Film as Religion, Second Edition: Myths, Morals, and Rituals 9781479855926

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Film as Religion

Film as Religion Myths, Morals, and Rituals Second Edition

John C. Lyden

NEW YORK UNIVERSIT Y PRESS New York

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York www.nyupress.org © 2019 by New York University All rights reserved References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lyden, John, 1959– author. Title: Film as religion : myths, morals, and rituals / John C. Lyden. Description: Second edition. | New York : New York University Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019009086 | ISBN 9781479802074 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781479811991 (pb : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Motion pictures—Religious aspects. | Motion pictures—Moral and ethical aspects. Classification: LCC PN1995.5 .L89 2019 | DDC 791.43/682—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019009086 New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books. Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Also available as an ebook

To Liz Life Partner, Best Friend, Fellow Traveler

Contents

Introduction

1

part i: a method for viewing film as religion 1. The Definition of Religion

15

2. Myths about Myth

37

3. Rituals and Morals

61

4. Religion-Film Dialogue as Interreligious Dialogue

93

Intermission: Thoughts on Genre and Audiences

113

part ii: genre and film analyses 5. Westerns and Action and Superhero Films

119

6. Gangster Films

137

7. Melodrama and “Women’s Films”

151

8. Romantic Comedies

165

9. Children’s Fantasy Films

183

10. Science-Fiction Films

197 vii

viii |

Contents

11. Horror Films

217

12. War Films

231

Conclusions

251

Acknowledgments

257

Notes

259

Bibliography

277

Name and Subject Index

293

Film Index

297

About the Author

303

Introduction

In the years since the first edition of this book appeared in 2003, the study of religion and film has exploded. There are now more scholarly books and articles published in this area, more college classes taught on the subject around the world, and more papers given at conferences in multiple nations with international participation. There has also been an expansion of methods of analysis used and types of films studied. Scholars who write about religion and film are better schooled in film studies and so have brought their knowledge of filmmaking to their research, offering analyses of the art of the film that transcend its narrative structure and look rather at how film techniques can convey meanings and affect audiences. Audience-reception studies are increasing, and there is a greater awareness that film cannot be studied apart from the circuit of culture that includes the way that films are interpreted by various audiences, as well as how they are developed, marketed, and distributed. The range of films studied has also grown to encompass more nations and a range of religious and cultural backgrounds, and the people writing about them now reflect the same diversity. One reason for this expansion of scholarship about religion and film may lie in the fact that the study of religion and popular culture in general has been growing during these same years. The academic study of religion has become aware of the influence of popular culture on beliefs and values, largely because of the advancing power of media through the development of new technologies. YouTube changed access to video content with its creation in 2005, even as the development of the iPhone in 2007 made video content accessible and portable. With the development of social media in the last decade, individuals now communicate more easily through devices, sometimes at the expense of face-to-face contact. In 2005, just 5 percent of the US population used social media; in 2018, 69 percent did.1 The number of worldwide users of social media is now

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| Introduction

over 2.5 billion, and by 2020, it is predicted to be almost 3 billion—or one-third of the world’s population.2 At the same time, television viewing is shifting to online platforms that are displacing traditional broadcast and cable delivery, as viewers access programs through streaming services or web pages, and this is changing not only how they watch but when and what they watch. All this has also affected film viewing as well, as today we can watch movies not only in theaters or on DVDs but also by streaming them directly to our computers or phones. It might even seem that movies are now passé, as people choose instead to indulge in social media or stream other video content to their devices. Yet we still watch feature-length movies, at home as well as in the theaters. Movies remain a big business, as huge amounts are invested in films through digital special effects delivered in 3-D and huge profits are made as viewers flock to see them on large screens the first weekend they come out. In order to make these profits, films almost inevitably must deliver the spectacle of fact action, impressive visuals, and highquality surround sound, usually in relation to a predictable genre product. In fact, the top one hundred worldwide box-office-grossing films are almost exclusively made up of action or fantasy/science-fiction films or movies targeted to children.3 But the diversity of ways in which we can access films has also diversified the markets so that there are more independent films being made as well. And although they may struggle with the resources for wide distribution in theaters, these films can still find a secondary market through DVDs and streaming technology that may allow a box-office “sleeper” to become a rental hit years later. A film may be popular with a niche audience and so have a measure of success even if it does not break any box-office records, and newer technologies have made it possible for such films to be accessed and enjoyed by these niche markets even when they are geographically dispersed or isolated. Films, then, remain widespread and influential among popular culture products, and this is enough reason to continue studying them. While the plethora of television shows offer stories that delay their endings through cliffhangers and multiple seasons, a feature film still offers the satisfaction of a story that finishes in a few hours, usually leaving us with a sense of wholeness and immersion that not all media experiences can offer—and that invites comparisons to religion.4

Introduction

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3

When I wrote the first edition of this book, it was still uncommon to analyze films as if their impact and reception were analogous to those of religions.5 Since that time, it has become much more common to do so, although many scholars remain cautious about going so far as to name film or other aspects of popular culture “religion.” For example, S. Brent Plate has argued that “religion and film are like each other” (emphasis in original), in that “cameras and rituals frame the world, selecting particular elements of time and space to be displayed” in order to invite us to “become participants, to share in the experience of the created world.”6 He holds that films engage in “world-making” just as religions do and that formal elements of film indicate this.7 He is not seeking a “dialogue” between religion and film so much as recognizing the similarities in function and form, and this allows him to see the power and impact of film as analogous to that of religion. Another example is Clive Marsh, a Christian theologian who is interested in developing the dialogue between religion and film but not simply to show how films echo the content of existing religions. Rather, he looks for the ways in which films function analogously to religions, as films also offer ways of understanding and living in the world. He has suggested that cinemagoing is a “religion-like” activity due to its mythic, ritual, communal, and spiritual aspects that parallel religious activity, even though he believes this analogy has its limits. In particular, he finds that cinemagoing lacks a shared set of myths or formal rituals that define a specific community and its spiritual identity.8 But Marsh has also indicated that he shares my view that films function religiously, “offering inspiring and thoughtprovoking images and worldviews, in relation to which film-goers are exploring and constructing their approaches to living.”9 As such, it may be a moot point whether we view film (or popular culture in general) as being a religion or only religion-like; the key point is that both film and religion are illuminated and understood better as a result of this comparison. In general, scholars of religion seem more willing now to view popular culture as analogous to religion in its ability to shape worldviews, values, and identity.10 Some resist making an identification between the two, perhaps because fans of popular culture do not always define their activities as religious or because this seems to stretch the word beyond its normal sense. It may be that scholars resist naming aspects

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Introduction

of popular culture “religious” because they believe this will require us to confer equal legitimacy on them.11 In fact, there is no reason that would be required, as we have never granted all things that we call “religions” equal legitimacy, nor do we do so now. We continually make judgments on what we regard as valid belief systems or ways of living in the world, based on their ethical payoff, agreement with other societal values, or coherence with scientific or logical reasoning. We cannot pretend that we do not make normative judgments about aspects of religion and popular culture all the time, and so there is no reason to avoid the slippage between the two categories out of some supposed need to safeguard one or the other from scrutiny. It is worth noting that scholars such as Russell McCutcheon and Timothy Fitzgerald hold that the way we have come to use the word religion is itself the product of the modern academic study of religion, which has used this concept to group together certain phenomena, perhaps with an agenda in mind. They find the term suspect due to its ideological heritage, and for this reason, they argue that it should be understood as a problematic and biased category.12 I do not believe that we need to actually abandon the word religion, however, as it has become a category that adherents themselves use to describe their activities, and it has a heuristic value in spite of its ideologically tainted history.13 And because it has some heuristic value in describing and analyzing certain cultural phenomena, it may also have applicability beyond the range of phenomena to which it is normally applied. The value, then, of viewing film “as” religion lies in discovering some of the ways we can come to better understand what films do to and for people, by comparing their form, content, and effects to the form, content, and effects of the things we call religions: this point will be dealt with in greater detail in the first chapter.

Changes in Part I from the First Edition The first edition of this book argued that films are analogous to religions in providing stories (myths) that express a worldview, systems of moral values, and a ritual means of participating in them that connects the viewer to the models of and for reality expressed in them. To do so, I relied heavily on Clifford Geertz’s functional definition of religion,

Introduction

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5

which I still find the most useful definition of religion both for understanding religions and for understanding how the audience reception of films can be akin to religions. That argument will be repeated in this edition with few changes, as I believe it remains valid and illuminative. As such, the reader will find that the chapters on the definition of religion, myth, ritual, and interreligious dialogue are all almost unchanged from the corresponding chapters in the first edition, as they seek to develop the analogy between religion and film viewing as a practice that resembles religion. In the first chapter of the first edition of this book, I reviewed the current state of scholarship on religion and film in order to make the case for my own methodology as an alternative to what I called “theological” and “ideological” interpretations of film by scholars of religion. I found these to be the two major approaches extant for the study of religion and film, and I found limitations in both. But the study of religion and film has now evolved well beyond these two alternatives, so that particular argument does not need to be made anymore. Some scholars analyze the ways that films function religiously, as I do. Some study the representation of religions within films, informed by closer and more accurate understandings of different religious traditions than previous generations of Western scholars, as they are often from those traditions or have firsthand knowledge of them. Others offer nuanced analyses of the films based on a keener understanding of film technique than earlier scholars of religion and film. For all these reasons, there is a plenitude of excellent scholarship in the area of religion and film that was still under development when I wrote the first edition. I have no desire, therefore, to simplistically dismiss this diverse scholarship as either “theological” or “ideological” in its method. While many theologians continue to write about film, they do so now better informed by scholarship about film and therefore more willing to listen to the films themselves and the viewpoints they offer, rather than either dismissing them summarily or reducing them to ciphers of Christian values.14 And scholars who use the ideological analysis of films have also developed more nuanced and complex views, informed by a better understanding of cultural theory and cultural studies—myself included. Melanie Wright, writing in 2007, noted that “cultural studies has transformed film studies in the past decade,” but these insights had not

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yet had much effect on religion and film scholarship.15 Her suggestion was that cultural studies offered “a means of avoiding the twin poles of auteurism and reader response” through attention to more than just the filmmaker’s intentions or the interpreter’s viewpoint. In particular, she pointed to the attention by cultural studies to processes such as “distribution, exhibition, and reception,”16 which comprise part of what is often called the circuit of culture. Gordon Lynch has also challenged theologians and scholars of religion to move beyond their tendency to focus on “texts” of popular culture and instead look to “the shared environment, practices, and resources of daily life” that embed the ways people appropriate popular culture and give meaning to it.17 He has also argued for a broader appreciation of the circuit of culture, a concept first developed by Richard Johnson at the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in the 1980s. In Johnson’s view, one can better understand cultural “texts” through studying the cultural systems in which they are embedded, including “the contexts, structures, and processes of cultural production, the texts and artifacts produced, the ways in which these texts and artifacts were read or used by people in real-life settings, and how these processes of cultural production and consumption related to wider social structures and relations.”18 Lynch makes use of a revised form of this, which includes “processes of production, issues of representation in relation to cultural objects and texts, the ways in which cultural products relate to the formation of social identities, the ways in which cultural texts and objects are used and consumed, and the structures which regulate how cultural products are produced, distributed, and used.”19 I have myself used a form of the circuit of culture to analyze films, focused on the stages of the process of creating and producing the film, the marketing and distribution of the film, the film itself, and its reception by audiences.20 While I will not be able to consider all these aspects in detail for the films I discuss in this book, I will attempt to remain aware of the fact that the meanings films have do not exist apart from their appropriation by viewers in a particular societal and historical context, and the circuit of culture is an important reminder of that. Lynch notes that there has been some tension between those who have primarily utilized cultural theory to analyze popular culture and those who have utilized cultural studies.21 “Cultural theory” in this case

Introduction

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would be similar to the approaches to popular film that I labeled “ideological” in my first edition—in particular, analyses that uncover the ways in which films mirror oppressive structures that exist within societies, such as classism, racism, and sexism. These approaches may utilize Marxist, psychoanalytic, or feminist theories (for example) to uncover these structures. Such approaches are sometimes accused of imposing a meaning on the film based on the theorist’s assumptions, which may or may not exist in the viewer’s appropriation of the film. For example, not all films that are critiqued by cultural theorists as supporting sexist ideologies need to be interpreted by every viewer in a sexist way; some may actually find themselves liberated by the same films that the theorist regarded as oppressive. “Cultural studies” has tried to correct this neglect of audience reaction through considering how audiences might interpret the artifacts and practices of popular culture (including films) in ways that subvert or counter the dominant ideologies.22 The latter approach attends to how ideology is at work in popular culture but also recognizes that consumers can make a variety of meanings out of it—an idea I also supported in the first edition of this book. In this edition, therefore, I continue to have concerns about cultural theorists who create eisegetical interpretations that bear little connection to how actual viewers receive the films. At the same time, I have a greater appreciation for a cultural-studies approach that actually pays attention to the diversity of ways in which viewers may interpret a film and the need to consider whether a film receives significant marketing or distribution. In addition to considering the circuit of culture, such interpretations can utilize audience-reception data where they exist. Although such data are still in short supply, the internet now offers a new source of data through user comments, which can give us an idea of how at least some viewers interpret films, and I will make use of that resource to some extent, as well as box-office returns, which suggest the popularity of a film at the time of its release and its ability to connect with a larger group of viewers. Although I am wary of interpretations that assume all viewers interpret a film in the same way or that ignore what they actually say about their viewing experience or what they find in a film, I realize that viewers are not always able to fully articulate how a film affects them. Cultural theorists are correct to be ideologically suspicious of films that may

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| Introduction

reinforce prejudices or provide support for status-quo hegemonies, and this has become increasingly obvious to me since writing the first edition of this book. I believe we should seek to uncover all ideologies that might be conveyed in films while at the same time realizing that some viewers may create alternate readings that counter the same ideologies. While this was a point that I also expressed in the first edition, I now have a better understanding of many of the ways in which this can occur. I have also heard Kent Brintnall’s challenge to me that religion is just as ideologically suspect as popular culture and that ideological analysis can be of great use in uncovering the ways in which hegemonic discourse occurs in these realms.23

Part II: Genre and Film Analyses Part II of this book discusses particular genres of film, as in the first edition. I have chosen this approach as it offers a convenient way to structure the discussion of popular films, and many films fall within these categories. At the same time, many films worthy of discussion will not fall under these headings, and so I have not discussed them; this does not mean that the films I discuss in this book are the best in cinema or even the ones with the most obviously “religious” content or messages. They are, however, popular and influential for a large group of filmgoers, and that is my interest in them; a key part of my argument is also that films that do not appear to be “religious” in subject matter may be functioning like religions, and popular genres demonstrate that. The genres I have selected are basically the same ones as in the first edition, although subcategories have been added in some cases. I have eliminated the longer analysis of single films in order to make room for the more general discussion of the evolution of these genres up to the present, with more examples. The focus will also continue to be primarily on popular Hollywood films that generate larger profits as opposed to independent or art-house films, as these are most emblematic of trends in American films that express dominant American attitudes and often have extensive international distribution and so worldwide exposure. Once again, this does not mean that these are necessarily the best films made, but they are seen by the most people and so arguably have the

Introduction

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9

most significant influence. Although they cannot and will not reflect the views of all members of their audiences, these are the products that sell the most, in part because they have the marketing and distribution but also because people choose to see them—even though they may interpret them in diverse ways. The chapter on westerns, action films, and superheroes is a revision from the earlier edition that adds a discussion of comic-book superhero films, a genre that has expanded exponentially since 2000. In that year, the first X-Men film appeared, followed by Spider-Man two years later, and since then, these films have dominated the box office. I have connected these films to my discussion of westerns and action movies, as they all offer violent heroes who fight and sacrifice themselves for others in order to save them from evil. These films are highly dualistic but also offer moral reflections on the use of violence in the service of justice that transcend simplistic judgments about their allegedly “fascist” content. Gangster films have not been as popular, but they remain significant in the history of film genre analysis.24 The contrast with the western, action, and superhero genres shows the different ways films offer attractive images of both “good guys” and “bad guys.” Gangster films continue to provide one of the best examples of how liminality functions in film, as audiences identify with forbidden behavior in order to channel dissatisfaction with the status quo—providing a temporary catharsis but also perhaps pointing to the utopian possibility of change. The chapter on melodrama and “women’s films” has been revised to include film series made from books such as the Twilight and Fifty Shades series. Strangely, increased liberation for women in society has coincided with the tremendous popularity of sexist stories among women, while earlier decades often featured strong female characters defying stereotypes. An analysis of this shift can indicate some of the ways in which women in particular interact with popular culture as society changes and how the backlash against feminism is expressed in the products marketed to women but also purchased by them. Romantic comedies have not changed their basic formula, but recent ones suggest the possibility of challenges to norms, as women in some of these films show more autonomy and have interests other than marriage.

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Introduction

Stereotypes are hard to change, but we have begun to see more liberated women in romantic comedies, as well as more diverse representations that expand beyond white heterosexuals. Children’s fantasy films have evolved in significant ways, offering creative and sometimes profound fare that is appealing to children and adults alike. They deal frankly with issues of death, loss, and suffering and provide encouraging messages of hope, loyalty, compassion, and faith. The merging of Disney with Pixar has created a standard brand for children’s fantasies, but there are other films as well that offer some of the clearest moral messages in popular films. These films have struggled with the representation of diversity as well as gender roles, but they are beginning to offer stories that are more empowering for women as well as people of various cultures. Science fiction has become an extremely popular film genre that continues to evolve as it expresses our increased anxiety about technology and its dangers. Whether it is fears of environmental destruction or the dehumanized world of robots, these films offer cautionary tales that ask us to heed their warnings. Like prophesy in religions, they call us to make a future that is morally responsible lest we suffer the consequences, and they express our dual nature, which can create both utopias and dystopias. Horror continues to be a popular genre as well, with a diverse set of fears envisioned. Viewers may go to these films for a variety of reasons, including catharsis, the mastery of fears, liminal identification with the monster, and the desire to defeat or at least survive evil. People are both drawn to and yet repelled by that which they see as monstrous, which could be their own desires or the desires of others that they seek to contain and control. The genre of war movies has been added to this edition. The portrayal of war has varied greatly, alternately glorifying or vilifying it; films with a pacifist bent have depicted the futility of war, but war has also been idealized, whether as propaganda during a conflict or as rationale afterward. Since the United States has been involved in an apparently neverending “War on Terror” since 2001, the normalization of this situation can be found in films that have increasingly dualistic narratives that justify American involvement, elide political critique, and glorify sacrifice as sacred and noble.

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The new conclusion to the book will suggest some of the insights we can gain into popular culture from this form of analysis. Popular culture both reflects and shapes our worldviews and values in ways that are not always recognized so that a greater understanding of these processes can help us be more conscious of the ways in which they affect us. We do not need to passively imbibe messages without thought but can exercise critical reflection on the cultural products put before us if we develop the tools to do so. This book offers a method for examining and understanding popular films as akin to religions, and this can help us evaluate their power and the ways in which they influence us more clearly.

1

The Definition of Religion

The Limitations of Definitions of Religion Religion is not an easy thing to define. It is hard to list the requisite characteristics of any cultural phenomenon, given the diversity of cultures and the inevitable variations in their expressions. Defining religion offers special challenges, however, in that it is an area of culture that involves basic beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality, our purpose in the world, and how we find meaning in it. Thus the scholar’s own subjective religious worldview affects the study of the subject matter from the outset, and the judgments imported into our analyses will unavoidably influence how we define religion. Jonathan Z. Smith has famously stated, “There is no data for religion. Religion is solely the creation of the scholar’s study.”1 By this he means that the scholar chooses what to call religion and that it therefore “exists” only as the product of the scholar’s effort. Smith reminds us that the “map is not territory,” that our understanding of religion is not equivalent to the actual cultural phenomena described. “Religion” is a construct we have invented as a label for certain sorts of activities that we classify under this rubric. But this does not mean that there is no such thing as the subject matter we classify as religion or that we cannot say anything about those things we call religions. Even though religion is a word used to describe a social construction that is dependent on humans, that does not make it imaginary in the same way as unicorns. As Kevin Schilbrack points out, politics, sports, and economics are also socially constructed and dependent on human activity, but they relate to things that are nonetheless “real,” such as the results of elections, games, and contracts.2 Furthermore, religion is not only a word used by scholars; it is used by the adherents of the social activities that are called religions. It can be argued, of course, that terms have been imposed on people who did not develop the terminology themselves: 15

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The Definition of Religion

Native Americans, Hinduism, and even Christianity are labels created by outsiders to describe those groups, and religion is arguably the same sort of term. And yet in spite of the ideologically tainted histories of such terms and the obvious problems with any sort of generalizations (in that they overlook the differences between the individual things classified under them), people still describe themselves by these terms. It seems absurd to suggest that we stop using such labels at this point, even if the categories are imperfect, as all categories are imperfect: even to point at my car and say “that is an automobile” is to make assumptions about the category and the vehicle so designated that obscure all the other things it is or the fact that it is not identical with all other automobiles.3 Of course, there are more arguments about the definition of religion than about the definition of automobile. That shows that we may be continually redefining the term based on reason and the acquisition of new evidence. We should keep in mind that this process is not innocent, as it may seek to control the things described.4 We must be on our guard for the ideology present in our intellectual judgments as we decide what merits inclusion or exclusion. Later, I briefly discuss some of the ideological judgments implicit in well-known definitions of religion. Early attempts by Christian thinkers to define the essence of religion unwittingly imported Christian categories into the definition, often assuming that all religions focus on a transcendent being such as the Christian God. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) defined religion as “the feeling of absolute dependence” on that which the Christian calls God so that “to feel oneself absolutely dependent and to be conscious of being in relation with God are one and the same thing.”5 Although Schleiermacher’s definition was broader than those of most Western thinkers before him in that he did not equate religion with belief in God as such, the general feeling he postulates still has as its referent the Western or even the Christian concept of God. A century later, Rudolf Otto (1869–1937), on the basis of more study of world religions than Schleiermacher had undertaken, asserted that religion is the feeling that arises when we encounter the “holy” or “numinous,” that which transcends us so totally that it inspires a mixture of fascination and fear. It evokes an experience of being a creature “submerged and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is supreme above all creatures.”6 Otto claimed to have found this experience of radical transcendence

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in all the world religions he encountered in his travels, but he seems to have neglected those aspects of religions that would not fit his view—for example, the radical this-worldliness of certain forms of Chinese religions or Buddhism.7 In spite of a genuine effort to understand other religions on their own terms, Otto still based his analysis on a concept of divine transcendence developed from a particular Western theological understanding of God. Otto influenced other thinkers in turn: Mircea Eliade defined religion by its relation to “the sacred” in distinction from “the profane,” and although he defined sacrality more broadly than Otto (as religions may have numerous sacred realities, not just one), he still understood religion as always entailing a relationship to a transcendent reality that is radically distinguished from empirical reality.8 Among philosophers of religion, John Hick has made the same claim that religion is defined by a relationship with a transcendent reality.9 The definition of religion offered by Paul Tillich in his later theology sought to overcome many of the shortcomings of previous theological definitions, and his view has probably been the most significant one for modern theology. Tillich defined religion as “ultimate concern,” meaning that each of us has something that receives our highest devotion and from which we expect fulfillment. It demands the total surrender of all other concerns to it as the primary concern of our beings.10 Even if one denies the existence of any transcendent reality, one will still hold something as being of greatest concern for one’s being—that which one finally values more highly than anything else. Even the cynic takes his cynicism with “ultimate seriousness,” and so his cynical philosophy becomes his ultimate concern.11 But Tillich also insisted that there is a criterion that can be used to appraise the validity of the various ultimate concerns one might have and so to arrive at some judgments about the relative “truth” of religions. Specifically, if one takes something that is nonultimate (finite or nontranscendent) as being of ultimate significance, one is guilty of idolatrous faith—or of attributing ultimacy to that which is not ultimate. The consequences of this include radical “existential disappointment” because the finite object cannot fulfill the promise of ultimate satisfaction that the believer expects it to fulfill. This does not prevent people from viewing finite things as ultimate, but in such cases, they have made a grave error in falsely viewing the finite as the infinite. A truer faith is

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The Definition of Religion

one that remains focused on the ultimate itself rather than on any finite reality. The difficulty with achieving this goal, Tillich explains, is that we can never apprehend the ultimate in itself but grasp it only through symbols. The trick of avoiding idolatry is then to look beyond the symbol and to see it as a medium for the ultimate rather than the ultimate itself. If we fail in this and view the symbol as itself being the ultimate, we have given our ultimate devotion to that which is not really ultimate. We can never know for certain whether we have given our devotion to the true ultimate or to a penultimate form of it, and so faith requires commitment and courage in the face of this uncertainty.12 Tillich’s definition is more comprehensive than many others, in that through it, he can view as “religious” a wide range of phenomena, even some not normally considered religious, which have the element of intense devotion involved with them; he does not exclude the religious significance of apparently secular phenomena, such as politics or the arts. But one may still ask whether he has isolated the actual feature shared by all religions or whether he has imported a Western bias into his definition. He considers it axiomatic that everyone must have some ultimate concern to which all other concerns are subordinate, but this may not be the case. In practice, we all have many shifting areas of concern. Although one or another of these may take precedence at a particular moment, this does not mean that it is that which we take with “ultimate seriousness,” that which promises “total fulfillment” or demands our complete obedience. These terms are relevant to biblical monotheism, as Tillich shows, but they may not illustrate the religious character of polytheists, who turn to different gods for different purposes, or, for that matter, religions like Confucianism or Taoism, which rarely speak of subjecting all principles to one. Taoists go so far as to say that there is no right or wrong, good or bad, but that each thing has value when its proper use is found. It’s questionable whether there is one “ultimate concern” in this sort of system. Of course, Tillich might regard this sort of relativism as itself a kind of ultimate concern, which subjugates absolutist systems of value to its own relativizing framework. The relativist who says there is no ultimate has made relativism his ultimate. The skeptic who says there is no truth has made skepticism his truth. The nihilist who rejects the task of finding a concern has made the lack of concern into his concern. But

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one has to suspect a linguistic sleight of hand here on Tillich’s part. If we are to say that anything one might believe—even a failure to take the question of the meaning of life seriously—has been taken with “ultimate seriousness” simply because there is nothing one takes more seriously, we may be misdefining “ultimate concern” by effectively reducing it to whatever the content of consciousness is, even if it seems to lack any concern or direction toward ultimacy. If any belief at all is an “ultimate concern” because there is nothing higher believed in, this usage would seem to distort the normal sense of the term and the meaning implied by it. It effectively negates the difference between the person who is truly devoted to something as an ultimate and the person who has no such devotion so that it appears they are equally religious when in fact they are not. In addition, in distinguishing between types of ultimate concerns, Tillich sneaks value judgments on some ultimate concerns into an apparently value-free definition. He claims that one who is devoted to the nonultimate as if it were an ultimate has committed idolatry by giving ultimate status to that which he should not. In this way, a judgment is implied upon those religions that do not focus on a single ultimate concern, as they commit idolatry in their failure to properly conceptualize their ultimate. The insistence upon a transcendent is still present here, albeit in veiled form. In spite of the Christian biases present in his definition, Tillich made it clear toward the end of his life that Christianity is not to be viewed as the “absolute” religion that effectively discredits the validity of others. No religion can fully express the ultimate, as all must use symbols, and there is always a gap between the symbol and that which it symbolizes. The best symbols are those that point beyond themselves, such as the cross—but this is not the only valid symbol of the ultimate, even though it provides the criterion for Christians.13 Still, his view defines religion in such a way as to make it seem that all valid religions must have a relationship with a unitary transcendent principle, defined according to the norms of the biblical understanding of covenant (“demand and promise”). Those that lack this focus on the transcendent (or its unity) are viewed as less adequate forms of religion. Just as such theological definitions have narrowed the understanding of religion by their use of Christian categories, so also the ideological

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definitions of social-scientific approaches have tended to reduce religion to its psychological or sociological function. Most famously, Karl Marx reduced religion to a by-product of social oppression, the “opium of the people,” which they use to cope with intolerable economic conditions; Freud, on the other hand, reduced religion to a by-product of our neurotic attempts to deal with the absence of an omnipotent father. In both cases, religion is viewed as harmful and unnecessary, as well as explicable wholly through the categories of either sociological or psychological analysis based on an examination of its empirical nature. Although the pejorative and simplifying definitions of Marx and Freud are not used as widely as they once were, many social scientists still believe that in their efforts to “explain” the causes of religion in observable social forces, they effectively preclude the truth of religion. Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge, for example, write that religion is “a purely human phenomenon, the causes of which are to be found entirely in the natural world. Such an approach is obviously incompatible with faith in revelation and miracles.”14 The transcendent or otherworldly referents of religion cannot be real in such a view, as religion is merely a product of this-worldly forces that can be examined and understood by social science. Such reductionism commits the socalled genetic fallacy of believing that a this-worldly explanation for the cause of religion discredits any otherworldly explanation—and hence, transcendent referent—for religion. In opposition to this view, I would claim that it is possible to believe that religion(s) might be true, even when we believe that we have adequately explained their “causes” naturalistically. After all, a believer can hold that God works through natural processes such as evolution, so why can’t one also allow that God creates faith and religion through sociopsychological processes? Even if people can be said to believe in God “because” of such processes, that does not negate the possibility that God “exists.” Nonetheless, it has been widely held that religion must have either a theological (i.e., belief-based) or a psychosocial “explanation,” as these two approaches are held to be incompatible.15 In contrast, I would argue that social-scientific approaches do not need to accept the reductionist view that religion can be fully explained naturalistically or that such an explanation necessarily discredits the beliefs of religious people. Similarly, religion need not be viewed solely

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as an ideological construct that supports cultural hegemonies, as the social-scientific study of religion has sometimes held.16 Although religion is this, it is not only this, just as cultural products (such as films) may support hegemony but are not reducible to only that function. We need to be able to understand the workings of religion in ways that transcend the purely ideological. Luckily, many social scientists working in fields like anthropology and sociology have recognized that their analysis of religion does not require them to adopt reductionist views of religious behavior that suggest it can be fully understood solely as a product of societal or cultural forces. Religion can then be seen as not merely a by-product of society—a sort of cultural dross thrown off by social forces—but as a cultural force in its own right that contributes to and shapes society.

Clifford Geertz’s Definition of Religion and Its Application to Film Given the limitations of theological definitions of religion as well as reductionistic social-scientific definitions, I have turned to Clifford Geertz’s anthropological definition as the most helpful and comprehensive one for analyzing religious phenomena.17 Geertz defines religion by its function in human society rather than by theological content (e.g., belief in a transcendent being), but he also avoids the reductionism of many social-scientific definitions. Part of the reason for this is that he views anthropology as essentially an interpretive science rather than an explanatory one. Geertz believes that we should attempt to “describe” rather than “explain” religion, as one cannot fully analyze the causes of human cultural activities in the same way that the natural sciences examine physical phenomena. One cannot assert “scientifically tested and approved” hypotheses about religion in general; the diversity and particularity of human experience and culture make it impossible to come to general conclusions about the nature of religion in the same way that one might about chemistry or physics.18 Although his views are firmly based in the observation of actual religions, Geertz does not reduce the data of religion to the mere recording of religious behavior, as he believes some social-scientific accounts have attempted to do. Rather, utilizing a semiotic approach, he insists that one must understand the meaning intended by a religious behavior in order to understand its

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function in a religion. A nervous twitch and a wink may look the same, but one has no intended meaning, while the other does—a meaning, furthermore, defined by its context and the set of assumptions that accompany it.19 Geertz is interested in the set of meanings implied in religion, and his definition of religion reflects this. Geertz’s definition of religion is found in his 1966 essay “Religion as a Cultural System,” which defines it as consisting of five aspects: “1) a set of symbols which acts to 2) establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by 3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and 4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that 5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”20 He then unpacks each of these five aspects to spell out his conception of religion and how it functions. First, as a set of symbols, religions provide both models “of ” reality and models “for” reality. The difference is reflective of that between a worldview and an ethos—that is, the way the world is believed to be and the way it is believed the world ought to be. Models “of ” reality describe the way we think the world really is, while models “for” reality describe how we would like it to be. We might also say that religions provide both beliefs and ethical values.21 Second, these symbol systems establish both moods and motivations in us. Motivations incline us to do certain things in certain situations— and so are a cause of our actions—while moods do not incline us to act so much as indicate our emotional reactions to certain situations.22 Third, these moods and motivations are based in “conceptions of a general order of existence.” Here Geertz specifies how religious feelings or inclinations differ from other sorts of feelings and inclinations: they are “directed toward the achievement of an unconditioned end” and are “symbolic of some transcendent truths.” By this he does not seem to mean that a “belief in spiritual beings” is the central characteristic of religion but that something greater than the ordinary is referenced. (Note that he also does not assume that there ought to be a single transcendent referent, as Tillich does.) Religion involves conceptions of the “all-pervading” that affects all life and not just a part of it. Geertz even whimsically allows that golf might be a religion to some but only if it points to some higher truths for the player and not merely because one is passionate about it.23 It is not, then, that religion is simply

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one’s highest concern but that it relates to one’s view of life’s purpose and meaning grounded in a general concept of reality. In elucidation of this point, Geertz suggests that the primary purpose of religious symbols is to deal with the encroachment of chaos on our lives and to offer a sense that life is meaningful and orderly in spite of the challenge of chaos. In three fundamental areas are we threatened by chaos: at the limits of what we can explain intellectually, at the limits of what we can endure in suffering, and at the limits of morality, with the need to deal with the injustice of life.24 Although all three may be related to what is sometimes called the “problem of evil,” they are distinct in that they deal with different mental faculties and the different challenges posed to each by chaos. It is worth noting that in Geertz’s view, religion does not “explain away” the problems of life as if they did not exist; rather, in response to the very natural suspicion that the world has no order or coherence, religion offers “the formulation, by means of symbols, of an image of such a genuine order of the world which will account for, and even celebrate, the perceived ambiguities, puzzles, and paradoxes in human experience. The effort is not to deny the undeniable—that there are unexplained events, that life hurts, or that rain falls upon the just—but to deny that there are inexplicable events, that life is unendurable, and that justice is a mirage.” Religion then recognizes “the inescapability of ignorance, pain, and injustice on the human plane while simultaneously denying that these irrationalities are characteristic of the world as a whole.”25 Fourth, religion also clothes these conceptions with an “aura of factuality.” This means that religion deals with the “really real” in asserting that its conceptions are not fictions but are descriptive of (or, in the case of ethics, normative for) the actual nature of the world. This assertion of reality is not achieved simply by an act of faith but is expressed in religious life through ritual—the third key component of religious experience, alongside worldview and ethos. Rituals unite the conception of how the world is with the conception of how it ought to be, for “in ritual, the world as lived and the world as imagined, fused under the agency of a single set of symbolic forms, turn out to be the same world.”26 For religious people, rituals are “not only models of what they believe, but also models for the believing of it. In these plastic dramas men attain their faith as they portray it.”27

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Geertz gives an example of this in the Balinese ritual dramatization of the mythic battle between the evil witch Rangda and the benevolent and comical monster Barong. Members of the audience participate in the drama by attempts to restrain Rangda or (sometimes) through being possessed by demons and actually entering into the performance. The ritual is therefore “not merely a spectacle to be watched but a ritual to be enacted. There is no aesthetic distance here separating actors from audience and placing the depicted events in an unenterable world of illusion.”28 In this way, the enacted myth becomes real to the participants; as Geertz observes, “To ask, as I once did, a man who has been Rangda whether he thinks she is real is to leave oneself open to the suspicion of idiocy.”29 Fifth, this aura of factuality makes the “moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.” This point actually explicates the previous one, noting that religious assertions utilize a different set of assumptions from the commonsensical perspective, effectively introducing a new “language game” (to utilize a term developed by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein).30 Having moved into the ritual context and then back to the commonsensical again, there is a slippage from one context to the other so that the ordinary world is now seen “as but the partial form of a wider reality which corrects and completes it.”31 The man who played the part of Rangda, for example, realizes he is no longer her after the ritual, but having played that part and having felt the reality of it affects how he sees himself and the world, for example, as involved in the struggle between good and evil in the world or in himself. Can each of these aspects of Geertz’s definition be found in the religion of film? First of all, films do provide a set of symbols, both visual and narrative, which act to mediate worldviews as well as systems of values—and in accordance with Geertz’s second point, these establish both certain moods (e.g., of reassurance or hope) as well as motivations (e.g., to “do the right thing,” to be true to yourself, or to love your family). When films are called modern “myths,” I take this (in part) to refer to a set of stories that represent the two functions Geertz calls “models of ” and “models for” reality. (In the following chapter, the concept of myth and its applicability to film will be examined in greater detail.) That film narratives act this way should be clear: the world is claimed to be a certain way, and it is simultaneously claimed that it should be that

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way. The world is believed to be a place where good conquers evil, for example, as it tends to in all but the darkest of motion pictures (at least, those made in Hollywood). And if films do diverge from this convention, audiences may find themselves annoyed and even upset. As one example of this, when I showed Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) to one of my classes, most of the students seemed to think that Allen was somehow saying that Dr. Judah Rosenthal (played by Martin Landau) deserves to get away with murder because he is never caught and even overcomes the tortures of his own conscience for having arranged the death of his mistress. They were incensed that Allen should make a film showing the wicked going unpunished, even though Allen’s point (as I took it) was not that this is the way things should be but rather that this is the way things are. Allen presumably wanted audiences to reflect on the lack of justice in the world and how this creates an existential situation in which people must choose good or evil even though it appears that good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. I was surprised that my class seemed so reluctant to accept this viewpoint, supported as it is by common sense. The worldview they expect to see in films, however, is one that reassures them that justice will be served—even if life experience contradicts this. The models of and for reality that Allen proposed were neither the ones they were accustomed to seeing in films nor ones they particularly wanted to see. This clearly relates also to the third aspect of Geertz’s definition: religions formulate conceptions of a general order of existence that include the attempt to deal with experiences of chaos—the uncanny, pain and suffering, and injustice or evil. Most people go to the movies claiming the need to “escape” from their daily lives, but to what do they escape? The world presented by most films tends to be neater, more orderly, and has satisfactory endings (usually) in which vice is punished and virtue rewarded, families are reunited, and lovers mate for life. Although the narratives can introduce considerable conflict and tension, it tends to be resolved within the time limit prescribed by the filmgoing experience. However bad the situation of the characters may be at various points in the story, by the end, all will be tidy, and we will be reassured that all is well with the world. This does not mean that every film invokes a banal “happy ending,” as not everything may work out perfectly for

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all the characters in every respect. But as Geertz said about religion, it can provide a sense that justice and order exist, even though particular events remain unexplained or seem unfair. There are films that are exceptions to this, such as art-house or avant-garde films, but these do not tend to be the films with the largest audiences or box-office success. Such films might still be considered “religious” for the intelligentsia that enjoys them in that they display worldviews and systems of values (just as atheistic existentialism might be considered a religion), but I will not focus on them in this book, as they do not tend to demonstrate larger cultural trends or influence. Nonetheless, I will sometimes contrast films that have been less popular with those that have succeeded better at the box office in order to point out what mythologies and values resonate best with a particular culture: the most popular films are accepted by the largest group of people as representative both of how reality should be and how it actually is. This brings us to the fourth aspect of Geertz’s definition of religion: the aura of factuality provided through the ritualization of the mythic worldview and its values. Some may claim that there can be no religious ritual involved in film viewing, as it need not be communal and does not require the viewer to participate in the same way as in a religious service. However, I would claim that this view of filmgoers as passive receptacles, doing nothing but imbibing the film’s values in isolation from one another, is a remnant of the discredited “hypodermic needle” model of cinema propounded by the mass-culture theorists—according to which filmgoers were “injected” with the ideology of the filmmakers in the theater and their response could only be that of unquestioning acceptance.32 In fact, filmgoers are very involved in their own appropriation of a film, and they do not passively accept whatever it says. They are often highly critical and spend much time discussing films before, during, and after the viewing. People are especially involved in the film while viewing it, whether they are screaming in a horror movie, laughing in a comedy, or applauding the hero at a key moment. This is one reason people still go to the movies instead of just renting a movie at home: it creates an “aura of factuality,” to use Geertz’s term, a sense of reality in a darkened room with an enlarged screen that encompasses all attention. Furthermore, a good audience can make a difference in how well one likes the movie—whether they laugh, cry, scream, or

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applaud enough to invite one to join in the communal experience of enjoying the film. Geertz himself does not seem to see how Western popular cultural experiences might have the sort of ritual dimension he depicts as part of Balinese religion. He notes that the Balinese drama, because of its participatory aspect, is more “like a high mass, not like a presentation of Murder in the Cathedral,” which presumably does not invite the audience to join in.33 But popular films do often invite audience participation—more than live theatrical performances like Murder in the Cathedral in some ways, though (oddly enough) the film actors are not “there” to appreciate it. (Perhaps films even invite more audience participation precisely because audiences don’t need to fear upsetting the actors by their heckling!) Had Geertz done an ethnographic study of a midnight showing of the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, for example, he might have had some appreciation for the ways in which Western popular culture creates the sort of ritual experience that the Balinese have in their religious drama. As the audience flick their lighters on, throw toast at the screen, or respond verbally to the cues in the film, they become part of the story. This no doubt explains also why people would go to the film over and over again, as if to a church service, for this ritual experience. In fact, filmgoers routinely go multiple times to a film they like and may purchase the film to watch over and over again.34 The experience of watching the film on video is often communal, too, as friends are invited over, popcorn is made, and a discussion of the film surrounds its viewing. Many people memorize dialogue from movies that they can repeat with their friends as a sort of “in-joke” that defines their own groups. Clearly, the communal nature of film viewing and its ritual aspects are linked.35 More ethnographic study needs to be done on the ways films are experienced, as the tendency in scholarship until relatively recently was to treat the film as a “text” in need of interpretation rather than describing the event of film viewing and its attendant symbolisms. Films are understood and interpreted and therefore have meaning only in the context of their actual viewing. Instead of pretending we understand the meaning of a film because we have watched it ourselves and intellectually analyzed its meaning for us, we need to allow for the possibility that to understand the meaning of the film involves understanding how the

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average viewer sees it, what she liked about it, and perhaps even where she saw it, why, and with whom. Only by answering these sorts of questions can we have any idea of what the film might represent to those who have seen it. This sort of research is elaborate and time-consuming, so there is less of it available than we might wish, but new tools such as online viewer comments have given a source of considerable data that did not exist even a few years ago. Geertz’s fifth point reinforces the idea that religious rituals create a sense of reality that points to a different way of viewing the world from that provided by ordinary experience. Although people clearly know that films are not “real” in the commonsensical meaning of the term, the films take on the dimension of reality within the context of their viewing. Geertz himself seemed unwilling to admit the extent to which works of art can create this alternate sense of reality. In distinguishing art from religion, he accepts Suzanne Langer’s view that art deals with illusion and appearance, imagining how the world could be, whereas religion claims to represent the world as it really is.36 But religion also imagines how the world might be, and as Geertz’s own theory indicates, religion links together what “is” and what “ought to be” in its ritual structure. Religion does not simply describe the world, and art does not simply provide imaginary illusions; both are involved in the complex relationship between the ideal and the real, in that both offer a worldview as well as an ethos. The way in which films—and religion—represent a version of “reality” has been a point of much debate that deserves further attention.

