. When the film begins most of her time is spent with Becky. Dan Hobert on MetaPhilm.com describes her as,
“Rebecca could be considered a more typical teenager. Freed from the shackles of education, all she wants is to live with her friend and get a job, thus achieving independence. She is looking forward, looking to the future, even if the immedi ate future involves spending most of her waking life at Starbucks. Rebecca is a “Ms. Practical”-someone so wrapped up in actually getting on with life that she hasn’t the time or inclination to stop and ponder.”
Her charecter seems to repersent the viewpoint of the typical american teenager. She likes to laugh at the world like Enid, but also wants to be apart of it. That desire leads to a rift forming between the two best friends. The other main charecter in the film is Seymour. He repersents the exact opposite of Becky. He is much older then Enid, and a loner who seems trapped in the past. His main interest is old blues, jazz and ragtime music. Which he collects on hundreds of old 78s. What makes him so interesting is that he realizes that his hobby is unhealthy, “You think it's healthy to obsessively collect things? You can't relate to other people, so you fill your life with stuff... I'm just like all these other collector losers.” Enid and Seymour seem to get the world that they inhabit is full of fakes and counterfeits. For example, Wowsville, a retro fifties diner that plays hip hop music. Much of our modern world is like this, manufactured to give a certain feeling. All this fakeness leave Enid feeling like an outsider from all of it. The problem is not that Enid does not understand the world in which she lives, it’s that the world does not understand her. Take for example the scene in which after dyeing her hair green she dresses as a punk and no one seems to understand it, “ It's not like I'm some modern punk, dickhead. It's an obvious, 1977 original punk rock look. I guess Johnny fuckface over there's too stupid to realize it.” When Becky admits that she did not understand it either, Enid retorts, “Everyone's too stupid.” Not even the audience understands hat the point of her outfit until she mentions it.
As in SLC Punk, the setting of the film must be taken allegorically to see it as a tale about the church. The church today is much like the commecrilism driven world of Ghost World. Trying to keep the world and the body interested in the gospel with powerpoint, rock influenced praise bands, and using cultural references in sermons. Not to condemn the practice, but not everyone is going to enjoy all the flashy additions. Enid and Seymour are those people. Not getting what everyone else is all excited about, even more then that they she what everyone else sees as normal as something strange. In the beginning of the film Enid and Becky are eating in Wowsville when they run into a ditzy former classmate. She thinks that the diner is cool, and tells the girls that it’s her favorite restaurant. In the final scene of the film Enid gets on a bus that is not supposed to be running. In essence she very literally steps into the unknown. This can be seen as both a step of faith and a final refusal to join the vapid reality that the city represented. She left the the bells an whistles of the church to go and find something real. When film nears its end Enid has realized that she does not want to be like Becky, or Seymour. She can not accept becoming apart of the status quo and buying into the hype, nor can does she want to become a loner clinging to a past she never knew. The trappings of religion have left her cold, it has no meaning to her. Telling no one she gets on a bus and leaves town. This act is metaphorical, some people see this action as suicide act. It seems a simple rejection of the life that everyone else was leading, and of the culture that inhabited the church.
The characters of Steveo and Enid are representative of how modern youth respond to religion and the culture that it creates. These two films deal with two views on the trappings of humanity’s pursuit of God. Both do not directly mention God or Christianity. The situations in the film become an allegory for how humans deal with religion. Not many people look at these films and see God. “It is in the ‘not expected’ that movie goers are often graced by the ‘not possible’ as God meets us and speaks to us through movies.”, writes Robert K Johnston in Reel Spirituality. These stories are not expected to be about religion, or the church. Most people would view these films and say that they present negative views of God. What these films do represent is a reaction to religion, and the trouble it causes. Eugene Peterson describes religion this way in the Message Remix.
“It seems odd to have to say so, but too much religion is a bad thing. We can’t get too much of God, can’t get too much faith or obedience, can’t get too much love and worship. But religion- the well intentioned efforts we make to ‘get it to gether’ for God- can very well get in the way of what God is doing for us. . . but instead of improving on the purity and the simplicity of Jesus, we dilute the purity, clutter the simplicity. We become fussily religious, or anxiously religious. We get in the way.” (Peterson 2183)
The practices of religion have an important part in the life of a Christian. That is not being discounted, but the ceremony can overtake one’s perception of their faith. The symbols and ceremony becomes all that they see. This is paralleled in Steveo’s life as a punk. He points out those that are not true punks, kids trying to look like him. When he questions there motivation, “Posers are punks, but they do it for fashion!” How often have you heard a fellow christian question some one else’s faith? The point is that the church like the punk scene is full of people who only know where they stand with there faith. People in the church can caught in the fashion of religion and lose track of why they are christians in the first place. Similarly in Ghost World, the world seems preoccupied with itself. Nothing seemed real, or good intentioned. Enid felt lost in this world of fakeness. The same thing happens within the church. Sometimes there are so many events, meetings and trips. That it becomes easy to forget what the reason behind it all is. Enid never finds a reason, she just leaves. Unlike Steveo, her rebellion is never given a chance to mature. It seems unfair to go as far to say that she is lost. The filmmakers end it on an ambiguous note intentionally. The simplest answer is that she needed away from the symbols and hollow traditions of what can be considered her church. These two different reactions to religion are rooted in reality, and accurately portray the feelings of young people.
When the credits roll at the end of Ghost World and SLC Punk, both Enid and Steveo have changed from the people they once were. Seeing God instead of religion happens when you grow up. The minds behind these films probably did not put intend for the stories to be about the church. This is just one interpretation of what these films mean, “No movies’ effect on their viewer-ship has also to do with the nature of story itself. For stories are not received as a string of linear facts. Rather, stories create images, the give us ‘pictures inside our heads’ to which we respond.” (Johnston 162) The struggles of youth will have different meanings to different viewers. When viewing these films in your youth the reaction is much different then seeing them while being a little older and wiser. The feeling is still the same as the credits roll, the possibilities of the future seem endless. The audience is left wondering what happens to Steveo and Enid as they grow up.
Happy Holidays