(Display Name not set)February 2006 Archives

Sophie Scholl, executed in 1943 at age 21 for resisting the Nazi regime, has long been a heroine of conscience in Germany, even though the full details of her interrogation and demise weren’t known until recently. A new feature film, “Sophie Scholl: The Final Days”--an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film--opens in New York this Friday and across the country in the following weeks.

Scholl was a member, with her brother Hans, of a small circle of university students and teachers in Munich who called themselves “The White Rose.” Distributing leaflets denouncing Hitler and telling the truth about Nazi repression, the group hoped to rouse fellow academics and intellectuals to action. Like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Scholl was a devout Lutheran who thought that a Christian living under a dictatory ship had a clear moral duty. As a Christian, Scholl said, resistance “was the least I could do.”

The story of her arrest is well known—she was spotted tossing leaflets from a balcony at the university—but her defiance before the Nazi “People’s Court” only came to light as Third Reich archives were opened in the mid-'80s. "The Final Days" is the story of her trial.

I understand the evangelical Christian t-shirt industry’s impulse to turn every catchphrase and mass-culture motto to Jesus’ purposes. A good “Got Jesus?” surfer tee reminds the faithful to keep their eyes on the prize and telegraphs to nonbelievers that serious religion can have a sense of humor.

But isn’t it a tweak too far when a t-shirt re-purposes a phrase made popular by "Napolean Dyanmite," a movie created by Mormons?

Why is it that James Legend thanks God for his Grammy and it fits him like his Valentino tuxedo, while Kelly Clarkson awkwardly sputters something about “Jesus, God and everybody who has supported me” and it sounds like a parody of someone who just won best casserole at the church fair? It’s got to be the same reason Kanye West takes “Jesus Walks” to the mic and the top of the charts while U2 has to dance coyly around Bono’s apparent fascination with Christian thought. Invariably, black musicians’ relative ease with spirituality is attributed to the intact connection between church music and popular music in the African-American community. From Aretha to Cece Wynans, African-American singers don’t have to choose between gospel or rock. But is this a stereotype cooked up by armchair ethno-religionists? Or is John Legend just cooler than Kelly?

In related news, the chattering classes are noticing that Clarkson managed to thank Jesus, but not "Idol."

Can movies change how we behave as a society? An opinion piece by Maria Dibattista in Sunday’s L.A. Times argues that they can--except for the movies that set out to do that. She adds the Oscar-nominated “Brokeback Mountain” to a lineup of “problem films” like “Gentleman’s Agreement” (anti-Semitism), “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” (racism), and “Wall Street” (corporate greed),which are affecting and powerful in the theater but turn out to be powderpuffs when it comes to real-world impact. “If "Brokeback Mountain" changes the way we think and act about homosexual relationships,” DiBattista writes, “that change won't come from seeing two men throbbing with love for each other.”

From this remove, it’s difficult to gauge whether “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” really changed America’s attitude about race, or showed how our attitude toward race was already beginning to change. Hollywood is a generally a pretty conservative place, as any industry would be that places such large bets on what the broad audience will pay for. Officially an independent film, “Brokeback” is a major release with major stars who took the risk of sucking major face. All the principles, among them Paramount Pictures, probably felt secure in their wager that filmgoers have already accepted homosexuality. Its presence, if not its success, in other words, has probably more to do with "Will and Grace" than the bravery of the filmmakers.

So can movies change how we behave? Maybe not. But they are a good indicator of how we’ve changed already.

“Death by Suburb,” a new book by David Goetz, is written as a wake-up call to Christians who have become defined by the size of their house, dress, car and megachurch. It’s a bell worth tolling, even if his vision of the suburbs is a little clichéd. And while his eight toxins of suburban life could apply to farmers and Donald Trump as much as any denizen of the 'burbs, his “Eight Reasons to Know If the Suburbs Are Killing Your Soul” hits nicely on the dangers of spiritual complacency in the splendor of suburbia.

A Slate article chronicles how intelligent design advocates have come to identify with Galileo, the 17th-century scientist who was rebuffed by the Church for saying the Earth went around the sun. The analogy hinges on a recent statement by a...

Kristin Chenoweth has what's called crossover appeal. Already, she's a Broadway diva ("Wicked"), television actress ("The West Wing"), and celebrity spokeswoman (Old Navy commericals), and has a burgeoning film career (the upcoming "Pink Panther"). She's also a good Christian girl...