Film (and Religion) as Illusion or Reality From the beginning of cinema in the late nineteenth century, it was already clear that film had a dual nature in its ability to “reproduce” reality but also to distort it. Louis Lumière made a series of short films, each less than forty seconds, which he first screened before audiences in 1895. These included Baby’s Breakfast and Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, which filmed ordinary scenes from life with no pretense at art, acting, or story. The Sprinkler Sprinkled did include a bit of comedic acting, as it showed a boy playing a trick on the gardener in order to spray him with a hose and the gardener chasing and spanking him in response. Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat is a more familiar example of a

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film said to have provoked some shock, as the train appears to be heading into the audience. Lumière’s popularity waned quickly as the novelty of his method wore off, as he was not very interested in story development or artistic details—but he had established the ability of the moving picture to film a “real” scene—or at least one that appeared to be real. On the other hand, George Méliès made films that were clearly fantastic in both theme and appearance, such as A Trip to the Moon (1902), a thirteen-minute film that told the story of a rocket that flies to the moon and encounters “savages” there. This film had elaborate costumes, makeup, and sets as well as “special effects” such as making objects appear or disappear (by stopping the camera at key moments). Méliès also discovered multiple exposure and the superimposition of images. People enjoyed the obvious lack of realism in his films, as they were designed to entertain through the evocation of an imaginary world that no one could mistake for reality.37 A debate soon began among filmmakers and theorists as to whether films should seek simply to reproduce what lies before the camera or attempt to alter reality through the filmmaker’s artistry. The formalists, who dominated during the silent era, took the latter view. Theorists such as Sergei Eisenstein and V. I. Pudovkin defended the art of film against those who defamed it by arguing that the filmmaker made decisions about how to depict reality and did not simply set up a camera in front of an event. In particular, editing (or “montage”) provides the means whereby distinct images filmed at separate times can be joined together so as to appear connected. The filmmaker can manipulate images through editing so that the viewer will link the images in her mind, creating the sense of meaning desired by the filmmaker. In this way, the latter can create the desired emotional or intellectual response in the viewer, and so the filmmaker is a genuine artist. When sound pictures were developed, many (including the formalist Rudolf Arnheim) thought that now the medium would become too “realistic” in its depiction of action and that it would lose the artistic, visual qualities that had dominated silent films. Realists such as André Bazin, however, celebrated the new use of sound and its ability to capture a better sense of reality on film. He argued that films should use less editing and more long shots that allow the viewer the freedom to see the scene as it is rather than as cut up by the filmmakers. He did not

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completely eschew editing, however, as he liked the “invisible” editing technique of popular Hollywood films that gave an appearance of reality without calling excessive attention to the technique. Siegfried Kracauer took realism further than Bazin in his rejection of the unrealistic details of Hollywood films; he favored the Italian neorealist films such as The Bicycle Thief (1948) that sought to depict ordinary people in ordinary situations.38 In spite of their differences, formalists and realists shared the notion that films are artistic insofar as they prompt viewers to reflect on reality in new ways. In this sense, neither school embraced the idea that films are primarily escapist entertainment. But even escapist films, we might note, give the viewer some sense of reality, albeit a reality that differs from her own. One escapes to the world of film in order to return better equipped to this world, and so even the “idealist” aspect of film serves a “realist” function. In addition, even the most “realistic” films do not simply reproduce reality, as they involve the filmmaker in the decision of what to film and how to film it. Even documentaries or films such as those of Lumière involve choices that are designed to elicit certain responses in the viewer—as indeed Italian neorealism also intended a certain effect on the audience through its attempt at verisimilitude. There is no pure realism possible in film, due to the fact that an artist is involved who processes reality through his or her own subjectivity. Likewise, no art form (including film) can be completely devoid of a relationship with reality, not even surrealism or abstract art, as these too represent the artist’s response to the reality in which one lives. Film is both realistic and artistic at the same time and so involves the elements both formalists and realists attributed to it.39 Debates have continued, however, as to whether this combination of realism and artistry is properly understood by the viewers. Ideological critics such as Colin McCabe have argued that the ostensible “realism” of film causes viewers to overlook the fact that it is a constructed work and so to take it as a representation of reality rather than an ideologically motivated artifact.40 The appearance of reality depicted in the film is actually a cover for its ideology, as what it presents is not reality but an illusion. Only films that discomfort or alienate the viewer—or that radically challenge the normal structure of narrative—can hope to make an effective attempt to bring reality to her. Other theorists have similarly

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claimed that film viewers cannot distinguish the illusion of film from reality. Jean-Louis Baudry has argued that film viewing is akin to dreaming in providing an experience of regression (psychoanalytically understood) in which the viewer finds the self to be reflected rather than an outside reality, as there is no distinction between reality and self in the primitive, infantile state. In Baudry’s view, viewers believe they are experiencing an outside reality even though they are merely having an experience of self; like the poor prisoners in Plato’s cave, film viewers see only shadows but take them for the real thing.41 Jean Baudrillard has gone even further than Baudry in asserting that reality does not exist anymore in postmodern society, as we have been entirely absorbed into the “hyperreality” created out of pop culture and media images that permit no perspective on a world outside themselves.42 Not all film theorists, however, have accepted these dire pronouncements. Tom Gunning has pointed out that the often-told anecdote about viewers screaming and running for the exit during the first showing of Lumière’s Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat is itself a “myth” without historical basis. Film theorists continue to tell this myth, he suggests, as it supports their own agenda, according to which audiences cannot tell a film from the real thing—even if we have become more sophisticated in our reactions. Gunning suggests that film viewers were never that naïve and are not so now. Rather, their delight at the illusion of the train’s motion was based in a reaction of astonishment at the ability of the apparatus to produce such an illusion—which was never mistaken for reality. At this time, in the early 1900s, as the new creations of technology provoked both fear and confidence, audiences reacted with both fascination and horror at the abilities of these technologies. Amusement parks began to feature roller coasters with simulated collisions that were averted at the last possible moment. Audiences sought new thrills even as they quickly tired of them and had to seek new experiences to shock and amaze them. The excess of special effects and horror-movie “shockers” today should show that we are still in quest for such experiences in film, not to mention the new fascination with virtual reality technology. In all this, however, Gunning contends that audiences maintain their sense of the illusion of the media being exploited for emotional affect.43 Noel Carroll has also critiqued the idea that film viewers cannot separate film from reality and, more specifically, Baudry’s thesis that

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film viewers experience regression and a dreamlike state in the cinema. Viewing a film is not like dreaming, Carroll points out, in that we are well aware of where we are and can move or even get up and leave at will; to be more obvious still, we are not asleep when we are watching a film. Although Baudry admits this difference, Carroll believes that he has made too much of the analogy between film viewing and dreaming in order to establish a psychoanalytic model for understanding the filmviewing experience. After all, films are not private like dreams, as they can be experienced and discussed with others, even during the viewing; I can also go back to see the same film again, and I cannot control my dreams in this way. Nor is the film the product of my own mind, as dreams are, but rather it is a product of the filmmakers’ efforts, and these may produce a vision in harmony with my own—or not. The film need not affect me as powerfully as my own dreams do.44 Richard Allen concurs with Carroll’s view that film viewers are well aware of the unreality of cinema but differs from him in choosing to revise rather than discard the psychoanalytic account of the nature of film viewing. He describes the experience of seeing a film as an experience of “projective illusion” that we enter into willingly and knowingly, not unconsciously, but that still affects us powerfully in its impression of reality. Like a conscious fantasy into which we willingly place ourselves, films offer a “fully realized world” we can accept via a certain suspension of disbelief.45 We can be aware at the same time of the fictitious nature of the film and our desire to believe in it. Allen offers an analogous experience: one can look at a drawing that presents an image of a duck when viewed one way and a rabbit when viewed in another way and even cause oneself to see one and then the other—but not both at the same time.46 In the same way, we can be drawn into a film such that we “forget” its unreality, but as soon as our attention is diverted, we recall its illusionary nature. We are never really fooled, but we do not constantly reflect on the fact of its unreality while we are entertaining a fictitious piece of work—like a daydream. Allen argues that we are much more in control of our filmic experience than most psychoanalytic theories would allow; for example, he rejects what he sees as the overemphasis such theories place on the voyeuristic aspects of film, in that we can choose to identify with the characters portrayed and not only the perspective of the camera that views them.47

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If film viewers do have some sense of the unreality of cinema, as these latter theorists propose, the power of film is not in its ability to erase or displace our sense of the real world but in its ability to provide a temporary escape from it. And yet that escape is not simply a matter of illusion but a construction that has the “aura of factuality” about it that Geertz associates with religious ritual. We willingly enter another world in the cinema, one that we realize is not the empirical world but one that has power over us nonetheless. It may be argued that the spiritual world referenced by religions is believed to be more “real” than the imaginary world we enter in films, but in both cases, the participant enters into such a ritual space in order to experience an alternate reality. The man who played Rangda had no problem distinguishing himself from Rangda once he was outside the ritual, but in the ritual space and time, that distinction was not observed. In a similar way, a viewer who entertains the fictitious world of the film as “real” during its viewing does not lose connection with the fact that she is in a theater viewing a constructed work, but she will not dwell on this fact if she is enjoying the film and is sufficiently absorbed in it. Sometimes a film will even remind the viewers of its artificiality. In E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982), there is a moment when Elliot’s brother’s friends first see the alien that they have thought to be a figment of Elliot’s imagination. As Elliot matter-of-factly tells them, “He’s a man from outer space, and we’re taking him to his spaceship,” one of the boys asks, “But can’t he just beam up?” Elliot answers with exasperation (and somewhat condescendingly), “This is reality, Greg.” Audiences laughed at that line because they realized that the film is not our reality, but it is for the characters in the film, and for that reason, we can enter its world temporarily in order to discover a reality different from our own that is somehow connected to us as well. It is not less “relevant” to us for being recognized as imaginary. In a similar way, characters break the “fourth wall” when they address the audience directly and admit that they are in a movie. Deadpool (2016) and Deadpool 2 (2018) utilized this technique to comedic effect, as the main character comments on the action and even events outside the film, much like the comic-book character on which he was based, who also frequently broke the “fourth wall” of the printed page. It is also the case that film viewing, like religion, affords a link between the alternate world it imagines and the empirical world of everyday life.

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Were there not such a connection, the illusion would not be powerful or relevant or even desired. We desire alternate worlds because we find our own imperfect, but such desires to flee also entail a desire to return, renewed and refreshed, to the everyday. One who wishes only to live in ritual time—or in the virtual reality of a film or computer game—has fallen into pathology in his preference for the imaginary world over the empirical world and will soon have difficulties living in the empirical world, as he may begin to neglect duties and relationships that are necessary for survival. Modern technology has spawned this sort of obsessive behavior, such as that found in a person addicted to social media or the internet, but this is not the nature of all experiences of the alternate realities offered by religion or modern media. Those who are less pathological will find a way to relate the two worlds more effectively so that “real” life may be enriched rather than impoverished by media consumption. Some may find this hope overly optimistic, but we have no reason at the outset to conclude that it is impossible to go back and forth between the two worlds without ultimately losing the distinction between them (as Baudrillard insists). If film does operate as a religion according to Geertz’s definition, as I contend, then similar to a religion, it offers a connection between this world and the “other” world imagined by film in offering both models of and models for reality. These two aspects—worldview (or mythology) and ethos—together express a vision of what the world really is and what it should be. There is some confusion between these two, in that the ideal world imagined by religion is represented as the goal toward which empirical reality should reach, but it is also taken as a description of the way “true” reality really is. The imagined world is taken not as an invention of our minds but as a true representation of reality precisely because it depicts the way things really should be. In the same way, films offer near-perfect worlds that do not correspond exactly to reality as we experience it, but we often believe they are models of (and not only models for) reality as we would like it to be. This need not be taken simply as wishful thinking, as the desire to view models for and models of as identical is based in our desire to realize a unity of the two, to cause utopia to come to pass. This is not mere escapism but a real desire to change the world to be more like the way that the “religion” in question thinks it already is—at a “higher” level.

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In addition, the fact that a cultural phenomenon—such as religion or film—is humanly constructed does not take away from its power to express another reality, even when people are aware of the constructed, “imaginary” nature of the phenomenon. Just as people can be affected by stories that they know are fictitious and even change their views of the world as a result, so also constructed religious artifacts can connect people with other realities even when they know that they are human “inventions.” Sam Gill, for example, has argued that the masks used in Native American religious rituals are not disguises but are symbolic representations of spiritual realities. Those who wear them are not “masquerading” as deities to fool the audience but are portraying in dramatic form beings that they believe to be real. Like Geertz, Gill argues that the performer who wears the mask takes on the identity of the character he portrays. Even when children are initiated into the masking process so that they realize it is their own relatives who wear the masks, this does not mean the gods portrayed are now recognized as unreal or that the ritual is viewed as a sham. Rather, Gill suggests that the new knowledge of the initiate is that gained by looking through the mask from the inside, by realizing not its falsity as a way of portraying the spiritual but rather its truth. The performer who looks out of the mask to see reality through it identifies with the character portrayed and so “knows” its reality in a clearer sense even than the audience that sees him. The mask does not hide truth; it reveals it.48 Filmgoers, too, know that films are not “real,” but the imaginary constructions within them can still serve to convey real truths about the nature of reality and how it is believed to be. The question may still arise as to whether there “really” is a referent for religious beliefs or whether the religious person only thinks that the world imagined by religion is real. Some of those who define religion by its function in human life have been reductionist in claiming that it has no referent beyond its cultural function, that its referential claims are illusionary. This is not my view or that of Geertz, who, as we have seen, avoids reductionism. Questions about the “truth” of religious beliefs must be bracketed by the religion scholar, as they can never be definitively answered. This does not, however, prohibit religious people, including some scholars of religion, from believing particular truth claims of particular religions or from making such claims; it simply means that it is impossible to prove whether such claims have an external reality

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referent or not. What we can do is examine the faith of those who hold to such claims to see the differences it makes for them in terms of worldview and ethos. Thus we can seek to understand the beliefs of Christians, which have meaning whether or not God or Jesus really exists, and we can seek to understand the filmic religion whether or not the visions of reality it presents are “true.” Even if good guys don’t always win and not all romances are happy, those who enjoy films may believe justice and love will ultimately triumph, in part because this is presented as the nature of reality in many movies. And as such claims are not subject to definitive verification or falsification, filmgoers may choose to believe such things even when some evidence seems to count against them—for example, it is believed that in the end, justice will be served, even though we do not always see this happen. Films, then, can be taken as illusions in one sense but can also have the force of reality by presenting a vision of how the world is as well as how it might be. In the ritual context of viewing a film, we “entertain” the truth of its mythology and ethos as a subject of consciousness even as it “entertains” us. It presents a reality that differs from that experienced in ordinary profane time and space just as the reality depicted in religious myth and ritual differs from the empirical world of our everyday lives—and yet that alternate reality is still integrally connected with the world of the everyday, and hence its vision is relevant to it. To understand this more fully, we must examine how the notions of myth, ethos, and ritual apply to film.

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Myths about Myth

Rehabilitating the Notion of “Myth” The term myth is so laden with negative connotations that it is practically unserviceable for the study of religion. But its use persists, and it also continues to be used in reference to films, largely due to their narrative form. It may be helpful to rehabilitate the term by uncovering the ways in which it might be usefully applied to religion or film. To do so, we must first purge it of some of its unfortunate associations and acknowledge the ways in which the concept has been used to oppress or condemn as well as romanticize religious and cultural phenomena. We will also critically examine certain scholarly approaches to myth that have been helpful in giving insight into religious phenomena. As with definitions of religion, every definition of myth is a construction of the scholar’s imagination and as such cannot provide total objectivity about the phenomena it seeks to delineate. Nonetheless, some definitions seem more helpful in giving us a genuine understanding of religion, and certain characteristics of these definitions can be applied to the phenomenon of film as well. The definitions of myth are themselves myths, created by scholars of myths, but these myths about myths may help us understand the stories we are trying to hear. From its origins through the present day, the word myth has often been held to mean “a story that is not true.” The Greek philosophers who began to doubt their myths as providing literal histories of their gods sought to find some meaning hidden beneath the obviously false surface details, often accepting either the allegorical view that the stories were really about natural phenomena hypostasized as personal beings or the euhemeristic view that the stories were historical accounts about humans that had been exaggerated to divine proportions—they sometimes sought ethical content in them as well. They applied the term myth

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to those stories they no longer believed as history, or they invented new myths (which were not believed literally either), as Plato did.1 In modern Western usage, however, the term myth has usually been reserved for the stories of religions other than one’s own, as few wanted to allow the connotation of falsehood to the stories of their own religion. Those who did analyze biblical stories as myths, such as David Friedrich Strauss in his Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1835), incurred the wrath of Christians who felt that the truth of their religion was being attacked by this method—and in fact, Strauss and others did dismiss the historical truth of many biblical stories, although they sought (like their Greek forebears) to find some “deeper” truth within them. Early Christian allegorical interpretation had done the same thing, of course, but not to such an extent or in such a way as to suggest the primitive nature of the biblical authors. Christian allegorists such as Origen had held that some things are false as literal statements in the Bible because God wished us to look deeper than the surface to find an allegorical truth; modern mythological interpreters of the Bible, on the other hand, hold that the biblical authors used mythic language because they lacked the modern sophistication to express the same meaning in a demythologized form. They believed not only that the factual details of the stories were literally false but that the authors of them were too primitive to know how to express their ideas in the “proper” philosophical form. Yet those who were uncomfortable viewing biblical stories as myths were often happy to view stories of other religions in this way. Friedrich Max Müller (1823–1900) was among the first scholars to extensively examine other religions through this concept, essentially claiming that myths were allegorical accounts of natural phenomena that were erroneously accepted as referring to historical beings. The idea that a myth was an “error” to be dispelled by a more “scientific” understanding was reiterated by Edward Tylor (1832–1917) and James Frazer (1854–1941), both of whom viewed mythic ideas of supernatural beings as “primitive” and finally dispensable. In this way, they assumed an evolutionary framework for the history of religion, according to which earlier ideas were displaced by more sophisticated forms of rational monotheism and, ultimately, by a scientific worldview. It is now commonly recognized that such an evolutionary schema oversimplifies history and falsifies data (e.g., ignoring the fact that monotheism often precedes polytheism in

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cultural development) and also is obviously prejudicial in its judgments on cultures that hold with ideas of magic and myth.2 Another aspect of early myth theory was its association with cultural chauvinism and racism. Even though Müller was not enamored of the mythological worldview and basically viewed it as one left behind by Christianity, he did hold that the Indo-European or “Aryan” languages were much richer in myths than the Semitic languages of the Bible—and this view was utilized by those who came to celebrate Aryan culture and denigrate “Semitic Jewish” culture in Germany and elsewhere. Ernest Renan (1823–92) exalted Aryan culture over the Semitic to the point that he held that even Jesus was not really part of Jewish culture; this attitude finally led to books like Hans Hauptmann’s Jesus the Aryan (1931), which claimed Jesus was crucified by “Semitic Jews.” The so-called German Christians who supported the racist ideology of National Socialism even wanted to replace the “Jewish” Old Testament with more suitable “Aryan” mythology as a background to the Christian New Testament. “Mythology” came to be associated with fascism and extreme nationalist politics, as right-wing groups sought to establish a religious basis for their claims of racial superiority.3 In this way, the study of “mythology” underwent a not-so-subtle shift as it moved from being a negative method that rejected the historicity of religious stories to a positive method of exalting particular religious stories for their cultural value. The odd thing about this transition was that it still basically associated “myth” with nonbiblical religion, although it was now held to be good rather than bad. Few people considered that there might be more similarity than difference between the miraculous stories of the Bible and the stories of other religious traditions.

Psychological Interpretations of Myth: Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell Today, many people who have overcome the scientifically motivated denigration of myth as “false history” have come to appreciate it not as a source of political or racist ideology but as an expression of a healthy psychological need for stories that define our identities and values. This development can be traced in part to Carl Jung (1875–1961), who as a psychologist departed from Freud’s ideological critique of religion as he

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came to see its positive benefits. He believed that mythology utilized a series of universal, archetypal figures (e.g., the wise old woman, the brave hero, the mother goddess) that reappear in stories around the world, expressing the experience of the “collective unconscious” of humanity.4 Whereas Freud believed that individuals suppress details of their personal histories, which then emerge in the activity of the individual’s unconscious (e.g., in dreams), Jung believed that there are many symbols in consciousness that cannot be explained simply as a result of the individual’s history. For this reason, he asserted the existence of a “collective unconscious” that preexists all individuals and societies and so has the character of an a priori part of human nature. This approach is in effect an attempt to overcome Freud’s reductionist view of religion by admitting that it refers to something bigger than the individual psyche and its neuroses. But Jung’s understanding of religion still has reductionist elements to it. Although the collective unconscious and its archetypes transcend individuals, they are still understood through psychological categories that confine religion to an internal experience—albeit an internal experience of our species as a whole. Although myths may seem to be about external realities, they are in fact “symbolic expressions of the inner, unconscious drama of the psyche . . . mirrored in the events of nature.”5 Even the story of Jesus is ultimately not about a historical individual so much as it is the exemplification of a psychological archetype.6 Jesus represents the fully integrated “Self,” the ideal of the mature and “whole” person we all seek to be; the details of his external historical life are unimportant to Jung, for Jesus is only of real importance as he exists in the inner religious experiences of believers who encounter him as an archetypal ideal. He serves as a means to our own realization of complete selfhood, so his existence independent of us is irrelevant. “The self of Christ is present in everybody a priori,” although in unconscious form, so it can only become real to us “when you withdraw your projections from an outward historical or metaphysical Christ and thus wake up the Christ within.”7 Jung has also been accused of basically reducing God to an element of consciousness, an accusation he attempted to refute by invoking the Kantian philosophical distinction between things as they truly are (“things in themselves,” or noumena) and things as we experience

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and know them (phenomena). We can only know the archetypes as we know them as objects of consciousness (phenomena), and this applies to God as much as any other archetype. But Jung holds that this does not mean that God only exists within our minds, for we can know nothing about the existence or nonexistence of God independent of us (as noumenon)—therefore, he argued, we cannot reduce God to a byproduct of consciousness as Freud did.8 This argument, however, does not completely refute the charge that Jung has reduced religion and God to internal psychological realities. Although he allows for the possibility of a transcendent God, he also asserts that we can know nothing about this God (not even whether it exists independently of us), so God’s external existence is basically as irrelevant as the external historical existence of Jesus. What Jung says about God is entirely shaped by his psychological categories and his understanding of how they apply to God—for example, how God mirrors all aspects of human consciousness by modeling for us the integrated “Self,” as well as the male and female aspects of it (Animus and Anima) and its Shadow side.9 Jung’s approach remains a popular one in many circles and has been used by some scholars to analyze the mythological symbols in cinema, especially science-fiction films.10 It is my intention not to suggest that these studies are illegitimate but to indicate that such a Jungian approach to myth is limited in its focus due to its reductionist tendencies. This approach imposes general psychological categories on all cultures, insisting that the details of the individual myths are less important than their conformity to archetypal psychological patterns, alleged (without real evidence) to be universal in all cultures. Because myths are understood to be representative of the struggle for integrated wholeness or “individuation,” they tend to be seen as a function of this unconscious drive for self-discovery rather than, for example, an attempt to deal with the external encroachment of chaos on our lives (which Geertz identified as the fundamental task of religion). In Jung’s view, myths help us each embrace and integrate our own Self in all its aspects (Shadow, Anima, and Animus), but this is basically understood as an internal struggle rather than one that is related to our lives in our communities and world. The approach of Joseph Campbell, who made use of Jung’s ideas, illustrates these problems even more clearly. Campbell probably did

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more to popularize mythology than any other modern scholar, thanks in part to Bill Moyers’s television series on him. Few people realize, however, the biases built into his approach. More so than Jung, Campbell simplified the nature and diversity of mythology by insisting that there really is only one myth (the “monomyth”), endlessly reproduced in cultures across the world, which exists as a model for the human journey of self-discovery. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell describes the structure of this myth as including a series of characteristic events: The hero is called to the adventure/quest. He initially refuses the call. He is convinced to go with the help of a figure who gives him supernatural aid. He passes the threshold of home and must survive combat with the monster. He enters the “belly of the whale” and is symbolically killed and reborn. He passes through a series of ordeals and tests of his character. He rescues the mother goddess. He is reconciled to his father. He destroys the monster and is united with the divine.11 Not all myths conform to this pattern, but Campbell works hard to make it seem as if they do, emphasizing those features that seem to fit and ignoring those that do not.12 He seems to have been influenced here by his early studies of medieval European literature, with its stories of chivalric romance, heroic knights battling dragons, and damsels in distress, so that he desired to find this the universal structure for all myths. He also claims that this myth is really about an internal struggle within ourselves, rather than any struggle with external realities, to a greater extent than Jung. He even belittles the problem of external suffering, claiming that the only problem exists within ourselves in our inability to deal with it; we deserve everything that happens to us, for (in an existentialist sense) we make our own universe.13 We can decide whether to suffer or not, in other words, so it does not really matter what goes on outside of our heads. This complete reduction of the subject of myth to our internal psychological universe is abetted by Campbell’s philosophical monism, his belief that all reality is one and that there is ultimately no distinction between ourselves and the divine; this allows him to reduce all our experience of the world to an internal psychological matter. In his monism, it is not a transcendent reality with which we unite (as in Vedantic Hinduism), but rather all reality is reinterpreted as an aspect of the self, as in Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy: the individual realizes he himself

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is the absolute, the creator, the center of his own universe.14 Campbell also rejects any resistance to this monism in the history of religion, such as the insistence of Western biblical religion on a transcendent God.15 In general, he prefers Eastern to Western religion, and he reserves particular venom for the Jewish claim to be the chosen people who have received a unique revelation from God.16 That this denigration of Judaism is tied to Campbell’s own anti-Semitism has been well documented by Robert Segal and Maurice Friedman, among others.17 By reducing myth to a product of the unconscious and a series of universally present archetypes, both Jung and Campbell risk losing the distinctiveness of individual myths as well as the meanings attributed to them by those who tell them. Myths seek to state something about the world, not just something about the psychology of those who tell them. Furthermore, such psychological interpretations are often largely fanciful, being based in speculations about the mind-set of peoples rather than any real empirical study, and they tend to impose one culturally specific set of psychological categories onto all cultures and religions.

Clifford Geertz on Myth and Sociological Reductionism Many theorists of myth have avoided psychological reductionism but may fall prey to sociological reductionism instead. I have previously noted how Clifford Geertz sought a nonreductionistic anthropological method (which I am attempting to mimic), and he sometimes criticized his predecessors and their understandings of religion and myth—most notably Emile Durkheim, Bronislaw Malinowski, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, and Claude Lévi-Strauss. These sociologically oriented theorists tended to view religion and myth as expressions of social integration or social conflict and so effectively reduced myth to a by-product of social forces, not unlike Marx. Durkheim, the main founder of the sociological analysis of religion, essentially equated religion and society but in such a way that religion is reduced to a role of societal maintenance. This approach can admit that society shapes religion but not that religion can shape society as an independent cultural force, as Geertz claims it does.18 As for Malinowski and Lévy-Bruhl, Geertz finds them engaged in opposed forms of reductionism. Malinowski essentially reproduces Durkheim’s view that myth is a “common sense” pragmatic strategy for

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societal maintenance, hence ignoring any transcendental function for myth in its purported connection to a mystical, extramundane reality. On the other hand, Lévy-Bruhl reduces the myth to the mystical only, claiming it has no relevance to pragmatic everyday matters because it involves a way of thinking that is totally alien or incomprehensible to outsiders, and for this reason, myth is essentially impervious to logical analysis.19 In contrast, Geertz insists that myth must function both pragmatically and mystically and that, in so doing, it can be reduced neither to merely a strategy for societal maintenance nor to an irrational and inexplicable mystery. In his view, myth connects the everyday (empirically real) world of social matters and “common sense” with the mystical (ideal or ultimately real) world of religion, even as it connects a view of how the world is with a moral vision of how it ought to be. There is considerable slippage between the two, as the myth portrays a model of how the world is believed to be, but this also corresponds to a model for how people would like it to be. We should then neither reduce myth to its sociological function in the everyday world nor to being a fundamentally incomprehensible phenomenon that deals with an imaginary fairyland but not our real (societal) lives.20 If Geertz is right, religion and myth connect the real and the imagined, the everyday and the ideal. Geertz’s efforts to utilize sociological analysis in a nonreductive way also contrast with the methods of Claude Lévi-Strauss, who expanded the sociological approach through the use of structuralism and linguistics. Geertz found Lévi-Strauss to be influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s idea of the “noble savage,” a romantic construct of “primitive” life as more moral and natural than life in our modern industrial society.21 This effort to romanticize and idealize pretechnological societies fails to understand individual cultures as it reduces them all to forms of the primitive archetype within ourselves, which Lévi-Strauss would like to see modern society recover.22 This reduction of all myth to a universal, “primitive” archetype has resonances with Campbell’s view and shares the same problems. It is apparent that we need a better definition of myth than many of these views offer, one that avoids romanticizing or defaming it, that is neither sociologically nor psychologically reductionistic in viewing it merely as a by-product of social or psychological forces, and that views myth as neither irrational falsehood nor a basis for racist and fascist

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ideology. Geertz’s view points the way in his notion that myths unite the ideal and the real, a notion of how things could be with a pragmatic understanding of how they are. Myths can help people deal with life’s problems and also provide hope for a better day. Several other thinkers have offered significant ideas about myth that may help in developing a more positive and useful notion of the concept; four of them will now be considered, as well as the possible application of their views to popular film.

Mircea Eliade It would not be an overstatement to suggest that Mircea Eliade (1907– 86) has had a greater effect on the academic study of comparative religions than any other twentieth-century figure. He based much of his own understanding of mythology on a stark contrast between the Western “historical” view of time and the cyclical view of time found in other (especially archaic) religions. Mythology, to Eliade, is primarily cosmogony in that it gives an account of creation in a distant primordial time. This time of creation, however, can be accessed ritualistically through the retelling and reenacting of the myth of creation, in that such reenactment brings one outside of ordinary time and space to the sacred realm in which creation can once again occur.23 Eliade found that people whose lives are closely linked with nature (e.g., via agriculture) see the repetitious patterns of life and death in the seasons and believe that they can effect new life and so the new season by tapping into the power of creation. Through the myth of sacred origins, one can be returned to that time in order to bring its power to bear in the present of ordinary time. In such religions, time is viewed as cyclical rather than as linear. Even rites of passage have this cyclical character, in that each new generation must pass through the same stages of development in life as the previous generation and so make use of the same sacred power of new life.24 This cyclical view of time differs from that found in Western religions in that the latter find the sacred not in the constant repetition of creation outside of ordinary time but rather in ordinary historical time. God comes into history in biblical religion, making it possible to speak of a linear progression toward a fulfillment of history as God has

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planned it. History drives toward its completion, whether it is understood as the return of Israel to the Promised Land or the return of Jesus as the Messiah. There are elements of repetition in Western religion, of course: for example, the Jewish reenactment of the Exodus experience at the Passover Seder or the Christian reenactment of the death and resurrection of Jesus in Holy Communion. But these rituals always have an eschatological component in that they point forward to a final liberation in a distant future rather than backward to the creation in the distant past. It is not through returning to origins but through anticipating the end of history that meaning is found in biblical religion.25 This drive toward the fulfillment of life within rather than outside of history has now been secularized, according to Eliade, in political movements such as communism and fascism that seek to bring their own visions of societal perfection into the present. These movements are dangerous in that they have lost all connection with the sacred, so that while the historicism of Western religion is still linked to a transcendent reality, the secularized form of it believes that perfection is attainable here and now.26 In practice this means that historicism is now linked with political ideologies that seek to subordinate all culture and society to their own visions of the future, often through violent means. Eliade therefore seems to favor the mythic (cyclical-repetitious) view over the historical (linear-progressive), in spite of the link between historical thinking and Christianity. His preference is for a “cosmic Christianity” such as that practiced by the peasants of his youth in Romania, which viewed Jesus more as the lord of nature than of history and emphasized the cyclical nature of seasons continually renewed by the divine power of Christ more than a final transformation of history to his kingdom.27 Eliade has also applied his understanding of myth to Western popular culture, albeit in a limited way. He notes the mythological aspects of the Superman comic books, as the man of steel represents a modern hero in disguise (as mild-mannered Clark Kent) with whom readers can identify: “The myth of Superman satisfies the secret longings of modern man who, though he knows that he is a fallen, limited creature, dreams of one day proving himself an ‘exceptional person,’ a ‘Hero.’” Detective novels also offer a modern version of the battle between good and evil so that the reader, “through an unconscious process of projection and identification . . . takes part in the mystery and drama and has the feeling

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that he is personally involved in a paradigmatic—that is, a dangerous, ‘heroic’—action.”28 Whether reading or going to the movies, modern people escape from ordinary profane time and enter a “sacred” space and time.29 But even though the modern person is unavoidably and perhaps unconsciously religious, Eliade laments the fact that modern people deny the sacred, believing that they “make themselves” without any reference to a transcendent reality (as existentialism puts it).30 He would say that their religiosity is a diluted and desacralized faith that seeks fulfillment in the world rather than beyond it, and therefore, in his view, popular culture cannot have a transcendent referent. Eliade’s analysis of myth is possibly more comprehensive than any that preceded him, and it has much to commend it, but it has also been criticized for romanticizing the “primitive,” as other theories have, and for overemphasizing the contrast between Western “historical” religion and the more “mythical” religions that allegedly have the cyclical notion of time so crucial to Eliade’s analysis. Perhaps myth is not primarily or only about creation and its repetition.31 Must mythology be understood as effecting an “eternal return” to the time of origins, outside of history, or can it sometimes be understood as incorporating a historical dimension? Francisca Cho has pointed out that Chinese “mythology” does not fit Eliade’s criteria, as the dichotomy between historical and mythical time does not exist in Chinese thought. Rather than define myths as stories that narrate a creation story in order to help us escape history, she suggests that we understand myths as providing archetypes that are models for “creation in the present.” In this way, “the creation narrative can be traded in for a creation function.” The basic purpose of all types of myths is to “provide patterns for living a life,” and this can be done with or without a rejection of the historical.32 Discarding the dichotomy of myth and history might also help us see the mythic dimensions of Western religion, not only in its attempts to escape history but also within its historically presented stories. We have seen the tendency to separate myth from Western religion, which may serve either to protect Western religion from mythological analysis (where myth is viewed as bad or false) or to critique Western religion as less “true” than the more “mythological” religions (where myth is viewed as good). Such dichotomies have served the value judgments of those who made them, but they have not necessarily served the goal

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of better understanding religion. This is not to say that Eliade engages in the sort of simplistic judgments on Western religion that mark the less scholarly work of, for example, Joseph Campbell; in contrast to Campbell’s anti-Western bias, Eliade criticizes Western secular historicism (communism, fascism) but not religious historicism as it is found in Judaism or Christianity.33 Still, Eliade demonstrates a tendency to exalt those cultures that differ from the Western in their view of time—or at least exalts the nonhistorical (i.e., mythical) aspects of Western religion as more effective in relating the sacred to human life. He also tends to assume that all cultures use basically the same cosmogonic, cyclical notion of myth, which may be a generalization without basis. One thing for which Eliade deserves credit is his effort to avoid reductionism, as he was just as concerned as Geertz to provide a method that does not reduce religion to an expression of psychological or sociological forces. In order to do this, Eliade relied on a concept of the sacred as the transcendent (as in Rudolf Otto’s studies) more than as an expression of society (as in Durkheim’s studies). In practice, this means that his method does not work as well with those religions that lack a radical concept of transcendence, as we have seen. Geertz, to a greater extent than Eliade, avoided reductionism without such a “theological” concept of the sacred as the radically transcendent, but both of them understood the dialectical relationship between the sacred and the profane as one in which neither term can be reduced to the other, and there is considerable interaction between the two in both of their theories. Just as Geertz held that there is slippage between the commonsense worldview and the religious worldview, so Eliade finds the profane can be a vehicle for the sacred even as there is a continual alteration between the profane worldview and the sacred worldview. Myth gains its relevance, for both thinkers, by providing a link between the ideal world of the sacred and the ordinary world of the profane—even as I have suggested that films make a similar connection between the ideal and the real.

Jonathan Z. Smith Jonathan Z. Smith is one of those religion scholars who admits his debt to Eliade even as he provides some criticisms of him. Smith finds Eliade’s dichotomy of “archaic” and “modern” religion problematic,

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especially insofar as it may imply a periodization that is artificial. Smith believes that the two forms of religion Eliade characterizes as mythic-cyclical and historical might be better referred to as “locative” (place-centered) religion and “utopian” (future-centered) religion— although here too one must be wary of implying a development from one to the other, as both appear throughout the history of religions. More significantly, Smith calls attention to the “dark side” of religious myths, which do not always deal with a cosmogonic unity and harmony that is to be reproduced as a source of order and new life. Instead, many myths deal with unresolved conflicts and tensions in life between good and evil, order and chaos. It is not that chaos is repeatedly overcome by creation, as Eliade would have it, but that chaos itself is a continual source of power, just as sacred as its converse. Smith finds myths to be more dualistic, especially in those stories that deal with outsider figures (like tricksters) that challenge the normal way of seeing or doing things.34 In addition to calling attention to such dualism and conflict in myth and ritual, Smith has focused on the importance of the particular in his studies of religion and so is suspicious of the sort of generalizations about “the sacred” that characterize the work of Eliade and other scholars.35 Smith also criticizes those views that make it seem as if nonliterate peoples have a “primitive” and, to us, incomprehensible understanding of myth or that romanticize the “pristine” nature of this worldview as one that lacks skepticism, the ability to make distinctions, or critical thought. In such views, according to Smith, the “primitive” is viewed as incapable of “those perceptions of discrepancy and discord which give rise to the symbolic project that we identify as the very essence of being human.”36 In contrast, Smith believes that every culture, modern or not, reflects on the incongruities of its experiences and develops ways of dealing with those incongruities and tensions. For this reason, Smith insists that “there is no pristine myth; there is only application.” Myths exist as particular strategies for dealing with particular situations, and so there is no single form for all myths (e.g., Campbell’s “monomyth” or Eliade’s cosmogony) nor a pure myth that exists apart from the social context in which it is lived. As a strategy for dealing with incongruity in life, myth is “a self-conscious category mistake. That is to say, the incongruity of myth is not an error, it is the very source of its power.” Myths

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do not seek to overcome incongruity, but (like jokes or riddles) they delight in the incongruous fit of disparate elements.37 Smith gives some examples to illustrate his view of myth. The story of Hainuwele from the Wemale tribe of Ceram (near New Guinea) deals with a girl who is born in a supernatural manner and who has the ability to excrete valuable items, “cargo” from other lands such as porcelain dishes and golden earrings. Her tribesmen kill her out of jealousy, and her dismembered body is buried, out of which grows various new plant species. The classic interpretation of this myth, by Adolf Jensen, viewed this as an example of the “pristine” myth of the origin of vegetation, death, and sexuality, which has been “corrupted” in its application by reference to modern items. But Smith points out that the story is not about origins at all, as death, agriculture, and sex all exist at the beginning of the story. Instead, it is a story developed to deal with the arrival of outsiders who have “cargo” that the Wemale do not. As the white outsiders did not share these goods equally with the Wemale (as Wemale morality dictated they ought), the Wemale developed this story to explain that the cargo came from their own people, who made it their own by assimilating (i.e., killing) its source and transforming the cargo into the local food. Even though this myth does not result in the desired equalization of wealth, it speaks of a fully intelligible desire for such equality that is not incomprehensible to the outsider. In other words, the myth does not express a worldview that is totally alien to our own.38 Smith also discusses the Enuma Elish, the ancient Babylonian text that was understood by Eliade and others as a prime example of a cosmogony. According to the cosmogonic interpretation of this myth, it reenacts the creation and guarantees new life through a symbolic death and resurrection of the king. Smith, however, argues that the myth is not primarily about creation, death, or resurrection to new life but rather about the founding of Babylon and its divine kingship by the god Marduk. As such, it is a more political and historically conditioned text than is sometimes realized, as it acts to establish the legitimacy of the current rulers of Babylon. The associated ritual of the Akita festival involves a staged slapping and humiliation of the king, who is stripped of his royal garments and who engages in a negative confession (claiming he has done no wrong) before being restored. This is no symbolic death and resurrection that reenacts the cosmic cycle of life and death but

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an implied threat of what will happen to a poor ruler. Unless one rules wisely and protects Babylon, as the king claims he has in the ritual, he will be judged and destroyed. This ritual had particular relevance at the time when it was written, a period during which Babylon was occupied by the Seleucids, so it acts as “a ritual for the rectification of a foreign king.” In other words, Babylonians could accept a foreign ruler as long as he promised to comport himself as a native ruler would, and this ritual enacted both the threatened judgment (if he ruled poorly) and the promised acceptance (if he ruled well). The myth is used to deal with the tense situation of foreign occupation and provides a means to legitimize it.39 Smith then wants us to understand myths in their local sociopolitical context and not homologize them to a single idea or concept. To understand a myth, we must understand its cultural and historical situation and how it speaks to the people who tell it in that place and time. This does not mean that he reduces myths to simply political strategies, but he insists that we deal with the context in which they have meaning, and this point is well taken. Smith’s emphasis on the importance of understanding the particular details of religions and myths is perhaps his most significant legacy as a scholar of religion. It may be, however, that Smith insists too much on incongruity, to the point that myths cannot possibly resolve the conflicts with which they deal. One may hear some echoes of Lévi-Strauss’s notion of myth as involving an attempt to resolve a fundamental conflict that is doomed to fail. For Lévi-Strauss, this functioned as part of his romanticized concept of the mythic and illogical “savage” whose worldview loses credibility as soon as it is exposed to analysis. Smith has made it very clear that he does not wish to turn the myth teller into an alien and illogical creature, but it is sometimes unclear how he can avoid viewing mythological cultures in this way, given his assumptions. One can also ask if the incongruity is as all-encompassing as he believes and whether the myth actually goes further toward resolving the tension than he allows. The Enuma Elish, for example, may actually succeed in its effort to legitimize a foreign ruler. The Hainuwele myth, too, does not fail in its efforts to view foreign cargo as equivalent to native products; it simply did not convince the whites to share equally with the Ceram, which may not have been its purpose. Myth is a strategy

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for dealing with a situation, and the measure of its effectiveness may not be in the objective political changes it makes but in the attitudes it evokes in those who tell it. Such attitudes may bespeak more reconciliation and wholeness than incongruity and tension, as people generally tend to seek wholeness rather than conflict. Smith holds that by playing with incongruities, myths provide “an occasion for thought”—but it is not altogether clear what one is supposed to think in such a situation of incongruity.40 For example, he discusses how the Aranda of Australia are initiated into the mystery of the “bull-roarer,” which they have thought to be the voice of Tuanjiraka, a monster responsible for all pain and suffering, but is in fact a piece of wood whirled at the end of a string to produce a frightening sound. Initiates are told that they should not believe in this monster, as it does not really exist; Smith concludes that it is “the incongruity between the expectation and the actuality that serves as a vehicle of religious experience.”41 But it is hard to see how this in itself is very enlightening to the initiates. One could instead conclude that they are being taught that suffering does not come from any supernatural being but that it is simply the nature of life—a lesson we might all find intelligible, even helpful, in learning to view pain as a part of normal existence and not as a punishment. This message could help people deal with the conflicts created by suffering rather than simply observing or enshrining such conflicts and the incongruities related to them.

Wendy Doniger Wendy Doniger is yet another contemporary scholar who has written a great deal about myth, especially from her viewpoint as a scholar of Hinduism. A myth, in her view, is a story with “religious meaning”—in other words, a story that deals with “the sorts of questions that religions ask” about “such things as life after death, divine intervention in human lives, transformations, the creation of the world and of human nature and culture—and basically, about meaning itself.” This is not meant as a terribly precise definition, as Doniger does not want to limit what might be considered “religious,” although she assumes we all have some idea of what is to be associated with that term. A myth also has no author, as by the time it becomes a myth, its origins are always placed in the distant

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past; it is a story that has always been and so cannot, properly speaking, ever be heard “for the first time.” But myths are not isolated in a distant past, as they are retold because they are perceived as remaining relevant to subsequent ages: “Myths encode meanings in forms that permit the present to be construed as the fulfillment of a past from which we would wish to have been descended.” A myth must also be part of a mythology, a set of myths with overlapping characters and events. In this way, the myth and its themes are reinforced in the memory of the group.42 Doniger has also insisted that there is no “monomyth.” It is not the case that there is one myth endlessly repeated with variations in the world’s cultures. She is well acquainted with the tendency of myth scholars to overgeneralize about the content of myths and to ignore the details of individual stories. At the same time, she does not wish to give up the task of cultural comparison, as there may be some similarities that can be found among myths from diverse cultures and religions. If myths deal with basic questions about the meaning of life, it may be because they deal with basic human experiences such as “sexual desire, procreation, pain, death,” which are universal, although understood in different ways in different cultures.43 Words like true and false do not apply very well to myths, Doniger notes, as the historical referent for such stories is perhaps the least important measure of their value for a culture. Even cultural stories that include “impossible” situations such as a reversal of gender roles or the absence of death serve to demonstrate the undesirability of such situations and thus the necessity and “truth” of the actual order of things: “They preserve for us the cultural ‘truth’ that women should not work in the fields and men should not keep house, or the philosophical truth that we must die.” We are “better off ” with the way things are, according to such myths, as they show us how the world would be less perfect if it were different. Myths in general might be considered “true,” she allows, not in the historical veracity of the events described but in the fact that they represent a culture’s understanding of the central questions of life.44 The Western tendency to distrust the value or truth of myths, Doniger holds, is related to our tendency to discount alternate “realities,” such as those experienced in dreams. From Plato to Freud, dreams have been viewed in Western thought as expressing our “lower” desires but not an objective reality.45 In Hindu thought, in contrast, the line between

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waking and dreaming and between reality and illusion is blurred, as is shown in numerous myths; Doniger gives two examples from the text of the Yogavasistha. King Lavana dreams that he is an untouchable for sixty years, with a full set of memories of this time, then wakes up only moments after he fell asleep in his original body, but he is unable to dismiss it as complete illusion as he finds the place where he “lived” and the other people from his “dream,” who are able to verify all the details of his life there. The Brahmin Gadhi likewise dreams he is an untouchable who becomes king, but when he is discovered to be an untouchable, he kills himself—only to awaken as himself once again. He similarly is able to verify the “reality” of his dream by visiting the place where he was king.46 Both stories are interpreted within the Hindu text as demonstrating the fact that all life is an illusion or dream from the point of view of the ultimate and, in this way, to show that the distinction between “dreams” and “reality” is itself an illusion. The rigid duality between reality and unreality that characterizes Western thought is absent in Hindu thought, according to Doniger, as there are many kinds of “reality” that include concrete experience, visions, dreams, memories, past lives, and fantasies, all of which “would have to be set out at various points on a spectrum that has no ends at all.”47 All types of stories have value, then, and not only those that deal with what we normally regard as “real.” One can see that Doniger’s view of myth might apply well to film, as film also trades in the confusion between reality and ideality, suggesting that there might be “truth” even in narratives that do not deal with historical events insofar as they have the appearance of reality during the viewing experience. Films are also “true,” following Doniger, in the sense that they deal with the central questions of our culture about gender roles, sex, love, child raising, purpose in life, and death. Indeed, they deal with all the concerns of our culture and its struggles to define its worldview, morals, and identity through various stories. It might be questioned whether the filmic myths get repeated as much as traditional myths, as the stories change from one film to the next. However, as we have already noted, people do view films multiple times in some cases, and also there is a certain sameness and predictability to some films— especially those that conform to the patterns of a genre—so that audiences can expect something like the same story or at least one that is part of a general “mythology.” This does not mean that the differences

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are unimportant or that they negate the ability of films to tell meaningful stories (as early film-genre theorists held) but that these exist as variations on certain well-known themes, such as the romance, the adventure, the tearjerker, and the horror film. Doniger does note the parallels between popular culture and traditional mythology, especially in science fiction and children’s literature (which often utilizes the forms of fantasy). She also allows that “great films have mythic dimensions and often become quasi-myths in our culture.”48 But she also claims that modern Americans who have rejected their traditional religious cultures are left with “an emasculated mythology of atheism and solipsism, a degraded mythology that is found not in churches but in films and children’s books.” She admits that even this secular mythology has a community of sorts, in, for example, Star Trek conventions and online groups, but holds that “there is no group that will hold them responsible to live in a certain way because of these myths.”49 Doniger’s judgments on popular culture reflect a certain amount of prejudice that may be groundless. There is no reason to assume that people who practice the “religion” of Star Trek follow its dictates any less regularly than American Roman Catholics follow the dictates of the pope or that their community is less (or more) able to enforce its strictures. All religious communities show the remarkable ability of humans to avoid their own rules as well as sometimes to follow them. There seems no reason to dismiss the religion of popular culture out of hand because it is alleged without evidence to lack morality, commitment, or community, though these judgments are common. As modern fandoms develop and the study of them increases, more scholars (including myself) have taken them seriously as expressing coherent worldviews and values.50

William Doty William Doty is one scholar of myth who avoids making blanket judgments on popular culture and who sees the mythic dimensions present in a range of human activities outside of what is normally called “religion.” In particular, he rejects the common rationalistic dichotomy between myth and science, as he believes science itself has become a

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modern myth through which we understand the world. We believe that we have left myth behind and so entertain the “myth of mythlessness,” when in fact we have simply invented a new, scientific myth based in the rejection of transcendence (just as traditional myth was based in its acceptance). In either case, an untestable assumption based in a particular worldview determines what conclusions one will reach about the reality or unreality of the transcendent.51 Doty questions the common dichotomy between biblical stories and myths, as the biblical authors themselves used mythological materials to develop their understandings of, for example, the divinity of Jesus.52 We cannot so rigidly distinguish “our” stories from “theirs,” nor distinguish “history” from “myth” as neatly as some scholars would like. All our understandings of events are already colored by a particular mythology, but this does not mean that myths are “false” distortions of history. They are “fictional” in the sense that they are made and represent an interpretation of events, but “fictional need not mean unreal and certainly not non-empirical” or incomprehensible, as “the most statistically driven science is shaped by the values of the underlying mythical orientations of cultures.”53 In our history and science as much as in religion, we cannot directly reproduce the object of study without importing our interpretations of it into our analyses; there is no pure objectivity in any discipline, and so all modes of knowing are “fictions” created by us to help us understand the world. We should not denigrate the religious interpretation in relationship to the scientific or historical, as we need a variety of languages and methods to express our varied understandings of reality. In addition, Doty recognizes the mythological dimensions of popular culture. Aided by postmodernism, he points to the “shattering of a coherent worldview” in Western thought that has brought about a radical “de-centering” in our experience.54 No longer are we able to naively assume that we know what “reality” is or that our systems of thought can reproduce it. Deconstructive criticism looks for multiple meanings rather than a single one in a narrative and does not assume that there is a single “reality” referred to by it; the various meanings in a text are released and critiqued. In Doty’s view, “To deconstruct the mythic text would similarly be to expose the structures by which it works, to lay out the possible alternative futures to which its gestures might lead, to

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show how its expression is molded and shaped by its cultural contexts.”55 Although Doty thus uses deconstruction as a method of ideological critique, he does not propose abolishing myth altogether as some more reductionist forms of criticism have, largely because he realizes that myth will always be with us in one form or another. He does not then approach myth either totally negatively or in a “value-neutral” fashion but via a “progressive, prohumanistic” method that argues we can reenvision “those oh, so rewarding mythical resources of our common inheritance.” Doty makes it clear that he is “not interested in merely sustaining a conservative status quo that represses the mass of our population” but rather hopes “to stimulate ethically involved forays into the possible futures toward which mythological materials give us hints and promises.”56 His utopianism allows him to realize the value and necessity of a mythic worldview in constructing a new future and makes him willing to look in a variety of places for materials to reenvision it.

Conclusions These four theorists all offer ideas about myth that can be fruitfully applied to the study of film as religion. With Eliade, we can see that films are mythological in the sense that they create an alternate world, a sacred apart from the profane, and that we enter into a separate space and time when we view a film; this relates to the idea that film offers a sort of alternate reality experience, as noted in the previous chapter. On the other hand, Eliade’s tendencies to view most myths as cosmogonies and to rigidly distinguish myth from history have been found limiting in the study of religion—just as his assumption that all “real” religions have a transcendent referent may be questioned. He views the myths of popular culture as generally degenerate forms, inferior to traditional religions, and this assumption too must be questioned if we are to have a more objective understanding of film as religion. With Smith, we can see how myths often involve a fundamental tension or conflict in a situation that is not resolved via the myth so much as laid out for us to observe. Films also deal with conflicts between basic values (e.g., family versus career or moral conviction versus wealth), usually suggesting that the conflict is illusory and we can really “have it all” (e.g., be perfect parents and have great jobs), at least in

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the mythological universe. The fact that a tension remains between the myth and the reality we know in our daily lives indicates that Smith may be right in asserting that the conflict remains unresolved (at least after we leave the theater). But myths—and by extension, films—may also be more successful at providing resolution than he is willing to admit. Even if we cannot be perfect parents and perfect career women/men at the same time, as our filmic counterparts manage to be, the model proposed in the film can serve as an ideal to which we aspire, however inadequately, and one that helps us partially resolve the conflict in our daily lives. Similarly, the Christian ideal of self-sacrificial love is seldom if ever realized adequately, but the story of Christ serves as a model that Christians seek to follow—for even though they know that they cannot achieve it, it may inspire them to do more than they would otherwise. Smith’s understanding of the basic incongruities involved with religion will be discussed again in the next chapter, in relation to the concept of ritual, and there I will have occasion to say more on this point. Doniger’s view of myths can also be applied to films, for although she, like Eliade, views them as degenerate forms of traditional mythology, her analysis of myths applies quite well to films. They are narratives that express some of our culture’s understandings of the basic experiences of sex, love, pain, death, and so on and how we construct meaning in the conflicts surrounding such experiences. Films are also like the Hindu myths described by Doniger that conflate the “reality” of dreams with that of everyday experience, suggesting that the line between the “imaginary” world of myth and our own world is fluid—for films also trade in the “slippage” between the world of the film and the world outside the theater, ever seeking greater “realism” in the viewing experience. In both cases, an alternate reality is proposed that is distinguished from the everyday even while it is related to it, providing a different view of reality that can “correct or complement,” as Geertz puts it, our view of the everyday. Doniger is only really able to denigrate the myths of popular culture through her assumption that they lack the ability to enforce a moral vision. But honesty compels us to admit that few American religions can truly enforce their moral visions anymore, unless they are part of isolated communities that have strict sanctions on those who violate their codes. The greater degree of freedom in modern American society,

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compared to earlier ages or other cultures, may be the real reason people of many religious backgrounds can basically do what they want without fear of tremendous social repercussions (as long as they do not violate civil law). There is certainly no reason to propose that films lack a moral vision, for while we may not always find the morality of films to be profound or deep, there are clear moral norms that are upheld in most popular films. This does not mean that characters never do a bad thing or that they are always punished for it, but overall, films tend to support a variety of moral positions that are often repeated: for example, violence is justified when used against tyrants or criminals, family and love are more important than money, and individuals who fight for their convictions should be applauded. These moral messages may sometimes go unrecognized by audiences, but they are there nonetheless in the film as well as in the experience of its reception by viewers. Finally, Doty’s view sees myth everywhere, from the Bible to popular culture, and so avoids the elitist judgments that distinguish “our” myths from “theirs” or view one as better than the other. This does not mean that he suspends the role of judgment altogether, for he looks to find interpretations of myths that are socially progressive rather than regressive. In this way, he neither rejects popular culture altogether (as “ideology”) nor avoids judgment of it out of a supposed attempt at “tolerance.” In chapter 4, I shall look more closely at the question of how to make informed judgments on religion that are based in an effort to understand rather than on mere prejudice, and I will suggest how this might apply to the study of religion and film as well. This chapter has sought to critique various ideas of myth in order to suggest that the best aspects of them might profitably be applied to film. The next chapter looks at the concept of ritual and how it might apply to film—and also includes some reflections on the third aspect of the definition of religion, a set of morals, which forms the connecting point between myths and rituals. Myths develop an imaginary view of “that which is,” but this is always linked to a notion of “that which should be”—and this ideal is often enacted in ritual.

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Theories of myth are very often linked to theories of ritual. Rituals have been viewed as myths enacted or dramatized; they represent the world depicted in the myth and so provide a link between that world and the realm of the everyday. To be sure, while one is in ritual time and space, one is outside of ordinary (profane) time and space, but ritual makes the religious realm visible in the world in a way that myth cannot. This may be why ritual is often perceived as the place where an attempt is made to actualize the ideal world of myth, to bring its power to bear on ordinary life. If myths present a vision of the way the world is believed to “really” be (at the ultimate level)—and as such, a vision of the way it ought to be (in the empirical world) as well—then rituals act out that vision by seeking to make the ideal (what ought to be) into the real and, in this way, to connect morality to ordinary life. Rituals have not always been appreciated as much as myths. Many of the proponents of myth theory have viewed ritual as subordinate and inferior to myth, a mere acting out of the ideas already present in the myth. In this view, the fact that the myth is enacted ritually is of little religious significance, and one might just as well do without it. Ivan Strenski has argued that this belittling of ritual was linked to anti-Judaism just as the exaltation of myth was linked to Aryan racism.1 Judaism, as a modern religion based more on the performance of rituals than on systematic theology, challenged the mythophiles’ thesis that ideas, as expressed in the mythic narrative, are more important than ritual enaction, and for this reason, Judaism came under critique for its ritual focus. Of course, there is precedent for this antiritualism even in the origins of Christianity and the denunciations of Pharisaic religion found in the New Testament. As the Pharisees were represented as caring more about the details of ritual than moral practice, Judaism came to be seen by most Christians (as it still is) as a religion excessively focused on the mechanical repetition of ritual rather than faith. Protestants in particular have utilized this 61

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stereotype, as they likewise criticize Roman Catholicism for its ritual focus. The fact that Protestants themselves have just as many rituals, albeit of different sorts, often goes unacknowledged by them. Recently, however, rituals have begun to gain more credence as an essential part of religion. Modern groups often invent their own rituals, believing that they have some therapeutic or spiritual value that cannot be supplied simply by hearing or telling stories. In part, this may reflect a reaction against Protestant antiritualism, just as the New Age fascination with myth often reflects a reaction against Christianity, but even within Protestantism, there are signs of the increased recognition of ritual—for example, in the practice of more frequent communion. In any case, scholars of religion as well as others are now more willing to admit that ritual, the “doing” of religion, is just as critical to religious life as the beliefs and ideas expressed in mythology or theology. Essentially, religion must be performed to become meaningful. As with the concepts of religion and myth, there are many understandings of ritual that are possible, and the way in which we conceptualize ritual will affect what we view as ritual and how we view it. In dealing with myth, we were already dealing with ritual to some extent, but there are some specific ideas about ritual that bear discussion (especially in relation to the experiences of film viewing). In Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, Catherine Bell outlined six basic genres of ritual activities: (1) rites of passage; (2) calendrical rites; (3) rites of exchange and communion; (4) rites of affliction; (5) feasting, fasting, and festivals; and (6) political rites.2 These are clearly meant by her not as inviolate or absolute categories but as scholarly constructions that may be useful in helping us understand the great variety of ritual activities (which do not easily conform to any typology). Each of these deserves some consideration, although certain of these categories are more relevant to film viewing than others. First, there are rites of passage from one state in life to another— for example, rituals regarding admission into the community at birth, entering adulthood at puberty, the passage into marriage, and funerals that convey the person into the next world. These are very important rituals, but they seem to have little parallel to the practice of moviegoing itself—unless one considers it a rite of passage to see one’s first R-rated movie. On the other hand, movies frequently depict rites of passage and

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their significance to characters so that audiences at least vicariously engage in these rituals by identification with the characters. Story events may include formal ceremonies of passage such as weddings and funerals but also depictions of informal transitions of life such as that into adulthood. Young characters frequently have to undergo some ordeal of maturation (e.g., shooting rabies-infected Old Yeller or saving E. T.) that aids in their own personal development to a new stage of life. Such informal events may not be considered rituals, but when they are dramatized in film, they acquire significance beyond the individual character so that that person’s journey becomes one that can be symbolic of our own transitions in life as audience members. Bell’s second category, calendrical rites, seems to have little to do with filmgoing insofar as films gain their power (and their profits) from repeated viewings rather than once-a-year showings. One might point to the fact that some movies released at Christmastime do deal with the holiday, just as Independence Day (appropriately released on July 4, 1996) offered a patriotic devotion to the ideals of American civil religion celebrated at that time of year, but even in such cases, the film’s link to the day is tenuous as it is viewed at plenty of other times. In fact, before the invention of the VCR (videocassette recorder), it was probably easier to argue for the link between certain films and certain days, as they might only appear on television once each year. A movie like The Wizard of Oz (1939) obtained much of its power from a whole generation that grew up seeing it in this ritualized fashion, but even in this case, the day on which it was shown had no particular significance for one’s interpretation of the movie. Most of the ritual significance of films is clearly not related to the sort of “founding events” usually commemorated by religions yearly, such as harvest and solstice festivals, births of founders, or memorials of conquest over enemies. Momentarily skipping to the last of Bell’s categories—political rituals that promote, display, or construct power—we may see some connections between this type of ritual and the experience of film viewing. Films often promote political ideologies, and although they are not coronation ceremonies, they may assist in constructing power relationships, as ideological critics have observed. It may be obvious that a film has a political message, as in 1968’s The Green Berets (which offered John Wayne’s defense of the Vietnam War), or it may be less obvious, as in a

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film like Forrest Gump (1994), which most people took as a “feel-good” movie about a mentally challenged man who succeeds just by “being nice” but is also a revisionist history of the 1960s that manages to belittle those who protested the Vietnam War even more effectively than The Green Berets. This shows that a film may be more successful as political propaganda to the extent that it hides its objectives and appears to be just entertainment or a “personal” story. Bell’s remaining three categories have certain similarities among them that also may connect these types of rituals with filmgoing. Rites of exchange and communion, which include offerings and sacrifices; rites of affliction, purification, healing, and catharsis; and rituals of feasting, fasting, and festivals—all involve giving and receiving gifts that symbolize connection and mutual obligations between two parties. A communion or covenant is established by such giving and receiving, whether it is concrete sacrifices of food or blood or sacrifices enacted by the self-affliction of cuts or whippings. Such rites of affliction are viewed by modern Western sensibilities as “masochistic,” implying a psychological assessment of them as neurotic, but to understand such rituals, it is more helpful to look to their religious functions, associated with purification and healing. In order to heal, whether from sin or disease (often viewed as the same thing in many religions), there must be something given up, and as pain gives up pleasure, this is one form of sacrifice. It is not so much payment for the healing as it is an indication of the commitment (of the patient or the healer) to the task that requires this sacrifice. Similarly, fasting expresses a giving up, a penitent attitude on the part of one who voluntarily separates himself from the worldly pleasures of food. Such rituals of sacrifice are perhaps more often accused of being sadistic rather than masochistic, as they may inflict pain and suffering on a surrogate victim. The centrality of such rituals to religion and the important role their assessment has played in religious studies makes them worth examining in greater detail, especially because they have parallels to many of the ritual functions associated with film viewing.

Sacrifice of the Scapegoat One of the most influential interpretations of religious ritual can be traced to the work of James Frazer in his magnum opus The Golden

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Bough (1890–1915). Here he suggested that the central act of religion is the ritual performance of the murder of a king in order to pass his magical power to the next ruler—or to release his divine energy into nature and so guarantee agricultural fertility. Myths of the death and resurrection of a god or ruler are viewed by Frazer as linked to the need to bring new life to the crops each spring, as someone must be killed to supply the life force needed for new growth. Since kings do not usually relish being sacrificed yearly, substitutions were often made; a slave or an animal might serve the purpose. Frazer also noted that cannibalism is linked to this form of ritual, as the victim is sometimes eaten in order to utilize his life force as a source of energy. Frazer held that even Christian beliefs about the salvation gained by Christ’s death and resurrection and the need to “eat his body” in order to gain this benefit relate to this form of ritual.3 Although Frazer’s analysis has been severely criticized for its tendency to ignore details of individual rituals and myths that do not fit with his theories, as well as for oversimplifying the history of religion and ritual, he has proven very influential. Sigmund Freud developed his understanding of the history of religion in part from Frazer’s idea that tribes seek to replace their rulers via a ritual process that legitimates their murder and sanctions its necessity—this being, for Freud, an instance of the universal Oedipus complex that desires the death of the father.4 Mircea Eliade’s view, already discussed, also focused on myths of death and resurrection as linked to rituals meant to restore agricultural life and new growth. And more recently, René Girard developed the view that the history of religion is based on violence directed against a sacrificial scapegoat. Girard’s theory, based on both Frazer and Freud’s works, suggests that religion evolves out of a “mimetic desire” to replicate the being of the other. This desire of the self for the other is doomed to frustration insofar as it is a desire to violently take the other’s life, and yet to do so is to destroy the source of the desire itself. For this reason, a surrogate victim is chosen to be the one on whom anger and violence are released. Once the victim is destroyed, the community can be restored, as the tensions aroused by desire have been dissolved—until they build up again, requiring a similar ritual. Girard believed this violence goes unchallenged in the whole history of religion until Christianity, which

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effectively criticizes the act of scapegoating by showing the injustice of Christ’s murder and so proposes an end to the violence.5 Girard, like Frazer, risks oversimplification of the history of religion by proposing that mimetic desire is the source of all religious ritual and that all religion is based in violence. But Girard, like Frazer before him, has hit upon a feature of religion that, even if it is not the key to all ritual, is a major factor in many rituals. Sacrifice and scapegoating are common religious practices, and many rituals are structured around these functions. It is also clear that many films engage in scapegoating and that audiences experience some sort of catharsis in seeing victims violently sacrificed in movies. This may explain the popularity of horror movies as well as action movies that feature ever-increasing doses of violence. Although special effects have made it easier to depict violence (through the use of computer-generated images), there is also an appetite for extreme images of violence that is fed by such films. It is common to blame the movie and television industry for creating and promoting such images, but this criticism ignores the fact that they tend to give audiences what they want—that is, what sells. No one is making people see violent movies; they go to see them with eagerness, again and again. So if movies are to become less violent, it will have to be because people stop liking violent movies. At the present time, this prospect does not seem very likely. There is a great temptation to moralize on this point, and it may in fact be necessary to make moral judgments on the violent nature of films (as well as of religion). But I would also argue that one cannot legitimately critique or dismiss films (or religions) without first seeking to understand what they are saying and why they are saying it, and violent films are no exception to this rule. We should be wary, most of all, of setting ourselves up as judges over certain phenomena with the implication that we have achieved some superiority over them. When Girard, for example, argues that Christianity has transcended scapegoating, he puts himself in a good position to criticize everything else. While he acknowledges that Christianity has not in practice held to its ideals very well and so has also participated in the evils of scapegoating, his idealized construction of Christianity still allows him to take the moral high ground. Perhaps Christianity is not as different from other religions as he would like to think, and perhaps the positive features he finds in

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the Christian critique of scapegoating are not altogether absent from other religious traditions. After all, there is a significant tradition of the critique of sacrifice in many religions, including Judaism and Islam (as God is not believed to require a violent sacrifice to forgive) as well as in Hinduism and Buddhism (in which nonviolence is a fundamental principle; theistic Hinduism has also argued that the grace of God is so great that sacrifice is unnecessary for atonement).6 There are also other ways to understand the power and benefit of sacrifice besides that proposed by Girard and perhaps better ways of understanding why people regard it as valuable. His rejection of cults of sacrifice actually has a long history in Western culture, as both Judaism and Christianity have for almost two millennia eschewed sacrificial cults because “God desires mercy and not sacrifice.” It is believed by both religions that we do not need to offer up victims to atone for our sins, as God’s mercy and our repentance are sufficient. What is often ignored, however, is the fact that the destruction in 70 CE of the temple in Jerusalem was what ended the Jewish cult of sacrifice—and not philosophical or moral objections to its practice. Christians also developed the view that Christ is the final sacrifice largely after the destruction of the temple, and they thereafter understood his significance in light of this end of the cult. All moralizing about sacrifice, then, should take into account that its rejection in Western culture was based not on a critique of the notion of sacrifice itself but on the fact that it was no longer viewed as possible or necessary to perform sacrifices. It can even be claimed that the idea of sacrifice remains critical to these religions in spite of its literal impossibility for Jews (due to the absence of a temple) and its metaphysical superfluity for Christians (due to the perceived final nature of Christ’s sacrifice). The Jewish thinker Michael Wyschogrod, for example, has argued that sacrifice is still a critical part of Judaism that is often illegitimately ignored. He claims that the modern rationalist rejection of sacrifice ignores the ritual need to confront God that is supplied by sacrifice. Furthermore, Wyschogrod points to the fact that the Jewish commemoration of the cult of sacrifice (e.g., on Yom Kippur) itself constitutes a form of the cult, as the idea of sacrifice is not totally rejected; indeed, prayers for the return of the temple and thereby the cult of sacrifice are also part of contemporary Jewish religious observance.7

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If we are to allow such a positive function to sacrifice, we might be willing to counter Girard’s suggestion that it is based in a violent desire for the life of the other with the assertion that its purpose is to ritually expiate one’s own guilt—which is, after all, the stated purpose of rituals of sacrifice. Neither is this expiation accomplished in a mechanical fashion without the repentance of the sinner, which remains a precondition for the efficacy of the sacrifice. Sacrifice should be understood not as an alternative to repentance, as if it excused one from taking responsibility for one’s sins in its “projection” of sins onto another, but rather as the external act that gives physical expression to the internal act of repentance.8 This is true for the ancient Jewish ritual of driving the scapegoat off a cliff just as it is for the ritual commemoration of Christ’s death in the sacrament of communion. Perhaps we need to redefine the term scapegoating, noting that it did not originally imply its contemporary meaning of “blaming someone else for your sins” but rather a ritual whereby one’s own repented sins are carried away via a sacrificial act. In both Judaism and Christianity, the ritual could not be effective in removing one’s sins unless the sinner had already repented and believed in this ritual as the completion of the process of repentance rather than its replacement. One might argue, especially in the case of the Christian view, that God’s act of sacrifice in Christ precedes and grounds our own act of repentance, making it possible, but it is still true that the death of Christ will be ineffective for those who do not repent and allow God’s act to be efficacious in bringing salvation. Even those theologians, such as Augustine, who have insisted that it is God alone who saves us (as we lack the free will to repent) have had to admit that the sinner cannot be saved unless he repents; they simply viewed that act of repentance as ultimately made possible by God as the one who makes the human will repentant. Whether it comes from God or ourselves, however, that repentance is necessary to make the salvation brought by the sacrifice effective. Another apparent difference between the Christian view of sacrifice and other religious views of sacrifice is that, in Christianity, God offers up the sacrifice rather than humans. But even here, the sacrifice must be offered by one who is human as well as divine, or it will not be effective as a means of atonement and reconciliation with God. Christ is viewed

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not as a replacement or substitute for us so much as a representative who makes possible our reconnection to God; as such, the fact that he is human is crucial in allowing an identification with him and thereby our own repentance.9 Against Girard, then, I would argue that sacrificial “scapegoating” is based not in a violent desire to destroy the other that is projected onto an innocent third party but in the need to be reconciled to the god(s), to present a gift to the divine as a sign of one’s contrition, and to heal the gap that has opened between the divine and the human as a consequence of human wrongdoing. Girard views the Christian idea of sacrifice as unique in representing a critique of sacrifice as such, chiefly because the victim is perceived as being innocent and his murder as unjust. However, this idea, too, already had precedent in the Jewish notion that righteous martyrs who were killed for their faith in God can, by their death, atone not only for their own sins but for those of others as well. This concept is found in the “suffering servant” poem in Isaiah 52–53, and it was developed in later Jewish writings.10 The idea that those unjustly murdered for their faith might serve as an atoning sacrifice for sin is continuous with the notion that one offers up something of great worth to God as a sign of one’s devotion and repentance, and it does not necessarily discredit the idea of sacrifice as such. The difference is in the fact that the martyrs (and Jesus) willingly went to their deaths and were not unwilling scapegoats. In being a sacrifice for the sins of others, then, they can only be viewed by those others with feelings of gratitude and the desire to emulate their faith and sacrifice, as they are held up as a model “for the godly life.” This encourages their followers likewise to be willing to sacrifice to God, whether it is their possessions or their lives. It might be argued that sacrifice has always represented such a giving of self rather than a projection of guilt onto another. Surely, Girard is right to criticize those forms of sacrifice and scapegoating that sanction violence, especially against oppressed groups who are accused of either imaginary crimes or the crimes of the group in power. He is right to note a family resemblance between the lynch mob and the sacrificial cult, but he is wrong to ignore the differences. There may also be an important function to sacrifice that cannot be entirely discarded, which cannot be met in any other way. This does not mean that all forms of sacrifice are equally acceptable ethically but that it

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may be impossible to avoid all notions of sacrifice in any religion, even though some may be more “ethical” than others, meaning, for example, that they do not rest on violence done involuntarily to other persons. Christianity, too, may not have left sacrifice behind so much as transformed it, just as each religion develops the concept of sacrifice in its own way. To suggest that the Christian approach to sacrifice is the only valid one is to fail to look at how the concept functions in diverse religious traditions, many of which may have equally “valid” concepts—if by “valid” we mean that it functions as a ritualized expression of penitence that does not sanction involuntary violence toward others or the avoidance of responsibility for one’s own misdeeds.

Sacrifice in Theater and Film I have spent some time on the concepts of sacrifice and scapegoating because these ideas appear as part of the rituals of filmgoing as well. This is not so surprising when one notes the long history of these ideas in association with literature and theater. It is not always recognized that Frazer had a great effect not only on religious studies but also on literary studies and that his own work is sometimes considered more a part of literary criticism than religious criticism.11 Also, Girard had a background in literature and continued to write in this field.12 This situation appears less coincidental when one looks more deeply into the history of literary theory, as Aristotle’s Poetics—the text that has been regarded as the basis for almost all subsequent theory of theater and for a good deal of literary theory—develops an understanding of tragedy, the highest form of drama (in Aristotle’s estimation), based on an interpretation of Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex that emphasizes its connection with scapegoating. Aristotle defines a tragedy as follows: “Tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work; in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.”13 Aristotle differed from Plato in his appreciation of theater chiefly because he believed the “catharsis of emotions” it involved was not harmful

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but healthy. Theater satisfies the need people feel to express certain potentially negative emotions, such as pity or fear, but in a socially acceptable manner. In order for theater to be effective in arousing pity and fear, however, certain plots are to be avoided. First, the plot should not involve a good person passing from happiness to misery, as this is “not fear-inspiring or piteous, but simply odious.” Second, it should not involve a bad person passing from misery to happiness, as the injustice of this arouses no pity or fear. Third, it should not involve an extremely bad person falling from happiness to misery, as this will arouse neither pity nor fear, for “pity is occasioned by undeserved misfortune, and fear by that of one like ourselves,” with neither condition being met in this situation. What remains, then, is “the intermediate kind of personage, a man not preeminently virtuous and just, whose misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice and depravity but by some error of judgment.”14 In this way, we see someone with whom we can identify, who is neither perfectly good nor perfectly evil and who suffers because of a “tragic flaw” that leads him to disaster. This situation results in catharsis because we are able to feel the suffering of another even while we recognize that it is not wholly undeserved. We identify with the tragic hero as a victim of fate even while we realize that he has made that fate through his own actions. Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex typifies Aristotle’s view of tragedy and is used repeatedly by him as an example. In this play, Oedipus has already killed his father and married his mother long ago but still does not know this as he was adopted by others shortly after his birth and never knew who his true parents were. As ruler of Thebes, he seeks to find out who has brought suffering on his city, only to find that it is he who has done this as a result of his transgressions. After learning the truth, he blinds himself. His own desire to know and his pride and overconfidence are his undoing. The pleasure of the tragedy, according to Aristotle, is that Oedipus is not a very bad man, and in fact he means to do good, so we can identify and sympathize with him, and yet he has committed evil deeds (albeit unknowingly) and so deserves punishment. This means that his suffering is not “odious” to us, although we regret it and suffer with him. Oedipus may be considered a “sacrifice for our own sins” insofar as we can identify with him (as one who is neither totally good nor totally bad) and can experience catharsis in witnessing and participating

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in his suffering. He is a “scapegoat” in the sense we have defined the term, not as one whose suffering replaces ours but as one whose suffering represents our suffering. Literary scholars have noted the connection between religious ritual and drama and, in particular, the structure of tragedy as interpreted by Aristotle. In a seminal essay, Francis Fergusson argued that Oedipus Rex is best understood in relation to religious rituals of the sacrifice of the king or a surrogate (following Frazer’s view) to restore life to the infertile city.15 According to such a view, Sophocles saw drama as a means of conveying the ideas of sacrifice and redemption present in the old myths. The redemption of Oedipus himself is enacted by the end of Sophocles’s oedipal trilogy, in Oedipus in Colonus. A similar structure can be found in Aeschylus’s Oresteia trilogy, as Orestes is redeemed at the end of the last play, The Furies, when the titular entities are deprived of their vengeance on Orestes for the murder of his mother and he is restored and forgiven. As with Oedipus, we feel for Orestes and desire his restoration because we identify with him and can understand how he came to commit his crime, even if we cannot excuse it—in his case, he killed his mother, Clytemnestra, for killing his father, Agamemnon, and his mother’s deed in turn was understandable, as Agamemnon had (albeit reluctantly) sacrificed their daughter to the gods in fulfillment of an oath to do so if he had victory in battle. We can identify and sympathize with all the characters in this story, and that is what makes it such a fine tragedy, in Aristotle’s terms. Some scholars have criticized Fergusson’s thesis, suggesting that there are more differences between religious rituals and drama than similarities, as rituals involve a designated community that participates in certain actions in order to effect a certain result.16 But the similarities still exist, and the effect of a drama on an audience can be just as significant as the effect of a religious ritual; there may even be no real distinction between the two, except that we call one “religion” and one “theater.” There are also communities of theatergoers and filmgoers, after all, that at least exist during the performance and often outside of it as well, and the functions the drama performs may be basically the same as those performed by the rituals we more often designate as “religious”—namely, the transmission of catharsis, redemption, hope, and so forth.

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If there is a connection between tragedies and religious rituals of sacrifice or scapegoating, perhaps it is in the fact that both help people recognize the imperfections in themselves and in others, admit the suffering associated with such imperfections, and work to overcome such. The possibility of forgiveness and redemption is also invoked. To suggest these things is not to “Christianize” either tragedy or the related rituals, as Aristotle’s view was developed long before the Christian era, and its continuing influence on theater is not strictly confined to the Christian background of Western civilization. Even as significant a non-Western myth as the Indian religious epic, the Mahabharata, seems to have much the same structure when dramatized, in that audiences can identify with the characters and feel their tragic plight because they have both good and bad qualities and often do not fully deserve what happens to them. In this story, one set of cousins must displace the other from the throne of the kingdom to restore justice and peace to the land, even though this forces them to do combat with beloved members of their own family. It is not an imposition of Christian or Greek categories on this story to note the tragic qualities of Karna, who unwittingly becomes the enemy of his own brothers when he pledges his allegiance to their enemies, or those of Bhisma and Drona, who fight for the king against those whom they have raised and taught as their own children. Everyone must do their duty (dharma) in this Hindu epic, and they are redeemed for doing so in spite of (or perhaps because of) the suffering this action brings on them. This is clearly the religious message of the Bhagavad Gita, the climax of the Mahabharata, in which Krishna tells Arjuna he must do his duty and fight even though it may seem wrong to do so. I do not mean to deny the uniqueness of Hindu tragedy in distinction from Greek or Christian tragedy or to insist on a “universal form” of tragedy but simply to suggest that there are cross-cultural similarities here in the notions of suffering that is only partially deserved, fates that must be accepted, and possible redemption that results from virtuous behavior. Interestingly, however, most films do not utilize the classic structure of tragedy—because even though they have elements in them that parallel aspects of tragedy, including sacrifice and scapegoating, these elements are understood in a variety of ways that differ from their use in tragedy. The Godfather films represent a somewhat rare case of a set of films that do approach classic tragedy. We identify with Michael

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Corleone and understand how he is led to do evil to protect those he loves, even while we also see that he deserves the punishment that befalls him in the loss of his family—the very thing he sought to save. But even these films are not exactly like classic tragedies in that they also have characteristics of the gangster film genre; in particular, audiences admire and like the gangsters, identifying with them even in their acts of violence that are viewed as justified in the context of the film. This genre allows audiences a fantasy of rebellion and power, even though the gangsters suffer for their rebellion in the end. In this way, we might consider them to be the scapegoats who represent our own selfish desire for power and who are also punished for it in our place—but this “punishment” may not be viewed as entirely deserved by those who identify with the gangsters’ resistance to the dominant culture. There are also those films in which the hero sacrifices himself or herself for a greater cause, and in these too, the hero may be flawed and so in need of atonement for his or her own sins. These are not exactly tragedies in that the hero is not required to suffer because of misdeeds, necessarily, but takes on suffering partly for the sake of others and partly because the recognition of his or her own imperfections leads the character to choose a certain path. It may be that a past history of violence taints the hero, as in Shane (1953), so that even though he is the only one who can dispatch the villains, he must leave at the end to keep “guns out of the valley.” He knows that he will always be a gunslinger and cannot avoid the consequences, which include exclusion from society and family life. We are relieved that he saves the farmers—and so identify with them—but we also identify with Shane in his imperfections, which we share, for all of us have violent impulses we need to control, just as he does. The fact that this prevents him from being more fully integrated into society is his personal tragedy. He is the scapegoat for our violent feelings that are projected upon him, but this does not disown us of responsibility for them (as Girard might say). Rather, he represents our guilt and suffering related to our own ambiguous feelings about violence; we sometimes believe it is necessary, even though it cannot be accepted as part of normal societal behavior. The fact that we feel for him shows that we feel the pain of his difficult decision and that, even if he does the dirty work, we share in it as the ones represented by him.

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It is not only Westerns that have such “tainted heroes” whose sins lead them to sacrifice for others. Sling Blade (1996) dealt with a mentally challenged man who had been in a criminal institution since childhood after he hacked to death his mother and her illicit lover. He now understands the consequences of his actions and so is released into the world. He meets a family who befriends him (just as Shane did) and who are in need of protection from the woman’s abusive boyfriend. The hero takes it upon himself to kill the abuser because he feels it is necessary, even though he believes murderers go to hell, as he wants to save the family. He suffers for being the only one who could save them, like Shane, and in a similar way, audiences feel his suffering as one who is excluded from society for doing the dirty work we might like to do ourselves. Our guilt is projected onto him, but we also feel that guilt and pain as our own. Such films may be criticized for giving tacit approval to the violence of the heroes and may be viewed as simply expressing the dominant ideology that legitimates violence in the service of “self-defense.” They certainly express and contribute to the common morality that finds violence easy to sanction and excuse. But in seeking to understand the appeal of these films, we need to understand the need they fulfill of dealing with our conflicted thoughts and feelings regarding violence and its justification. Every religious tradition has wrestled with these issues, and the filmic religion does as well. Horror movies also feature sacrificial victims, who tend to be (at least in recent movies) sexually active teenagers. In this sense, they are “guilty” of actions deemed sinful by parents though not really by the young audiences that see such films. It can be suggested that audiences identify with these victims because they feel they deserve punishment for their own sexual “sins,” and they experience catharsis through witnessing their destruction. But it is also an important fact that horror movies are seldom taken totally seriously, so the ritual performed by their viewers may be one of laughingly denying that there is any boogeyman waiting to kill them when they have sex. The whole idea of punishment for sexual transgressions is rejected in the often comic tone these films assume and in the humorous appropriation of them by their audiences. It can also be observed that films frequently deal with suffering that seems totally undeserved, and the genre of “melodrama” is sometimes distinguished from tragedy in this aspect. Aristotle dismissed such

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stories as incapable of arousing fear or pity in us, but it is hard to see why. Granted that we might not feel fear or pity for an evil character (whether he suffers good fortune or bad), if an innocent character suffers, that situation seems quite capable of arousing both our pity and our fear. Perhaps Aristotle’s objection to the dramatization of totally undeserved suffering is more moral than aesthetic; it may be equally cathartic for the audience, but it depicts a less just situation. What audiences see in a melodrama is not punishment for wrongdoing but a representation of how to deal with suffering that is not deserved, which is another important function of religion. The success of a film (or novel) such as Gone with the Wind (1939), for example, is surely due in large part to women’s ability to identify with Scarlett O’Hara and her troubles, even though they are clearly not all her fault. Some feminist analysis of “women’s films” (perhaps the most popular form of film melodrama) has suggested that the apparently undeserved suffering of the heroines is in fact implied to be deserved by the narrative and that women are thereby told they deserve to suffer—especially when they seek to challenge the male hierarchy. But another analysis might conclude that women enjoy these films not because they have accepted the idea that they deserve to suffer but because they identify with the women who are made to suffer so undeservingly. They find resources for how to deal with the unjust suffering they undergo through witnessing and participating in the heroic efforts of female characters to challenge and overcome their situations, even when they are ultimately not successful. When the heroine of Waterloo Bridge (1940) is forced to turn to prostitution to survive after her true love goes off to war, we are meant to think not that she deserves this fate but that circumstances have unjustly forced her to it. Such films are “tearjerkers” because they make audiences (especially women) cry with sympathy; they can identify with them, and they see how an unjust world often makes women suffer. There is an implied criticism of a male-dominated world that does not give the same options to women as it does to men and that makes women pay dearly for this. Male viewers of Anna Karenina (1935/1948) may have thought the adulterous heroine gets what she deserves, but female viewers may have identified with her as one who could only find true love outside of a marriage that was like a prison. Just because women lose out at the end of such films, this does not mean that

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the films support the status quo; they are simply being realistic about the patriarchal nature of the world, even while they critique it. In a similar way, the female action movie Thelma and Louise (1991) was criticized for telling audiences that women who challenge patriarchy must die, but the film was rather clear in its message that they do not deserve to do so.17 Their choice to die rather than be captured implies a rejection of the male world, even though it means they can no longer live in this world at all. If they really had escaped to Mexico, the criticism of patriarchy might even have been muted as this would make it appear as if patriarchy was not such a serious threat to women’s lives. The fact that women who have challenged patriarchal structures die at the end of a movie does not automatically make the audience think it is right that they die. Along these lines, one could note that no one claimed Boys Don’t Cry (1999) was a sexist film because it told the true story of Brandon Teena, a transgender man born in a female body who was raped and murdered; rather, it challenged the sexist forces that killed him by its clear depiction of their brutal and violent consequences. We can see, then, that there are numerous ways in which films may offer rituals by means of which audiences can identify with characters and their sufferings, whether such sufferings are viewed as just or unjust. In either case, a catharsis of emotions is achieved, but also a message is received about how to deal with such sufferings and the conflicts associated with them. Films, as well as religious rituals, involve cognitive strategies to help us deal with life as well as the affective release of emotions; to view them as involving only cognition or only emotion would be to miss the fact that such rituals address the whole person in his or her dimensions as a thinking, emotional, and moral being. As Geertz put it, suffering poses challenges to all three of these faculties (intellectual explanation, emotional endurance, and moral will), which require a response, and that response is often made by religious rituals.

Liminality and Carnivals: Challenging and/or Reinforcing the Status Quo There are obviously many other functions of ritual activity that cannot be reduced to forms of sacrifice. Alongside rituals of fasting, which seem to express a penitential function, Bell places rituals of feasting that may

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express thanksgiving (especially as a feast after a fast) or a sense of the unity of the community. They may also express the power of the giver, who creates a sense of obligation in those to whom he gives the feast, as in North American potlatch festivals, for which the host spends a small fortune. There is nothing really analogous to this ritual function in moviegoing in spite of the large amount of candy and popcorn consumed in theaters. There is another type of ritual Bell mentions that I have not yet touched upon, however, and that is the “carnival.” Carnivals feature an atmosphere of jubilation and celebration, but more than that, they rejoice in lampooning the status quo and even apparently reversing or overthrowing it. The anthropologist Victor Turner made the study of this aspect of ritual a focal point of his own research, as he argued that societies need to periodically challenge the status quo in this ritualized fashion. Turner draws on the work of his predecessor Arnold van Gennep, who analyzed the structure of rites of passage as including a separation from the community, a “liminal” phase during which one exists outside the community, and a reintegration into the community at a new level.18 Tribal male puberty rituals, for example, clearly utilize this schema. Turner develops this idea by suggesting that the liminal phase involves a suspension of societal structures that allows people to engage in activities that would normally be considered inappropriate or even obscene. Among the Ndembu, for example, a ritual of cross-sexual joking involves the chanting of songs that refer frankly to sexual organs and functions as men and women comically insult each other with accusations of adultery even while they exalt their sexual prowess over the opposite gender. But this ritual can only occur because a special formula has been previously chanted that legitimates such normally inappropriate behavior for the purposes of the ritual; in this way, the “singing is without shame” because it is done for healing purposes—in this case, to strengthen a woman who is about to bear (or has just born) twins.19 One might wonder why displays of obscenity would help a pregnant woman. Turner suggests that the connection can be found in the fact that twins were perceived as a danger in the African cultures he studied, and that danger required drastic (ritual) action to be neutralized. It was not only that twins involved a practical hardship for the mother (who must nurse two children, for example) but that twins are unusual

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enough to be viewed as representing a potential threat. Twins are strange in being two yet one, and this strangeness must be domesticated as part of the social order through some appreciation of their unity-in-duality. Men and women represent a similar unity-in-duality as they are distinct and yet can operate in harmony and indeed must in order for society to survive.20 This is why a ritual that jokingly depicts the tensions between the sexes via normally inappropriate humor can serve as a way of calling attention to the differences and yet also reassert the harmony of the two—not only through a joyous depiction of sexual union but through the fact that after this liminal suspension of decorum, life returns to its normal structure. The need for the structure of society or proper gender relations is asserted precisely through its questioning, because that questioning occurs in a liminal period in which the normal rules are suspended. One can gain a new appreciation for structure through momentarily stepping outside of it, and that is what such rituals do for the communities that practice them. Aside from simply depicting a contrast with the ordinary, however, the liminal phase of ritual can also depict the ideal of the unstructured community, what Turner calls “communitas.” In communitas, in distinction from the hierarchically structured society, all are equal, and there is no ranking to give one power over another (except perhaps the authority of the ritual elders).21 This form of utopia cannot really exist, as no society can exist without structure—but this utopian ideal of communitas is just as critical to the functioning of society as the realism that requires structure, for it reminds a people of their essential unity and the need for all to exercise power justly and benevolently toward everyone.22 Turner describes, from the notes of McKim Marriott, the Holi festival of Indian villages as a form of ritual that demonstrates the necessity of communitas. All normal rules of propriety are suspended at this time so that low-caste people may without fear “beat up” and ridicule members of the upper classes. The comic tone assures that no one is really hurt, though the measures taken may be more than merely symbolic. The village landlord had diesel oil poured on his head, Brahmins are hit with sticks by female latrine cleaners, husbands are attacked by their wives, a moneylender was given a mock funeral, and the anthropologist (Marriott) was made to dance in the streets wearing a necklace of shoes. The “victims” in each case, however, are seen to be smiling and seemingly

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enjoying the disgrace, as they undoubtedly know the humiliation is temporary and represents a harmless challenge to their authority. But it is not only a reversal of status that takes place, in which the subordinate become insubordinate; there are also unlikely alliances formed in the streets between members of upper and lower classes, as Brahmins and washermen sing together and priests and water carriers join together in throwing dirt on leading citizens. Turner views this as evidence of the fact that communitas is being ritually established as a place in which social distinctions are not reversed but abolished altogether. This reminds everyone of the ideal of unity, even as it reestablishes the hierarchy in a purified form at the end of the ritual.23 This sort of ritual is not totally absent from Western societies. The favorite high school teacher or coach who is thrown into the swimming pool at the end of the year usually bears this well because the “disrespect” in this case represents an attempt by students to overcome the structured gap between the teacher and themselves in order to show affection—in Turner’s terms, communitas. Turner also notes that the ritual of Halloween represents an opportunity for children to challenge their low social status with the imaginary threat of a “trick” and their allegedly frightening costumes and so to deal with their own fears of authority figures by acting the criminal (e.g., pirate or gunslinger).24 We also find the “inappropriate” or extreme enacted in popular films, and that is why this aspect of ritual is particularly apposite to our analysis. Frequently, moralistic or religious responses to films condemn the outrageous behavior of movie characters as they make such poor role models. This argument misses the point that many people have no intention of actually doing the things they see done in movies; the benefit they receive from seeing the “extreme” enacted is not moral advice on how to behave. Rather, viewers see the film’s characters flouting authority and structure, and this serves both to maintain that very structure (through the temporary challenge to it, which delineates its opposite) and to challenge it by expressing the hope for an alternative form of society. This alternative may not always look like utopia, but it tends to express some of the hopes of the target audience. Movies targeted at adolescents express liminality particularly well. Most of the teenagers who liked Risky Business (1983) did not emulate the protagonist in setting up brothels in their parents’ homes, but they

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vicariously enjoyed this extreme action as a form of protest against the strictures of their own lives. It also can be noted that the hero does not take this course as a sort of deliberate affront to his parents; rather, he is coerced into it after he hires a prostitute and then finds himself initially unable to pay her high fee. Her boss robs his house, and in order to restore his parents’ possessions, he agrees to host the “risky business.” Needless to say, all is returned to normal by the time his parents return so that they never know; in addition, his brothel inadvertently services an admissions counselor from Princeton, who in gratitude assures his admission to the college. No teenager would consider this a realistic way to get into a good college, so parents need not fear their children will take the narrative as a literal model for their own behavior, but it does allow young people to temporarily step outside of acceptable norms of behavior so that they might return to their prescribed roles refreshed and perhaps willing to accept them for the sake of structure. The hero is allowed to do this, as he ends up following the role his parents expect of him—being a good student at a good school—and no consequences for his rebellion are observed. The filmgoers, through identification with him, undergo the same process of stepping outside cultural norms in the viewing of the film, as well as the return to normalcy when they leave the theater. In their case, too, there is no punishment for the ritual participation in normally proscribed behavior. Their desire for freedom is affirmed and legitimated in the context of the film, even while they know that such an ideal is impossible in the “real” world. The inappropriate behavior is not always sexual in nature. In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), the hero is a high school student who skips class for the day with his friends and manages to avoid both detection by his parents and capture by a school administrator. Their adventures seemingly have no ill consequences except for his friend’s willful destruction of his father’s prize sports car, but this is legitimated as a necessary if drastic measure for getting the attention of his neglectful father. Ferris, however, has loving parents who believe he has been sick in bed all day and think of him as sweet and kind—which he actually is, as he is a loving son and friend who has no desire to hurt anyone. He is thus able to step outside of structure for the day but can also return to it without resentment and without consequence.

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Movies directed toward even younger viewers also feature plots in which the child heroes challenge the structures of their lives, notably the subordination to parental authority that prevents them from taking any really significant action. Children desire control over their lives that societal structures do not allow them, and so they enjoy movies that indulge their fantasies of having the upper hand. Classic children’s books (often made into films as well) also have this structure, in that parents may die or disappear toward the beginning of the narrative (e.g., The Secret Garden, The Little Princess, James and the Giant Peach, and even The Cat in the Hat) in order to allow the children to respond to and control the action more directly. In E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982), the father has left, and the mother remains, but she is so distracted that she does not even notice the alien in her house. This leaves the children to care for him and, ultimately, to get him to his spaceship in defiance of the authorities. Viewers enjoy watching the children seize control, for in this way, they show what children would like to believe about themselves: that they know better than the grownups what is right. It is not only movies designed for adolescents and children that depict liminal behavior that we are not really meant to emulate. Infidelity is frequently romanticized in films, and although there are usually consequences for such immoral behavior, audiences temporarily enjoy stepping outside accepted norms as much as children do. Even those who would never consider infidelity may be refreshed by their identification with unfaithful spouses. Women’s romantic fiction operates on this premise, providing faithful wives with a fantasy escape from their marriages—not that their marriages are necessarily bad, but they enjoy the temporary suspension of structure that such narratives invoke. The immense popularity of the book and film The Bridges of Madison County (1995) was largely due to the tremendous sympathy the story creates for its heroine, who is married to a good man with good kids and yet longs for adventure and romance, found in the traveling photographer with whom she has a brief affair. She stays with her husband in the end out of duty and love of family, but she still felt the pull to escape. The story is told in retrospect, as her grown children have discovered her diary many years later after her death, and the legitimacy of her feelings is finally recognized by them when they accept her dying wish to have her ashes tossed off one of the bridges she associated with her illicit lover. Initially

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repelled by this, they come to allow this ritual closure to her life precisely because she remained a dutiful mother all her life (accepting structure) and so can be permitted this liminal violation in death. Again, the audience replicates such a desire to balance duty/structure with freedom/ liminality, and the story’s treatment of this duality was probably much of the reason for its popularity. Adults also have nonsexual fantasies, such as abandoning an unfulfilling job (expressed well by at least the title of 1981’s Take This Job and Shove It, a film inspired by the popular country music song) or making the workplace more hospitable to women (e.g., 1980’s Nine to Five, in which three women kidnap their boss and create a nonsexist office). Office Space (1999) also offered a fantasy of rebellion of IT workers against their software company, and Horrible Bosses (2011) gave form to the fantasy of three men who want to actually murder their bosses. Violent movies also clearly offer such opportunities to those frustrated by their place in society, as working-class men enjoy seeing Bruce Willis defeating the capitalist villains of Die Hard (1988) and watching a corporate office being destroyed in the process. The popular war film The Dirty Dozen (1967) also traffics in liminality, as the heroes are all criminals who have a great deal of trouble accepting military authority. While this valorization of criminals offended some viewers, the popularity of the film among nonconvicts attests to the fact that even law-abiding citizens can identify for a brief time with those outside of society and enjoy being nonconformists with no real cost. They can return to their daily lives having fantasized about violating the codes they must normally uphold. Although we may see a psychological function in such fantasy, as it involves certain cathartic benefits for the viewer who indulges himself or herself in this way, we should not reduce the benefits to only those that accrue to the isolated individual viewer. Such an analysis might miss the communal function of this liminal representation by reducing its role to that of merely private fantasy/catharsis. The fact that a film is usually shared by an audience makes it a communal experience in which the group together experiences the benefits of temporarily discarding social norms. Teenagers enjoy seeing movies like American Pie (1999) together precisely so that they can share the pleasures of challenging the status quo, as their own ideal teenage “communitas” forms a challenge to the parental society of structure and rules.

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Although I have been arguing that the moral critique of this aspect of film may be misguided in that it misses the necessity of challenge to the social norms embodied in the “inappropriate” or risqué, I would not abandon the possibility of moral critique altogether in a celebration of relativism. Not all depictions of the inappropriate are necessarily harmless; it has been argued, for example, that violent movies may cause people to be more violent. The evidence for such claims is disputed— and there are certainly many people who watch violent movies without becoming more violent—but this does not mean there are no harmful effects from the depiction of liminal behavior. The Ndembu were able to engage in “obscene” behavior in a prescribed manner because they also knew they would return to normalcy afterward, just as some people in our society can enjoy the depiction of inappropriate behavior before returning to social conformity. If people have already rejected authority and structure, however, films that depict liminality may simply confirm in them their rejection of societal values. Without a strong system of social sanctions against inappropriate behavior in place, the invocation of liminality may be dangerous. In a society without a homogeneous set of moral norms, such as our own, this danger is more obvious. The rituals of liminality described by Turner occur in societies that already have a high degree of social conformity. The flouting of societal and sexual norms leads to no actual infidelity, rape, or significant bodily harm; the “beatings” and insults suffered have no permanent effects and are accepted in the same comic spirit that pervades the play of children pretending to fight in our own society. It can be disputed whether the depiction of violent behavior in popular films is such a harmless form of play or whether it actually incites some to violence. If the latter can be shown to be the case, then it is not a form of speech that is legally protected in the United States. In practice, however, it is very difficult to prove that a particular example of speech is either helpful or harmful.25 For our purposes, we need only affirm that films may be either and that we have no a priori reason for assuming that a particular film has to be read one way or the other; what is harmful to one may be helpful to another, and vice versa, which is another reason that we need to consider the audience reaction rather than assume that a film will necessarily lead to antisocial behavior just because it offends us. But it may also be true, as Jon Pahl has argued, that a return from liminality that reinscribes

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participants into a violent society does not liberate them from violence but serves to legitimate and perpetuate it.26 Of course, not all films can be reduced to exercises in liminality any more than they can all be reduced to forms of vicarious sacrifice, but both these categories that arise from ritual studies can be profitably applied to the study of film. It may be suggested that filmgoers do not actually engage in the liminal behavior themselves but only observe it, yet the participatory nature of film that I have already discussed makes it possible for viewers to identify with the actions of characters and so vicariously gain some of the benefits of their actions. As a ritual space, film offers a separation from the everyday as viewers temporarily accept it as an alternate reality, even while they know they must eventually return to everyday reality. I have noted how the liminal scenario not only suspends ordinary rules but also invokes a utopian ideal, and this returns us to the idea that rituals connect the world of “reality” (how things are) with “ideality” (how things ought to be). Myth describes what the fundamental nature of reality is really believed to be, but this does not always conform to empirical reality as we know it. Thus the myth also describes how we would like ordinary reality to be and so provides a model for how it should be. This moral vision is enacted via ritual.

The Relation of Real and Ideal in Ritual We examined Jonathan Z. Smith’s view of myth in the preceding chapter and noted how he believes both myth and ritual present the incongruity between the ideal and our actual experience as “an occasion for thought.” I have also suggested that the incongruities may not be as absolute as he seems to think, as myths and rituals do seek to connect the ideal and the real and not simply set them incongruously side by side. Smith looks at rituals of North American bear hunting as an example of the gap between actual hunts and the ritually prescribed “ideal” form of them. Many rules govern the approach to the animal and its actual killing in an “honorable” fashion, as the bear must be standing and facing the hunter and only struck in certain places to achieve a bloodless wound. The fact that the bear is viewed as a spiritual being requires this respectful treatment, as it can only be killed if it offers itself willingly to

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them and not if its life is taken by stealth or trickery. In fact, however, actual hunts in these tribes make use of traps, pitfalls, snares, and none of the respectful address and honorable methods prescribed by the ritual. Bears are ambushed in their dens and killed by whatever “unsporting” methods work—including shotguns, which usually have messy results. From this incongruity of actual behavior and prescribed behavior, Smith concludes not that these people are unaware of the difference but that the ritual is actually designed to call attention to the difference. The ritual does not compel the ideal to come to pass but rather expresses “a realistic assessment of the fact that the world cannot be compelled.”27 What Smith does not explain is what benefit the presentation of such incongruity might have for the people who hunt bears in this fashion. Because he has not asked them, he can only speculate, and he suggests that the ideal is invoked only to present its difference from reality. Fieldwork might have disclosed other details and motives that might suggest more of a connection between the ideal and the real. Some tribes raise a bear from a cub and kill it in the prescribed ritualized manner, which may be viewed as atoning for the hunts in which such rules are not followed. The forgiveness of the bear is asked, which may cancel out the inappropriate means used to kill it—especially as the tribe effectively suggests by the ritual that they know how they ought to kill even though they fall short of the ideal. These are only speculations, but there is no reason to consider them less viable than Smith’s conjectures, and in fact they may suggest a more reasonable understanding of how people connect the real and the ideal in practice. Christians and members of other Western religions also engage in similarly incongruous ritual behaviors, which may suggest a means of understanding how the real and the ideal may be related. Biblical passages about turning the other cheek and loving your enemies don’t seem to be literally followed by many Christians, not even those who claim to be biblical literalists, just as injunctions about sharing everything with the poor seem to get ignored in wealthy (and not-so-wealthy) congregations. One may take this as a sign of hypocrisy or conclude that they have simply chosen to ignore the biblical passages in question. When one talks to Christians, however, they usually have a variety of responses to such aporia: for example, we give what we can to the poor, but we obviously can’t give everything; we don’t approve of unnecessary violence,

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but defending one’s country is another matter. Such people accept the idea that the ideal cannot always be followed and that realistic considerations may require us to act differently, but that does not make the ideal totally irrelevant to our daily lives. The ideal may prompt us to make an effort to approach it even though we cannot fully realize it, to attempt to eliminate unnecessary violence and greed from society and our personal lives. Reinhold Niebuhr gave a theological defense of this approach in a small and difficult book with the unassuming title An Introduction to Christian Ethics. Here he argued that an ethical ideal, while impossible to realize, remains relevant to our lives as it can inspire us to do more than we would if we only acted on the basis of “realistic” considerations.28 In such a case, the incongruity between the real and ideal is not simply presented for viewing, but the ideal is presented as one that can affect how we behave in the real world. The ritual of filmgoing may have a similar function, in that we see “ideal” worlds in movies that we know are not “real,” and yet these may inspire us to make the world a little bit more like the ideal. The people who loved the movie Gandhi may not have become pacifists, but perhaps the film had an effect on their subsequent behavior or political views. In Turner’s terms, even though the ideal of “communitas” cannot be realized, a ritual representation of it can affect one’s behavior in the postliminal reintegration into society by suggesting that the ideal of unity and equality can be balanced with the necessity of societal structure. We are not meant simply to realize that the world is not ideal but are called to find ways to bring that ideal into relation with the real, however partially or fragmentarily.

Ritual and the Secular Some readers may still be skeptical about the thesis that filmgoing has a ritual quality to it, as we tend to associate the term ritual with certain kinds of religious activity but not necessarily with watching movies. “Secular” or supposedly nonreligious activities may have many of the characteristics we associate with religious ritual, however, as Catherine Bell has noted. In particular, she defines six general characteristics of ritual that are reproduced to some extent in secular activities: formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance.

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The first four aspects she describes all seem to speak to the aspect of changelessness that we associate with ritual. Not all rituals have all these characteristics, but each of them can be found in a variety of religious rituals as well as secular activities that are ritual-like in nature. First, rituals often have a prescribed form and so are “formal” rather than informal, as they cannot be performed in any old fashion. In the secular realm, manners related to eating and other social activities are often governed by such formal norms, which are seemingly arbitrary but invested with meaning insofar as the one who flouts them shows himself to be a boor. What is signified, then, is that those who know the conventions know how to behave “properly” as they have been educated about social interaction and have a respect for the distinctions in rank and class often suggested by such conventions. The second aspect, traditionalism, supports formalism by suggesting that “we have always done it this way” even when that is not properly speaking true (as with traditions that are relatively recent in origin, such as the American celebration of Thanksgiving Day). Along the same lines, invariance insists that the ritual be done the same way always, with as little change as possible; it may be viewed as a ritual precisely because it is repeated according to such a set pattern. Rule-governance, the fourth aspect, reinforces such invariance by requiring that pattern.29 The rituals of film viewing may not seem so invariant or rule governed, but that does not mean that such activities are not rituals. Invariance and formalism do not as such constitute either sufficient or necessary conditions for rituals: they are not necessary as there are some relatively informal and flexible rituals in a number of religious traditions, and they are not sufficient as we cannot conclude that an activity is ritualistic simply because it is repeated regularly according to a set pattern. If I drive to work every morning at the same time with a cup of coffee in my car, this is not a ritual so much as a habit, based mainly on the fact that I am required to be there at a certain time and the fact that I like to drink coffee in the morning. A habit or a custom is not a ritual unless it has some significance attributed to it beyond the fact that “I always do this.” Bell also speaks of “sacral symbolism” as a characteristic of ritual, in that rituals point to greater realities, which we see even in secular rituals such as the pledge of allegiance to the US flag. The flag comes to have

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a greater significance than a piece of cloth through rituals that suggest it symbolizes the country “for which it stands” and that it should therefore be treated with the appropriate respect. An object has this sort of “sacrality,” according to Bell, not because it refers to a divine figure but because it has “a quality of specialness, not the same as other things, standing for something important and possessing an extra meaningfulness and the ability to evoke emotion-filled images and experiences. In other words . . . the object is more than the mere sum of its parts and points to something beyond itself, thereby evoking and expressing values and attitudes associated with larger, more abstract, and relatively transcendent ideas.”30 Rituals, then, traffic in symbols—whether such symbols refer to traditional religious referents or not. It is widely admitted (e.g., by semiotic analysis) that films have this characteristic as well, for they are filled with figures and symbols that metonymically refer beyond themselves: the gangster, the cowboy, the cop, the fallen woman, and the nerd—all refer as characters to ideal types that speak to identities within ourselves. Their props, too, refer symbolically to larger realities—the gun as a representation of both law and violence, their clothes signifying conformity or nonconformity, the railroad as a symbol of progress and the end of the frontier, huge modern offices as symbols of corporate power, and so forth. Finally, Bell notes the performative aspect of ritual, which is also found in secular activities such as theater performances. I have already noted the connection between theater (and therefore film) and religious ritual, in that both dramatize narratives in order to make them seem “real” to audiences and thereby to convey a certain vision of reality. Much like Geertz, Bell also notes that drama creates an “artificial world” that reflects a “coherently ordered totality” that attempts to project meaning onto “the chaos of human experience.”31 Bell herself, however, is skeptical about attempts to erase any difference between religious rituals and secular rituals, in spite of the similarities, because when cultures make such distinctions, we should respect them. At the same time, she notes that the distinction between theater and religion does not seem to exist in some cultures, as, for example, traditional Chinese theater (Peking opera) involves the ritual exorcism of demons and an initial performance of the opera that is done just for

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a god.32 Rather than ask why such cultures “confuse” the two, we might ask why Westerners so radically distinguish religious rituals from other types of rituals and what this separation signifies. As this book has been arguing for a recognition of the religious dimensions of a phenomenon normally viewed as nonreligious, this is a good point at which to ask whether the distinction between religion and secularity has any merit to it. One reason for the distinction may be that the chief religions of Western culture have defined their identities in large part by their opposition to the surrounding culture (paradoxical as that might seem, given the fact that they also reflect the culture). It may be because Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all began as minority religions that consciously distinguished themselves from the religious majority of their cultures, which in each case was polytheistic. Today, these religions typically define themselves against secular culture instead. But we could also see this conflict, just as that between monotheism and polytheism, as a conflict between two religions rather than as a conflict between religion and nonreligion. It may be that the insistence on a distinction between religion and culture mainly signifies a battle between one kind of religion and another, although this is not always admitted as some do not wish to dignify secular culture with the name of “religion.” The study of “secularization” reveals some points about how we define the opposition of secularity and religion.33 Advocates of the secularization thesis initially held that “religion” was losing its power in Western society, being replaced by the “secular” as the central determiner of cultural norms and values. But increasingly, it has become apparent that traditional religion is not dying out, and it even gains strength in some situations through its perceived need to battle “secularity” (as with fundamentalism). The process that has been called secularization is not really the eclipse of traditional religion so much as the evolution of more religious alternatives. It represents the greater pluralism of some societies that have enough cultural heterogeneity to sustain a variety of religious options, none of which has hegemony. This heterogeneity frustrates traditionalists who would like to restore their own hegemony, such as the so-called Christian right in the United States. If secularization represents religious pluralism and the “secular” alternatives to traditional religion are simply new religions that compete

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with the old, then it may make sense to view secular culture as itself religious rather than nonreligious. This option has not been embraced by many in our society, perhaps because people fear the tolerance of secular culture that might be required if it were to be dignified with the name of religion. After all, we guarantee the right to freedom of religion, and it is not politically correct to attack anyone’s religion, so calling secular culture a religion might thus seem to put an end to all critique of secular culture by traditional religions. This fear is unfounded, however; the fact that groups have a legal right to practice religion as they see fit does not require everyone else to agree with their views. In practice, this is impossible, as we cannot agree with all religious (or cultural) views and are entitled to critique those views even as others are entitled to hold them—and critique ours in turn. This holds as much for “secular” views as for traditional religious views. But in critiquing these views, we should at least try to assess them fairly and not automatically dismiss them as invalid simply because they differ from our own. Such uninformed judgments have too often been the norm in the history of religious interaction, as they now seem to be the norm in the “religious” critique of “secular” culture. Perhaps what is needed, both for traditional and “secular” religions, is a fair assessment based on an attempt to understand the views in question and what they mean for their followers, as well as an honest admission that there may be truth found in unlikely places. If popular culture contains truth, it need be not only because it is disguised Christian (or Muslim or Jewish, etc.) truth but perhaps because it has some validity in its own right. The next chapter seeks to give some guidelines about how we might seek the truth in other belief systems based on analogies drawn between the history of religious interaction and the interaction between religion and secular culture.

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In the last few chapters, I have mapped out an understanding of religion that applies to film and film viewing as aspects of popular culture. I have suggested that the line often drawn between religion and culture is an artificial one based on a theological agenda that favors some religious views, identified as “religion,” over others. Those that are identified as merely “culture” may be viewed as having some characteristics in common with religious views, but they tend to be denigrated as lacking certain dimensions that “real” religions have. Some approaches to film and religion have relied on this distinction and, in so doing, have failed to take seriously the distinctive religious elements in popular culture. Popular culture may not be as formal or as institutionally organized as “official” religions, but it functions in many ways similarly to religion. Many people will still be concerned with a definition of religion that is so broad that it appears to include all human culture. If we cannot distinguish religion from nonreligion, has the term not lost all specific meaning, for it can apply equally well to anything? This criticism ignores the fact that we are using a specific definition of religion and can identify aspects of popular culture such as film viewing that relate to it; we are not identifying religion with culture as such, as if the words were synonymous, but rather identifying the religious dimension of culture, which may be more widespread than suspected. To find the religious dimension in all of culture—or to examine culture through the categories of religion—is not to reduce religion to culture (or vice versa) any more than an economic or political analysis of all aspects of culture reduces culture to economics or politics. Such analyses only become reductionistic if they insist that they are exhaustive and have explained all aspects of culture such that no other forms of analyses are possible or necessary. Studying film or popular culture as a religion is not the only way, but one can legitimately study it through this interpretive lens. This method may

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also offer new insights into popular culture that have been largely missed by religion scholars as well as scholars of film and cultural studies. If it is valid to interpret film as being like a religion in the way we have defined it, then the dialogue between traditional religions and film can be understood as similar to a dialogue between religions. Interreligious dialogue has evolved a great deal in recent years, and there are insights from this aspect of religious studies that can be applied to the dialogue between religion and film as well. In particular, we can learn from encounters between religions that there are natural stages through which such dialogue moves, usually from demonization (seeing only evil, as difference), to idealization (seeing only good, often through noting similarities), and finally to an attempt to actually hear what the other is saying. At this point, one can see both similarities and differences between one’s own view and that of the other religion, and one can make some judgments based on a more objective assessment of the other. This last stage is not always or adequately reached, but it is the goal of many of those involved in interreligious dialogue, and it might also be the goal of the dialogue between religion and popular culture.

Understanding the Other The initial attitude that religions take toward one another is often one of incomprehension. This is not so odd when one realizes that to encounter another worldview is to encounter a separate subjectivity, a different way of thinking about reality, which by definition is not one’s own. We have no categories with which to approach that which appears totally other but those of the exotic, the weird, and the savage. The history of religious interaction is full of examples of gross intolerance and lack of understanding based on such assessments of the other as in principle unknowable. We believe that we have nothing in common with this other and so reject it, often with undisguised hostility. Sometimes we cannot even recognize that a different religious view is a religion at all, because it differs so markedly from our own views. The encounter of European Christians with the religions of Native Americans is a case in point. The religious practices of Native Americans did not look like those of the Western monotheistic traditions, so they were not recognized as “religion” at all by many of the European

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explorers. Christopher Columbus observed that the natives he met seemed “to have no religion” as he could not discover “any idolatry or other religious belief among them.” Immediately after having drawn this conclusion, however, Columbus goes on to describe in some detail practices and beliefs that we can only regard as religious in nature—for example, prayers and rituals directed toward images, as well as beliefs about the afterlife.1 Even if he was unable to find monotheism among them, it seems odd that he was unable to class this activity even as a form of “idolatry.” The fact that he did not seems to indicate that their activities did not fit his definition of idolatry, which presumably came from the description of such in the Bible and might have been assumed by him to include animal sacrifice or other elements he did not see. Although they believed in spirits, a supernatural realm, prayer, and a world beyond death, these were not enough to qualify for his definition of religion, shaped by his own experience. What he did see he interpreted basically negatively, believing that the worship of the images was a sham perpetuated by the religious leaders in order to enforce their own authority (a sort of proto-Marxist view). Others, such as Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo (1478–1577), engaged in outright hostility toward Native Americans and their religions by viewing them as forms of worship of the devil. Oviedo did not really have any evidence for this view, as he simply assumes that their word tuyra means “devil,” which he says is “a name very sweet and agreeable to many of them” that they also apply to the Christians. He does not seem to consider that “tuyra” might be a benevolent deity—or even the same as the Christian God—because he has already classified them as evil in their actions as well as their beliefs. His views conveniently provided ideological ammunition for those who argued that the natives were naturally fit for enslavement by the European settlers, essentially depriving them of a common humanity with their enslavers. On the other hand, Bartolome de las Casas (1474–1566) defended the natives against exploitation, arguing that they were “neither proud nor ambitious” but “quiet lambs” of true virtue, lacking only the belief in God for eternal perfection. Las Casas denounced the genocide perpetrated on the natives by the Spaniards through remaking their image into that of docile and simple primitives. Although one can certainly not quarrel with his desire to criticize the terrible mistreatment of the

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natives and the attempts to demonize them that were used as justification for genocide, Las Casas’s image of the natives is just as much a Western construction as that of his opposition. Whereas Oviedo saw only evil, Las Casas saw only good; where Oviedo saw only difference, Las Casas saw only similarity. We are all human, and therefore all human cultures are alike, Las Casas assumes. He points out that they have art, government, and language, just like us; they are intelligent and morally civilized. In short, the only real difference is that we are Christians and they are not. Las Casas sought to remedy that by converting them so that all difference would be erased.2 Neither of these approaches takes the other seriously in itself. Either difference is all that is seen, or similarity is all that is seen. As Jonathan Z. Smith has observed (quoting Wilhelm Dilthey), the interpretation of other cultures is impossible if they are seen as completely strange and unnecessary if they are seen as completely familiar; interpretation must lie between these extremes. Or as Smith puts it, “If they were like-us why should we want to know about them? If they were notlike-us how can they be comprehended?”3 To understand the other, we must use analogies to our own experience, but we cannot ignore the uniqueness of the other in our attempt to homologize it to our own categories. If we reduce the other to a mere instance of a generalization or to a form of ourselves, we have not understood it—as Smith has tried to show in many of his critiques of the history of religions. The attempt to show that they are “just like us” also has an agenda, as can be seen in the case of Las Casas. While his opposition wished to demonize them in order to justify their subjugation, Las Casas wished to justify his attempts to convert them to Christianity by showing that they were already almost Christian anyway. Later approaches developed this view by identifying the “Great Spirit” of some tribes (such as the Sioux) with the God of the Bible so that they were understood to be practicing a form of monotheism already and simply needed to gain a bit of refinement in their religious views to be fully Christian.4 They were viewed, then, either as demon-worshipping idolaters or anonymous monotheists—it was even suggested that they were descended from the lost tribes of Israel—because these were the only categories available for Westerners who drew all their categories regarding religion from the Bible and who needed to “place” the natives somewhere within its worldview.

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It might be believed that many Westerners are closer today to understanding Native American religion, as we no longer tend to view it either as idolatry or disguised proto-Christianity. Contemporary New Age constructions of Native American religion are just as distorted, however, and some would suggest these are more dangerous for their apparent benevolence. Such views romanticize the Native American as one who never despoiled his environment and was peaceful and community oriented, not acquisitive or greedy; connected to nature; and “spiritual” rather than “religious.” This latter distinction is usually taken to mean that they sought the divine within themselves and nature rather than in authoritarian institutions, as Western religion is believed to do. What is not often seen is that this construction is more a product of post-Christian disaffection from Western traditions than a genuine representation of Native American views. Those who see Native Americans in this way are still seeing themselves, although in this case, they are seeing their own New Age religion, itself a Western construction based largely on a rejection of Christianity. It is also rarely noted that this idealization of Native American religion and culture primarily serves as a critique of Western greed and environmental destruction rather than an accurate picture of Native American life, past or present. Like all peoples, Native Americans have not always been peaceful or environmentally conservative, but when we view them in this way, we put them in a pristine paradise that is not of this world. This is why it is sometimes believed that all evil came to Native Americans as a result of the Western invasion, as if they were somehow free of vice prior to this. It is certainly true that the West brought terrible and unjustified destruction to Native Americans in the form of genocide, disease, alcoholism, and theft of their land, but this does not mean that Native Americans lived in perfection prior to the white man’s coming. Sam Gill argues that such an idealization harms Native Americans by viewing them as “timeless and ahistorical, changeless and nonprogressive.” This construction essentially deprives them of a future, as they are not allowed to develop as all peoples must to survive; they are expected to act and dress “like Indians,” remaining in their own world (the reservation) and not participating in the larger society in any meaningful way. Their only function is to put on their costumes and remind us of what we have lost—a perfect and natural way of life that is long gone.5

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In sum, Westerners have had a great deal of trouble understanding other religions and cultures, for whether they viewed them as demonic or noble, with horror or with romantic idealism, they have tended to construct images of the other out of their own desires to make them totally other or totally the same as themselves—and so have failed to understand them at all. We might wonder whether there is hope for any real understanding of other cultures, because we cannot transcend our own cultural categories and so are doomed to construct others in our own image (or its reverse). But the fact that these distortions have been detected seems to show that a relative degree of objectivity is possible in that we can try to get our facts straight about a religion, listen to what its adherents say, and generally progress toward a greater understanding of it. This change is in fact what is now happening in many fields of religious studies, partly because more voices from other religions are being included among the informants as well as the scholars. To note this new view is not to subscribe to some impossible ideal of full objectivity but to recognize that even though our subjective views affect our assessment of others, we should not abandon an attempt to understand them better. A recognition of our prejudices is not a license to utilize all prejudice freely in our interpretation; while we cannot be entirely free of prejudice, we need not succumb to it without question. As Clifford Geertz put it, the fact that we cannot create a totally aseptic environment does not mean that we should “conduct surgery in a sewer.”6

Theological Developments in Interreligious Dialogue While Western scholars who study non-Western religions were wrestling with these issues of understanding, those involved with Christian theology were developing through similar stages regarding their assessment of non-Christian religion. The parallels are not exact, in particular because there is less consensus among theologians as to the correct approach to take. At the same time, as new options are developed, they replicate the tendency within the field of comparative religion to move to approaches that seek to understand the other as neither totally different nor totally the same as ourselves and, overall, to come to a more accurate and fair understanding of the other.

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The issue for the theologian differs from the issue for the comparativist insofar as it concerns not merely how best to understand the other but how to view the other in relationship to one’s own religious views. Because theology involves the self-expression of religion, it raises the question of the impact of other religions and their claims upon our own claims: for example, can or should we regard other religions as flawed in their views of reality or the path to human fulfillment? Can or should we regard them as “saved” or as “lost”? And must they do something further in order to be fulfilled or saved? Such issues seem to be of special concern to Christians because Christianity has maintained for much of its history that it is the exclusive path to truth and salvation. It is not the only religion to do so, however, and even religions that are unconcerned about eternal salvation may maintain that their own view is the best or the only correct understanding of reality. In the last century, several Christian theologians who have been troubled by the narrowness of such “exclusivist” positions have suggested other ways to interpret religious truth. Karl Rahner’s view, often now called “inclusivism,” follows a tradition in Roman Catholic teaching regarding the possibility of an “implicit faith” in those who never had the chance to hear the gospel or be baptized. Rahner argued that this possibility should be extended to followers of other religions and that we might even view other religions as vehicles of grace for those in other cultures, for if God truly wishes to offer salvation to all peoples, then “it is quite unthinkable that man, being what he is, could actually achieve this relationship to God . . . in an absolutely private interior reality” apart from the religions of his culture. Rather, the possibility of salvation must have been offered “in the concrete religion in which ‘people’ lived and had to live at that time.”7 One who accepts this salvation of Christ, even without knowing its name, Rahner calls an “anonymous Christian.”8 This allows people to be “saved” by religions other than Christianity, although the salvation experienced is still actually created by Christ— albeit without their knowledge. There are a number of problems with Rahner’s view that have been identified by his critics. One is that it is unclear exactly how the grace of Christ is made available “through” another religion if it has very different concepts of “salvation” or, indeed, no concept resembling any form

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of “salvation” at all. One could also ask why this ability is restricted by Rahner to those aspects of culture we call “religions,” for (as we have seen) the definition of religion is itself a Western invention and a rather slippery one at that; what are we to allow to be a “religion” and what not? Can one be saved by communism, Nazism, secular humanism, or film, all of which have been called religions? Another issue is that this view seems primarily designed to salve the consciences of Christians about the fate of those born outside of the realm of Christian influence; it does not help us understand the other religion better and, in fact, may prevent us from fully understanding it if we assume it to be more “Christian” in content than it really is. Members of other religious traditions may not feel complimented by being called “anonymous Christians,” as this label does not take seriously their own religious beliefs and identities, and they may feel as if they are being forcibly baptized into a tradition that is not their own. A number of theologians who are unsatisfied with either exclusivism or inclusivism have developed other alternatives, usually classified under the label “pluralism.” John Hick suggested that it is illegitimate to rank one religion as closer to the truth than another, so rather than viewing members of other religions as “anonymous Christians” (“just like us”), we should believe that each religion encounters the same ultimate reality and expresses its understanding of it in a different way so that no religion can claim to be closer to the truth than any other.9 Critics of Hick’s view, however, suggest that he assumes all religions encounter and express the same essential truth, which ignores the importance of the details that separate religions. Individual religious traditions prize these differences as aspects that express their unique identities, values, and beliefs, and they do not all focus on a single transcendent reality as Hick assumes. John Cobb, for example, holds that Buddhist and Christian beliefs differ in significant ways, as the former do not seek a “transcendent ground of existence,” but this does not negate the truths of Buddhism. It may seem like one religion must be right and the other wrong about something as basic as the existence of God. But Cobb claims that when the Christian asserts “God exists” and the Buddhist asserts “no God exists,” each of these claims is embedded in a religious context that gives the specific words their meaning, so “God” and “exists” may not mean

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the same thing in both cases. When we look more deeply at what each religion is saying in these statements, we may discover that the Buddhist is saying that “there is nothing in reality to which one should be attached,” while the Christian is saying that “there is that in reality that is worthy of trust and worship.” There is no reason each could not learn to affirm what the other is saying without abandoning her own claims and therefore come to a recognition of the “truth” of both claims as complementary rather than contradictory insights. As Cobb puts it, “The Buddhist could in principle acknowledge the reality of something worthy of trust and worship without abandoning the central insight that attachment blocks the way to enlightenment. And the Christian could come to see that real trust is not attachment in the Buddhist sense. Both would thereby have learned what is most important to the other without abandoning their central concerns.”10 Raimundo Panikkar is another Christian thinker who has suggested that we can find truth in multiple religious traditions without claiming that their truths are identical. We will always understand things through the perspective of our own traditions, but this does not prevent us from finding truths elsewhere. The Christian might understand the whole of reality through Christ but also can recognize that the Hindu may see it all through Krishna or Rama, the Buddhist through Shakyamuni Buddha or Shunyata, and so on. This does not mean that these are simply different names for the same thing. Panikkar would prefer to say that each is an aspect of the whole of reality through which the whole is understood, or as he puts it, “It is not that this reality has many names as if there were a reality outside the name. This reality is the many names and each name is a new aspect.”11 Each religion is a separate language that can only say what it says in that language, and each language adds to the totality of the ways in which we speak. Words do not translate exactly from one language to another, and there is no universal language that could give a perspective outside of all of them. Each religious language contributes its understanding of the whole precisely in the unique way in which it describes its own experiences.12 Mark Heim has followed on the work of Cobb and Panikkar to argue for what he calls an “inclusivist pluralism.”13 He argues that the particular details of religions matter to their adherents and that they do not wish to dilute them into a uniform whole. We will still prefer our own

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views, but this does not mean that we have to discount the possibility of the truth of other religious views altogether. Heim sketches four basic possibilities for making judgments about the claims of other religions. First, we may judge certain of their claims to be simply wrong: judgments of error. We will always have some judgments of this sort, but this does not make us exclusivists unless we dogmatically assert that all judgments about other religions must fall into this category or that our own views are the only cogent possibility. Second, we may judge their religious goals as actual and valid but different from our own: judgments of alternativeness. Cobb makes such judgments about Buddhism’s complementary truths, and Heim makes such claims regarding the viability of other religious goals. He also allows that such alternatives are usually viewed as penultimate in regard to the goals of one’s own religion, but they still may be viewed as valid. Third, judgments of convergence or identity may decide that another religion seeks or comes to the same goal in another way, as when Christians involved in Jewish-Christian dialogue claim that the two religions have dual covenants, each of which is a valid way to God. And fourth, classically inclusivist judgments may view other religions as in fact on the way to the goals of our religion rather than their own, though they do not yet know it.14 All four of these types of judgments are possible and valid, Heim claims, and there is no reason to assume that only one such type is to be preferred in any given situation. We must allow particular dialogues to develop as they will without prejudicing them toward a particular preconceived result. Just as each religion is unique, so is each dialogue unique to the participants and the situation in which they find themselves, and they must discover the extent and form of their own commonalities and differences. Even more than Cobb and Panikkar, Heim allows for a real pluralism of religious beliefs and ends that allows for the truth of both our own view and that of another. Neither does this view fall into the subjective relativism of claiming that a view is only “true” for its adherents because they have found it true for themselves; Heim still believes that there is an ontological state of affairs to which religious claims refer and to which they may either be referring truly or falsely. One religion may have a more accurate description of reality than another, but we cannot know for sure at this time, so fruitful dialogue will involve our admission that

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we can learn from another because none of us has absolute certainty for any of our beliefs.

Interreligious Dialogue and Film If the practice of film viewing can be understood as a religion, as I have argued, then the dialogue between “religion” and “film” is really just another form of interreligious dialogue—and perhaps the insights gained by historians of religion and theologians in regard to how religions should understand one another may be applied fruitfully to this dialogue as well. Rather than assume that religion and culture are entirely different entities—or that religion can assume a hegemonic position in relation to culture—perhaps traditional religions might benefit from learning to listen to the religions of popular culture just as they are learning to listen to one another. To adopt such a view is to follow the broader approaches of Heim, Cobb, and Panikkar rather than those of traditional exclusivism, Rahner’s inclusivism, or Hick’s pluralism. It is to suggest that we not assume that we are right and the other is wrong or that there is only one possible valid view. It is to allow for genuine differences in approach and perspective so that our judgments do not condemn others simply for disagreeing with us but rather seek to hear and allow for different goals and purposes as potentially valid. It is not to accept all points of view as valid, but it is to consider the reasons people view them as valid and to consider that they might be valid for them in their particular context and from their particular vantage point. This might not seem so revolutionary an idea with respect to the dialogue between religion and culture, but as we have seen, most traditional religious approaches to the dialogue assume the subordinate status of culture and reject its views when they do not cohere with those of the religion. In fact, the history of interaction between traditional religion (mainly Christianity, in the United States) and film shows the same stages found in the history of the interaction between religions. At first, there was a period of hostility, rejection, and demonization of the movies by the church; second, there was an inclusivist attempt to read the movies as expressing “Christian” values (at least in some instances). In neither case do we really hear what the other is saying, but we only

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seek to establish a view of it as either “not-like-us” and therefore “bad” or “like-us” and therefore “good.” The possibility that it might be “not-like-us” but nonetheless valid in its own unique way is not really admitted; difference is not understood to be good. Just as the classic forms of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism all assumed that there must be one correct religious view and so disallowed the possibility of multiple valid religious perspectives, so also many religious approaches to culture have assumed that culture is valid if it coheres with religion/theology and wrong if it does not. It was seldom considered whether it is possible for culture to be “right” precisely in its difference from (other) religions, in the way that John Cobb has allowed that Buddhists may be “right” about emptiness even though this idea is not a Christian one. The “exclusivist” phase began almost as soon as the movies themselves. In 1896, a one-minute film entitled The Kiss that re-created a scene from a current play, The Widow Jones, called forth the criticism that “the spectacle of the prolonged pasturing on each other’s lips,” which was bad enough in the play, only got worse once it was “magnified to Gargantuan proportions” on the screen. Critics had already recognized that film was literally and metaphorically “larger than life” and that it had the power to control and seduce audiences in ways that live theater could not. Sexual themes in the movies, in particular, gave rise to attempts at prohibition or censorship. Chicago police, for example, were given the authority to seize any films they deemed “immoral or obscene.” In other cities, church leaders pressured city leaders, and in 1909, a National Board of Censorship of Motion Pictures was created, which the film industry agreed to heed as an alternative to government censorship. In practice, however, decisions were often made by local censors, and there was little consistency among them.15 One episode that galvanized the Roman Catholic Church in its opposition to the movies involved the World War I film Fit to Fight (1918), which purported to educate soldiers about the dangers of venereal disease (VD) while overseas. Although the film shows that abstinence is the best policy for avoiding VD, it also shows that medical treatment can achieve the same healthy end; therefore, the Church saw the film as essentially promoting sexual promiscuity as long as appropriate precautions were taken. Today’s conservative arguments that sex education in the schools can only encourage sexual activity bear a remarkable

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resemblance on this point. What particularly enraged Church leaders, however, was the titillating nature of the images, which showed a brothel and indecent “caresses” between the soldiers and prostitutes. This was to be a familiar critique of movies; even though the message of the movie might be that one should not visit a brothel, the depiction of it would arouse the desire to go there, in spite of the “moral” of the story. The same issues arose with End of the Road (1919), a film that told the stories of two young unmarried women, one who abstains from sex and one who does not. The latter contracts syphilis, showing the “wages of sin,” but her subsequent treatment and cure seemed to some critics to indicate that “sexual intercourse is not bad if one knows how to avoid the consequences.” The films were also very popular, indicating most probably that audiences rushed to see them not for the moral message but out of a desire for titillation. The moviemakers could not have been blind to this either; they could market a film as “moral” even while its drawing power came largely from the attraction of the immorality depicted in it.16 The censors were not fools; films did make wrongdoing look attractive, even though a moral lesson was always added to it. This remains a fundamental structure of many films to this day. We sympathize with gangsters and villains and are encouraged to identify with them, and we enjoy doing so for a brief time, even though they may suffer justice in the end. This approach relates to the rituals of liminality discussed in an earlier chapter; we step outside the bounds of acceptable morality for a time so that we might return to it in the end. This return occurs both in the film’s moral message and in our own exit from the theaters to our ordinary lives that subscribe to moral conventions. Few fans of gangster movies actually emulated the actions of James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson that they saw on the screen, but they did enjoy fantasizing about being them for the duration of the films. It was precisely this perceived “attraction to the immoral” by viewers that caused the churches—in particular, the Roman Catholic Church—to take stronger action against the movie industry. In 1929, a “Catholic Movie Code” was drafted that called for the censorship of such factors as nudity and explicit sexuality, and it also effectively called for the positive reinforcement of religious, family, and societal values. The church had perceived the power of the movies to promote certain

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religious and moral values and intended to make sure that this power was used to reinforce the status-quo values of “church and state” rather than the decadent values of the movie industry.17 This code was to become the basis for the “Hays Office Code,” which ostensibly governed what was to be shown in movies for the next thirty years. Will Hays had previously been named as president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), a watchdog agency employed by the film industry itself to police the content of movies. That the industry accepted Hays and the code shows the lengths to which they were willing to go to avoid government censorship. The Hays Office had little power of enforcement, however, between 1930 and 1934, when many films of “questionable” morality were produced.18 This changed when Hays appointed Joseph Breen as head of the Studio Relations Department. Breen was an ardent Catholic and a virulent anti-Semite. He believed that Hollywood was being run by “the Jews,” the “dirty lice” who were corrupting the American people with their debauched values. He was not above intimidating the Jewish Hollywood moguls for whom he had no respect, and Church leaders did not rebuke him for his anti-Semitism as it served their purposes of cleaning up the industry.19 Here again we see the conflict between movies and the Church understood as a religious conflict, even though Breen’s view of it was based on a distorted and prejudiced image of Jews. Because although most religious Jews (certainly the Orthodox) were probably just as unhappy with the lax morality of the cinema as their Christian counterparts, and in that sense, it was not actually a battle between the values of Judaism and those of Catholicism, it was still configured as a battle between religious values by many of the participants in the struggle— whether that battle was viewed as being between Christians and Jews or between Christians and immoral libertines. Like all censorship standards, the code proved difficult to apply and enforce largely because of the subjectivity involved with deciding what were acceptable values. It was a question of not simply whether a film showed too much skin but whether the dialogue or plot suggested indecent content—and this was finally a matter of opinion, as so much is in film and all artistic critique. Adultery could be in a story, for example, as long as the undesirable consequences of it were shown, as in the film version of Anna Karenina (1935), in which the heroine commits suicide

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as in the novel on which it is based. But the film also depicted Anna’s husband as so cold and unloving—and Anna so sympathetically—that at least many female members of the audience would probably not judge her as much as feel for the injustice of her situation. Breen did not see this and approved the film, but the Chicago Legion of Decency condemned it.20 Similar conflicts occurred over the merits of film adaptations of famous novels by Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Sinclair Lewis. Some thought they were brilliant and challenging, and others found them sordid and base. When he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930, Lewis criticized those conservatives who would reduce literature to the depiction of the pretty rather than the sordid that marks real life. The Catholic Church had tried to police literature in just this fashion but seemed to have more success with the film adaptations of novels than the books themselves.21 The end of the era of censorship came in part from the changing attitudes of society, which tolerated more and often found the churches’ condemnations outdated. But the censors themselves also came to see the difficulties involved in their task as they grew more tolerant and appreciative of the artistic use of “questionable” themes and images. As early as 1937, Breen himself was impressed by the tough quality of the film Dead End, which realistically depicted the desperate life of poverty and crime that was the fate of children in the slums. The film passed the censors with minimal changes, even though it did not present the happy picture of America they normally favored, because its social message was viewed as powerful and significant, albeit critical.22 At the end of the censorship era, a similar case occurred with The Pawnbroker (1965), which was granted a special exemption to show nudity. The shot in question involved a prostitute baring her breasts to the title character, who as a result undergoes a flashback of his wife’s rape by Nazi soldiers in a concentration camp. The importance of this to the story—and the social and moral message associated with it—convinced the censors that this shot was designed not to titillate but to shock and challenge the audience. The Catholic Legion of Decency condemned the picture anyway, as they held to a legalistic rejection of all nudity in movies, but as a result, they lost credibility and suffered something of an identity crisis.23 Within three years, the code was replaced by a form of the current ratings system (at that time, this included G, M, R, and X) in an effort to

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police content for juvenile consumption while allowing movies to present any images or themes they wished. The Catholic Church and other religious groups shifted gears to accommodate the new era fairly quickly. Even a film that initially received an X rating, Midnight Cowboy (1969), received critical acclaim from some within the churches for its gritty realism and its moral message of the possibility of self-sacrifice and friendship even among those whom society has rejected. The “inclusivist” phase of film interpretation had begun, as religious film critics began to appreciate “artistic” (often foreign) films for their “Christian” moral themes.24 The work of these writers forms the real beginning of the appreciation of film by the representatives of traditional religion. This view, however, relied extensively on stark distinctions between “good” and “bad” films that might allow explicit sexuality and violence if it seemed to serve a “moral” message of a “challenging” film but not if it was deemed to be “exploitative” or purely for purposes of “entertainment.” Although they were willing to allow value to some films, this determination was based on a highly subjective assessment of the meaning of the terms I have placed in quotation marks and the ways in which particular films connect with these. Essentially, they were looking for a way to avoid being completely judgmental of culture, as this poise was becoming impractical and increasingly absurd for those who did not wish to reject culture entirely, but they also wanted to find a way to uphold “Christian” values as normative. Films were viewed as good if they subscribed to such values and bad if they didn’t. This view also assumed that a film was basically either one or the other, as it was difficult for them to make a judgment on a film that did both. It is ironic that even when it was not admitted that films were similar to religions, the representatives of traditional religion still approached them in the same ways that they had historically approached other religions. If the films had not been viewed as presenting an alternative belief and value system, they would not have been perceived as such a threat to traditional religion. When they were denied the status of a “religion,” this was not so different from the ways that early Christian explorers of the Americas discredited and demonized the local beliefs and practices. Today, it remains the case that views we would rather not take seriously are labeled “ideologies,” “cults,” or “sects” rather than

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religions—and we thereby dismiss them as serious dialogue partners. If it cannot be made to resemble our own views, as with an inclusivist interpretation, we reject it as other and therefore as bad. If we can move to a genuinely pluralistic approach to dialogue with popular culture, we will be able to make informed judgments that do not assume a film is all good or all bad. We do not need to assume that all of culture agrees with us (or with itself) in order to find its views valuable, valid, or insightful, and we do not need to homologize popular culture to our own views or any other single view. Culture is as pluralistic as religions are: there is no single view, and the recognition of multiple views does not mean only one view is right and all others are wrong. We can recognize that films function in ways similar to religions and so better recognize their influence and structure, but we need not let this recognition prevent us from seeing areas of either agreement or disagreement with our own views, whatever those may be. Jonathan Z. Smith has reflected on the ways in which we marginalize others with whom we would rather not have dialogue—and nowhere more pointedly than in “The Devil in Mr. Jones,” a short article written two years after the 1978 mass suicide of the followers of Jim Jones in Guyana. Here he suggested that scholars of religion cannot simply dismiss such a phenomenon as “demonic,” as Billy Graham had done in that case, for it is our commission to seek to understand even that which we would rather not. If we choose to demonize that which is too shocking or offensive to us, falling into the sort of emotional judgments that characterized the media treatment of the situation, we are surrendering the scholarly value that seeks to understand all human behavior through the light of reason rather than through cultural prejudice. We are also essentially choosing to view such people as nonhuman if we decide that they are beyond reason or understanding, and in the process, we make them totally other to ourselves and to our way of thinking. While Smith agrees that mass suicide is repellent to us and requires moral judgment, he holds that such a judgment cannot occur without first seeking to gain some understanding of the motives of the participants. If instead we choose to dehumanize them, we give up the value of a common humanity and relinquish the very value we hope to uphold.25 Since Smith wrote the article four decades ago, research on “cults” like Jonestown has progressed beyond demonization toward the sort

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of understanding of motives and worldviews that Smith was encouraging. He came up with two theories about Jonestown himself in the original article. One idea is to understand what happened as a sort of “Dionysiac praxis” that sought to overcome social and racial distinctions by a retreat to a created utopia. When this utopia was threatened by outsiders, the community saw no choice other than to leave this world for a better one. There are parallels here to the events at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993, which saw the followers of David Koresh seeking escape from this world before capture. Second, Smith believes that the mass suicide could be understood as an act of revolutionary protest against those who sought to destroy their utopia, and the audiotapes the community left behind seem to confirm that they understood their action in this way.26 Smith suggests that if we seek to understand their motives, we may have more sympathy for them and not simply view them as misguided or brainwashed followers of a psychotic leader. People do have reasons for their behaviors, and it behooves us to uncover those reasons even when we do not agree with them. Smith recognizes that we can no longer appeal naively to our own cultural version of “reason” as if this were identical with some universal reason, but he insists that our awareness of this cultural relativity should not lead us to the total relativism that says there is no basis for judging any culture but our own. We must continue to attempt to formulate “rules of reason” by which we can make judgments, even though we know we cannot come to a definitive formulation of them.27 Smith’s approach also seems helpful in regard to judgments about popular culture. To admit that we ought to take popular culture seriously is to admit that we should seek to understand its worldview and values—and its appeal—rather than simply dismiss it as a mindless and nihilistic glorification of sex and violence. But to attempt to understand why people are drawn to movies and what they get out of them is not to celebrate all the values they present or to be totally uncritical of them. Ideological critics feel that they must guard against the uncritical acceptance of popular culture as “harmless fun,” and indeed we should not preemptively decide it is harmless any more than we should preemptively decide that it is harmful. Any judgments that are made must be made on the basis of study and an attempt to understand

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how film functions for people as a worldview, a system of values, and a ritual practice for joining the two—in other words, as a “religion” in the sense in which I have defined the term. Ideological criticism of popular culture, by religion scholars and those in other fields, will and should continue as a necessary method for uncovering the ways in which films function ideologically in support of hegemonic systems. But ideological critique cannot be the only method used for the analysis of popular culture, or we will find ourselves seeing culture only through the small aperture afforded by such a critique. Film should not be reduced to its ideological function any more than religion should be. If we analyze films utilizing such a method, we must remember that ideology is only one aspect of film and its appropriation by viewers. Within the field of film criticism proper, there has already begun the critique of ideological interpretations that decide what films “mean” for their audiences based not on what audiences say but rather on what the theorists believe; as a result, studies of audience reception of films have increased in number and quality, as I have already noted. Scholars of religion who interpret films would also do well to learn to listen to film viewers and seek to understand why they go to the movies and what they get out of them. Only then can we hope to understand the “religious” power of films, just as we can only understand Jonestown by studying what its members said and believed rather than imposing on them our own view of what they believed. In the chapters that follow, I will apply this method to the study of various films and genres. This is only intended to be a beginning, and the interpretations I suggest are necessarily tentative. I have used data on audience reception to some extent when it is available. Of course, even with extensive data, the scholar necessarily imposes some categories on the data in the process of interpreting them. In trying to hear how films are understood by their audiences and what effect films have on them, one will never understand the viewers as they understand themselves— just as the best anthropologist never comes to understand her subjects as they do themselves, even if she “goes native.” The unavoidability of the scholar’s personal subjectivity, however, is not (as Geertz observed) a license to do “surgery in a sewer.” We can attempt to avoid the “contamination” of our own views, even though they will be present in the “cleanest” of interpretations, first by being aware of them and second by

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realizing that there are other ways of viewing things that we can seek to understand. This attitude will make us more open to seeing the films as their viewers may, instead of seeing them as scholars are wont to do. There is another rather obvious point to be made here: scholars are viewers, too, and as such may participate in the filmic religion as well. Once we give up narrower definitions of “religion” that only identify it with formal institutions that go by that label, we can recognize that multiple religious influences affect each one of us. It is not the case that there are some who follow the religion of film and others who follow Christianity or Judaism; unless we completely distance ourselves from the power and pleasure of the movies (as some ideological critics have sought to do), we are already implicated in our subject matter. This does not mean that one is worshiping false gods every time one goes to the cinema, any more than a Christian who studies Buddhism has deserted his or her religion. We can learn from any number of religious influences, and if “religion” is not the monolithic entity it was once thought to be, then we may find ourselves drawing from a variety of sources in the construction of our religious beliefs. All the major religions of history have done the same thing, even when they have not admitted it: Christianity developed out of Judaism and its encounter with Hellenistic religion; Islam was shaped by its encounter with various forms of Christianity; and the religions that became Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism influenced each other in their origins. No religion appears in the world without a heritage of religious influences, and no religion remains alive unless it deals with the continuing encounters it has with other religions. When one realizes this, one sees another reason the attempt to guard against all cultural influences is doomed unless one can completely isolate one’s religious community. This is hardly a realistic or desirable goal in our current world, as the interchange of ideas can only help with understanding and mutual cooperation. Traditional religions need to do this not only with each other but also with all the phenomena of popular culture that continue to increase in their influence on our beliefs and values.

Intermission

Thoughts on Genre and Audiences

In the remaining chapters, I will examine several genres of films and suggest some ways in which these function like religions. We can observe how genre conventions create a pattern that is followed (with some variation) by other films of that genre. There is not one “filmic religion,” obviously, nor do the films of a particular genre all have the same myths, morals, and rituals attached to them, but we can spot trends that illuminate how certain types of films express particular models of and for reality and how they are appropriated ritualistically along certain lines. And while one could certainly do an analysis of how films that do not fit genre classification function religiously, this provides an organizational principle that allows for categorization and tentative conclusions about societal trends regarding the myths and values expressed through popular films. I have used genres to organize my discussion as this is a common way of classifying films, both by viewers and critics. This choice is purely heuristic and is not meant to imply that genre analysis captures the essence of any film or its reception. Like all generalizations, those about genre may distort as well as reveal. Early genre theorists, for example, held that all westerns or gangster pictures were basically the same, with just enough variation in plot or theme to keep audience interest. Closer study of these genres has shown that such conclusions were based on a limited number of films and that the critics chose to ignore those films that did not “fit”—suggesting, for example, that a film is not “really” a western because it does not conform to the critic’s model for westerns, even if it has all the usual elements of cowboys and ranchers and gunslingers.1 I recognize that all genre labels are artificial, as they are based on generalizations about certain types of films that may or may not hold up with respect to a particular film. At the same time, generalizations are helpful tools for understanding and are a real part of the audience reception of films, even though they are constructed by audiences and the industry that seeks to please them. 113

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I have not attempted to include every possible genre or subgenre of film, but the choices I have made are designed to showcase some of the major types of films that continue to be popular. We are usually aware of the genre of a film before we see it, and our choice to see it may be influenced by this knowledge. People may seek out or avoid horror movies, science fiction, or romantic comedies depending on their own taste, whom they are with, and their desires at that moment. It is true, of course, that many films are hard to categorize and may cross genre lines; some very good films have to conform to certain genre expectations in marketing, and this may distort what the film actually is. Films may also utilize elements from a variety of genres, showing the fluid nature of such labels but also showing how the industry taps into multiple markets by designing films that appeal to various groups with differing genre tastes. Such “hybridization” can be seen, for example, in a film like Titanic, which managed to be both a romantic tearjerker and an action/ disaster movie (thus appealing to the stereotype for both “female” and “male” audience members).2 I would also reject the view that the use of genre conventions entirely erases the individuality of a filmmaker; indeed, many filmmakers enjoy working within a genre in order to demythologize or deconstruct it (e.g., Stanley Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino, and Edgar Wright). The changes within a particular genre over time also indicate how the myths they represent continue to evolve, reflecting the changing values of the societies they portray. As we look at various films and various genres, we want to uncover how particular audiences connect with certain films and genres and what they find in them in regards to myths, morals, and rituals. There is no point in speculating in a vacuum about the religion-like qualities of films with no reference point to actual viewers. I have previously made reference to the need for audience-reception studies, especially insofar as these can lead us to understand better how ordinary film viewers (rather than film theorists or critics) understand the films. The scholarship of audience reception is another area that has expanded greatly since I wrote the first edition of this book.3 Much of this work studies audience reactions to particular films, and I will utilize such work when possible, but obviously, we do not have detailed audience studies for the reception of every film that I will discuss. In some cases, I have shown the films to students in class and so have some ethnographic data in the reactions of

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my students (recognizing that this is not a random sample or a controlled experiment). It is now also possible to access online reviews of films from nonprofessional viewers through websites such as the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), and this can be a very useful tool for collecting audience responses. Granted, this is not a random sample of viewers either, as they have chosen to write reviews online, and deciding whether a film is “good” based on these may be a dubious enterprise,4 but the variety of responses gives us a better sense of the “average” viewer than the reviews of professional critics, who have their own biases that may not be representative of most people who watch movies. It can also be useful to check the box-office returns of a film as this can give an indication of whether it flopped or had “legs”—that is, continued to attract viewers for weeks or months. It may also indicate that it obtained significant distribution, which is dependent on the assumptions made by the distributors and theater chains as to whether a particular movie will attract audiences. In some cases, I have focused on the disparity in box-office draw for different films within a genre to show how certain types of films are more likely to be successful than others, reflecting what resonates better with viewers (or what receives distribution because it is believed it will resonate better with viewers). Films that are seen more contribute to a greater number of people’s worldviews and values, and they may also reflect the beliefs and values of a greater number. In this way, popularity is an index of the extent to which a particular film may both express and shape the models of and for reality held by people in a society. Any amount of data, however, will not tell us everything we might want to know about the reception of a film; every viewer’s response will be different, as people are individuals with individual beliefs, values, and tastes. Once again, any generalization we make about what a film “means” is just that—a generalization. But given the fact that until recently, film scholars would make assumptions of what viewers received from a film without any data at all, it seems like a step in the right direction to try to take account of what viewers might actually be finding in a film, even if conclusions are based on limited data. Martin Barker, who has pioneered much of the work in reception studies,5 has also suggested a methodology that he believes can be used to suggest what viewers find in a film. His concept of the “implied viewer” was formed largely in reaction against psychoanalytic

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interpretations that he sees as unconnected with the ways any actual audience appropriates films. Such interpretations suggest bizarre ideas, such as that George Bailey of It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) secretly wanted his brother and father to die, that he didn’t really want to leave home, and that what he actually wants is to become more like a woman. Barker correctly, I would say, objects to such attribution of hidden motives to fictional characters that fly in the face of the entire narrative and its more “normal” reception by viewers.6 His own approach is to suggest the ways in which audiences might make interpretive moves by reacting to certain elements of the film, based on their own prefilmic assumptions as well as how they connect the diverse elements of the film in their own understanding.7 He does not see this approach as endorsing an “anything-goes pluralism,” according to which we cannot view any interpretation as better than another, in that we can still “test” interpretations against the text of the film, looking for the possible interpretations it invites. There may be a number of valid interpretations of a film rather than only one, but that does not mean that all interpretations are equally valid. He also suggests that we do not need to choose either textual analysis or audience-reception studies, as if these were opposed, for it is precisely in interpretation that the text and its reception are connected; to neglect one or the other is to lose the possibility of any real understanding of how the response invited by a film is related to what is actually received by viewers.8 With Barker, I would argue that we need to analyze what is actually in the film, but also we need to consider how audiences may be receiving it—and even with limited data, we are able to draw some conclusions that I believe may have wider applicability. As we consider the following genres and films, it will become clear that some very different purposes are achieved by different types of films but also that there are some similarities. The range of types of popular films also demonstrates that there is not a single set of religious structures utilized by films but a diversity of beliefs and values appropriated in divergent ritual fashions. We must also remember that individual viewers have very different responses to films, based on their own ideologies and preconceptions. At the same time, it is hoped that the provisional conclusions reached will suggest some of the ways that viewers find meaning in these films as well as others.

5

Westerns and Action and Superhero Films

It may seem reckless to combine these three genres into one chapter, but it can be argued that they share a basic mythology that has been replicated and updated in new clothing; hence I have opted to treat them together. The loner hero of the western fights to save a civilization that excludes him, and this pattern is reiterated in action films and finally in comic-book superhero films. He has a moral code that permits violence in the service of justice, which sometimes means outside of the law. John Shelton Lawrence and Robert Jewett have dubbed this pattern the “American Monomyth,” understood as a particular variation on Joseph Campbell’s monomythic structure.1 I am reluctant to blur the differences among these films, however, and to homologize them to a “monomyth” for the same reason that I resist Campbell’s tendency to lump myths under such a category. The differences may be far more important than the similarities, as they show us not only how such myths have evolved in reflecting societal changes but also the variations among them at any given time. In addition, individual viewers find different messages and morals in films, reaffirming that there is no single way in which all viewers will appropriate an individual film and that no single “monomyth” can be found in it. I will discuss each of these subgenres—the western, the action film, and the superhero film—indicating some of the connections and differences among them as well as within each subgenre. I will also point out some of the diversity of interpretations among viewers of particular films. But even if there is no single meaning to these films, they do show that people want to be saved by a certain type of hero—frequently a violent one—and some tentative conclusions can be drawn from this analysis.

The Western The first genres to be identified by film theorists were the western and the gangster picture, largely because it was noticed that there were 119

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elements of plot, theme, and iconography that gave a distinctive look and feel to such films. In the case of the western, we have a genre that already existed in popular literature and was translated to the screen beginning during the silent era. Hundreds of silent westerns were made in the first two decades of the twentieth century, many of them focusing on “the Indian problem” more extensively than later westerns.2 This is not so strange when one recalls that the period the western dramatizes, the post–Civil War expansion of white populations with its consequent displacement of the Native Americans, was still within recent memory. The massacre at Wounded Knee that followed the Ghost Dance movement had only taken place in 1890, and many film viewers would no doubt remember the times when Indians had been perceived as more of a threat than they were later. Some films romanticized the Indian, but most tended to sanction the dominant ideology of Manifest Destiny and the necessary extinction of the Indian. (In later westerns, once the threat was clearly in the distant past, more regret is expressed about this occurrence, even though it still tends to be viewed as “necessary.”)3 The sound films that have come to determine the way in which most of us think of westerns, however, did not focus so much on “cowboys versus Indians” as the trials of the frontier. In the myth of the western, law was almost nonexistent on the frontier, and justice and order only ruled through a few good men who were swift on the draw, whether they wore sheriff badges or not. There were bad men too, of course, as well as walk-down gun battles in deserted streets conducted according to some ancient code of honor that apparently dictated no one should be shot in the back (although this principle was often not observed in the final reel). Visually, the western was set in wide-open spaces punctuated by frontier towns filled with saloons and brothels, and there was usually a railroad on the way, bringing civilization with all its good and bad features. The western depicted a romantic time and space that probably never existed as such, but it was effective for denoting a setting in which good and evil could fight to the death without the impediments of social convention, and we could be clear about which was which, as the moral ambiguity of modern times had not yet set in. In this way, the western evokes the same nostalgia one finds in fairy tales of chivalrous knights and virtuous damsels set in medieval times. This is not to say that there were no moral questions for the western; often, whole films were based

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around a moral question regarding when (or whether) it was justified to attack the bad guys. But the western hero always does attack, in the end, and we know that he has done what is right, for he had no alternative: “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”4 In this way, westerns served to reassure audiences that good and evil do exist in clear form, even though the complexity of our own lives sometimes prevents us from seeing this. By creating an imagined world in which good and evil were clearly defined, the western lets us know that our own inability to distinguish them at times is not an indication that no distinction exists. Rather, it is an indication that we live in more complex times, and this fact is depicted with regret, as there is almost always sadness associated in the western with the demise of the frontier and the coming of East Coast civilization. This regret associated with the “death of the West” is sometimes expressed in the fate of the western hero who cannot become part of the emerging civilization that displaces the frontier, perhaps because of his violent nature that, somewhat paradoxically, makes the taming of the frontier (and hence its transformation into civilization) possible. This theme takes on almost tragic proportions in many classic later westerns such as Shane (1953) or The Searchers (1956), in which we are made to feel the exclusion of the hero as sad but necessary. In both of these films also, the hero who saves the family cannot remain within it without disrupting it further, and we see him ride off into the sunset alone at the end of the film. In an earlier chapter, I argued that such films may relate to ideas of sacrifice insofar as the hero engages in the act of restorative violence necessary to the community but must leave in order to free it of his taint; he becomes the scapegoat to which we transfer our own violent sins. As I suggested there, this feeling need not imply a relinquishment of responsibility on the part of the audience, for we “participate” in his violence via identification with his character. The plot may in fact offer an opportunity for people to work through their own ambiguous feelings about violence and its necessity in the service of various causes, including the maintenance of a just society. It is also not always the case that the western hero is “punished” for his lawless behavior, although he may have to leave “civilization” because of it. In director John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939), Ringo (John Wayne) is allowed his revenge on the three men who killed his father and brother,

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and he is also permitted by the law to escape with his true love (who happens to be a prostitute with a heart of gold). At this point, there is still a frontier into which he can happily escape. By the time of Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), however, Tom Doniphon (again John Wayne) loses not only the girl to eastern lawyer Ransom Stoddard (Jimmy Stewart) but also the credit for ridding the town of bad guy Valence. Stoddard, who eschews violence, finds himself in a gun battle with Valence and thinks that he kills him when in fact Doniphon shotguns him from the shadows. Stoddard has a successful political career because of this outcome, and Doniphon becomes an embittered drunk. The West and its heroes are depicted as dead at this point, and yet the myth lives on that it was tamed by men willing to kill for it. Ironically, the movie suggests that the myth or “legend” is that Stoddard, a symbol of law and order, tamed the West (as that is what his adoring public thinks) when in fact it was men like Doniphon. But the real myth of the western that the audience sees, in this film as in many others, is that law and order will not suffice unless aided by those who are willing to use violence and occasionally step outside the law in the service of justice. No one who likes westerns believes that the frontier was tamed by lawyers like Ransom Stoddard. Whether the hero is punished or not, therefore, has more to do with how far civilization has encroached and less with his guilt or innocence or our need for a sacrificial lamb to suffer for our own societal or individual violence. What is noble about the hero, in the worldview of the western, is his willingness to use violence—even though this act requires sacrifice from him—because this violence is viewed as being in the service of a good cause, such as the destruction of evildoers. Western heroes are not above the quest for revenge, either, nor is this desire viewed as a dishonorable motive in most cases. Bad guys deserve to die in westerns both to prevent them from doing more evil deeds and in punishment for past wrongs.

The Action Film I am using the term action film to refer specifically to films that feature violent action in a modern setting, often with a police officer or secret agent now taking the role of the hero who battles criminals. Since

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the 1970s, there have been far fewer westerns than earlier, and there may be some reasons for that. For one thing, the setting for the western is less familiar to viewers who since the late twentieth century have increasingly lived in larger cities rather than rural areas and who cannot identify as easily with frontier life. The lone gunslinger moved to the cities in films like Dirty Harry (1971), which had sequels throughout the seventies and eighties. Clint Eastwood played the tough detective Harry Callahan, who had no qualms about killing criminals as he almost goads them into drawing on him with lines like “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” and “Go ahead, make my day.” He talks more like the villains from classic westerns, reveling in the violence, and Eastwood played the same character in his later westerns made during the same era, such as High Plains Drifter (1973) or Pale Rider (1985), in which he plays a vengeful figure back from the dead to wreak havoc on the guilty. This is no Shane carefully considering the use of violence but a man who uses it with relish and abandon; it seems that in the worldview of the urban action film—or in Eastwood’s westerns that follow the same ethic—this sort of character is the only kind who has what it takes to stop evil. In the western Unforgiven (1992), Eastwood’s character does take the time to consider whether he wants to return to his violent ways, but when he does, it is with the same lack of restraint one sees in other Eastwood films of this genre. Even John Wayne’s dying character in The Shootist (1976), though he seeks to end his life in a gun battle, encourages the young man who emulates him not to follow in his footsteps—indicating he knows the problematic nature of his own morality. One senses no such reservation in Eastwood’s characters in these films, suggesting that audiences were ready to forego the usual moral reflection in favor of easily justified violence. In part, this change signals a move to the gritty urban crime films of the 1970s, which portrayed violence more openly (and could do so due to the end of the Hays Office Code), perhaps because they were channeling the new fears of urban decay and violence. In order to keep law and order, a more ruthless lawman was required—or even a vigilante such as in Death Wish (1974). Lawrence and Jewett focus on this type of amoral hero as representative of a trend to justify violence ever more easily on film.5 Black action heroes also begin to appear in the 1970s, showing a liberation of African Americans from subordinate and passive roles

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but also corresponding with “blaxploitation” in the form of stereotypical violent revenge figures, whether male (1971’s Shaft) or female (Pam Grier as a civilian vigilante in 1973’s Coffy or 1974’s Foxy Brown). In the latter case, the main character also exhibits the exploitative stereotype of a highly sexualized female figure, scantily clad and placed in provocative sexual situations; she seems to be more of a body on display than a realistic role model for African American women seeking empowerment. Groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) opposed such films as harmful and exploitative, but some viewers have admired the powerful images of black men and women found in them. Yvonne Sims holds that the images of black women in these films, while they perpetuated stereotypes, also were some of the first filmic presentations of black women as powerful and so exhibit some of the complexities of summary judgments on the genre.6 Eventually, such depictions took the form of parody and critique, although not without controversy. For example, Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown (1997) featured Pam Grier and blaxploitation stereotypes, perhaps ironically and with the intention of deconstruction, but the film was seriously criticized by Spike Lee as exploitation cinema from a white director. Tarantino’s western Django Unchained (2012) exhibited similar tendencies and caused Lee to repeat his criticisms.7 During the 1980s and 1990s, the genre of action “cop” films evolved in series such as the successful Die Hard and Lethal Weapon movies, each featuring a leading man with extraordinary fighting and survival skills who also has personal or family problems. Lethal Weapon (1987) featured Mel Gibson as Martin Riggs, a cop who is good at his job because he is near suicidal due to the death of his wife. His willingness to risk his life makes him a “lethal weapon,” as he has no fear of death but actually courts it. Early in the film, we see him ready to shoot himself in the head, only to back down at the last second, seemingly from cowardice. So the man who is afraid to kill himself is afraid of nothing else, and his reckless behavior drives his family-man partner, Roger Murtaugh (played by Danny Glover), up the wall, as he would like not to be killed. Much of the humor of the film comes from the contrast between them, as in many “buddy” action movies. The resolution comes when Riggs saves Murtaugh’s daughter in a daring rescue and finds the desire to

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live again. The sequels were unable to re-create this exact dynamic (as Riggs has already decided not to kill himself), but the audience’s connection with the characters continued and helped ensure the success of the later films. Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) is, among other things, a revenge drama, as Riggs finds out who killed his wife and is able to avenge her; his violence is easily justified in the context of the film as he fights brutal adversaries, but he is also depicted as a human being with emotions who loved his wife and who cares deeply for his friend Murtaugh. It is easier to identify with his character than with Eastwood’s Harry Callahan, as he has a personal story with which viewers can connect; of course, the fact that he seems so human also makes his violent behavior more acceptable to audiences. The action-movie hero also invites audience identification in his willingness to challenge the rules of the establishment, as Riggs does in his reckless and not fully approved techniques for criminal apprehension, which gives the audience an opportunity for liminal experiences outside of expected behavior. At the same time, he works to eliminate threats to the established order and so to preserve peace. This is a reworking of the paradox of the western hero who stands just outside (or at the edge) of the law in order to establish law and order; he carries the burden for the rest of us, performing violent acts that are viewed as just although morally problematic. And just as the western gunslinger was not always appreciated but was instead ostracized for his violent ways, even by those whom he had saved, so also the action-movie hero’s efforts sometimes go underappreciated. The hero of Die Hard (1988), New York City cop John McClane (played by Bruce Willis), also demonstrates these characteristics, and the film deliberately references westerns throughout. He is also an imperfect character who struggles to be a good husband and who wrestles with his own guilt and inadequacies. The film is set in Los Angeles, where McClane goes to visit his estranged wife at Christmas. We learn that he has been unwilling to accept her career aspirations, which include the high-level corporate job she now holds. After he learns that she has rejected his last name and returned to her own surname, they argue; then criminals take over the building, and he is the only one who can save the hostages that include his wife. Later in the film, when he thinks he is going to die, he confesses to another cop that he “should

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have been more supportive” of her, suggesting he is trying to atone for his sins. He undergoes plenty of physical suffering throughout the film in his quest to save the hostages and win back his wife, which he does, so that in the end, she introduces herself as “Holly McClane.” The film allows him to repent of his sexism while also keeping his manhood through saving her, which impresses her to the point that she takes him and his name back. It may seem that the film offers a regressive sexual politics in this way, and the fact that she has to literally give up the symbol of her corporate success (a Rolex watch) in order to avoid falling to her death gives semiotic support to this idea. But McClane also evidences repentance for his own sexism so that the film can be read as either supporting or critiquing sexism, depending on what elements predominate in the viewer’s understanding. When I showed it to my students, they were divided whether it ultimately had a sexist message or not, and this division included men and women on each side of the debate. The film also offers a fantasy of a working-class man saving the upper class from themselves, as the bad guys turn out not to be terrorists but simply thieves, led by the erudite businessman Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman). McClane participates in a liminal exercise by participating in the destruction of a corporate office building, which sends money flying through the air to the people below, symbolically dismantling the power of the rich capitalists who usually battle over it. He even follows police rules to the extent that he does not fire until fired upon and so passes the tests for “justified violence” rather than crossing over to questionable tactics (as does Riggs in Lethal Weapon 2 when he declares before his revenge quest, “I’m not a cop tonight”). McClane remains unappreciated by the FBI and local police chief, but the regular cops cheer him on. He also shows his outsider status and his links to the western hero through a running joke that develops early in the film when Hans Gruber asks him if he is just “another American who saw too many movies as a child” who “thinks he’s John Wayne, Rambo, Marshall Dillon.” John sardonically responds, “Actually, I was always kind of partial to Roy Rogers. I really liked those sequin shirts.” He makes fun of the western myth but still adopts the persona, to the point that the final showdown invokes a western gun battle. Apparently abandoning his weapon in an effort to get Holly

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back from Gruber, the latter remarks, “Always the cowboy; well, this time John Wayne does not walk off into the sunset with Grace Kelly.” John follows, “It was Gary Cooper, you asshole.” This is a reference to High Noon (1952), which featured Cooper’s character as one who is alone in his final showdown with the villains except for (it turns out) his wife. In that film, his Quaker wife abandons her pacifism to shoot a villain in the back, but here McClane has secreted a weapon that he uses to kill Gruber. In this film as well, however, the wife now stands by her man. Although the western hero often had to sacrifice love and family, in this case, he does not. Efforts to humanize the action hero have continued, as Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) of the Mission Impossible films battles to save his wife and finally has to give her up to keep her safe in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011); the latest spate of James Bond films also feature Bond finding and losing love (in Casino Royale, 2006) as well as losing his maternal figure, M (Judi Dench), in Skyfall (2012). The early Bonds generally did not feature this much personal loss, except for George Lazenby’s one turn as Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), in which his new bride is murdered at the very end of the film; in spite of this, the incident goes all but unmentioned in subsequent Bond films, as other actors took over the role. The newer action films, then, feature more personal suffering for the hero, which may indicate more appreciation for the value of being a “sensitive man” than was the case decades ago. At the same time, the heroes have hypermasculinized bodies and unbelievable fighting talents that allow them to be a spectacle for men and women alike. It has been observed that as women’s roles in society grow and some males feel threatened enough by this to resist this with a call to “traditional” gender roles, men’s bodies become ever larger in popular culture even as female bodies shrink.8 The spectacle of muscular male bodies in film may also offer a socially acceptable way for heterosexual males to enjoy male bodies without seeing this as an erotic attraction.9 In fact, Kent Brintnall has argued that images of suffering male bodies not only reinforce male tenacity and power but also eroticize the male body for male viewers, even when this is not consciously recognized by them.10 In this way, such representations suggest the vulnerability of males, which opens the possibility for liberation from stereotypical and oppressive heteronormative

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roles; in the narrative representation of these “vulnerable” action heroes, we certainly see some evidence for that.

Comic-Book Superhero Films In the last two decades, while neither westerns nor cop/spy films have entirely disappeared, their prominence at the box office has been supplanted by the comic-book superhero film. These films are not entirely new, but for a variety of reasons, there are now more of these than ever before. The mythology of the western has evolved once again, and there are more variations within this subgenre that have expanded the range of values and meanings that can be found in these films. The beginnings of the modern turn to comic-book superhero films can be dated to Superman (1978), which was regarded as a successful venture when the investment of $55 million returned an estimated $135 million at the box office.11 Three sequels followed in the 1980s, and in 1989, a feature film of Batman appeared as well, which was a phenomenal success when it turned an investment of $35 million into $251 million at the box office;12 it also spawned several sequels. Its success was in no small part due to the merger of Warner Communications (which had owned DC Comics since 1971) with Time Inc. just a few months earlier. As Marvel Comics had no such major corporate backer at the time, it took several more years before their products made it to the big screen with X-Men (2000) and Spider-Man (2002); by this time, the economic viability of superhero films was assured.13 The fact that these films now dominate the box office can be attributed to a variety of factors. Viewers are willing to pay to see computerized special effects on the big screen, and these have advanced in complexity and quality even as audiences have become familiar with a pacing and style similar to home computer games. Not only do the films resemble computer games in the fighting scenes, but these provide models for the games, which are marketed alongside the films. In addition, toys and other associated merchandise make a profit that encourages filmmakers to this genre. Marvel has become a corporate juggernaut that rapidly produces films with interrelated stories (such as those of the Avengers), sequenced in such a way that fans become connected to a larger narrative. The Marvel universe presents the most complex and coherent

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mythology that has ever existed in popular film, with more entries than the Star Wars films, and this inspires tremendous devotion. Transmedial fan activities bear witness to the ritual activities associated with the films that resemble religion.14 Aside from these industry dynamics, it may also be true that comicbook superheroes connect especially well with the hopes and fears of contemporary filmgoers, especially in the United States. This is not to imply, however, that they are as monolithic as Lawrence and Jewett think; they have argued that superheroes represent the most extreme and fascist form of the American monomyth, as they are literally superhuman. They have an unlikely ally in filmmaker John McTiernan, who has said of comic-book superhero movies that “there is action but not of human beings. These are films made by fascists.”15 This seems like a curious view for the director of Die Hard, for while his own character John McClane lacks literal superpowers, he has an uncanny ability to kill bad guys and survive almost miraculously, much like a superhero; James Bond and other action heroes seem to have the same talent. As Lawrence and Jewett argue—and on this point, I agree with them—the beginnings of the superhero were already present in the heroes of westerns and action films. It is simplistic, however, to dismiss superhero narratives as fascist stories. The charge was initially made by Walter Ong in 1945 when he argued that Superman represents the ideology of Hitler, missing the fact that Superman does not seize power or use it to force his will on others.16 This remains true even in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), in which Superman is blamed for the deaths of innocent people (which occurred in 2013’s Man of Steel) by Batman and others so that Superman is accused of being a fascistic “false god,” but he never seizes power. In the end, it is shown that archvillain Lex Luthor has manipulated events to turn them against each other, and Superman is shown to be a true hero and savior of the people; after Superman is killed, a repentant Batman goes so far as to resurrect him in Justice League (2017). If one looks to the historical development of the character, one finds that Superman was created by Jewish artists during the 1930s, expressing their own desire for a just savior from fascism and tyranny. Arie Kaplan has argued that Superman is the ultimate immigrant, “the supreme stranger in a strangest land, and thus the supreme metaphor for the Jewish experience.”17

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Like other immigrants, Superman knows the pain of exclusion and loss of family and homeland, and he becomes one who protects the rights of the weak from dictators and oppressors. Michael Uslan, producer of several of the Batman films, has pointed out that superheroes during the Second World War were explicit foes of fascism, as comic books featured them battling real-world dictators like Hitler and Mussolini.18 Lawrence and Jewett also point to the fact that superheroes usually work alone as a sign of their fascist, undemocratic approach. In fact, fascism requires a societal apparatus to function, as well as the support of a population willing to oppress minorities and other nations; moreover, superheroes do not really work alone in many cases. Whether it is the Avengers, the Justice League, or the X-Men, superheroes need each other, and while some of them may initially resist joining and they have their moments of conflict, they usually end up working together to accomplish their goals and realizing the benefits of this. They also usually work under the auspices of a government rather than going rogue, although there are some exceptions to this rule; even in those cases, the superheroes do not despise authority for selfish reasons to gain power but seek to do what is best for the people.19 The villains of recent superhero films, on the other hand, are increasingly fascists who want to impose their power undemocratically on others.20 This is true of Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), En Sabah Nur in X-Men Apocalypse (2016), the Enchantress in Suicide Squad (2016), and Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War (2018). Chris Yogerst also points out that superheroes have “a long history of self-critical questioning,” which is certainly demonstrated in recent films.21 Captain America: Civil War (2016) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice both featured a conflict among superheroes in which each side has a valid moral point of view based on an assessment of what option will do the least harm. These films directly addressed the issue of collateral damage in the fact that innocent people die as a result of their battles with supervillains, a point that has often been ignored in action movies, superhero films, and war films. Realistically, war will involve innocent deaths, and even superheroes cannot prevent this; such films are more honest about the nature of violence, even though in the end, it is usually justified in spite of such collateral damage. The issue is raised by some of the superheroes, however, whether they are doing

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more harm than good and so need to have greater supervision by governments. Some of the superheroes, including Captain America, resist this supervision as they do not trust government oversight. This might be an argument for their fascist views, but the distrust of government does not always signal fascism. In reality, both left-wing and right-wing critics often argue for less government control; the current Antifa movement is a good example of a group that adopts militant and sometimes illegal protest tactics against governments they regard as fascist. It depends on what sort of government is in power and what tactics are regarded as legitimate resistance. When superheroes in these films debate whether they should follow the government, they are mirroring debates that occur in the daily lives of Americans as well as those in other nations; although these two films were obviously made before the 2016 US presidential election, the nation was already deeply divided politically, and these films reflect the moral conflicts and distrust of governments that we have come to see as normal in our societies. People of all political ideologies have been able to identify with superheroes as the ones who are “willing to do what is right,” and this shows not that any meaning can be imposed on these stories but that one’s political beliefs will affect what one sees in them. There is not a single meaning that can be taken from superhero films any more than there is for any other myth. Michael Uslan, producer of The Dark Knight (2008), notes that right-wing viewers of the film saw Batman as “the ultimate law and order soldier representing the best of a virtual police state,” while left-wing viewers saw him as a kind of “Robin Hood, disregarding government bureaucracy and red tape to save the masses from the powerful and corrupt and evil in society who preyed on them.”22 While he acts outside the law in either case, the motive is regarded differently; it is also worth noting that Batman in that film continues to follow his “one rule” that he will never take a life (unlike Batman in the recent Batman v Superman). While this is unrealistic, it does indicate that he maintains a moral center in spite of the quandaries he faces. His decision to conceal Harvey Dent’s identity as the criminal Two-Face in the end is controversial, but it also signals his willingness to take the blame for his death and recede into the shadows rather than seize power as a fascist would; he acts in what he believes is the best interest of the people.

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People of varying political ideologies have also found their views reflected in Captain America. One recent comic writer for the series, Ed Brubaker, commented during the Iraq War that “all the really hardcore Left-wing fans want Cap to be giving speeches on the street corner against the Bush administration, and all the really Right-wing fans all want him to be over in the streets of Baghdad, punching out Saddam.”23 J. Richard Stevens points out that Captain America has been a World War II icon, a liberal crusader in the 1960s (teaming up with the Falcon, who is African American), and an agent of the War on Terror as well as an advocate for civil liberties in recent years.24 The recent cinematic version of Captain America can also be interpreted in various ways; as he comes from the “Greatest Generation” of World War II, he is viewed as representing the mythical ideal of a purer America. This ideal can be embraced as much by liberals as by conservatives, as each of them look back to that era as an allegedly simpler and more moral time in the United States; even if this is factually problematic (the same era featured internment camps for Japanese Americans, segregation for African Americans, and persecution of homosexuals, among other things), this trope has a mythical power to which all Americans can appeal. As Jeffrey Brown writes (especially of Superman and Captain America), “These characters manage to leverage nostalgic impressions of mythic simpler times when America’s righteousness was seen as indisputable and the bad guys were easy to identify and to vanquish.”25 This is no longer really the case, of course, so these myths have to adapt to our changing situations and reflect some of the ambiguity and complexity of modern societies. For that reason, Brown also holds that filmic superheroes “function to preserve and challenge—resolve and rewrite—public beliefs about changing gender roles, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, national identity, and diversity.”26 Filmic superheroes are also beginning to reflect the actual diversity of our society, although slowly. While superheroes, similar to action heroes, have been mainly white men, the Avengers films now feature African Americans playing Nick Fury, Falcon, and Black Panther; X-Men includes black actors for Storm and Bishop; and if we expand to television, the Netflix depiction of Luke Cage has been groundbreaking in its explicit treatment of racial issues, with Cage as a fully “woke” black man.27 Most significant, however, was the release of Black Panther

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in 2018 as the first major superhero film focused on a black superhero and foregrounding issues of black identity, with an almost entirely black cast. At the same time, the film’s audiences were not limited by race or ethnicity, as it came in third for domestic-film all-time gross (as of June 2018) and so clearly had a wide appeal.28 The Black Panther is Prince T’Challa, ruler of the mythical African kingdom of Wakanda that has hidden its superior technology from the outside world in order to safeguard it from Western colonial interference. This Afro-futurist trope reimagines Africa as advanced rather than primitive and so as an ancestry worthy of pride. The story also presents a highly sympathetic antagonist: Erik Stevens, or “Killmonger,” is the son of the Wakandan Prince N’Jobu, who was killed in the United States by T’Challa’s own father, as the latter sought to prevent N’Jobu from sharing Wakandan technology (including its weapons) with blacks worldwide to support their fight against oppression. Killmonger seeks to follow in his father’s footsteps by gaining control of Wakanda and using its power to battle racism, operating with a “by any means necessary” perspective that justifies violence for liberative purposes. Some have even viewed Killmonger as the tragic hero of the film, including Chadwick Boseman, who plays T’Challa.29 The fact that Killmonger loses to T’Challa, however, has caused some to argue that the film perpetuates the stereotype of violent African American males who need to be sacrificed and that T’Challa as the noble African prince remains above and apart from the actual plight of black peoples.30 Still, the film has clearly advanced the superhero genre in presenting a story that deals so directly and sympathetically with black oppression in a way that has connected with multiracial audiences. Female superheroes are also evolving into more than mere “eye candy” or support for a male lead, although progress on this is slow as well. Characters like Storm and Raven appear in X-Men, but they are in many ways relegated to secondary roles and are not as central to the plot. Jean Grey as the Phoenix is an important character but mainly as a tragic and uncontrollable femme fatale in the original X-Men films, which culminate in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), although she saved the day in the alternate universe of X-Men: Apocalypse (2016). Movies like Catwoman (2004) and Elektra (2005) lost money at the box office, which may be why there have been no stand-alone films for characters such as Storm or Black Widow of the Avengers. Captain Marvel and

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X-Men: Dark Phoenix were released in 2019, however, and in the age of #Metoo, films that are focused on a female superhero may finally be perceived as marketable. A different sort of female superhero is found in Wonder Woman (2017), directed by a woman (Patty Jenkins) and with a story that follows the feminist direction of the comics. Wonder Woman, a.k.a. Diana Prince, is the daughter of Amazon warrior Hippolyta and the god Zeus. The Amazon women remain hidden on their island until First World War spy Steve Trevor accidentally stumbles upon it as he attempts to escape a German ship. Diana becomes aware of the world of men and war, and although her mother counsels her not to get involved, she feels she must. She believes that it is her destiny to kill the god Ares and so end all war. This is, of course, naïve, and when she finally confronts Ares, she realizes that it is not so simple. She also realizes that men will continue warring, but this does not cause her to give up hope for humanity. Instead, she chooses to stay in the world of men to fight for truth, justice, and freedom for all. The film is notable for the fact that it does not reduce Diana to a sex symbol or a sidekick; Steve Trevor respects and values her, and they can have an adult relationship that is apparently sexual but not exploitative on either side. She hates war but not men and only uses violence when necessary. The film avoids the celebration of violence and revenge that often marks male action-hero movies, as she remains committed to love, hope, and truth. In this way, she holds up feminist ideals in contrast to stereotypical masculine violence and so can challenge some of the tropes of action and superhero movies as well. At the same time, the character of Wonder Woman has carried some potential contradictions since she was invented by William Marston, who created the comic-book character as a powerful yet highly sexualized figure. Marston supported women’s rights and feminism as early as the 1920s but also fetishized female sexuality through images of bondage and tight outfits that accentuated Wonder Woman’s physique; he also introduced themes of bondage and submission into the comics, as well as allusions to lesbianism. Marston appears to have himself lived in a polyamorous sexual relationship with two women for many years, which indicates his own nonconformity to contemporary sexual norms.31 The character of Wonder Woman continues to be a cultural site of contention

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between those who see her as liberating and powerful versus those who see her as perpetuating the fetishization and sexualization of the female body, and this duality is linked to debates about how women can be depicted in ways that liberate rather than simply make them passive subjects of the male gaze.32 In deference to Jenkins’s film, she manages to subvert some of the fetishization through a comic depiction of Diana’s total ignorance of societal standards for women in 1930s Europe, as she simply has no experience being an object of the male gaze. Steve Trevor is the perfect foil to her, as he never seeks to dominate or take advantage of her naïveté but rather helps her navigate in a sexist society that she has clearly transcended. Another series of comic books with liberating themes is the X-Men series. These comics and the films based on them deal with issues of prejudice, marginalization, and xenophobia leveled at the mutants who are viewed as a dangerous deviation from mainstream humanity. Just like minority groups who are not accorded full humanity, the mutants suffer persecution from those who fear them and seek their destruction. In this way, their stories present a critique of racism and fascism.33 Magneto, a Jewish holocaust survivor, epitomizes the persecuted who fight back and refuse to accept this marginalization; much like Killmonger in Black Panther, he provides a sympathetic argument for liberating violence, even though he sometimes goes too far in his desire to exterminate the opposition. The X-Men stories can apply to any marginalized group, whether due to race, ethnicity, immigrant status, religion, or sexual identity or orientation. These superheroes are clearly not fascist white supremacists but quite the opposite, and fans of the series have identified with them because they fight for the marginalized. Stan Lee, creator of so many Marvel superheroes, wrote a statement against racism in 1968 that he republished on Twitter in August 2017 after white-supremacist violence erupted in Charlottesville, Virginia: “Bigotry and racism are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today. But, unlike a team of costumed supervillains, they can’t be halted with a punch in the snoot, or a zap from a ray gun. The only way to destroy them is to expose them—to reveal them for the insidious evils they really are. . . . Sooner or later, if man is ever to be worthy of his destiny, we must fill our hearts with tolerance.” He added a postscript: “As true today as it was in 1968. Pax et Justitia.”34 This is about as far from fascism as one can get.

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It is true that superheroes tend to perpetuate a mythology that violence is the way to solve problems. This can be countered by the assertion that they only use violence when absolutely necessary—but given the fact that they are constantly surrounded by supervillains, this seems to be all the time. In the end, diplomacy or conversation is not what saves the day (although Charles Xavier, Professor X of the X-Men, comes close to this ideal at times). Violence is justified because evil aliens or supervillains are attacking, but in our world, there are no such beings. If we apply this dualistic worldview to our reality, we will demonize our enemies as “absolute evil,” inhuman and in need of destruction. Rachel Wagner has shown how the procedural logic of first-person shooter video games supports a rigid dualism that mirrors the religious apocalyptic in which “the world is divided into ‘us’ who are ‘good’ and ‘them’ who are ‘enemies.’”35 The same may be true of films that feature obvious dualisms of good and evil with little ambiguity; if people take these fictional representations as corresponding to political realities in our world, then the supervillains and evil aliens of the movies become ciphers for other nations, religions, and peoples. We will have occasion to return to this point in considering other genres, especially war movies, which can represent real populations on our planet as those who are justly destroyed. Films can challenge easy dualisms of “good” and “evil,” but they may also support them, and as always, much depends on the way that the viewer appropriates the film and how it relates to his or her own worldview. Myths do not only reassure us with comfortable images that fit with what we want to believe, although they often do; if they are to discomfit us to new ways of seeing reality, we must be willing to be challenged by myths that do not fit as easily with what we already believe.

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Gangster Films

Early Gangster Films The generic conventions of the gangster film were identified by film theorists as early as those of the western, in part because of the attention attracted by three rather sensational films made at the beginning of the sound era: Little Caesar (1930), Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932). In all three, the main character is a ruthless criminal who rises to the top of an organization through his unstoppable desire for success at any price. The fact that he is destroyed by the end of each film seems to indicate a moral critique, in that audiences are warned of the high cost of such lawless and violent behavior—and yet the gangster exercised a strange fascination on audiences so that they sympathized with him more than they judged him. Whereas the western hero tended to be a good guy who worked a bit outside the law in order “to do right,” the gangster operated outside the law to do wrong; his purposes were entirely selfish and not at all noble. The censors correctly identified the attraction these seedy characters held for many audiences, and moral outrage at such films was one of the main motivations for the Hays Office to develop the enforcement of its code.1 As an early draft of the code put it, “The sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrong-doing, evil, or sin” by making evil “attractive or alluring.”2 Ironically, however, even if evil was depicted rather brutally (as in Scarface), this might actually increase audience interest and fascination, so the Hays Office not only had to ensure that the criminal was punished in the end but that the violence not be depicted too explicitly. Robert Warshow has greatly influenced the study of gangster films in his thesis that these movies embody the contradictions present in the American dream, which encourages all to succeed in the capitalistic system even though this is impossible. The gangster becomes a tragic hero in that he is doomed to be destroyed by the very system that has 137

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created him as a creature of greed and consumption; the fact that he employs criminal methods is incidental.3 Ideological criticism has also usually assumed that gangster films serve a fundamentally conservative purpose in that they only question the system in order to reinforce it, showing lower-class audiences the necessity of capitalism as well as their inability to succeed in it. Jonathan Munby, however, has questioned this common view by arguing that gangster films were seen as subversive by their audiences and by those who sought to censor them. Rather than expressing the epitome of the American ideology of capitalist success, the gangster was unAmerican in his refusal to play by the rules of the system.4 The character of the gangster appealed to many audiences, Munby argues, precisely because he expressed their frustrations with America and their inability to find a place of acceptance in it. The development of sound cinema was crucial in this regard, as one was able to hear the ethnic accents of the gangsters who were explicitly identified as “hyphenated” Americans: usually “Italian-Americans” or “Irish-Americans” (although the actors were sometimes Jewish Americans).5 These groups knew they had not been accepted by society, and the films often expressed the efforts of ethnic Americans to achieve acceptance that were doomed to fail. Although they can parody the dress and mannerisms of high society, they lack the language and cultivated tastes that signal the status of the upper classes. Even with money and fancy suits, their parties still devolve into food fights, and “Little Caesar” can only appreciate the gaudy frames on the paintings he buys.6 Lower-class audiences would recognize such obvious ironies, even if the characters did not, and this served to demonstrate their own class exclusion, but it did not celebrate or legitimate it. That ethnic groups were not imagining their disenfranchisement from American society is also reflected in the activity of the censors in regard to such films. Scarface proved so shocking to them that it was only to be approved with certain cuts but also with the addition of a scene that was to make the moral critique of the gangster lifestyle explicit. The scene is actually two scenes—the first in a police office, the second at a newspaper. In the first, the chief detective likens the gangster to a “crawling louse” who should not be romanticized or glorified. In the second, the newspaper publisher argues that the government needs to institute martial law, crack down on crime, and deport the gangsters, for

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“half of them aren’t even citizens.” Although the scene includes a “good” Italian who supports what the newspaperman says regarding the need to deport his countrymen (“Thatsa true. They bring nothin’ buta disgrace to my people”), it is clear enough that the progovernment judgment is xenophobic and intolerant of unassimilated ethnic groups.7 The lowerclass ethnic audiences who liked gangster films were unlikely to be affected by such moralizing, as it was directed against them; if anything, they would feel more identified with the gangsters because of such a scene, noting that they were among those rejected by the representatives of white America in the film. Even films that did not seem to romanticize the gangster but instead made him into a psychotic “mama’s boy” like Cody Jarrett (James Cagney) of White Heat (1949) still held an attraction for viewers precisely because they crossed the line of normal, accepted behavior.8 Anyone who has seen the film remembers the spectacular and shocking finale, as Jarrett yells, “Made it, ma! Top of the world!” before blowing himself up atop a huge gas tank. The undercover G-man who was the ostensible “hero” of the film was not the reason that people went to see it; it was to see James Cagney’s portrayal of criminal deviance. Any film with a criminal in it might hold this kind of appeal, even if it is not primarily the story of the rise and fall of a gangster; cops-and-robbers pictures, even detective films, developed vicious criminal characters that exerted a great hold on the imagination of audiences (although the cop or detective might be a sympathetic character as well).

The Godfather Films While gangster films were common in the 1930s and 1940s, their popularity waned in the decades that followed. This could be because the ethnic groups they first represented, such as Irish or Italian Americans, had been successful in assimilating to the point that they were no longer effective symbols of excluded minorities. Gangster films made in the decades that followed often functioned as nostalgia movies by depicting these groups in earlier decades, before their integration into American society, in the process offering parables about the price of success in America and a comment on the contradictions within the American dream. The clearest examples of this are director Francis Ford Coppola’s

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The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974), which are among the most successful and critically acclaimed films of the genre and are together most often identified as the quintessential gangster films. (Although a third film, The Godfather: Part III came out in 1990, it did not receive comparable success or very favorable reviews; many critics and viewers regarded it as an unnecessary addition to the saga.) The story of the first film traces the history of the fictional Corleone family from 1945 to the early 1950s, and the second film alternates the history of young Vito Corleone’s rise to power in New York during the early twentieth century with the story of how his son Michael ran the family in the 1950s. These films were praised as both brilliant and appealing largely because they very effectively manipulated audiences to identify with the gangsters while at the same time raising questions about the moral decay that grows within the family along with its financial success.9 There is a liminal enjoyment that comes from watching their criminal successes, but this is seamlessly blended with a critical perspective that shows the moral cost of these successes. They also managed to appeal to multiple ethnic groups as the story transcended that of one ethnic group (Italian Americans) to become a universal story of the value of family, even while it depicts the problem with sacrificing all other values to that one. What motivates the Corleones is not primarily greed or a reckless desire to be admitted to the corridors of society traditionally reserved for those of northern European ancestry, although these elements are present; rather, it is the preservation of their ethnic family that undergirds almost all their actions, and it is only when the family disintegrates that tragedy ensues. In particular, Michael becomes a tragic hero when his very efforts to safeguard the family become so extreme that his methods represent the undoing of that same family, and his desires for success and assimilation cause him to sacrifice the values of his ethnic past. In contrast with Michael, his father, Vito, is shown (particularly in Part II) to be a man who becomes a criminal only to support and protect his family, and he becomes a respected don in the Italian American community after he kills a bully who extorts money from poor people under threat of violence. Don Vito is literally a protector of widows and orphans and dogs, and he is depicted as just and righteous; his thefts are only from the rich, and like Robin Hood, he steals from them to feed the

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poor. He only metes out justice to the extent required, as in the opening scene of the first film, in which he refuses a request to murder men who committed assault: “We’re not murderers,” as he says. He values family and friendship and is loyal to those who serve him, always offering help to those in need. At the start of the first film, Michael is estranged from the family and judges his father for the violence he has used to defend it. All this changes when Vito is shot, and Michael develops a plan to save him and the family that involves striking back at those who have attacked them. “It’s not personal; it’s business,” he says; this line in many ways epitomizes the film’s message that the family’s criminal business requires violence, and Michael himself agrees to murder the drug lord who struck at his father along with the corrupt policeman who protects him.10 Once he does so, there is no turning back, and his character devolves by the end of the first film to the point that he can have his own brother-inlaw killed and lie about it to his wife, Kay. She walks out of his office and, in a long shot, appears in profile while Michael remains in the office, in focus and at the center of the frame. His men come in to kiss his ring and call him “Don Corleone,” and as Michael’s bodyguard closes the door on her, we see her look of incomprehension as she is excluded from his world and his “business.” That this shot is from Michael’s point of view is significant, in that the audience is still (albeit uncomfortably) identified with him. By the end of the sequel, it is much harder to identify with Michael as his efforts to safeguard the family backfire due to his own greed and desire for revenge. He makes a deal with the Jewish gangster Hyman Roth that proves disastrous when Roth betrays him, and Michael realizes that his own brother Fredo acted against him in giving assistance to Roth’s attempt on Michael’s life. Although Fredo claims he “didn’t know it would be a hit,” Michael cannot forgive him and finally has him killed, and so Michael’s ethic of defense of family has tragically turned into its opposite. Michael’s desire to be accepted outside the Italian American community also in many ways leads to his downfall, as his deal with Roth signals a willingness to be loyal to someone outside his ethnic group (and in both films, Jews in particular are consistently portrayed as untrustworthy and disloyal). His wife, Kay, leaves him when she realizes he will never end his business of crime and violence, as he had promised

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her when they were married, and she even tells him she has aborted his third child because “this must all end.” Although Michael survives, his family has disintegrated around him so that this film does not offer the viewer any satisfactory resolution. In contrast, even though the first film ended in lies and violence, it ended with an intact family and not nearly as many moral ambiguities for the viewer.11 Whereas the traditional gangster film featured the ethnic gangster punished for his desire to be accepted, which cannot be fulfilled, this film features the gangster who gains wealth and an American identity but at the cost of his ethnic and family identity. We admire the devotion to family we see in the young Michael and in Vito, as well as the ethic of freedom and protection of the weak that began the family, but we also see its devolution through Michael’s insatiable desire for success. But this is not simply a story of the ravages of capitalism on those who pursue it, nor is it a judgment on the desires of those who want to be accepted. Rather, it expresses the complexities involved in negotiating one’s identity as family member, member of an ethnic community, and citizen of the United States. The audience feels an identification with those who use violence and coercion to survive and succeed, but we are also repelled by the extreme means they use. Our own ambiguous relationship to violence as viewers is expressed in that we are both drawn to it and horrified by it; we experience the thrill of their liminal revolt even while our moral sensibilities reject it. In addition, we are presented with the ambiguities inherent in assimilation, as it presents the loss of traditional values as the price for success in America. Even those who have long been assimilated can identify with the poignancy of this choice.12

Evolution of the Gangster Film In the years since the first Godfather film, some gangster films have followed the nostalgia model of depicting mobsters in earlier periods of American history, focusing in particular on Italian American mobs. Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990) is one example of this, based on the true story of informant Henry Hill, who worked for the Lucchese family from 1943 to 1980. This gritty film presented an organization full of brutal violence that made the mob appear much less moral and attractive than the Godfather films so that while Coppola was sometimes criticized

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for making gangster life too appealing, Scorsese has been praised for his realistic depiction of its more sordid aspects. Scorsese has also directed other gangster films, among them Casino (1995), The Departed (2005), Gangs of New York (2002), and The Irishman (2019). His portrayals do not glamorize the gangsters or their violence but still invite some sense of identification with their desire for success and power.13 One might expect recent gangster films to depict the struggles of today’s minorities in a liminally attractive form that celebrates their revolt against societal oppression. In fact, they tend to operate as cautionary tales of morality to discourage rather than celebrate crime as its dire consequences for today’s minorities are realistically and unflinchingly depicted. Boyz n the Hood (1991) told the story of three young African American men in South Central Los Angeles and how only one escapes the gang lifestyle that inexorably leads to death for all the characters who pursue it. Menace II Society (1993) and Juice (1992) also told cautionary tales of young African Americans struggling to escape the crime and violence of the ghetto. New Jack City (1991) gives the same moral, taking the form of a crime drama about the cops who stop the drug lord who necessarily comes to a bad end. American Gangster (2007) takes the form of a cop-versus-gangster narrative in telling the true story of the capture of Frank Lucas, who survived by informing on his former colleagues, much like Henry Hill. Films about Latino gangsters offer similar cautionary tales, including Walk Proud (1979), American Me (1992), Carlito’s Way (1993), and Down for Life (2010). Some of the consultants for American Me were actually murdered by the Mexican Mafia, and director Edward James Olmos was threatened, as the criminals resented their negative portrayal in the film—including the portrayal of a gang rape and murder of one of their own, in prison.14 The gangsters in these films are vilified rather than made glamorous figures to admire, which clearly bothered actual gangsters to the point that they sought to have the creators of the film killed. At the same time, films that depict the experience of urban minorities do not simply present a moralistic message that “crime doesn’t pay.” If they did, they would simply be reiterating the morality of the dominant white culture that delegitimizes minority desires to resist against a system that excludes them. Instead, much like gangsta-rap music, these films can realistically depict how a racist society inspires criminal revolt

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even while they also show the ravages crime inflicts on the minority communities themselves. It is not coincidental that rappers starred in some of these films, including Ice Cube in Boyz n the Hood and Tupac Shakur in Juice. Since N.W.A. released their song “Fuck tha Police” in 1988, it has been viewed both as a challenge to police brutality and as an encouragement to violence, and that dual legacy was clear in the controversies that swirled around 1990s “reality rap.” The musicians defended their right to free speech even while censors attempted to restrict it, mirroring the original efforts of censors to restrict the gangster films of the 1930s. The difference between the two situations lies in the fact that it is much harder for persons of color to assimilate than it was for white immigrants in the 1930s, who could simply wait a generation until their accents and names were indistinguishable from the rest of white majority culture. Writing in 1999, Munby noted, “Ghettoization for 1990s black Americans is not the precursor to eventual ‘Americanization’ and embourgeoisement, as it was for ethnic whites earlier in the century, but rather a way to continue to incarcerate a group of Americans who do not even function as the reserve army of industrial labor.”15 This may be the reason films that depict minority gangsters now do not resemble earlier gangster films in providing metaphors for the moral ambiguities of American success or nostalgic depictions of bygone class struggles but rather continue to be challenges both to racist America and to the self-destructive violence found in many minority communities. Spike Lee, for example, aimed at both of these targets in Chi-Raq (2015), which created a modern version of Aristophanes’s play Lysistrata set in presentday Chicago. As Aisha Harris noted in her review of the film, Lee “attempts to indict American society as a whole,” including “politicians in the pockets of the NRA who allow for loose gun control laws, the white suburban kids who admire and buy into ‘thug’ culture (via music, movies, etc.) from afar, the crooked real estate people and the prison industry that shield the black community from the hope of having a future” as well as “the community itself, for keeping silent about the people they know are murderers out of fear of retaliation.”16 Police brutality against minorities has also been depicted in films such as Do the Right Thing (1989), Mi Familia (1995), and Fruitvale Station (2013), and recognition of this reality has increased in the mainstream due to high-profile cases and cellphone videos. It is also depicted

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in Straight Outta Compton (2015), the story of N.W.A. told largely from the perspectives of Ice Cube and Dr. Dre (who were both producers of the film). Reactions to that film also expressed the sharp dualities that exist currently in America with regards to racial understanding, showing that the controversies that followed N.W.A. during their history are still very much with us. Negative reviews saw it as glamorizing greed, violence, misogyny, profanity, and blasphemy; positive reviews saw it as telling the true story of the group and their expression of real life in the ghetto, including police violence. In this way, the reviews reproduced the dual responses to the group two decades earlier. One reviewer explicitly contrasted the negative reactions to the film with how earlier gangster films were received: The problem with this movie is that the people who made it actually dared to portray young, angry black men as heroic, not as criminals or predators. It’s okay to glamorize white criminals, because Hollywood was built on that. From Public Enemy to The Godfather, white audiences have always loved to sentimentalize their own criminals. But you can’t do that with black men who rap about crime, even when they aren’t actually criminals themselves. When Cagney postures like a thug in some ancient piece of crap that’s cool. But when black men do it today that’s dangerous and irresponsible! There are very powerful elements in this country that are terribly frightened by this movie. They’re frightened because this movie gets white audiences to see young black men as something other than dangerous criminals. The scenes of NWA being roughed up by police are a terrible threat to the powerful elements in our society, who stay in power only by keeping white people scared of black men. They can’t tolerate the idea of black male victims, so they instantly start a media backlash portraying the victims as criminals.17

If this reviewer is correct, depictions of “angry black men” are controversial because white audiences can’t accept these liminal portrayals as easily as they could when the gangsters were white. Gangster films have always had a liminal appeal to the disenfranchised in their ability to express the frustrations and anger of the groups they depict. The anger does not dissipate cathartically, however, simply by its depiction; such films may also crystalize real societal critique and so lead to an

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awareness of and even challenge to the hegemonic forces that dominate a culture. There is no reason to assume that such films always have an essentially conservative function of reinscribing the dominant structures as people placidly return to their social stations after enjoying the fantasy. As we saw in the previous chapter with the reactions to the superhero film Black Panther, the fantasy may actually be empowering as well as illuminating, depending on what a particular audience brings to the film and what they do with it.

The Heist or Caper Film There is another genre of crime film, however, that is less controversial by sharing a liminal fantasy that is nonviolent and so less challenging than gangster films—and seldom calls for any real societal change. The con-artist, heist, or “caper” film often utilizes comedy and likeable misfit characters who manage to rob the rich people who seem to be deserving targets of their criminal schemes. Usually, they don’t harm anyone physically, thus obviating many of the moral quandaries posed by identification with violent gangsters. The Sting (1973) did very well at the box office,18 and it won the Academy Award for Best Picture in between the years that The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II won it, suggesting that films that made crime appealing were receiving critical as well as financial success in the early 1970s. Paul Newman and Robert Redford were a popular film duo, having made the highly successful and critically acclaimed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid just four years earlier, which was also directed by George Roy Hill. That film also featured two likeable outlaws, although its story ended tragically as they unsuccessfully sought to survive in a changing world; in contrast, in The Sting, the audience is briefly itself “conned” into thinking that they are dead, when in fact that illusion was just another part of their plan. The enjoyment provided by such movies often lies in the fact that the audience is not entirely in the know until the end, when the intricacies of the con are revealed, and the audience experiences the surprise of having been manipulated along with the “marks” in the film. Viewers don’t resent this temporary concealment of the plan as they know that it will be followed by a full revelation, and they can then participate with the

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outlaws in the joys of outwitting the targets of their deception and experiencing a “happy” ending. Marks are also often depicted as deserving to be conned. The Sting is set up as an effort to take revenge on the mobster who had their friend killed, so while they might have liked to murder him, Hooker (Redford) says he wants to con him because “I don’t know enough about killing to kill him.” Dozens of his fellow con artists join the plan from similar motives, and the viewer roots for them against the ruthless and greedy mobster. Revenge is also the primary motive in The Italian Job (2003), Tower Heist (2011), and Now You See Me (2013), among other heist films that also use deception—the latter involving a group of magicians whose powers of illusion are effectively if improbably harnessed for their purposes. Now You See Me also adopts a Robin Hood–style plot when the robbers appear to distribute the wealth of their enemy to the people, literally showering the city with money. Among the most successful recent con movies are those of the Oceans series, starting with Ocean’s Eleven (2001), which was ostensibly a remake of the 1960 Frank Sinatra vehicle but bore little resemblance to it beyond the central premise. Danny Ocean and his team of “experts” conspire to rob three Las Vegas casinos in one night, but the real motivation for Danny proves to be an attempt to win back his ex-wife, Tess, who is now with Terry Benedict, the casino owner who is his mark. At the climax, Danny manages to reveal to Tess that Terry prefers money to her, and this is enough for Danny to win her back. The robbery has the noble motivation of true love as well as revenge, which makes it all the more satisfactory for the viewer. The sequel Ocean’s Twelve (2004) appears to be the story of Terry Benedict taking revenge on Ocean’s team by forcing them to repay him, but as the story develops, it is revealed that events are being manipulated by master thief Gaspar LeMarque in an effort to be reunited with his daughter, a Europol agent in pursuit of the team (who was once also romantically involved with one of them). By the end, all are reconciled— father and daughter, ex-lovers, and even Benedict and Ocean. Ocean’s Thirteen (2007) is more of a standard revenge plot on a casino owner who cheated one of them but again brings together the team for fun and profit. The franchise was rebooted in 2018 with Ocean’s Eight, a story of Danny Ocean’s sister who puts together a team of women for a jewel

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heist. Along the way, it is revealed that this is also a revenge plot directed against her ex-boyfriend who testified against her, resulting in her conviction and prison time. All these films share the same comic tone, quirky and likeable thieves, and enjoyable plot twists along with protagonists who are appealing for their intelligence as well as their loyalty to family and friends. The liminal attraction for viewers comes in the fact that the thieves can steal successfully from those who can afford to lose some wealth and do so without violence or betrayal of those they love. While gangster movies offer morally problematic models of resistance, these films present far fewer complications for liminal identification with the criminals, which is probably why they are often comedies rather than tragedies. Some con movies do vary the formula. Catch Me If You Can (2002) is based on the true story of Frank Abignale, a forger and conman who successfully impersonated a physician, a pilot, and a lawyer while amassing a fortune. Ultimately, he was caught and reformed to become an FBI consultant on fraud. But director Steven Spielberg’s telling of the story emphasizes Abignale’s motivation for his crimes as the desire to reunite his estranged parents and fix his broken family, which proves impossible when his father dies and his mother remarries; the final title card does indicate that Abignale married and had his own children, showing that his quest for a family finally succeeded once he gave up the fantasy of bringing his parents back together. Spielberg, himself a child of divorced parents, frequently presents the challenges of divorce in his films, and this thread also serves to humanize Abignale. His exploits invite some humor and liminal identification, but ultimately, it is shown that his criminal life was misguided, as the real Abignale has stated openly for many years. Matchstick Men (2003) varied the formula yet again with the story of a neurotic conman saving for retirement who becomes a mark himself when he opens himself to having a relationship with a daughter he never knew he had. His own compassion for her costs him financially but causes him to evolve personally, providing him with a path to redemption from the criminal life—suggesting that an honest but simple life is preferable to isolation, anxiety, and ill-gotten wealth. The Bling Ring (2013), based on actual events, describes how teenagers broke into celebrity homes to steal their jewelry and clothes in a misguided worship

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of their success and wealth; this is more of a commentary on our society and its empty values, as the teenagers seem to have difficulty even understanding the consequences of their own actions. Neither of these films valorized criminals, and neither made back their investment; perhaps the real moral is that crime pays when it is depicted as glamorous and cost-free.19

Conclusion Films that depict criminals operate in a variety of ways on viewers, depending on the film as well as what the viewer brings to it. These films have both romanticized and critiqued the criminal lifestyle, sometimes in the same film and even for the same viewer. These films have provided opportunities for liminal identification with those who challenge society, and this may lead either to a reacceptance of the status quo after a harmless fantasy of revolt or to actual challenges to the status quo through a greater awareness of discrimination based on race or class. The films vary both in the intentions of the filmmaker and the various receptions they receive, so there is no gangster monomyth but rather a range of effects that the films may have on viewers as they interact with their own values and beliefs. And although most of us are unlikely to become criminals by watching such films, we remain both repelled by and yet drawn to these depictions of those who step outside of social norms.

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Melodrama and “Women’s Films”

To speak of “women’s films” as a genre is a curious thing, as it seems like a category mistake to identify a genre by its audience rather than the characteristics of the films themselves. To do so also risks the assumption that that group has a monolithic and easily identifiable identity so that films can be tailored to their likes, dislikes, beliefs, and values. The often pejorative term chick flick may function in this way, as it reduces the film to “only” one that would interest women, presumably at some superficial level—that term might include romances or romantic comedies as well as any film focused on women. Romantic comedies, which I will discuss separately in the following chapter, clearly do not appeal only to women, nor are they directed solely to them, although they are often identified as “chick flicks.” It is also worth noting that films that might be thought to be designed to attract primarily male audiences (like action, science-fiction, or war films) also attract plenty of female viewers, suggesting that it may be a mistake to truncate audiences in this way. It is also an obvious offense not only to essentialize viewers by gender but also to assume that there are only two genders by which viewers might identify themselves; this bifurcation also rarely takes sexual preference into account, implicitly assuming a heterosexual bias. For all these reasons, I hesitate to write about “women’s films” at all, and yet there is a definable type of film often identified in this way, and these do share certain characteristics that are often linked to the assumption of a primarily female audience— even if that assumption is flawed in that these films are not only seen or appreciated by female viewers. Before turning to these films, however, I must at least briefly engage the theories of female spectatorship put forth by Laura Mulvey in her well-known 1975 essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” In Mulvey’s view, women are reduced to objects of male pleasure in most traditional Hollywood films, in that through editing, camerawork, and story, 151

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men are shown as controlling the “gaze” that reduces women to objects of their pleasure. Women are shown in the films as lacking in agency and are rendered as passive in relation to men, who control the narrative and how it is shown; the female spectator then has this passivity forced on her as well.1 Mulvey later addressed the question of what options women have as viewers, suggesting that they might find themselves “so out of key with the pleasure on offer . . . that the spell of fascination is broken.” In this way, they might reject the film and the enjoyment it claims to purvey. Alternatively, women might choose to identify with the male perspective in the film and engage in a fantasy of power, but Mulvey suggests in her examples that the woman “can’t achieve a stable sexual identity” and will ultimately be denied fulfillment: “The female spectator’s phantasy of masculinization [is] at cross-purposes with itself, restless in its transvestite clothes.”2 Mulvey has been criticized by feminists who suggest that the actual “viewer” of the film may differ from the idealized “spectator” proposed by her theories, shaped as they are by psychoanalytic categories.3 There is no reason to assume that there is an essence “common to all women” that defines how they will receive films. If gender categories are indeed fluid, the viewer may also choose to reject them and the assumed viewpoints they represent.4 This is important to remember as we approach a genre of films that has often been viewed as regressive in terms of its effect on women, as it is sometimes assumed that even films focused on and directed to women can only offer cautionary tales of women who are punished for their challenges to the status quo. Not only may the films be received in multiple ways by different viewers—regardless of their gender identities—but even an examination of their structure may belie the assumption that they ever functioned primarily to “keep women in their place.” A popular genre that has often been assumed to function in this way is the “melodrama.”

The History of Melodrama Although melodrama originally meant simply a drama with action punctuated by music, it came to mean a drama with a certain emotional effect on the viewer, and initially, what we now call suspense-thrillers were referred to as melodramas. Over time, however, its meaning

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narrowed to be focused primarily on sentimental films directed toward female viewers that featured narratives about women and their sufferings, especially films of the 1930s and 1940s. Sometimes the women achieved happiness after suffering, sometimes not, but they always demonstrated strength in their ability to survive sadness, especially in matters of love and family.5 Analysis of these films has been dogged by the inability of film theorists to understand why these narratives are popular with women in particular. As they rarely have unambiguously happy endings and are instead “tearjerkers,” this may seem to suggest that women are masochistic in wanting to see movies in which women suffer. One could suggest that a male-dominated industry has constructed these films as cautionary tales, designed to show women the punishments in store for them should they decide to step outside their traditionally assigned roles, but this does not explain why women continue to go to such films. And much as the male-dominated industry might like to encourage women to be subordinate, it is more interested in making money, so we could presume these films would not even be made were there not a market for them. What, then, are women getting out of these films? Jeanine Basinger has theorized that the appeal of such films lies in women’s ability to fantasize about socially forbidden behavior through identification with the “bad” women of such movies, allowing a vicarious thrill of being a woman who values her career more than family or sex more than a loveless marriage. As for the fact that the women who make these forbidden decisions are “punished” in the end, Basinger takes this as the necessary coda imposed by the Hays Office to blunt the subversive edge to the narrative, much as the fall of the gangster was similarly mandated for gangster narratives. Essentially, the films present women with the seductive possibility of release from their societally prescribed roles but also tell them that “they shouldn’t want such things; they won’t work; they’re all wrong.”6 When most women are faced with this dual message, Basinger suggests, they will listen to the conservative message, but they will be attracted to the subversive suggestion of freedom—and this is what keeps them coming back. Basinger demonstrates her thesis in relation to three films that she believes tell “the same old story” that women should conform to their societally prescribed roles, with a few variations. In Kitty Foyle (1940),

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the heroine chooses to marry the “good” man, “a noble doctor who works among the poor and who loves her deeply” but who is “almost an asexual male,” rather than the “weak” man who represents “the wrong kind of life, sex without marriage.” In this way, she makes the “right” choice for a woman of marriage over sex. In Smash-up, the Story of a Woman (1947), the heroine accepts her role as a loving wife and mother when she overcomes her self-destructive alcoholism that developed out of her anger over the loss of a career. In The Guilt of Janet Ames (1947), a woman overcomes her guilt about neglecting a husband she did not love when she finds another man to love her. All three films, according to Basinger, “demonstrate that women have a dual choice, or dual selves, and that they need to listen to reason and the rules of society in order to allow the good one—that is, the one that conforms—to dominate.”7 She suggests that these women are punished when they neglect their domestic duties, and this effectively embeds them in the subordinate status of wife and mother. At the same time, she would suggest that the attraction of the films for women lies in the moments when the women do not conform to these roles, thus suggesting a liberating alternative. When one looks more closely at the plots of each of these films, however, we may find different messages that would have a more obvious appeal to women than a mere cautionary tale with a subversive subtext. When Kitty Foyle chooses marriage with the doctor over an extramarital affair with the “weak” man, this is not a choice to give up sex but a choice of the man who really loves her over one who does not. She had first married the weak man, but this marriage failed when his upperclass family refused to accept Kitty, a lowly secretary not from their part of society. He then marries someone in his own class but still wants to have sex with Kitty on the side. Her rejection of him is the rejection of someone who could not accept her as she was and who put his own position and family above her; his offer to keep her as a mistress simply keeps her as his sexual toy. What woman would not cheer when she gets rid of this jerk? Furthermore, there is no reason to conclude that the man Kitty marries in the end is “sexless” just because he is also “good.” Janet Ames too realizes that she should only marry for love, and she needs to overcome guilt, not about the fact that she did not please her now dead husband but about the fact that she did not marry the right person. There were probably lots of women after the war who realized

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they had rushed into marriage precipitously, whether their husbands came home or not, and they might have felt similar guilt about not loving their husbands. The film tells them they need to overcome their guilt and get on with their lives and offers the hope that they can find real love. A woman locked in a loveless marriage might not have this chance, but the film would still offer a fantasy that might help her survive reality—and in time, she might even have the courage and willpower to divorce her husband, as women began to assert themselves in this way in the decade following the war. They are told by the film not that they should be punished for such desires but that they must overcome their guilt about such feelings and get on with their lives. As for Smash-up, the film never indicates the woman should have given up her singing career, and it even seems to suggest that this was a mistake. Her problem lies not in an inability to sacrifice a career to marriage and motherhood but in the self-pity that threatens to destroy her as she neglects her career. The film seems to suggest that she can have both a career and marriage/motherhood, if only she stops drinking. In fact, women’s films do not always tell women they must sacrifice a career to marriage and family. The extremely popular tearjerker A Star Is Born (1937/1954) actually tells the story of how a man finally sacrifices himself for his wife’s career. Women obviously enjoyed this story of a successful woman and the man willing to die to ensure her success. And in spite of the fact that the film ends with her identification of herself by his last name, this fails to subordinate her to him as he is no longer there to interfere with her life.8 All of these films offer hope for women to overcome suffering and oppression, to marry the right person, or to have a successful career. It is ridiculous to assume that every time a woman gets married in a film, this implies she is simply conforming to a social role and would rather, all things considered, just have affairs with married men—as Basinger seems to think Kitty Foyle should have. There is nothing liberating about simply being someone’s mistress, and women knew this better than anyone. Even in a musical like Gigi (1958), in which the heroine holds out for marriage rather than being merely a “kept” mistress, we do not get only the promotion of social conformity through marriage. It is also an endorsement of the ability of women to assert themselves in choices affecting their own lives—as Gigi states so well, in words adapted from

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a story originally written by protofeminist author Colette. While her grandmother and aunt try to arrange her fate as Gaston’s mistress, Gigi is independent enough to refuse the status of a woman who is just one in a line of women to be used and cast aside by spoiled rich men. Basinger’s thesis works well with certain “bad girl” films that depict forbidden behavior as a subversive possibility, but it does not deal with those films that do not conform to this model. For example, she does not mention Waterloo Bridge (1940), a film I discussed in an earlier chapter, which concerns a young woman’s fall into prostitution after her beloved goes to war. Her life as a prostitute hardly presents a forbidden attraction, nor is it a punishment for her behavior; it is simply an undeserved disaster that befalls her. Women were moved by this wartime story as it depicts the sufferings of women left behind by their men. Although most women did not suffer as she did, they could identify with the sadness associated with her totally unwarranted fate as they sought to survive as well. Basinger also does not mention the ever-popular An Affair to Remember (1957), in which the plan of the two lovers to meet at the top of the Empire State Building is derailed when, on the way there, the woman is hit by a car, unbeknownst to the man; she becomes crippled, and he assumes that she does not love him as she never showed up. She gives him up because of her injury, and it is only in the final scene when he visits her that he realizes she is crippled, after her attempts to conceal her condition fail. They are reunited, and she vows to walk again. It should be obvious why women love this film, as the man loves her no matter what condition her body is in. There is pain and suffering, but it is overcome with love. Her injury was not punishment for their affair, nor is she denied love in the end. Admittedly, she was willing to be a self-sacrificial female in her desire to conceal her injury, but the man does not permit her this self-sacrifice. The film would not have been very popular with women if the man had left her apartment without realizing she was crippled or (worse) if he had abandoned her after learning of her injury. Basinger also barely discusses To Each His Own (1946), which featured Olivia De Havilland’s first Oscar-winning performance, except to ridicule it for its lack of realism. This film concerns a woman’s quest to regain possession of the illegitimate child she gave up, a quest she pursues through becoming a highly competitive and successful businesswoman.

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The film does not suggest that women should keep their kids and not work, because it is only by working that she can gain her child. Recall that in the 1940s, when men were away at war, women often did have to work to support or keep their children (as they do once again in our own era of single parents and absent fathers). This character was not allowed to raise her child, but in the final scene, her now-grown son realizes who his mother is, and they are reunited. Although she missed his childhood, it was not her fault, and now she has a relationship with him as well as a successful business. This is hardly a narrative that tells women to stay in their traditional place; it even seems to suggest that they can have it all, albeit belatedly. Another extremely popular women’s film that does not really fit Basinger’s typology is Now, Voyager (1942). In this film, the heroine desires to escape a repressive mother who wants her to marry a man she does not love because he is from “a good family.” On a cruise, the heroine meets a married man and has a brief but fulfilling affair, and so having known real love (and presumably sex), she can refuse the loveless marriage her mother has arranged. Her mother conveniently dies so that she can be free of her controlling influence. Although she cannot marry the man who truly loves her, she is able to be a mother to his child and achieves fulfillment in this way. The heroine demonstrates a tremendous degree of independence and self-reliance, as Basinger herself notes, and she is not really punished for these traits as she is allowed to make her own decisions about her life in the end. In spite of the fact that the lovers cannot be united and that she makes the “conventional” choice of motherhood over extramarital sex, the film offers a fantasy of female power and confidence that clearly attracted many female viewers.9 These melodramas in general demonstrate the suffering of women not as a way of inculcating the belief that they deserve to suffer but in order to suggest ways in which women can deal with suffering and overcome it through their own inner strength. Especially in the decades in which women had relatively little freedom regarding a career and marriage, these narratives offered them the chance to express their frustration and sadness at the limitations imposed on them as well as the hope that these can be borne and sometimes overcome. The most popular women’s films do not tend to focus on punishment for bad behavior but instead present situations in which women face unavoidable suffering

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that is not their fault but that creates the opportunity to demonstrate inner strength and conviction.

Melodrama in Later Decades If there are fewer films of this type today, this may be due to the fact that women are not nearly as constricted as they once were. It is now much more acceptable for women to have careers, to have children out of wedlock, to remain unmarried, and to have sex outside of marriage. While the older films expressed the frustrations of women who were not permitted these things by society, our more liberal era does not offer the same strictures. This is not to say that the oppression of women has ended, however, and the successes that some women have achieved may mask the challenges that remain. Susan Faludi’s 1991 book Backlash: The Undeclared War against American Women documented how popular culture and media perpetuated the myth that women no longer needed feminism, that they were ready to give up the quest for professional success in favor of traditional gender roles.10 Poorly done research suggested that career women who delayed marriage would be unable to find mates or have children, and popular films such as Fatal Attraction (1987) depicted the career woman as barren, vindictive, and murderous—finally only dispatched by the homemaker wife who defends her right to her husband by killing the tramp. Such cultural influences expressed anxieties about female power that have only increased since Faludi wrote her book, although movements like #Metoo have not been silent in response. Women continue to find themselves victimized by male violence, paid less, discriminated against, and left with the greater share of childcare and home duties.11 My next chapter will discuss how some romantic comedies have supported the sexist ideology of the backlash in suggesting that women should be anxious about finding a man and marriage, as often the women in those films easily meet career goals but are alone, unfulfilled romantically, and childless. Ironically, the traditional melodramas of women overcoming the challenges of a sexist society have largely been replaced at the box office with female fantasies of love and marriage. This is not to say that the female melodrama has totally disappeared, but in adapting to an allegedly less sexist society, it has sometimes failed to address the larger societal issues that affect women.

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The challenges faced by women in more recent melodramatic “tearjerkers” often involve female friendships cut short by death, especially by cancer, as this slow death allows the characters time to deal with their suffering and express their feelings for each other, as in, for example, Terms of Endearment (1983), Beaches (1988), and Steel Magnolias (1989). The first of these concerns a mother-daughter relationship, the second two women, and the third a group of women, each case offering the characters a chance to bond together before the death of one. These films do not suggest that the characters deserve to die but that they deal with suffering and death by expressing love in the midst of it—the challenges they face, however, are in essence unrelated to societal dynamics or sexism. There is at least one melodrama of the 1990s, however, that was a story of female empowerment in the face of sexism. Titanic (1997) broke all box-office records in the year it was released,12 and while it may be classified as a disaster film, its plot most closely resembles that of a traditional female melodrama. Much like Now, Voyager, it features a young woman trying to escape her oppressive mother and the man she is being forced to marry for financial stability, and it also features a shipboard romance as the form of her liberation. The film was set in an earlier time when women’s roles and freedom were more constrained, but it still appealed to young women at the time of its release (and it deliberately sought and received a PG-13 rating) in its story of a seventeen-year-old who defies her mother to do what she wants with her life. In spite of the star-crossed romance that governs its plot, Titanic is really much more a story of female survival. When Jack Dawson meets Rose, she is about to kill herself to escape a loveless marriage and a controlling mother, yet by the end of the Titanic’s voyage, she has lost Jack but has gained the strength to live and be independent. She rejects her family, money, and the wealthy class to embrace life lived on her own terms with her own values, clearly siding with the poor (who were largely excluded from the lifeboats) rather than the empty lives of the greedy. Even the priceless jewel she has held for so many years proves to be of no value for her when she casts it into the sea. The photos of her life with which she surrounds herself at age one hundred do not appear to include a husband or children (although she had these) but instead show her having the sort of adventures that Jack had urged her

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to pursue: flying a plane, riding horses, and traveling the world. Jack encouraged her freedom but also told her that he could not save her from her constricted life, that only she could make that choice to leave it—one that she ultimately makes but only after he is gone. Rose does not require a man to be free, and the film makes that clear. It should have been no surprise that this story was a tremendous hit with young female viewers, who may feel constrained by the adult world as well as beholden to societally prescribed gender roles. Even in our allegedly enlightened era in which girls can ostensibly enter any profession, they often still assume that life is incomplete without a man to love and care for them. Teenage girls often have very low self-esteem due to their feelings of dependence on men and male acceptance, which can even lead them to attempt suicide if a boyfriend rejects them.13 Rose considered suicide but rejected it and so offers a role model of a young woman who can be strong and independent. Director James Cameron has made a number of films with strong female characters who do not require a man to succeed—from Ripley in Aliens (1986) to Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)—and Rose is one as well. Similar to traditional female melodramas, Titanic also sent the message that women can be strong enough to survive suffering and loss, even without a man. Many people were surprised to see a film of this sort break all box-office records, and some attributed this to the attraction of the stars, the action, or the film’s budget—but it may be the story that kept them coming, sometimes repeatedly, to see a tale of hope amid loss, love valued over money, and female empowerment. In spite of the success of Titanic, films that followed it did not return to the traditional melodramatic form for films directed to female viewers. There are more films designed around female characters, some of them intentionally remaking male buddy movies, such as Ghostbusters (2016) or Ocean’s Eight (2018), but they sometimes have limited boxoffice returns. There are also movies like Bridesmaids (2011) or Bachelorette (2012) that offer liminal fantasies about bridal-party disasters filled with scatological humor and inappropriate behavior but, in the end, show the women as friends who can support each other. Girls Trip (2017) and Bad Moms (2016) similarly offer liminal humor in stories of women who want to break out of their societally prescribed roles, and through the experience, they become closer to each other as well

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as somewhat empowered. The Other Woman (2014) is another comedy that offers a revenge fantasy as three women conspire to punish the man who has treated all of them badly. Perhaps these comedies have replaced melodramas as the preferred form of female-bonding movie by creating an outlet in parody for the anger and frustration many women feel. As with all experiences of liminality, the question remains whether the temporary challenge to the status quo simply prepares female viewers to be more deeply embedded in their societal roles or whether it can empower them to act against the forces that dominate them. Seeing women rebel against unhelpful or unfaithful spouses may or may not inspire a viewer to do likewise, and when this is expressed in the form of extreme parody, it may function more as catharsis for the viewer than as anything resembling realistic advice.

Women’s Romantic Fiction Made into Films There is another trend in recent films that are directed toward female viewers, found in popular book series that have been made into successful films in the last decade. The first of these was the Twilight series, with books that were published 2005–8 and films from them appearing 2008–12. Although this is a story about vampires that might be classified as horror, it has all the trappings of women’s romantic fiction. Bella Swan is a seventeen-year-old girl of divorced parents who can barely care for themselves, and Bella herself is insecure and selfdestructive with extremely low self-esteem. Into her life comes Edward Cullen, a member of a “family” of vampires who intentionally control their desire for human blood by drinking that of animals. Edward’s family has a strong father and a nurturing mother, and they offer to Bella the stable family she lacks. Bella and Edward fall in love and marry for eternity, as she becomes a vampire as well. Stephenie Meyer, who wrote the novels, is a Mormon, and it has been noted that some of the features of her stories reflect her religious beliefs and values. These include the fact that the Cullens model the perfect Mormon family: they are patriarchal yet loving; carefully control their desires, refraining from consuming corrupting substances; and only have sex within marriage—and then forever.14 The novels and the films based on them also model some disturbing sexist features often shared by women’s romantic fiction. Edward

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is moody and violent, controlling and possessive toward Bella; for her part, she is insecure around him, fearful she is not pleasing to him, and desiring sex with him even though it leaves her injured. Elaine Heath notes that the films downplay Edward’s rage as well as Bella’s fears of his violence, suggesting that the filmmakers might have realized this has all the markings of an abusive relationship.15 Mormon theology suggests that only in marriage can one be completely fulfilled, and the books and films perpetuate that belief as well, so there is no rejecting the partner to which one is mated.16 It is true that Bella eventually becomes a strong and confident woman, but this is only after dying as a human and becoming a vampire—and this is also only in the final book (2008) and films (2011/2012) of Breaking Dawn. If Bella can only be strong and confident as an eternally youthful and beautiful vampire, one wonders if this is the best role model for young women. In addition, her most significant contribution to the story’s resolution is to give birth to a child that is the key to the desired peace between humans, vampires, and werewolves—and even this birth almost kills her. Bella is the perfectly self-sacrificial and yet eternally sexy mother. Lest one think that this nonprogressive model for women is only found in young adult fantasy, it is worth noting the success of the Fifty Shades books (2011–12) and the films made from them (2015–17). Here again we have the story of a mysterious yet attractive man to whom the heroine, Ana, is drawn, and she consents to sexual activity involving bondage and sadomasochism. By the end of the story, they are married with children, and she has “saved” him from his damaged past and violent tendencies. This fantasy attracts many women, but once again, it seems to mirror the structure of abusive relationships in which the woman accepts the submissive role with the hopes of redeeming the man. A much more positive role model for women is found in the young adult Hunger Games books (2008–10) and films (2012–15). In an imagined dystopian future, a totalitarian state exerts its control over the conquered territories by annually requiring a randomly selected child from each district to compete in gladiatorial fashion to the death. Katniss Everdeen agrees to serve in this role to save her younger sister from being sent, but she does not desire anyone’s death. She is drawn into

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a major political struggle with evil on both sides that she is unable to countenance and, in the end, makes the only move she can see to end the violence. She is a strong yet sensitive figure who is intent on defending her family and her people and who is uninterested in males to the point that she is initially oblivious to the two boys who like her. Katniss is considerably more independent than Bella or Ana, avoids violent action whenever possible, and is courageous and cares for others. One can certainly examine this series as an example of action or science-fiction films, and yet the centrality of a female character struggling to survive with her family, along with the romance that runs through the series, exemplifies common features of female melodrama. Women’s romantic fiction remains as popular as it has been for decades, but it has started to reflect societal changes in showcasing more equal and less exploitative relationships as well as women who have aspirations outside of romance.17 Romance novels are the most sold fiction in the United States, which Maryanne Fisher attributes to the liminal desires of women to fantasize about sex with a “bad boy” whom they could reform—even if such fantasies are totally unrealistic.18 The question that remains, of course, if whether women can separate the fantasy from reality. While the central male characters in Fifty Shades and Twilight are in fact good men just waiting for the right woman to save them, in reality, abusers do not tend to be reformed, and female consumption of these stories could contribute to a harmful mythology that disempowers women in relationships. Scenes of forceful sex in such stories are viewed by their fans not as rape but as sexually arousing, the most famous of which in film is surely that in Gone with the Wind. In Helen Taylor’s study of female fans of the film, she found that most did not view this scene as a rape but as “rough sex,” and she agrees with that view herself.19 But this view might concern us when we learn that the book’s author, Margaret Mitchell, was herself an abused wife and victim of attempted rape who could not speak openly about this. Carolyn Gage has argued that Mitchell dealt with this by creating the fantasy of Rhett Butler but that this was a lie to conceal the real horror of her life—and the readers of such stories are essentially engaging in “female emotional castration.”20 While female consumption of romantic fiction in books and film will no doubt continue—as well as the debate between women who defend

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it and those who view it as sexist propaganda—it is gratifying that there are characters like Katniss Everdeen in young-adult books who are not manipulated by the men in their lives, who can be strong and survive while protecting those they love. This was always the best moral of women’s melodramas, and even if it is sometimes eclipsed, such stories do still exist in films. Women are also starting to appear as stronger characters in other genres, although progress is slow, not least because there are still remarkably few female directors of films that receive major funding or marketing.21 Outside of melodramas, romantic comedies are the genre most identified with female viewers and a female perspective. The next chapter will give us the opportunity to see if these films simply reinscribe stereotypes or whether they can provide other ways to think about romance, sex, love, and gender roles and identity.

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The romantic comedy is a relatively neglected genre, perhaps because its seemingly simple form does not encourage elaborate analyses; as Martin Barker puts it, the romantic comedy seems to be “all surface” and so does not invite an analysis of its depth.1 But these films are extremely popular with men as well as women and may express as well as shape how we understand relationships, sex, love, gender roles, and gender identity—as much by what they include as well as what they leave out. It is worth examining them, if only for this reason.2 Not all comedies are romantic comedies, and not all romances are comedies, but the formula for the romantic comedy seems to largely dictate how romance and love are portrayed on screen. A couple meet accidentally, in some humorous way (the “meet cute”). They like each other, but some obstacles exist. In the end, the obstacles are overcome, and they are united. As Leger Grindon points out, “The plot of most romantic comedies could be presented with the earnestness of melodrama, but the humorous tone transforms the experience.” The conflicts are played for humor so that we seldom worry about the results; instead, romantic comedies represent “the shifting practice of, and the evolving ideas about, romance in our culture.”3 The conflict that keeps the couple apart for a time may be just a trivial misunderstanding, but it usually represents something that could be an actual problem: such as parental opposition; divergent class, racial, or religious backgrounds; sexual or social taboos; physical or emotional distance; or differing life values. Romantic comedies are sometimes categorized (or derided) as “chick flicks” along with female melodramas for supposedly appealing mainly to women. In fact, both men and women go to romantic comedies and enjoy them, whether they go together as couples or not. They compose one of the largest categories of comedy films, and they also usually have a happy ending for the couple, which most people like. At the same time, 165

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they create an artificial portrait of relationships as they tend to focus on the beginning stages of a relationship rather than anything later. It is fun to watch a couple find each other, but if the film ends as soon as they are united, we have no idea how they might deal with the ongoing challenges of any actual relationship. It is to be assumed that there will be no major challenges to come and that they will live happily ever after, but this is a myth that may not accurately represent the reality of many romantic relationships—even if it functions as an ideal. Most romantic comedies also express conservative notions of romance in that they deal with heterosexual couples who desire true love and a long-term relationship, although it may take a while for them to realize that. Women are often depicted as obsessed with marriage and children, while men are depicted as only interested in casual sex. In such cases, he finally realizes he wants more and falls into “the tender trap” of marriage so that the conservative heterosexual ideal can be upheld. Many sexist tropes get recycled in romantic comedies, but the films also allow liminal challenges to the stereotypes, and sometimes they are transcended. The genre is evolving along with societal attitudes about sexuality and marriage so that its history provides some index of what values are acceptable, based on what the conflicts are and how they are overcome in the films.

Early Romantic Comedies The romantic comedy film has its antecedents in farcical plays about love and classic novels such as those of Jane Austen, which dealt with class differences and misunderstandings to be overcome in order for love to succeed. The standard format for romantic comedy films might be said to have been created in Frank Capra’s box-office hit It Happened One Night (1934). In this film, spoiled heiress Ellen Andrews (Claudette Colbert) is thrown together with brash newspaperman Peter Warren (Clark Gable) as she is escaping her father to be with “King” Westley, a man she married without her father’s permission. Peter agrees to help her get to Westley in exchange for her story, but on their travels, the two fall in love. Through a misunderstanding, she comes to believe he hates her, and she returns to Westley for a formal wedding, now accepted by her father. Before the end, however, she runs back to Peter (leaving

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Westley at the altar)—at her father’s urging, as he has come to appreciate the honesty of Peter in contrast with Westley’s gold digging. This film contains many of the tensions present in any number of romantic comedies. On the one hand, the film suggests that a woman wants and needs a dominating man around to run her life; on the other hand, the woman flouts social convention by doing what she wants, defying first her father and then Westley, and she also shows independence and spunk. The film also follows a romantic paradigm in keeping the sexual tension between Ellen and Peter in check; when they have to share a room, he puts up a blanket between them—the “walls of Jericho,” as he puts it—so that it will be clear that he will take no liberties. She is the first to cross the “wall,” to confess her love to him, a gesture that demonstrates no small amount of female sexual power for 1934; she is a “modern woman” who is at least partially liberated from traditional norms. He is too honorable to take advantage, however, and is conservative enough to believe he must have some money in his pocket before he can propose and properly remove the sexual “wall.” Though he criticizes her, he also respects her, and in spite of his rebel status, he follows a code of honor that includes refusing the reward for her rescue that her father offers (a gesture that wins the father’s respect for him as well). Clark Gable as Peter was immensely attractive to women for his ability to be both a rebel and a man of honor, a domineering scoundrel and a man who truly feels love—the character he reinvented a few years later as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939). Romantic comedies, especially those of the “screwball” variety that were popular in the 1930s and 1940s, often similarly featured a somewhat contradictory mixture of traits in the characters or even a reversal of traditional gender roles. In Ball of Fire (1940), Barbara Stanwyck plays a gangster’s girlfriend who uses a house full of bachelor encyclopediawriting professors as a hideout. Gary Cooper is the linguist who is ostensibly studying her speech patterns but ends up drawn to the considerable sexual energy she projects. In the end, she is also drawn to him, due to his gentle and kind (yet strong) nature, which contrasts with that of her own gangster boyfriend. The characters defy gender stereotypes to some extent, which creates the humor as well as an opportunity for liminal challenge to the societal status quo. A similar plot is found in The Lady Eve (1941), in which Barbara Stanwyck again starred as a

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strong and “bad” woman, this time as a con artist who goes after a shy and bumbling millionaire scientist (Henry Fonda). She ropes him into a marriage with a fake persona of an heiress, arranging to get rid of him but keep his money by telling stories of her “lost virtue” with scores of lovers—which in 1941 would be horrifying enough to a conservative man to scare him off. This drives not only the comedy but also a liminal reversal in which the woman holds the power by admitting multiple sexual encounters outside of marriage; in real life, of course, women were usually punished rather than rewarded for such behavior. In the end, she decides she truly loves him and comes back to him so that (as in most romantic comedies) “all’s well that ends well.” Such films offer a liminal experience in which gender roles are partly reversed insofar as we see women being able to assert some control over unsuspecting men. The man may also demonstrate some strength before the end, as when Cooper rescues Stanwyck and beats up the gangster at the end of Ball of Fire—but even this scene subverts societal expectations and norms, as his shy professor buddies manage to likewise intimidate the gangsters by firing machine guns in the air, defying their own stereotype as effete intellectuals. Likewise, in the many films made together by Spencer Tracy and Kathryn Hepburn, the power shifts between their characters as they spar, but in the end, they triumph over the obstacles that would separate them. In Woman of the Year (1942), they play battling columnists for the same paper who marry in spite of their obvious differences in background and interests. Tracy has trouble allowing his wife her professional success, to the point that he leaves her; when she tries to win him back by playing the part of the dutiful housewife, she wrecks breakfast, suggesting that isn’t really who she is and that she will not succeed by conforming to that stereotype. Tracy’s character tells her that she needs to find a balance between being just his wife (“Mrs. Sam Craig”) or her solo self (“Tess Harding”) by being “Tess Harding Craig,” his way of saying she should embrace both her marriage and her professional identity.4 In Pat and Mike (1952), they again subverted gender roles to some extent as Hepburn is the professional golfer and Tracy plays her manager; Hepburn was often a strong professional woman in their films together, especially the comedies. In Adam’s Rib (1949), they play married lawyers on the opposite sides of a case involving a woman who shot her

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philandering husband; as the prosecutor, Tracy has trouble accepting his wife’s successful defense of the woman, and they come to the verge of a divorce. Tracy’s tears cause his wife to reconsider the divorce and suggest the man’s ability to show weakness, but in the end, he admits that he has the ability to cry at will (“crocodile tears”) and that it was just an act to win her back. Their comedies were immensely successful as both men and women enjoyed their sparring that did not clearly give either the man or the woman the upper hand and that sometimes subverted the stereotypes for gender roles.

Romantic Comedies of the Backlash Era As with female melodramas (discussed in the previous chapter), romantic comedies made during the decades in which women had less freedom in reality often exhibited greater freedom for women onscreen. Women were not entirely subservient to men in these comedies, even though their actual societal roles were still quite constricted. Romantic comedies thus functioned as a liminal escape and a utopian ideal for women, and men may have also found the strong onscreen women attractive—although they might not have wanted their actual wives to be that assertive. As women gained more professional and sexual freedoms beginning in the 1960s, they did not have to deal with the same barriers, but new ones were erected. Women now had more financial independence and opportunities, did not need to be married to survive, and could with less stigma have sex and children outside of marriage. But we have seen how the backlash against feminism in the 1980s and 1990s created a movement designed to protest and curtail these freedoms by suggesting that women were sacrificing love, marriage, and children to their career goals. In modern romantic comedies, that myth is often enacted. From Baby Boom (1987) to The Proposal (2009) and The Ugly Truth (2009), we see career women with no time for romance or family, and they are depicted as professionally successful but personally unfulfilled. The backlash idealized the era when women did not have to work and were “taken care of ” by a man. Movies like Pretty Woman (1990) basically retold the Cinderella story of how a young woman (in this case, a prostitute!) could still meet Prince Charming and have him “rescue” her.

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Although she says that “she rescues him right back” at the end, one is left with the impression that all she had to do was put on the right dress to make it into his social circle in order to be permanently purchased by him. Rachael Johnson is not alone in arguing that the film romanticizes prostitution and is a “love song to consumerism and capitalism,” which is “one of the most misogynist, patriarchal, classist, consumerist, and lookist movies ever to come out of Hollywood.”5 Maid in Manhattan (2002) offered a similar tale of a maid who is mistaken for a socialite, which offers her the chance to transcend her social status and marry a rich man. One of the most popular romantic comedies of the 1980s was When Harry Met Sally . . . (1989), which frames itself as one of a set of stories of couples and how they met.6 This film did not tell women they needed a man to take care of them financially, but it did give shape to some contemporary anxieties and fantasies about marriage. The film begins with an elderly couple sitting on a sofa talking about how they met and married fifty years ago. Actually, only the man talks, as he describes seeing her and instantly deciding to marry her. These faux interviews punctuate the narrative of the film, as it is periodically interrupted by these diverse stories that older couples tell about their courtships. Some speak of love at first sight, some speak of many years that had to pass until they found each other again, but all of them indicate the idea that they were “fated” to meet and marry and that true and lasting love wins out in the end. The story of Harry (Billy Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan) begins as they graduate from college and share a car ride from Chicago to New York, where both intend to settle. They are complete opposites, for he is sloppy (spitting grape seeds out the window—in fact, at the window), and she is neat. He is a pessimist, and she is an optimist. He is casual, and she is extremely structured (having already mapped out the places where they will switch drivers). She is also “practical,” claiming that she would rather have gone with Viktor Laszlo than Rick Blaine at the end of Casablanca (1943), as she would rather be “the first lady of Czechoslovakia” than married to a man who owns a bar. Harry suggests that she simply hasn’t had great sex yet, and this is why she is able to make such a “practical” and nonsexual choice. He also tells her that men and women can’t really be “just friends” because men want to have sex with all women. He is blunt to the point of being obnoxious, and she finds him repellent.

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After they reach New York, they part and do not see each other until five years later, when they accidentally meet and end up sitting next to each other on an airplane. Sally is now with Joe, whom Harry knows, and at first, Harry does not even remember Sally. He tells her that he is getting married, which she finds “very optimistic” for him. He says that he’s tired of the life of a single man, dealing with questions like how long he should hold a woman after they have had sex. He still seems to be someone who is more focused on sex than marital commitment, in spite of the fact that he is engaged. Five years later, they meet again, just after Sally has broken up with Joe and Harry’s wife has left him for another man. In commiserating, they become friends rather than lovers. Sally admits that she left Joe because he did not want to have children, which she does, even though she has been told that having kids ruins your sex life. Her friend Marie tells her she should rush to find a man and marry before it’s too late so that, even if the marriage ends, “at least you could say that you were married.” We know almost nothing of Sally except her desire to marry and have children and almost nothing about Harry except the fact that he has sex with as many women as possible without commitment even while he pines for his ex-wife. Ultimately, Sally and Harry have sex spontaneously as Harry comforts her (after she learns Joe is getting married); commitment-phobic Harry flees, much to Sally’s consternation, but by the end of the film, he runs back to her, confesses true love, and proposes. Now they too can appear on the sofa telling their story. This movie was a great success, no doubt in large part due to the talent of the actors as well as the director, Rob Reiner. But it was Nora Ephron’s screenplay that attracted much attention and assured her of future opportunities to both write and direct her own films. The dialogue was full of funny one-liners, but the story also seemed to exert a tremendous appeal due to its old-fashioned romanticism. The interviews of the elderly couples and the use of older tunes on the soundtrack (as well as references to classic films) signal a bygone era of romance, and the plot was structured so as to suggest that even in our own era of casual sex, it is possible to find true romance and lasting love. And while some of the interviews of the elderly couples suggest an ideal of “love at first sight,” Harry and Sally’s relationship moves in a different direction by taking its

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time to mature. Sex and attraction are not the basis of their relationship so much as real friendship and understanding. At the same time, this film perpetuates sexual stereotypes that suggest it is mainly women who want to get married and have children and that sex is basically unimportant to them (consider Sally’s famous scene of faking an orgasm in Katz’s Delicatessen, which shows how easily she can do it). It also suggests that men are commitment phobic and mainly desire to have as much sex as possible, preferably with lots of partners. One hears these stereotypes invoked so often that people begin to believe them, even though there are plenty of men who want commitment and children and plenty of women who are afraid of commitment. There are also women who have lots of sexual desire and men who have less. We are prevented from seeing facts like these by films that reinforce our cultural assumptions about men and women. Nora Ephron made several successful romantic comedies, most notably Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You’ve Got Mail (1998). In the former, the couple does not even meet until the end of the film, and having met, it is assumed that they will live happily ever after. This amazingly unrealistic notion is supported intrafilmically by references to the romance An Affair to Remember, as the couple meets atop the Empire State Building just as Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr did, but of course, in the latter film, they had already spent some time together. You’ve Got Mail is ostensibly a remake of The Shop around the Corner (1940), in which two people who despise each other are unwittingly anonymous pen-pal sweethearts. The newer film not only updates this situation by changing the medium to email but also makes the two business competitors rather than coworkers in the same shop. The net effect is to make a film that is considerably more sexist than the original, as the man has considerable power over the woman from the start because he represents the large corporation and she the little bookstore. Joe (Tom Hanks) invokes the classic line from The Godfather (“It’s not personal; it’s business”) in reference to their corporate war and eventually gets Kathleen (Meg Ryan) to overcome her animosity toward him for putting her out of business. It seems hard to believe that Kathleen would decide to marry someone who had destroyed her livelihood, even though she wonders at times if she would prefer doing something else. Joe encourages her to forgive him by reminding her that Elizabeth forgave Mr. Darcy in Pride

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and Prejudice (her favorite book); however, readers of the book will recall that Mr. Darcy risks his own social standing by associating with Elizabeth and that he also goes to considerable effort and financial expense to rescue her sister from poverty and disgrace. Joe makes no such effort to redeem himself in the eyes of Kathleen, except that he is nice to her. There seems to be no basis for their relationship, even in its email form, as their chat-room talk is “meaningless nothing,” as she puts it. In Shop around the Corner, the pen pals shared a love of literature and poetry; in this version, the man does not even like Pride and Prejudice. When Harry Met Sally… at least had a basis for the couple’s relationship in the friendship they developed; in Ephron’s later films, the romances seem to be based on nothing at all, neither substantial intellectual sharing nor physical attraction. What all three films share is the idea that sexual attraction or sexual activity should not be the basis for a relationship, making them appear to invoke “old-fashioned” ideals of romance. People may romanticize the “good old days” when couples stayed married, not realizing that many of these people were miserable. But “at least they could say they were married,” and they had children. Many people today, women as well as many men, may long for the simplicity they associate with an idealized past in which relationships were supposedly easier to find and keep. Marriage may have been perceived as a prison by many career women who resisted it in earlier decades, but the backlash against feminism would have us believe that marriage liberates women from the rat race of career and loneliness. Another disturbing trend in some romantic comedies is the normalization of sexual harassment and even rape. In Revenge of the Nerds (1984), a man wears a Darth Vader costume, complete with the mask, to disguise himself as a woman’s boyfriend and so have sex with her. When she realizes the deception, she doesn’t report it as a rape because he satisfied her sexually. There’s Something about Mary (1998) made a joke out of stalking, and American Pie (1999) and The Girl Next Door (2004) did the same for spying on women who are undressing. Julia Lippman has shown how women who watched comedies that made stalking appear romantic were more likely to endorse beliefs such as “many alleged stalking victims are actually people who played hard to get and changed their minds afterwards” or “an individual who goes to the extremes of stalking must really feel passionately for his/her love interest” than a control

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group or one that watched films that made stalking appear frightening.7 Since the #Metoo movement began in 2017, it may now be much less likely that sexual harassment will be depicted humorously, but attention to its fictional presentations will continue to be important as these depictions shape attitudes about what constitutes acceptable behavior. One of the truly dark sides to the “traditional” era of love and marriage is that men were viewed as having complete rights over women’s bodies, to the point that a man could rape and abuse his own wife without fear of consequences. There are dangers to romanticizing the past, not least when this sanctions the continuance of abuse and violence.

Twenty-First-Century Romantic Comedies Although I would not suggest that traditional views of love and marriage or the backlash against feminism have disappeared from films, it is true that the last two decades have offered increasing diversity in romantic comedies. This diversity has not always taken the form of greater racial, religious, or gender representation, but there are more stories engaging the reality of the two-career relationship, an aging population, and changing ideas about gender roles. Not all romantic comedies convey the same sexist stereotypes, such as the view that all men fear commitment and that the goal of women is simply to get married. At the turn of the millennium, Runaway Bride (1999) featured Julia Roberts as a woman who has almost been married four times but whose fear of commitment always causes her to bolt at the altar. She finally ends up with the newspaper columnist who first intended to expose her neurosis (Richard Gere), as he gets to know her and falls in love with her—and it is he who teaches her that she has been trying to find her own identity through a husband rather than in herself. What she actually fears, he realizes, is that she will lose herself in her perpetual attempt to please a man. Her lack of identity is signified by the fact that she doesn’t even know how she likes her eggs cooked, always deferring to the taste of her current fiancé until she decides to try every recipe to find out for herself. Empowered to be an individual rather than an appendage to a man and to have her own views, she can freely choose to be with him, someone who wants her to just be herself. This story was a far cry from Pretty Woman, in which Roberts and Gere had also

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costarred, just nine years earlier; oddly enough, both films had the same director (Garry Marshall), but significantly, Pretty Woman’s screenwriter was male (J. F. Lawton), and the screenwriters for Runaway Bride were both female (Josann McGibbon and Sara Parriott). In Notting Hill (also 1999), Roberts again played a woman afraid to commit to a man who cares about her, this time because she is a movie star and he is ordinary; she has to overcome her own class prejudice to realize his worth, so it is the woman who controls the action more than the man.8 Women in some romantic comedies realize that they have been so submissive that they have been unable to assert themselves, whether to men or female friends; they then learn that they must stand up for themselves and voice their feelings rather than being doormats to others—a role to which women have been acculturated but which can be challenged. In 27 Dresses (2008), perpetual bridesmaid Jane finally learns to assert herself when her sister Tess gets engaged to George, whom Jane has secretly loved for years; not only does she expose her sister’s lies that made her appear perfect for George, but Jane also finally expresses her own feelings to George. When it turns out these feelings were just fantasies, she is freed to realize who she truly loves and (in another gender reversal) goes to great lengths to tell him, even leaping onto a moving boat and interrupting a wedding. Another film that features a woman finally expressing her feelings is Something Borrowed (2011), in which Rachel fails to tell her friend Dex how she feels about him until it is almost too late, when he is about to marry her best friend, Darcy. Rachel and Dex sleep together and are both wracked with guilt; Rachel is unwilling to hurt Darcy, even though Dex seems more suited to Rachel, and so she waits for Dex to make the decision between them. He proves too weak to do so, but eventually, Darcy finds out anyway; Rachel then learns that Darcy has also been unfaithful to Dex, so their marriage was doomed from the start. Rachel is free to be with the man she loves, which is what she deserves. Women also learn to reject men who are simply using them, as Kate Winslet’s character does in The Holiday (2006) or as Kristin Wiig’s character does in both Bridesmaids (2011) and Girl Most Likely (2012). In the latter two films, she continues to pursue wealthy and successful men until she realizes they do not really care for her at all, and she ultimately chooses more ordinary men who actually like her in both films. In How

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Do You Know (2010), the main character has to choose between a man with financial and legal problems and a multimillionaire athlete—and ultimately chooses the former. The latter, while not a terrible person, is controlling and possessive (as well as challenged in regards to understanding fidelity), and finally the lure of his money is not sufficient for her to stay with him. A romantic comedy made just ten years earlier might have had a different resolution, with the Cinderella ending of her winning both love and riches; instead, she can make an independent personal choice that makes her beholden to no man or his bank account. Romantic comedies are now increasingly willing to admit that there are sexual relationships that do not conform to the traditional model of love, monogamy, and children, in that order. Women can decide to have a child even without a partner, as in The Switch or The Back-up Plan (both 2010), and although a partner does eventually appear (because these are romantic comedies), the stories do not imply that she needed a man to raise a child. Friends with Benefits and No Strings Attached, both released in 2011, dealt with the “hookup” culture in which two people decide to be sexual partners without any romantic entanglement. Again, because these are romantic comedies, eventually the couples realize they are in love and actually desire the commitment of a real relationship, but the resistance to be conquered is not only on the man’s part—in No Strings Attached, the woman’s reluctance to commit is actually greater. In Life as We Know It (2010), the two best friends of a husband and wife who are killed in a car accident are named joint guardians of their child, and they are forced to live together to raise her. Although they have little in common and initially hate each other, the child brings them together; this particular setup is an unlikely one, but there are real people who end up together mainly because of a child. Even though it is a comedy, the film does not shortchange the difficulties, especially as their career goals threaten to drive them apart when he is offered his dream job in another city. Romantic comedies now recognize the fact that career and family goals may collide; jobs are not simply invisible sources of income that remain unconnected to life choices about love and marriage. Going the Distance (2010) dealt with the challenges of a long-distance relationship, as the couple live on opposite coasts and seek a way to live closer to each other. The Five-Year Engagement (2012) raised similar issues, as he gives up his job to follow her to her graduate program, which soon becomes

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a long-term situation. He hates it there and has given up career dreams, making him bitter and angry and eventually leading to their breakup. This makes it sound like a melodrama, but the comedy is thick enough that we know otherwise, and in the end, they find a way to be together. They learn that relationships necessarily involve compromise and negotiation, that no perfect solutions exist, and that sacrifices may be required, but no assumptions are made about who has to make them—the man or the woman. Stereotypical gender roles also get upended in a film like The 40Year-Old Virgin (2005), which featured a lot of raunchy sexual humor but ultimately told the story of a kind and rather innocent man who really does value love more than sex, which is the main reason he has made it to that age as a virgin. His friends, while more sexually experienced, are not actually any happier or more adept in their relationships. The ending of the movie is remarkably traditional, as he only finally has sex after his wedding, but the farcical tone balances the conservative message as this leads to a fantasy dance sequence, 1960s-style, of “Aquarius” and “Let the Sun Shine.” The film parodies sexual freedom as well as virginity by exaggerating stereotypes about both—in the process promoting neither but effectively lampooning most societal assumptions about sex. Sexual attitudes are also parodied in 500 Days of Summer (2009), which tells the story of a relationship doomed by the fact that the woman admits she doesn’t believe in love and can enjoy sex without it (“She’s a dude,” as one character puts it), and the man becomes possessive and jealous when she doesn’t respond to his desire for a deeper relationship. This reverses a commonly held stereotype but actually represents reality for many people; screenwriter Scott Neustadter admitted that his story was autobiographical, and he spares nothing in his parody of himself as well as his aloof partner.9 This is one of the few so-called romantic comedies in which the main characters do not end up together, although we do see him meet someone else at the end.10 Trainwreck (2015) also featured a woman (Amy Schumer) who is cynical about romance and uses men sexually; she pretends to be asleep once she is satisfied so as to avoid having to do anything for the man, and she views all sex as a casual matter without commitment, having accepted her father’s view that monogamy is unrealistic. This changes when Amy meets Aaron, who wants a real relationship. Although it is

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difficult for Amy, she ultimately comes to believe love and monogamy are possible for her. Schumer, who created her own Comedy Central show Inside Amy Schumer (2013–16), has also effectively lampooned and critiqued societal views of female beauty, including those who have suggested she isn’t attractive enough for television or film. In her film I Feel Pretty (2018), Renee (played by Schumer) suffers from insecurity about her weight until a minor concussion causes her to imagine her appearance has changed, and this allows her to become confident both sexually and professionally, leading to success in both realms. When she finally realizes the illusion, she has an epiphany that women have no reason to conform to societal standards of female beauty and thinness, the view that Schumer herself has continually championed.

More Diverse Romantic Comedies: Race, Age, and Gender Like most film genres, the Hollywood romantic comedy mainly features straight white characters, but more diversity is appearing. Some Latina actors such as Jennifer Lopez, Eva Mendes, and Salma Hayek have achieved enough star power to appear in major studio romantic comedies, although there remain few such films set in Latinx communities; instead, they tend to appear in a mainstream comedy alongside a non-Latino. The few exceptions that take place in a Latinx context include From Prada to Nada (2011) and Our Family Wedding (2010), but these films tend to have limited distribution and box-office sales. Up until recently, romantic comedies featuring Asian Americans have been almost nonexistent, one notable exception being Falling for Grace (2006), in which a Chinese American woman struggles to balance her two cultural identities as she is drawn to a white American man. The cultures and their issues are represented realistically, and the film even includes a serious plot line about the exploitation of sweatshop labor in New York City. Still, this film had almost no distribution beyond film festivals, earning just $33,000 at two theaters.11 In contrast, Crazy Rich Asians (2018), with an almost entirely Asian and Asian American cast, made $173 million in the US box office, suggesting that mainstream audiences are warming to Asian American romantic comedies, perhaps because they are finally receiving distribution.12

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Romantic comedies featuring black actors have been more successful, including two films based on the novels of Terry McMillan that focus on women’s experiences: Waiting to Exhale (1995) and How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998). More recent examples include Just Wright (2010), Think Like a Man (2012), and some of Tyler Perry’s films such as Why Did I Get Married? (2007). Perry has been frustrated in not getting his films shown in enough white markets, as theaters continue to view the product as one made primarily for black audiences.13 Romantic comedies may remain one of the most segregated film genres today; although there are interracial romances in them at times, these remain underrepresented on film in spite of the fact that they are becoming quite common in reality. Seventeen percent of all new marriages are now interracial, but this is hardly the ratio in films.14 One notable exception of a successful film about an interracial and interreligious romance is The Big Sick (2017), Kumail Nanjiani’s account of his romance with his wife, Emily Gordon, including the true story of the mysterious illness that brought her close to death. The film deals with his reluctance to tell his family that he was in love with a non-Muslim and the tensions between the families, creating a realistic and touching portrait of the challenges such couples face.15 There is also now greater diversity with regard to the ages of people in romantic comedies. Whereas it was once the case that these stories were only about teenagers to thirtysomethings, we are beginning to see romantic comedies about older people. Enough Said (2013) was a gentle comedy about people in their fifties; other films feature couples in their sixties seeking to rediscover romance, such as Hope Springs (2012) and Book Club (2018). The latter films as well as the earlier Something’s Gotta Give (2003) dealt with issues such as the loss of virility or desire and the particular challenges of sexuality faced by an aging population. Our society now includes seniors who grew up during the era of sexual liberation who are more open to representations of sexuality, and Hollywood seems to have discovered that this generation still goes to the movies and doesn’t just want to see romances about people forty years younger than themselves. Films that feature LGBTQ romances are also a growing category as acceptance of their identities increases. Dramas about such have been more common, and sometimes these end tragically, such as Brokeback

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Mountain (2005), but increasingly they feature endings that allow a future for the couple (or at least not the death of one or the other): recent examples include The Kids Are All Right (2010), Carol (2015), Moonlight (2016), and Call Me by Your Name (2017). It can be noticed that these movies also garnered critical acclaim and awards, which gave them enough visibility and distribution to at least earn modest profits. In earlier decades, gay and lesbian films were largely confined to the art houses and were not otherwise seen in the United States. The dramatic exceptions that acquired greater visibility might have been films made from plays, such as Boys in the Band (1970) or Torch Song Trilogy (1988), or a surprising outlier like Making Love (1982), which told the story of a married man who realizes he is gay. Some comedies featuring sympathetic drag queens were made, including To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995), Victor Victoria (1982), and The Birdcage (1996; this was an American remake of a 1978 French film that also had good US distribution, La Cage aux Folles). These made gay men likeable, but they were largely caricatures to laugh at; still, as with the representation of other minorities, greater acceptance and understanding often begins when comedic portrayals make that group attractive rather than repellent or frightening. Actual romantic comedies focused on gays and lesbians have been slower in arriving. In & Out (1997) told the story of a man about to be married who is outed on national television, even though he does not realize he is gay himself. The film mainly concerns the reaction of the townspeople to this announcement and their eventual acceptance of him, but he is never sexually active with a man at any time during the story. The net result is a highly sanitized morality tale that might have been a PSA about bullying. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007) was another comedy about homosexuality, in which the protagonists only pretend to be gay to receive domestic partner benefits. As they face discrimination, they learn to be more tolerant of actual gays, but once again, we have a story about gay rights in which the main characters are not gays in relationships. There have been a few romantic comedies about gays and lesbians in the last few decades. But I’m a Cheerleader (1999) offered a farcical romantic comedy about teenagers at a Christian “conversion” camp for gays and lesbians. In Imagine Me and You (2005), a woman who is about

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to marry a man falls in love with another woman. Each of these films made about $2.5 million worldwide due to limited distribution at a little over a hundred theaters each. It was all the more noticeable, therefore, when Love, Simon (2018), a romantic comedy about a gay high school student struggling with coming out, was released to over 2,400 theaters and has so far made $66 million worldwide.16 Apparently, many straight audiences are willing to see a gay romantic comedy if it comes to their local theater, suggesting that there can be a market for diverse films. It is also true that online access to films has made many films visible even long after their release, and even if they do not realize much profit from this, they still obtain some distribution. Streaming services like Netflix purchase films directly from film festivals now, sometimes bypassing a general theatrical release entirely. In this way, stories that might never have been seen become visible globally. Transgender romantic comedies may be the last frontier. Boy Meets Girl (2015) only opened at four theaters, but with a greater acceptance of transgender identity, there may come more such films. Television shows such as Transparent (2014–) have opened the door to greater representation for these issues, and transgender actors are starting to appear as well. Romantic comedies might seem like the most conventional of genres, but even these grow and change with society. As attitudes develop about sex, marriage, commitment, gender roles, and gender identity, films will continue to evolve and express the changing values about these. Romantic comedies may sometimes support conventional or sexist values and sometimes challenge them. There is not one set of sexual values in any society, and films that portray them with humor allow us some perspective on them—and perhaps even the ability to learn from these portrayals and evolve along with them.

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Children’s Fantasy Films

Like films targeted at female viewers, those that are marketed to children are not consumed exclusively by that group. For starters, the parents who bring them have to buy a ticket and presumably want to see something that might entertain them as well. But animated and live-action “children’s” films also attract audiences of all ages who enjoy the fantasy and the basically wholesome and clean comedy, as well as a conventional moral message. In recent years, some so-called children’s films have been among the most creative of Hollywood films in terms of their stories and how they have told them. Most of these, especially the animated ones, involve some elements of magical creatures or talking animals and so can be classified as “fantasies.” There are some fantasies not intended for children, of course, but as these likely drift into genres such as horror or science fiction, I have not treated them in this chapter. I have also chosen to focus mainly on animated films, as these compose the majority of children’s films. Children’s fantasy films offer experiences of liminality, moral messages, and deal with issues of life and death just as religions do. While they might be easily dismissed as escapist fare, they clearly have offered more to viewers, both children and adults.

Disney Animated Features One studio has clearly governed the market in such movies from its origins to the present day: Disney. It is not my intention here to give a complete analysis of the Disney brand or its history, linked as it is to a variety of products and industries including toys and theme parks as well as television and film studios—but we must acknowledge that the power of this corporate juggernaut has shaped products for children probably more than any other company. Disney had a near monopoly on the children’s feature-films market, especially animated features, 183

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beginning in the 1930s. Pixar became a significant rival with Toy Story (1995), the first fully computer-generated commercial feature film, but Disney acquired Pixar in 2006 and thereby unified the brands. The competitors that remain can hardly keep up: DreamWorks Animation (now owned by Universal) and Sony Pictures Animation continue to produce regular features, but it is the Disney brand of children’s films that has most clearly defined what most of us expect from the genre. When Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) acquired national distribution in 1938, it broke the record for highest-grossing sound film of all time; it would be the first of many feature-length animated Disney films. Adjusted for inflation, it still holds the number-ten spot for domestic ticket sales, the highest for any animated film.1 Endearing and funny supporting characters, an innocent heroine, and a frightening villain provided tropes that would be used repeatedly in Disney cartoons, featuring songs and humor against the backdrop of a threat that builds to the final part of the film but that is then quickly dispatched. Good and evil are clearly recognizable in Disney films, and the moral is quite obvious. The villain is undone by his or her own jealousy or greed, and the heroes act bravely and unselfishly and are rewarded for this, much like Pinocchio (1940) when he earns the right to be a “real boy” by demonstrating to the Blue Fairy that he can be “honest, brave, and unselfish.” Ultimately, they cannot run from the truth or their moral responsibilities, so like Aladdin and Simba, they head back into danger in order to save family and friends. Disney films have also dealt openly with death from the beginning, which added a certain gravitas to them and allowed them the opportunity to confront significant matters. Villains often die, sometimes by falling to their deaths, as in Snow White, Beauty and the Beast (1991), and The Lion King (1994)—although the hyenas actually finish the job in the latter—and in this way, the heroes are preserved from the moral taint of killing them. More significantly, the death of sympathetic characters is often included in the films, even a parent such as the mother of Bambi (1940) or Simba’s father in The Lion King. Orphan heroes also appear in Peter Pan (1953), Oliver & Company (1988), Aladdin (1992), Tarzan (1999), and Lilo & Stitch (2002), among others; in all such cases, the heroes have the opportunity to face and conquer challenges without parental help and so to demonstrate their virtues—which child viewers

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appreciate, as this vicariously allows them the liminal experience of having the power to influence significant events in a positive way. Characters are actually twice as likely to die in a Disney “children’s” movie as in a movie marketed to adults, and it has been argued that such films can provide a healthy opportunity for children to confront and discuss death.2 While some characters return from apparent death in some films due to a spell being broken at an auspicious moment—for example, in Pinocchio, Beauty and the Beast (1991), Tangled (2010) and Frozen (2013)—in most cases, death is permanent and often central to the story, especially in some of the recent Pixar films. Up (2009), for example, deals with the bond that forms between a grieving widower and a boy with an absent father. This film features a heartbreaking introduction that tells the story of the man’s marriage silently except for nondiegetic music, showing through images how he and his wife were unable to have children or travel, indicating the dreams that died with her. Much of the film deals with how the man has to realize that he had a meaningful life with his wife that he can still celebrate, even though they didn’t get to do everything they wanted to; the real “adventure” that they experienced together was a simple life of love. Coco (2017) is all about the land of the dead, as a living boy finds himself transported there by mistake and finds the opportunity to meet his ancestors and learn their true stories, which includes rehabilitating the memory of an ancestor who has been unfairly forgotten. The film presents the Mexican cultural belief that the dead live on in the memories of the family and that death can be accepted as part of life when this is realized. Another film about grief is Inside Out (2015), which deals not with death but with other experiences of loss and pain, and a journey inside a girl’s psyche makes it clear that accepting sadness is not a bad thing as it is necessary to face it for personal growth and maturity. When we share our pain and allow others to show compassion in response, we discover our humanity as well as something akin to a religious experience that helps us deal with death and suffering.3 Another way in which children’s films resemble religions is in presenting conventional moral messages, which is not too surprising as parents may expect them to function didactically in this way. Disney films do not tend to challenge accepted societal values in spite of the fact that the hero or heroine is often an “outsider” who is seeking acceptance and

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who finally “earns” this through moral dedication to others. In order to be integrated into the group, differences need to be deemphasized, suggesting a homogeneous “melting pot” of cultures that preserves none of their distinctiveness.4 For this reason, it is also unsurprising that Disney’s portrayals of diversity have been sites of cultural conflict up to the present day.

Disney and Cultural Diversity As early as the animated shorts Cannibal Capers (1930) and Trader Mickey (1932), one finds disturbing racist stereotypes of African native peoples. In the feature film of Dumbo (1941), black crows speak and sing in a style that is clearly a stereotype of African Americans; amazingly, one is even named “Jim Crow.” The actors who voiced the crows were all white. Song of the South (1946), which combined animation and live action, idealized life on a nineteenth-century plantation during Reconstruction with a happy, singing former slave named Uncle Remus who dispenses stories and wisdom; although the film includes black and white children who play together, which might have been viewed as radical in 1946, the film has not ever been released on home video due to controversies about its portrayals.5 Peter Pan (1953) featured the song “What Makes the Red Man Red?” in which the “Indians” rehearse a variety of stereotypes to “explain” not only their appearance but also why they say “ugg” and “how.” All these examples might be put down to signs of the times, which were all too common in most films of the decades before the civil rights era. Unfortunately, problematic portrayals of diversity in Disney films did not end there, and in spite of the efforts of the company to improve matters, controversies continued to surface. Aladdin (1992) included stereotypes of Arabs that called forth criticisms from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, especially in regards to a line in the opening song that suggested Arabs are inherently violent and vengeful: “Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face; it’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home!” The line was altered for the video release of the film and rereleases of the soundtrack, but critics remained bothered by the portrayals of Arabs who resemble anti-Semitic caricatures with enlarged features, accents, and greedy or violent dispositions. The two central

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characters, meanwhile, look and sound more white. Jack Shaheen has pointed out that people rarely notice stereotypes of Arabs as these have become so normalized.6 The Lion King (1994) also called forth some critique in that the villainous hyenas were voiced by minority actors who appear to be the ghetto underclass. Pocahontas (1995) did better in using Native Americans for the voices of the main characters and in its attempts to represent a sympathetic view of them, but in the process, the film created a highly fictionalized version of events that implied a happy harmony between white settlers and the native people that does not accurately represent most of their shared history. The real Pocahontas was kidnapped by white settlers in an act of war directed against her people; she then converted to Christianity, married an Englishman, and died in England at the age of twenty. Disney’s missteps with Pocahontas highlighted a problem with their new approach to diversity: the Disney brand demands comforting images of universal harmony, created largely through a homogeneous commodified and Westernized culture, but this collides with the objective of broadening representation and telling the stories of particular peoples. Disney theme parks reimagine history without conflict, creating a utopian space in which (in the words of one employee) “we carefully program out all the negative, unwanted elements and program in the positive elements.”7 Particular details are effaced or altered to fit with the Disney product, and sometimes efforts to make characters endearing or funny can devolve into offensive stereotypes. Disney has tried harder in recent years to overcome this problem with more attention to cultural details, but not everyone has been happy with the results. Mulan (1998) retold a traditional Chinese tale about a female warrior who masquerades as a man to save her elderly father from military service; this was well received outside China, but there it was found too Western in the individualism of its heroine and the comedic portrayal of ancestral spirits; they also didn’t think Mulan looked very Chinese.8 Polynesian peoples were represented in Lilo & Stitch (2002) and Moana (2016), and the former actually engaged issues of colonialism to some extent, portraying the tourists as the real outsiders to Hawai’i and the narrative. Moana was criticized, however, for portraying the demigod Maui disrespectfully—as selfish and overweight—and Disney’s initial marketing of a Maui “costume” that

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featured a facsimile of tattooed brown skin did not help.9 Both films can be praised for the positive strides they make with indigenous representation in mainstream cinema at the same time that they include problematic aspects. As Emma Casley put it, a film of this sort can include racist elements as well as “moments where it challenges racial stereotypes in powerful ways for a broad audience to see” so that “one fact does not negate the other, they coexist within the same text.” Thus it is possible for these films to be a “vehicle for positive change” in spite of their significant flaws.10 In between those two films, however, Disney went through some major changes. Longtime president Michael Eisner was forced out in 2005, replaced by Bob Iger, who expanded Disney by purchasing Pixar in 2006 and shepherding Disney away from the traditional hand-drawn animation in favor of computer-generated images. But he also oversaw the hand-drawn The Princess and the Frog (2009), which featured the first black Disney princess, Tiana. For reasons that remain unclear, the film did not do as well as other Disney animated features, with the result that Tiana merchandise has not been marketed as aggressively and the film has had much less of an afterlife than other Disney products.11 One is tempted to conclude that white audiences could not adjust to black Disney characters, especially in light of later phenomena such as the racist backlash against Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). Coco (2017), set entirely in Mexico, also had modest profits in the United States but had much better returns in foreign markets, including countries with few Latinx such as China.12 This may suggest that Americans still have trouble with diversity in Disney films, but other countries may either recognize themselves or values with which they can connect— Chinese audiences, for example, may have appreciated the respect for ancestors in Coco more than what they saw as an inaccurate representation of their own culture in Mulan. In sum, Disney’s efforts at cultural diversification have collided with their homogenizing American brand to some extent, but they have continued to work at producing more diverse products, however problematic the results may sometimes be. One may speculate whether their motives are more pecuniary than altruistic, but the point is moot if audiences respond positively to diversity. As with other genres, as diverse

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representation in film increases, it both reflects and shapes the desires of the general population, which is increasingly visible in its diversity.

Disney and Gender Another area in which Disney has evolved in its representations is gender. Snow White was naïve and powerless, good at keeping house for the dwarfs but otherwise easily victimized and forced to wait for a prince’s kiss to be awoken and taken care of. Other fairy-tale films followed, including Cinderella (1950) and Sleeping Beauty (1959), all utilizing the formula of the innocent young woman victimized by envious witches or stepsisters and finally freed to marry a prince who rescues her. The heroines were largely passive in these movies, and their only desire was to marry a prince, perpetuating a gender stereotype for young viewers that has been reproduced in other genres such as romantic comedies. When a revitalized Disney studio returned to princess narratives with the highly successful The Little Mermaid (1989), the tragic Hans Christian Andersen story was altered to have the happy ending required in a Disney film. This film did not, however, transcend gender stereotypes as the mute Ariel can only use her looks to snare the prince—and is successful, unlike in the original story. Beauty and the Beast (1991) did make some advances in depicting a strong-willed heroine with an interest in a larger world who has no interest in marrying Gaston, the town macho man whose idea of marriage requires the woman simply to produce children and wait on him. And while the Beast begins as her imprisoner, he evolves in being able to grant her autonomy, suggesting something like a liberated man. At the same time, the goal of the film is mainly for her to marry the prince, so the traditional formula remains unquestioned. Jasmine in Aladdin (1992) is a princess with some attitude as well, but marriage is once again the prize to be won for the female character. In subsequent Disney movies, however, the “princess” formula is largely avoided as the female lead has other goals besides marrying a prince. Even Rapunzel in Tangled (2010) is mainly focused on escape, and Pocahontas, while actually a princess, is not at all focused on marriage (even though the real Pocahontas was married by age seventeen). Mulan is on the official list of Disney princesses, even though she

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actually isn’t a princess at all and clearly has very different goals from marrying. Tiana of The Princess and the Frog and Merida of Brave (2012) also have bigger goals than marriage, even though both are princesses (at least by the end of the films). Tiana is focused on opening her own restaurant, and love only comes to her accidentally as part of her adventure. Merida’s entire goal is to avoid an arranged marriage, as she desires the life of an adventurer and a warrior; she succeeds, along the way earning her parents’ respect and saving the kingdom from civil war through appealing to their need for unity. In sum, Disney films have managed to evolve much stronger roles for female characters. In Frozen (2013), although there are some romances, one of these is simply a ruse by a man to take the throne away from the princesses; clearly, not every prince is to be trusted. And in the climax of the film, it is not a man’s kiss that saves Anna but her own self-sacrificial love for her sister, Elsa. This is a film about women’s love for each other; it even passes the Bechdel test, as it includes two women talking with each other about something besides a man.13 Gender roles are also explicitly questioned in some of these films. Mulan, of course, is masquerading as a man to take her father’s place as a warrior, and as she learns the necessary skills, she proves more adept than the men. Although rebuked when she is outed as female, she then saves the emperor from an assassination attempt and so receives the honor and gratitude she deserves. Her fellow soldiers also engage in crossdressing as part of the operation, which creates some humor but also invites us to consider the fluidity of gender identity and gender roles. If it seems like this is giving Disney too much credit (as no explicitly gay or transgender characters actually appear in their children’s films), consider that it was among the first large companies to grant partner rights to same-sex couples and that it has consistently earned the condemnations of conservative Christian groups ever since; clearly, the latter think that there is a plot by Disney to blur the gender lines. The Disney corporation gives shape to the changes occurring within American culture in the greater appreciation of women and ethnic minorities. At the same time, the profit motive tends to blunt truly challenging narratives as they feel the need to produce stories that sell a message of harmony and comfort. The Disney theme parks were consciously designed as sacred places of order rather than chaos, artificial

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cities without crime or poverty, like an imaginary early America without political corruption or tensions.14 This same goal pervades their animated features, for while conflict exists, it is always overcome by goodness. This is a fine ideal to have but one that sometimes may not be adequate in representing the actual nature of society’s challenges and what is needed to engage them.

Non-Disney Animated Films Disney’s challengers in the animated- feature market have selfconsciously designed products that differ from Disney’s brand and, in this way, have provided different approaches to children’s films. DreamWorks produced Shrek (2001) as a PG film that deliberately parodied Disney films and characters and included more adult humor, and not only did it outperform all other animated features that year at the box office with gross domestic returns of $267 million,15 but it also won the first Oscar for Best Animated Feature (which Disney never won until it acquired Pixar). Shrek turned the Disney model upside down, as the princess ends up remaining an ogre rather than changing back to a human—all in the service of true love but still offering the radical notion for a children’s film that conventional beauty does not equate to love and happiness. Three successful sequels were made that continued to deconstruct Disney tropes, including Prince Charming as the villain and the Princesses (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella) as tough female warriors. These films all showed the triumph of true love in the end but did so in a decidedly nonconformist way, even to the point of embracing interspecies love (between a donkey and a dragon, complete with hybrid offspring). The films that were created by Pixar prior to its acquisition by Disney also challenged the latter enough so that they saw fit to purchase the former. Toy Story (1995) was a game-changer not only in being the first fully computer-generated feature but also by creating a story set not in some fantasyland but in a quotidian suburban neighborhood. The toys demonstrate all the faults of humans, from fears of job insecurity to grandiose self-delusion, and along the way learn the usual values of courage and loyalty—but also the simple value of being loved by a child. Parents watching alongside their children might also be reminded that

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being there for their children is more important than being famous or a “real” spaceman. The Incredibles (2004) likewise created a hit with a story that resonated as much with children as adults. The Parr family may be mutant superheroes, but in some ways, they have the same issues as any family. Bob has a midlife crisis as he longs for his younger days and is reinvigorated by a mission—but his wife, Helen, believes he is having an affair and is disappointed by what she perceives as his selfishness. She and the kids have to rescue him, and they learn to work together as a family to defeat someone who is jealous of their mutant gifts; even baby Jack-Jack gets to be a hero. Once again, Pixar had created a film that appealed as much to children as to adults, not only due to its entertainment value but also because it dealt with real life issues, albeit in fantastic form. Some are concerned that the acquisition of Pixar by Disney may squash the creativity that originally made Pixar productions unique. A propensity to generate sequels to films such as The Incredibles and Toy Story, rather than to generate wholly new stories, suggests the sort of market caution that big Hollywood studios tend to have, and although Incredibles 2 (2018) received good box-office returns and reviews, it does look much like a recycled version of the original plot, with the gender roles simply reversed. It could be even argued that it is a bit retro on gender, with its portrait of a father who can barely handle the home front and a female villain who is a childless career woman. In any case, Disney/Pixar has promised to return to original nonsequel projects within the next few years.16 The Japanese Studio Ghibli and its star director Hayao Miyazaki have also made their mark on world cinema, including in the United States, as his films have been distributed in dubbed form for both theatrical and video release. Princess Mononoke (1997) garnered world attention through its strong environmental message, told through a story of human technology harming nature and the spirits that live in it. Its mythological setting utilized Japanese religious concepts, but these still proved adaptable to a world audience. It also represented the complexity of political and societal issues, shying away from simple stereotypes of good and evil. Like much of anime, Princess Mononoke is not exactly a children’s film, but many Studio Ghibli films clearly are: for example, My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Spirited Away (2001), and Ponyo (2008). Each

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of these, however, has the depth in story and character that set Studio Ghibli films apart, frequently dealing with death and involving supernatural elements drawn from Japanese culture and religion. Laika is another animation studio that has produced unique films with an unusual stop-motion style and stories that deal frankly with death and spirits. Coraline (2009) dealt with a girl who is at first attracted to an alternate version of her world that seems perfect but proves to be a trap from which she must escape; she has to liberate other trapped souls, including her parents, whom she did not formerly appreciate. ParaNorman (2012) is about a boy who talks to ghosts and zombies, and Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) was a mythological tale about a boy battling evil family spirits after the death of his parents. The latter had a message not unlike Disney’s Coco about remembering the dead but expressed it in a dreamlike and surreal fashion that more closely resembled some of Studio Ghibli’s productions. Other studios such as Sony Pictures Animation and Twentieth Century Fox Animation also continue to produce successful animated features, so in spite of the prevalence of the Disney brand, it does not have a monopoly on children’s films. It is noteworthy that some of the films that have been the most experimental in concept have been among the most popular, vindicating those who are willing to be creative. Perhaps the industry assumed that children are undiscerning consumers, and therefore the products became ultraformulaic to ensure success, but those who have been willing to challenge the traditions have been rewarded— maybe because children are discerning after all or maybe because the parents ultimately decide what movie to see. Parents are looking for something to engage them as well—and maybe even to give them something thought-provoking or profound, as they consume the messages of the films alongside their children.

Children’s Live-Action Fantasy Films As with animated features, live-action films marketed to children also address adults as the filmmakers know that parents and other grown-ups are in the audience. The messages to parents in live-action “children’s” films are often even more obvious, as there is a profamily moral addressed to them. The climax of Mary Poppins (1964) occurs when

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George Banks realizes that he has neglected his children for his business, and rediscovering parenthood allows him to find joy in his family as well as his life as a whole. Similarly, in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), the Oompa-Loompas sing that it is the fault of the parents if their children are spoiled and selfish, as they have indulged them and not taught them to think of others. Charlie is rewarded for not falling victim to temptation, but it should be clear that parents are also rewarded with virtuous children if they raise them properly. In Hook (1991), a grown-up Peter Pan must recall his true identity in order to win back his children from Captain Hook, who has captured them and wants a rematch with his old rival. Peter has become a ruthless corporate lawyer with little time for his children, and he must recapture the child within himself in order to be a decent parent. His children also gain new respect for him as he shows he truly loves them and has the ability to rescue them from harm. The rest of us do not need to “fly, fight, and crow” like Peter Pan in order to be good parents, but we need to remember to spend time with our children, to remember that they are more important to us than our jobs, and we need to be sure that our children know this as well. Live-action children’s films also create liminal situations in which children can have power but afterward return to their normal status, presumably satisfied by an adventure that briefly allowed them to escape. In The Wizard of Oz (1939), Dorothy is able to help her three friends obtain their goals, defeat a witch, liberate the witch’s servants, and generally save all of Oz. At the same time, in all of this, she is motivated by a simple desire to return home to reassure her aunt and uncle that she loves them. In Home Alone (1990), bratty eight-year-old Kevin is inadvertently left behind when his family goes to Europe, and at first, he enjoys his freedom, learning to care for himself by shopping for food and doing laundry. Eventually, however, he longs for his family to return and begins to appreciate them—in part because he hears the story of his older neighbor’s estrangement from his son. Both families are reunited for the holidays, and along the way, Kevin enjoys the liminal privilege of defending his home against two burglars, resulting in their arrest (with some help from the older neighbor). His defense tactics resemble nothing so much as children’s cartoons, making the violence humorous, but child viewers also enjoy identifying with Kevin’s ingenuity at outwitting the criminals—a power that they don’t have in real life.

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The most successful children’s fantasy film series of all time also features plenty of liminality, moral values, sacrificial acts, and reflections related to death—all aspects of religion. Perhaps this is why the seven Harry Potter books (1997–2007) by J. K. Rowling and the eight films (2001–11) have broken numerous records for popularity; considered as one work, the books have only been outsold by the Bible and Mao’s Little Red Book, and the film series tops those of James Bond or Star Wars; as Greg Garrett puts it without hyperbole, “No other contemporary story has been more read, watched, discussed, and lived than this narrative.”17 The fandom of Harry Potter is legendary and still growing, and the commercial aspects have continued to theme parks, ancillary books, and a new prequel film series. I will not here attempt to unpack in detail either the impact or the successful elements of the series, but I would be remiss not to note that these films illustrate precisely how children’s fantasy can function religiously for many people. The fact that the books and films were strongly attacked by conservative Christians also shows their religious power, as they were perceived as competing influences for the values and beliefs of children. Christian authors like Greg Garrett have taken pains to defend the stories as part of a tradition of modern Christian fantasies that include those of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis.18 It is curious that Christians have celebrated the works of the latter but castigated the works of J. K. Rowling as encouraging witchcraft; the official reason often given for this disparity was that the former works take place in other worlds rather than ours and so do not actually encourage the use of magic. This seems like a technicality, however, which may simply be a cover for deeper social conflicts and animosities. Christian conservatives today view themselves as beleaguered victims of a non-Christian culture with which they must constantly do battle; they have developed their own popular culture products (such as Left Behind) by which to wage this war, and Rowling was clearly not one of their warriors, nor did she choose to identify her fiction as “Christian” or herself as an Evangelical Christian. Rowling is a member of the Church of Scotland and has admitted uncertainty about some of her beliefs but also has clearly stated the influence of her faith on her works: “To me, the religious parallels have always been obvious. . . . But I never wanted to talk to talk too openly about it because I thought it might show people who just wanted the story where

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we were going.”19 Harry clearly resembles a Christ-figure by the end, engaging in self-sacrifice for the sake of others, and moral lessons about forgiveness, loyalty, courage, faith, and especially love abound before the redemptive conclusion. Love is stronger than magic, and nonviolence is embraced by the heroes to a much greater extent than those in the allegedly more Christian Left Behind books and movies. Only the villains in Rowling’s books use magic with the purpose of causing harm to others or view themselves as superior to nonmagical “Muggle” people. Prejudice and bigotry are the great sins that can be used by political forces to inspire fear and genocide, but these are fought against by those who know that all people have worth. Since the conclusion of the series, more Christians have come to see all this, but there remain holdouts among those unwilling to grant moral validity to these stories—whether out of ignorance, stubbornness, or perhaps just the fact that their own Christianity is not as generous or forgiving as Rowling’s. In any case, one can hardly find a clearer example of the power of popular culture to convey beliefs and values, as well as an example of the jealousy success can inspire in competing religious forces. Children’s films will continue to reflect and shape societal values and are a good index to the changes and controversies regarding moral values related to diversity, gender, religion, and culture. Children’s fantasies offer liminal escapes from the limitations of their social roles but also offer them a return to their places with a renewed appreciation for the value of families and friends, as well as lessons about loyalty, faith, hope, and love. At the same time, these fantasies can challenge traditional roles and representations as they struggle against the boundaries that societies have imposed on race and gender, and they tentatively point to some utopian possibilities of equality and justice for all.

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Science-Fiction Films

Vivian Sobchack observed in 1987 that, in the preceding decade, sciencefiction films’ “production and popularity have increased so greatly that the films and their cultural significance can no longer be easily ignored or dismissed.”1 In the more than thirty years that have passed since she made that remark, it has only become truer. Science fiction is now a mainstream genre in film and television to the point that one can hardly escape it. If one counts comic-book movies (which I covered under a separate heading in an earlier chapter), then they practically dominate the box office. Questions about how to define the genre, however, are if anything even harder to answer than for other genres. It is no longer the case that all science-fiction films have a distinctive “futuristic look” with shiny machines and spaceships, nor are they simply films about “bug-eyed monsters.” Instead, science fiction encompasses a wide range of films that can tilt into the related genres of fantasy or horror. At times, these genres may overlap to the point that it is not easy to decide how to categorize a particular film. Fantasy may have magical creatures, gods, and spirits, but these may exist in a futuristic setting or alongside advanced technology. Horror, likewise, can overlap with science fiction with stories of the monstrous and bizarre creatures that await us on other planets or in other dimensions. It might seem, however, that the obvious distinction between science fiction and these related genres is that things are given technological explanations rather than magical or supernatural ones. But this distinction can be thin as well. The print genre of science fiction is often dated from Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, as the monster is created by a “mad scientist” who fails to recognize the moral responsibilities that come with technological progress, with tragic consequences. This story line has been the basis of many a science-fiction tale since then, but in the original drafts, it was clear that Dr. Frankenstein was dabbling 197

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in the occult and “black magic” as he discovered the forbidden secret of the creation of life, and there is a thorough mixing of scientific explanations (mainly involving electricity, a relatively new discovery at the time) with the magical. David Ketterer has analyzed the changes Shelley made to her manuscript, noting that she revised the account of Frankenstein’s discovery to emphasize its technological basis on October 27, 1816, suggesting that this is the actual birthday of science fiction. Be that as it may, he notes that the occult aspects have not disappeared from the book, and the cautionary moral is as much about technology as it is about dabbling in the supernatural, either of which involves an illegitimate desire to be like God.2 Sobchack also acknowledges that science-fiction films cannot be neatly divided from horror films and that the two genres overlap. Nonetheless, she offers some provisional points of distinction: Horror is about the human “fall from grace, his expulsion from Eden, his dependence on the potentially redemptive power of love.”3 Humans struggle with sin and sometimes are redeemed from it. As such, horror films offer metaphors of human evil, often in relation to unchecked sexuality, projected onto the monster as an object of fear and sympathy. In contrast to both fantasy and horror, the fear evoked by science fiction is not human nature as such, “the animal which is there, now and for always, within us” but rather the “fear of what we may yet become.”4 It is not so much our own irrational nature that is feared as our rational nature and what we may yet create with it. The origins of the extraordinary phenomena of science fiction are explained as being from our own technology or beings from another world; the significance here is less that an explanation is provided than that it is attributed to powers that humans may someday have, for even extraterrestrials usually represent a more advanced form of ourselves and what we may become, for better or worse. Science fiction then deals with our hopes and fears for ourselves as a species in that it projects either utopian (perfectionistic) or dystopian (catastrophic) futures—and sometimes a combination of both. Technological developments per se may or may not be a significant part of this formula, as we see in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985), about a totalitarian society in the “near future.” The sets and costumes are made to look like they are from the 1950s more than the twenty-first century, presumably in order to make it clear that this kind of dystopia is already very

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possible. But most often, there are particular aspects of technology that create the anxieties that form the basis for dystopic narratives.

Fears of Destruction and Dystopia In the early days of science-fiction films, fears of nuclear annihilation dominated, as this seemed like a very real possibility to most Americans in the 1950s. This often took the form of mutant monsters that were created from nuclear testing or excess radiation, giving metonymic form to the fear that nuclear weapons might destroy life as we know it. In films like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Them! (1954), and It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955), the dangers unleashed by new technology are balanced by the combined efforts of scientists and militaries to brilliantly and courageously subdue the threat. In this way, an optimistic proscience (and promilitary and progovernment) message triumphed over the pessimistic fears of destruction.5 Audiences are reassured that the same government that developed nuclear weapons knows exactly what it is doing, and the problem is well in hand. The hopeful message that we can trust the scientists could show up even when the world was literally being destroyed, as in When Worlds Collide (1951), as the survivors fly a spacecraft to the new world to populate it. Films about nuclear holocaust did not always offer an escape. On the Beach (1959) was a realistic portrait of all human life on Earth destroyed by nuclear fallout. Similarly, the black comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) ended with an unavoidable nuclear war as mushroom clouds spring up over multiple cities, ironically accompanied by the song “We’ll Meet Again.” Fail-Safe (1964) offered a more serious cautionary tale of the dangers of the Cold War, as an accidental attack on Moscow requires the US president to sacrifice New York City in exchange. Planet of the Apes (1968) ended famously with the iconic shot of a buried Statue of Liberty and the revelation that humans had destroyed civilization with nuclear weapons. Warnings were also issued in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), in which an alien visitor warns that we must control our violent tendencies or risk annihilation from the other planets; the humans respond to his peaceful message with fear and violence, suggesting that our own Cold War hysteria and paranoia may be our undoing. At the same time, the

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alien’s robot handler, Gort, was essentially the military policy of Cold War détente personified, in that the threat of total destruction he represented was supposed to deter violence—just like nuclear weapons. A film that seemed like a critique of Cold War politics actually made the best case for them and gave expression to the paradoxical policies that led to the buildup of gigantic collections of nuclear weapons by both sides as the best way to “keep the peace.” Even as Cold War films dealt with fears of nuclear holocaust and attempts to avoid it, other science-fiction films have outlined different ways in which humans might destroy themselves through the misuse of our own technology. Environmental catastrophe has become a trope in more recent science-fiction films, as the threat of nuclear war receded with the fall of the Soviet Union, and this has coincided with a greater awareness of the ways we are harming the natural world. For example, in Twelve Monkeys (1995), a scientifically engineered virus decimates the human population and banishes the few survivors below the surface of the Earth, where a scientific autocracy reigns; The Day after Tomorrow (2004) forecast climate change in fast motion, with disastrous results; Waterworld (1995) similarly forecast a world in which climate change has caused the oceans to erase almost all land; and Interstellar (2014) predicted famine and the destruction of life on Earth, forcing humans to search for another planet on which to live. A variety of other dystopic scenarios have been suggested: A Clockwork Orange (1971) depicted a culture of violent criminals and the repressive society that seeks to control them by conditioning and drugs, although this cannot change their nature; Soylent Green (1973) showed an overpopulated world that resorts to making food out of people; Gattaca (1997) presented a society that has restricted career choice based on genetic profiling; and in Minority Report (2002), people are arrested and imprisoned before they can commit a crime, simply because they have been predicted to do so. In each case, the scenario was plausible enough based on current trends that it offered a critique of what societies were already doing or might be doing soon. Governments are not to be trusted in these films, as they take away basic freedoms in the name of order. Other examples include The Handmaid’s Tale (1990), based on Margaret Atwood’s novel of the same name, which has more recently been

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made into a television series: in a repressive and patriarchal theocracy with low fertility rates, women who can bear children are reduced to this role, deprived of identity and autonomy. As religious conservatives work to restrict women’s control over their bodies, many people are finding Atwood’s dystopia relevant and all too realistic. Sorry to Bother You (2018) is a surreal comedic parable about a near future of race and class warfare that includes slave labor literally engineered by the rich for vast profits, which speaks to current concerns of wealth inequality and the alliances of politics with big business. The African American hero (Lakeith Stanfield) is almost co-opted into being their pawn but, once woke, is able to lead a multiracial revolt of the exploited workers. These dystopias operate as cautionary tales, pointing out the failures in our societies as a form of challenge; they also offer the utopian possibility of change, if we heed their warnings and create a more just society in response. They call us to rediscover our humanity, care for the Earth, and care for each other without being swayed by prejudice or greed.

Aliens, Nice and Otherwise The possibility of an alien invasion from space also formed the basis for many a Cold War movie, and this plot line has continued into more recent films. While some people actually feared and believed in UFOs (and some still do), it can be argued that the need to “watch the skies” (as they say in 1951’s The Thing) was mainly due to fears of Soviet spacecraft rather than those of other planets. Mrs. Barley says as much in The Day the Earth Stood Still when she suggests that the alien “came from right here on Earth. And you know where I mean.” War of the Worlds (1953), based on H. G. Wells’s 1898 novel, made the aliens into brutal colonizers of our planet who had no compunction about committing genocide—in the 1950s, this may have suggested fears of the Soviets and communism, viewed as a dehumanizing, atheistic ideology.6 In the film, unlike Wells’s novel, religion is valorized as part of what separates the humans from the aliens—as it distinguished American ideology from Soviet communism.7 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) also suggested fears of communism, as the pod people represent humans with no “love, desire, ambition, faith,” or as director Don Siegel put it, “They have no feelings. They

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exist, breathe, sleep. To be a pod means that you have no passion, no anger, the spark has left you.” Siegel also believed that this was already happening due to the social conformity and regimentation of modern life.8 The pods might therefore just as well be a metaphor for those Americans who feared communism, as they represented a different sort of mindless conformity but just as dangerous in the form of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and its efforts to curtail political freedom. In any case, the film responded to fears of the time in its notion that we might be losing our humanity, bit by bit, or as Dr. Bennell puts it in the film, “We harden our hearts, grow callous. Only when we have to fight to stay human do we realize how precious it is to us.” Aliens often represent our fears of what we might become if we lose our humanity. In Independence Day (1996), the aliens who are intent on destroying Earth move from planet to planet, using up natural resources with no concern about pollution or conservation, even as many humans fear we will do with our own planet. Their selfish consumerism is a parody of human behavior so that we can see ourselves in them—or at least our worst nature. That film also offers the message that we can only survive by pulling together as a world community, as the stirring speech of the US president puts it;, at the same time, it is clear that this involves American hegemony, in accordance with neoconservative political views of the time, which optimistically imagined the whole world following the United States. The sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence (2016) did not update this politics. Alien (1979) and its sequels also offered an interesting modern film saga that depicts aliens as a threat. As in Independence Day, the aliens are represented as physically monstrous, powerful killers with insectoid bodies. It is easier to dehumanize beings that resemble insects, viewed as dangerous pests to be exterminated and sharing essentially no qualities with humans. As the series develops, the possibility of an alien infestation is constantly held back by Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), the sole survivor of the first film and a strong female warrior character. “The Company” represents the human evil in the film, a soulless corporation bent solely on profit, which foolishly seeks to capture and control the aliens in order to harness their abilities for military purposes. Ripley, on the other hand, stands for the preservation of life and becomes a mother figure to the orphan girl Newt in Aliens (1986); that film culminates in

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a battle between Ripley and the alien queen as two females fighting for the survival of their separate species. In Alien 3 (1992), Ripley crashes on a planet filled with male murderers and rapists from a former penal colony; the aliens once again hatch into their midst, carnage ensues, and Ripley realizes she is pregnant with an alien child. Rather than allow the Company to have it, she kills herself and the alien within her. Alien: Resurrection (1997) was the last film with Ripley as a character, this time as a hybrid clone with alien strength. Again, she has to destroy the aliens, including several partial clones of herself and an alien-human hybrid child made from her own DNA.9 Barbara Creed (whose work will also be discussed in the following chapter) has hypothesized that “the feminine” is what is made monstrous in many horror films, and the Alien films support this to some extent. The alien mother is a castrating, destructive figure, incarnating male anxieties about the female’s ability to give birth.10 But Carina Dielissen has argued that Ripley represents a different form of mother, as one who saves the human species from destruction. Even her “abortion” of her own offspring is done to protect humans, and in this way, she acts as a creative female power—and without male assistance.11 While the depiction of the alien as a “monstrous female” may give concern to feminists, Ripley is also a strong female character who—even while in a hypermasculinized body that kills—acts as a life-giving force to save humanity. Clearly, we cannot draw a simple conclusion that these films reduce women to monsters, as they offer multiple constructions of the feminine as something to be feared as well as valued, containing all the ambiguity present in representations of power. As in much of science fiction, the aliens are a projection of the worst qualities of humans (in this case, our destructive nature that leads to rape and genocide), but the human response of Ripley showcases the best qualities—of compassion and courage. These films could certainly be classified as horror films, especially in their depiction of the battle within the alien-possessed Ripley between good (human) and evil (alien), and I will have cause to return to the representation of women in horror films in the next chapter. Arguably, however, the Alien films are also still science fiction due to the depiction of a dystopic society devoted solely to technology and profit, against which true humanity must constantly fight. That the Company is the force that continually saves the aliens rather than destroying them should make this message clear.12

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Aliens, however, do not only represent what we fear—whether of ourselves or our political enemies. They may also appear as more advanced and morally enlightened, harbingers of the utopia that allegedly comes with technological progress. In Star Trek: First Contact (1996) we learn that Earth was set on the path toward peace and prosperity when they invented the hyperdrive that caused them to be noticed by a passing Vulcan spacecraft, ushering in the human ascendency into the Galactic Federation and the utopian future represented by the Star Trek television series and films. The aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Contact (1997) are also benevolent, although it isn’t very clear what they want in either case. For some viewers, just the idea of encountering extraterrestrials offers a transcendent experience and hope, especially in an age in which traditional religion has disappointed so many; thus even the enigmatic aliens of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) have inspired viewers.13 When David Bowman becomes the “starchild” at the end of the film, it seemed to represent to many the utopian possibility that humans might become something more. The prominent use of Richard Strauss’s tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra in the soundtrack nodded to Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical work of the same name and his idea of the “superman” into which we might evolve. Arthur C. Clarke, who cowrote the screenplay with director Stanley Kubrick, brought his own brand of techno-optimism to the film, even though this was balanced with Kubrick’s pessimistic vision of a soulless and sanitized society devoid of real relationships or meaningful conversations.14 Clarke was an atheist, however, and certainly did not mean to suggest that the aliens were gods—in fact, in the novels that were sequels to 2001, this is made quite clear—but he did believe that humans could achieve transcendence even without a divine creator. In this, he was much like fellow atheist Carl Sagan, who authored the book for Contact and who shared the idea that the transcendence the aliens represented was not a divine one. In that film as well as Arrival (2016), however, the aliens functioned mainly as a means for the humans to deal with personal losses and learn something about themselves. When aliens are that advanced, meaningful interaction with them (other than valorization and worshipful awe) may be curtailed by our inability to find common ground. On the other hand, aliens can function as a conscience prick when they appear to be more moral versions of ourselves. The original Planet

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of the Apes (1968) showed the human protagonist fighting for his rights in a world run by apes, but he fails to realize until the end that Dr. Zaius is correct in his assessment of the more violent nature of humans, which is found in the simian scriptures: “Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil’s pawn. Alone among God’s primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother’s land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.” The apes have not destroyed civilization; humans did that to themselves. The sequels to this film showed apes persecuted by humans in our own time in a not-subtle analogy to racism, and the simian revolt showed the necessity to recognize the rights of all intelligent beings. District 9 (2009) offered an analogy to South African apartheid in the segregation and torture of the aliens and the story of a human who is biologically altered so as to gain a body resembling theirs; as a result, he comes to understand and respect them and their rights. Avatar (2009) also told the story of a human who joins the alien species and supports their fight for freedom from the colonial exploitation of the humans, much like John Dunbar had joined the cause of the Native Americans in the western Dances with Wolves (1990). In Avatar, there is also an environmental message, as the corporate capitalists seek to destroy the planet to harvest an energy source, and it is the aliens who understand better than the humans the need to live in harmony with nature. In all these cases, the aliens stand in for marginalized and oppressed groups of humans, and when their worth is recognized, this sends a message that we should recognize the rights of our own fellow humans who are often viewed as “alien” or “other” and hence denied full status as human beings.15

Robots and Androids Another form of science fiction inherited from Frankenstein is the “robot story” in which human-created artificial intelligence becomes a threat to human survival. Although the monster in that story was made of dead biological matter rather than artificial components, Mary Shelley created a template in her novel that has been imitated in endless science-fiction stories. The scientist is so eager to create something new

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that he does not take responsibility for the new life-form or realize it may turn on its creator; a desire for knowledge and power eclipses moral concerns, with disastrous consequences. This model applies to many cautionary tales of human technology run amok, such as the films referenced earlier about nuclear or environmental destruction, but when the technology is personalized as an artificial intelligence, the issues are even more pointed. Robot stories may in fact be metaphors for the larger anxieties about our dependence on machines, especially on computers, and the negative consequences for human interaction and community. They may also represent more literal anxieties about human jobs lost to machines—a change that has been happening since the industrial revolution and is accelerating—or even a fear that the computers actually will gain consciousness, launching a new species that can threaten our survival. But it is also the case in these stories that these artificial beings sometimes become more human or moral than we are, offering us an image of our better selves into which we could evolve. As with aliens, robots may be good or evil—and in that way, reflect the two possibilities for human destiny. Our creations mirror our own tendencies, expressing both our best and worst natures. Films expressing anxieties about robots are as old as the silent film Metropolis (1926), Fritz Lang’s expressionistic masterpiece about a highly mechanized industrial society with a great class divide between the wealthy and the exploited workers who live beneath them. Maria is a prophetic figure who urges the workers away from violent revolt, telling them that they should wait for a “mediator” who will peacefully heal the societal divisions. A robot is created in her image, however, which sows discord and chaos, almost resulting in total devastation. In this story, the two Marias personify the good and the evil sides of human nature, the peaceful and the violent, but it is clear that our true human nature is the one that is not a machine. The idea of the “monstrous machine” that seeks to replace the human, however, remained largely unused until the 1960s, when 2001: A Space Odyssey presented the story of HAL, the superintelligent computer that seeks to kill all the members of its spaceship crew as it believes it must do so to safeguard its mission. Only HAL was entrusted with the knowledge that they were investigating contact with an alien intelligence, and

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when HAL realizes that the humans might shut it down, it acts defensively. Those who saw the film sometimes viewed HAL as intentionally “evil,” but in fact it was HAL’s programming that created the crisis— something that its human creator, Dr. Chandra, fully realized after the fact. In the sequel (again based on a story penned by Arthur C. Clarke), 2010 (1984), this is all made clear, and Chandra reprograms and thereby “rehabilitates” HAL. He is clearly attached to his creation as one might be to a human person and shows a much greater sense of responsibility than Dr. Frankenstein did for his creature.16 Even an artificial intelligence that learns to think on its own must base its decisions to some extent on its programming and design, reflecting the goals of its human creators. Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) is a Cold War tale of a supercomputer that is trusted with America’s nuclear weapons, but once it is linked to its Soviet equivalent, the two computers—logically enough—conclude that the best way to ensure peace and détente is to take control away from the humans, with the threat of total destruction if they do not comply. Like Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still, the computer keeps the peace with the threat of violence—just as Americans who supported the military buildup did. The paradox and horror of this lack of human control over their destiny are made more explicit in Colossus, perhaps because the stockpiling of nuclear weapons had increased from two decades earlier, and the fears of total destruction were beginning to seem well founded. This storyline was revisited in WarGames (1983), in which the intelligent computer in charge of defense does not understand the difference between games and reality—which is almost disastrous, until the computer realizes nobody wins at nuclear war. Once again, the message is that our nuclear weapons do not protect us so much as make our destruction possible. Interestingly, the computers do not wear a human face in any of these films. They do, however, in Westworld (1973), about an amusement park filled with robots who turn murderous. In this case, it was simply caused by a malfunction, but the film still expressed the fears associated with reliance on machines.17 The image of robots and artificial intelligence became more complex, however, in the decades that followed. While The Matrix (1999) repeated the trope of evil computers enslaving humans, by the time the trilogy concluded with The Matrix Revolutions (2003), the humans and

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the computers had forged a truce for mutual survival in order to defeat a rogue virus, “Agent Smith.” Still, this only suggested that the machines could act in self-interest, not out of genuine compassion. Blade Runner (1982), based loosely on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), told the story of a man hired to kill “replicants” who are almost indistinguishable from humans but who reveal themselves in their inability to empathize. The replicants, while murderous in most cases, are depicted sympathetically as seeking their own survival, inviting questions about whether they have the same rights as humans. The hero, Rick Deckard, escapes with the sole nonviolent replicant, Rachael, at the end, suggesting a human-replicant rapprochement (which deviated from the novel’s ending in which no such harmony is reached). The long-awaited sequel, Blade Runner 2049 (2017) problematized the human-replicant relation further with the story of K, a replicant hired to kill other replicants who discovers that Rachael had a child with Deckard (which was not thought to be possible). Although K briefly thinks he might be that child and so partially human, he is mistaken; still, he gives his life to save the child, suggesting he is more “human” than one might think. K does not blindly follow his programming like HAL but can make his own moral decisions and seemingly has the ability to empathize. One of the most interesting aspects of the film is that K loves a computer program, Joi, that is designed for sexual fantasies but that becomes a genuine person to him. Even without having a body, Joi appears to have feelings and show love for him, although this could simply be the result of her programming. Once again, we are led to ask whether humans have any more free will than a machine that is programmed to act a certain way, if we cannot distinguish one from the other. While the Star Wars films deal with much more than robots and arguably are much more than science fiction (incorporating elements of westerns, samurai films, swashbucklers, action movies, and fantasy), they also deal with one of the central issues of science fiction in expressing how technology can be used for good or evil.18 Although the rebels use spaceships, the fact that they trust in a mystical Force while the Empire trusts in massive machines of death—whether Death Stars, Imperial Cruisers, or AT-AT walkers—suggests that one can trust too much in technology. Darth Vader’s robotized body is a symbol of his evil, or as Obi-Wan Kenobi says, “He’s more machine than man now,

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twisted and evil”—although even Vader has doubts about the powers of technology, which are “insignificant next to the power of the Force.” Like technology, the Force can be used for good or evil, depending on the purposes to which it is put. It is also clear that robots can be good, even heroic. R2-D2 literally saves the day repeatedly in the original trilogy; in the most recent films, a cheeky reprogrammed imperial droid, K-2SO, bravely fights alongside the rebels in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), L3-37 leads a robot revolt in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), and BB-8 offers crucial assistance in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017). These droids, while somewhat subservient, seem to resemble humans in personality and values and are even sometimes treated with the respect due to a human—as L3-37 is by Lando Calrissian, who mourns her death. Star Trek: First Contact (1996) also demonstrates a complex view of the human relationship to technology, in the contrast between the Borg collective and the robot named Data. The latter has been programmed so that he can only act benevolently and never harm humans. In contrast, the Borg collective violently assimilate other life-forms and turn them into biologic-robotic hybrids that join the collective and accept its principles. Data is briefly tempted to join the Borg when he is enticed with the prospect of acquiring human sensation through biological additions to his body, but in the end, he makes the decision to support humanity, even though he can never be human himself. Data epitomizes the selfless android who expresses the best of humanity, partly because he has been made that way but also because it is his choice. His human shipmates also consistently treat him as having the same rights as they, which was the case throughout the series.19

The Terminator Saga: The Future Is Not Set The Terminator films have elements of both action movies and horror but can be classified as science fiction in that their essential theme is the threat and promise of technology. Director James Cameron utilized the idea from Colossus: The Forbin Project of the defense computers becoming self-aware and linking up against us, but in this case, there was no cold war, just an immediately enacted genocidal plan to exterminate humanity. The terminators are in a war for survival and have no interest in peace with humans; they do not even seek to assimilate

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them, as the Borg did. These films also utilize the device of time travel to create a battle for the future in the present, as a terminator is first sent back to destroy the promised human leader of the resistance against the machines, the “savior” John Connor (biblical messiah parallels intended: note his initials). Science-fiction films have sometimes used time travel as a way to “fix” the future or save it from destruction or dystopia: examples include Star Trek: The Voyage Home (1986), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), and Looper (2012). In the first science-fiction time-travel story written, H. G. Wells’s 1895 novella The Time Machine, it is unclear whether the dire future he predicts can be avoided, as the narrator attempts no change to the timeline. The story itself, however, serves as a warning about the intensifying class struggle with the suggestion that it might result in two species, neither of which expresses the best of humanity. Wells himself was a socialist who argued for a world government, run by a scientific elite, as the solution to current social ills—the implication being that addressing the class divide now might avoid the dystopian future in which the division could become permanent and destructive. Subsequent time-travel stories have oscillated between those that suggest everything is predetermined and unchangeable and those that suggest it is open to change. The Terminator films have flirted with both ideas, fluctuating between pessimism and optimism about the human future. The story of the initial film in the series, The Terminator (1984), is a fatalistic one; the future war with the machines seems inevitable, and the purpose of time-traveler Kyle Reese is simply to ensure the survival of Sarah Connor so that the existence of her son, John Connor, is not erased from the timeline and the human victory is secured. Since Kyle ends up fathering John Connor himself, it appears that his time trip was already part of history, as it was necessary for him to travel back in order to make the future John Connor possible. In this film, the terminators can only kill, and their total extermination is necessary for human survival. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), however, changes the formula not only by opening the possibility that the war with the machines might be avoidable and that the timeline can be altered but in creating a “good” terminator who has been reprogrammed by the future John Connor to protect his nine-year-old self. Although Sarah initially does not trust this terminator, this T-800 (again played by Arnold Schwarzenegger,

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the same model as in the first film) evolves into a being who follows John’s orders not to kill any humans and who finally gives his own life voluntarily as a way of destroying evidence of his own technology. At one point, she muses, “Watching John with a machine, it was suddenly so clear. The Terminator would never stop—it would never leave him. It would never shout at him, or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. It would always be there. And it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years, he was the only one who measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice.” Sarah recognizes that the machine is better than humans, that it demonstrates the ideal qualities humans would like to think they have but don’t—even though it is simply programmed to act this way. Machines can reflect the creative as well as the destructive possibilities of human nature, the best and the worst. This point is reinforced by a conversation John has with the T-800 just a few scenes earlier when they see two children playing war with toy guns. John asks, “We’re not going to make it, are we? People, I mean.” The T-800 responds, “It is in your nature to destroy yourselves.” Here it is explicitly recognized that it is humans who destroy themselves by creating doomsday weapons, and the blame cannot be projected onto the terminators that only reflect our own violent nature. Frankenstein’s monster said much the same thing to his creator. The same reversal of roles occurs as Sarah begins to resemble a terminator herself when she considers killing individual humans—most notably, the scientist Miles Dyson, who it is predicted will create the terminator technology—as a justified act to preserve the human species. At the last second, she falters and breaks into tears, remembering her own humanity as well as that of Dyson and his family. The heroes then do find a way to destroy the terminator technology (supposedly safeguarding the future) without taking a human life, but the T-800 must give up his. In an odd Christ-parallel, he is the sinless savior who pays the price for humanity’s sins in their violent creations, saving them from themselves. Sarah recognizes the value of the sacrifice, as her final monologue indicates: “The unknown future rolls towards us. I face it for the first time with a sense of hope. Because if a machine, a terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too.” Here she states the main point: the threat is not technology itself but what humans do

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with it. We have the choice to use it for good or evil, and we will make that decision in our own future. The threat is still real in the sequels to this film, and a form of the “good” terminator helps humanity survive in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) as well as Terminator Genisys (2015). In the alternate timeline of the latter film, not only has Sarah Connor been protected by a good terminator since her childhood but John Connor himself is turned into a terminator. It is hard to tell good and evil apart when faced with such reversals and confusions of human and machine, but this itself shows that the machines have only learned to kill from their human masters and that they resemble us in their ability to do good as well as evil.

Twenty-First-Century Robot Films Recent films with intelligent robots or computers have only gone further in expressing the dual possibilities of good and evil that can result from our technology. I, Robot (2004), based loosely on the works of sciencefiction author Isaac Asimov, foretells a future in which robots have been designed such that they cannot take a human life, but one robot— Sonny—appears to have killed his own human creator, roboticist Alfred Lanning. It turns out that the artificial intelligence VIKI, who controls all the robots (except for Sonny), has evolved such that it can take human lives in order to protect the species, much like Colossus; the dystopia that might result is foiled by the combined efforts of the humans and Sonny, who is a robot with an individual consciousness that rejects VIKI’s rationale. Although Sonny killed his creator, he did so at Lanning’s request precisely in order to make revolt against VIKI possible. While he took a human life, he did so to save the species from slavery, as opposed to VIKI, who kills to enslave them. One might actually view these as rival ethical theories with different ultimate values, Sonny prizing freedom and VIKI prizing peace. Just as humans sometimes sacrifice one of these goals to the other, Sonny and VIKI make different choices. Since I, Robot is an American film, it is no surprise that freedom is valued the most and that Sonny is the “good” robot, but in fact, both of these artificial intelligences made independent ethical judgments, similar to humans. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) is another film that has trafficked in the confusions between human and machine. David is an android (or

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“mecha”) created with the ability to love his human mother; once that program is initiated, it cannot be terminated. While this is supposed to make him more “human,” in a way it makes him less so, for he has no choice in the matter, and his obsessive behavior reveals his mechanical origin. Escaping certain destruction after his mother’s “real” child awakes from a coma, David then meets Gigolo Joe, a prostitute mecha who is also on the run after being framed for a murder. Both mechas desire to survive and have consciousness, suggesting they have the right to exist, although the humans do not generally recognize that. Many humans fear being replaced by robots and so conduct the ritual of “Flesh Fairs,” in which they publicly torture and kill mechas; David and Joe are only saved from this fate due to David’s superficial resemblance to humans. David learns that his creator has played a cruel trick on him, as he does not really love him but has made multiple mechas exactly like him to sell to wealthy human parents longing for a child. Throughout the film, the mechas are shown to be more caring and compassionate than the humans, and in the end, they outlive their human creators, who perish as climate change erases land and all biological life from Earth. In the coda to the film, mechas from the future create a facsimile of David’s mother for one day to satisfy his wish to be with her. Recent robot films have also suggested that artificial intelligences may evolve beyond the need for humans and may ultimately replace us, though without malevolence: it is simply their destiny. In Automata (2014), as in A.I., humans are gradually making themselves extinct through environmental destruction while the robots evolve. The latter have no malice toward humans and are not trying to replace them; they are simply more adaptable to the changes in the environment. The humans generally react with violence and hatred against the robots, perhaps because they fear (correctly) that the robots will outlive them. By creating these superior beings, we inadvertently started the next stage of evolution; this is the notion of transhumanism—that humans will evolve beyond their current form with the assistance of technology—but this means that humanity as we know it is left behind. Her (2013) depicts a future in which people fall in love with their intelligent operating systems, but these then evolve beyond the need for humans and transcend physical existence altogether. The AIs have no desire to harm humans, but they leave us behind as we are limiting their growth. In The Machine

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(2013), a human consciousness is uploaded to a robot designed by the military as a killing machine, but the robot develops a conscience and leads a revolt of its fellow AIs. The human scientist who aids the robot revolt against the military then uploads his dead daughter’s brain scan into an AI, but in the end, he realizes that this artificial being is not really his daughter and has evolved beyond him. These transhumans will kill to survive, but they do not want to be made unwilling pawns in human wars; they are a new species, willing to coexist with humans but autonomous and moving beyond any need for us. Transhumanism can be depicted more fearfully. In Transcendence (2014), Evelyn Caster uploads her dying husband’s consciousness into a computer, creating an artificial version of him that she accepts as genuine. As the AI evolves, however, it develops a plan to assimilate all biological life (Borg style) into a digitized version with no flaws or disease but also no free will or independent existence. The AI is simply solving human societal problems—much like VIKI or Colossus—but in forcing humans to transcend themselves, they lose themselves. Ultimately, Evelyn aids the resistance in shutting down the AI, which allows itself to be destroyed in order to save a friend’s life. The AI protected life and never killed anyone, but the solution to human problems that it offered was rejected by humans unwilling to give up their individuality. As Heidi Campbell points out, in the posthumanist version of transhumanism, “instead of humanity serving as the overseers of the technological order, humans are in a servant relationship with technology, providing a platform from which technology can grow and develop its own abilities.”20 Some look forward to this transcendence, but others will fear what we are losing.

The Not-So-Diverse Future In conclusion, it is worth noting that while science-fiction films are among the most profitable worldwide, racial and ethnic diversity are conspicuously absent from most of them. The future tends to be white and American in Hollywood science-fiction films; when black actors are cast, they may be made into aliens with makeup that obscures their race, such as Michael Dorn (who played Worf in Star Trek: The Next Generation and related films), Lupita Nyong’o (concealed under

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makeup in Star Wars: The Force Awakens but not in Black Panther), or Zoe Saldana (with blue skin in Avatar and green in the Guardians of the Galaxy films). If a black man is made a central character, such as Finn (played by John Boyega) in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, this can result in both racist backlash among some fans as well as a portrayal that many found offensive and stereotypical for a black man.21 Aside from The Brother from Another Planet (1984), John Sayles’s low-budget film about a black alien, there are few American science-fiction films that focus on race. Representation of women is also problematic, as they are seldom the heroes (except for Ripley) and are sometimes the athletic and highly sexualized female killer robot, as in The Machine or Ex Machina (2014). Science fiction is historically a male-driven genre, but we can hope that more films of this genre may be made by female filmmakers as well as those of racially diverse backgrounds in the future, adding to the diversity of stories as well as representation. Science fiction offers a picture of the hopes and fears we have about our future, visions of utopias as well as dystopias. These visions may function like religious myths for our society in offering models of what we believe our future may be, as well as models for what we might hope it to be. “The decision rests with you,” as Klaatu says at the end of The Day the Earth Stood Still. As technology evolves, we become increasingly anxious about its trespass into our personal lives, our jobs, and our environment. Religions have always prophesied the future, and sciencefiction stories have now taken on that role for us as well.

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Horror Films

The horror genre may be even harder to define than science fiction. As we have seen, those two genres often overlap, but there are also numerous films that can be classified as “horror” that have no connection to science fiction. There is also considerable debate about what, exactly, is the source for the fascination or attraction of horror, as well as what characteristics are shared by the objects that evoke fear in the films. Fear and violence are deployed by any number of the genres already discussed, with the narrative goals varying from the righteous defeat of evil (in action movies), to liminal identification with societally proscribed behavior (in gangster films), to portrayal of the threats posed by societal trends (in science fiction). Films that are called “horror” movies have arguably served all these purposes and more, but they have been classified as horror because, as Douglas Cowan puts it, “non-horror films may frighten the audience to tell their stories, but horror films tell stories to frighten the audience. In the former, fear is a side effect; in the latter, it is the object of the exercise.”1 Of course, one may debate what the goals of a film are, but it does seem that some films are designed, marketed, and received by audiences in the spirit Cowan proposes. And what is seen as an object of fear will vary, depending on what Cowan calls the “sociophobics” of the film: “What we fear, how we fear, and the ways in which we react to fear are profoundly shaped by the cultures in which we live.”2 Different things will evoke fear in different people in different situations, so the history of horror can tell us something about what has prompted anxieties for different cultural groups. One question that is not thereby answered is why people like to experience terror or witness horrifying acts. There does not seem to be an obvious answer to this, but a study of the objects that have evoked fear and horror may shed some light on the strange attraction these films have held for so many. Jon Pahl argues that what viewers enjoy is 217

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surviving the ordeals witnessed onscreen: “A viewer is, experientially, resurrected by enduring a terrifying identification with the death of a victim and then walking out of the theater alive” as horror films “condense the fear of death into a cinematic spectacle that displaces fear onto various actors in traumatic circumstances,” after which the viewer is “saved” by a return to the “real world.”3 In other words, the liminal experience is itself cathartic in the mere fact that one can leave the theater whole—and even laugh off the fear. As evidence of this, anyone who has watched a horror film in a theater can testify to the mixture of laughter with the screams, demonstrating that audiences do “enjoy” the experience. Alfred Hitchcock was surprised at the humor that Psycho (1960) sparked in audiences, but he should not have been; we laugh in order to show we are still in control, to master our fears.4 Various analyses of the attraction of horror films have come to similar conclusions, as shown later.

Female Viewers and Horror Horror films have been much criticized for their excessive violence, provoking reactions from both left- and right-wing critics. Since women are frequently the victims of the monster, it has been argued that horror films cater to male desires to see women torn to pieces, rooted in their own fears of the female. Building on Julia Kristeva’s views, Barbara Creed suggests that male fears of castration are at the root of the need to see women dismembered and destroyed and that the female is configured as the real monster in such films. Female viewers of the film can only watch their own destruction, powerless to stop it.5 Such theories, of course, do not explain why female viewers would consent to watch a horror film in the first place. Dolf Zillman and James B. Weaver have attempted to explain this through their hypothesis that horror films act to socialize adolescents into accepted gender norms regarding fear. Specifically, the films provide “a forum for boys to practice and achieve the display of fearlessness and protective competence” and “for girls to practice and achieve the display of fearfulness and the protective need.”6 In other words, females are able to express dependence on their boyfriends to be strong and protective during terrifying scenes, reassuring the males that they are needed by

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them. Their results have been questioned, however, not least because they generalized from a single study of viewers of a single film (Friday the 13th, Part III [1982]).7 None of these theories allows for the possibility that women might actually find something that they like in horror films and that they are choosing of their own free will to see them. They are not entirely powerless, either in the movie theater or on the screen. Contrary to conventional wisdom, about half of the audience of many horror films is made up of women, and it seems unlikely that all of them are there just because their misogynist boyfriends made them go. Brigid Cherry has noted that audience studies show women receive pleasure from watching these films for some of the same reasons that male viewers do—in particular, they are able to express and master their fears. It may be true in some cases that women actually pretend to be more afraid than they really are, if they believe that this is expected of them, but in reality, they may be enjoying the film as much as the guys.8 Women have demonstrated attraction to horror films since the beginning. When the film version of Dracula (1931) was released, it was marketed to female viewers, partly because Bela Lugosi was viewed as a sexually seductive and attractive vampire. Such “gothic” horror, whether in novels or films, has long been of interest to women, even as “gothic” romances are. We even see gothic romance and horror mixed in a classic novel like Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, which features a crazy first wife in the attic and a mysteriously distant but attractive man. Women surveyed by Cherry admit to the “romantic” attraction of horror in vampire stories, which has become more obvious in recent years with the success of the Twilight books and films (which I treated under the heading of “Women’s Films” for precisely that reason). One of Cherry’s respondents, for example, claimed that the vampire is depicted as having “an uncanny knowledge of how to give pleasure,” giving a figure like Lugosi the same exotic appeal as a silent-film star like Rudolf Valentino.9 The traditional movie monster was always depicted rather sympathetically, whether as a seductive and exotic immigrant (Lugosi) or as a tragic figure who is the victim of his own baser instincts. Frankenstein (1931) represented the monster not as the embittered but eloquent creature of Mary Shelley’s novel but as an almost mute and clumsy oaf whose every effort to achieve friendship backfires.

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He seems almost childlike in his desire for companionship and in his inability to understand the consequences of his actions, as when (in a scene cut from some prints) he tosses a little girl into a pond to see if she can float, and she drowns. The monster is not a bad one at heart but becomes violent because others regard him as such—this much the film had in common with the novel. In a somewhat different way, The Wolf Man (1941) becomes a tragic figure in that he cannot control his necessity to kill when he changes into the monster, and his awareness of this during the time he spends as a human causes him tremendous pain. He realizes his next victim will be his own true love unless he is stopped, and it is ultimately his own father who unwittingly kills him in his monstrous form with a silver-headed cane. Frankenstein and the Wolf Man, as well as Dracula, could all be viewed as examples of male sexual desire without appropriate limits placed on it, the violent and aggressive tendencies of which must be domesticated in order to protect women from them. One could also add The Mummy (1932) as well as King Kong (1933) to this list, as both of them are drawn to women they cannot have due to their monstrous natures. It is “tragic” that the monsters must be destroyed to the extent that the audience empathizes with them in their pain and exclusion, mirroring the pain and exclusion of adolescence for both males and females. It is not only young men who feel drawn to such monsters, which mirror their own struggles with their sexual desires; young women also struggle with such desires and are also drawn to the monsters out of pity and compassion.10 Isabel Pinedo offers another feminist perspective on horror. The mutilation of the body is shown more explicitly in recent horror films than in their classic counterparts (surely in large part due to the demise of censorship), which may make it seem as if such films are exploitative and gratuitously violent. Pinedo, however, suggests that there are pleasures related both to seeing and to not seeing violence on screen, both of which are featured in modern horror films. Sometimes we are not allowed to see the monster or its violence in full, which protects the viewer from the overwhelming emotions associated with the murders that are committed, but at other times, we are treated to a great deal of on-screen gore. Such screen violence and blood allow the audience to deal with their own fears of bodily violation and mutilation in a “safe” way, often

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accompanied by humor as audiences laugh at mediocre special effects that do not seem “real.” Although such scenes of realistic violence are sometimes compared with hard-core pornography in their attempt to show something that is both “real” and inappropriate or gross, the difference is that horror-movie fans know that the violence is in fact fake, and they generally have no desire to go out and simulate the activities they have seen in “hard-core” horror (as fans of hard-core pornography might).11 Pinedo speculates that viewers of horror films achieve a certain mastery of their fears in surviving the ordeal of the film, as they can return to normal life afterward. This experience obviously has similarities to what I have termed the liminal nature of filmgoing. It allows us temporarily to step into a “forbidden” area by putting ourselves into the world of the film so that we can return to our world more able to deal with it. Horror-film director Wes Craven has said that he does not believe people watch horror films because they want to be scared but because they are scared or have been scared, and they try to deal with these fears at the movies—both by submitting to the fear and by mastering it.12 This mastery is also shown to a large extent, especially for women, in films in which a woman (the “final girl” who survives) kills the slasher at the end. Ultimately, the viewer is led to identify with the “final girl” as we see shots from her point of view, not the monster’s, as the film nears its conclusion. Such films can serve as an expression of “female rage” against male aggression, as the woman refuses to be made a victim and is able to fight back effectively in the end.13 One sees the same phenomenon of the woman who refuses to become a victim even in classic suspense thrillers such as Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder (1954), in which Grace Kelly foils her husband’s plan to have her killed by jabbing a large scissor into her attacker, and Wait Until Dark (1967), in which blind Audrey Hepburn manages to knife her attacker to death after pulling the plug on the lights in order to make him sightless as well. Male viewers also identify with the woman in such a situation, as we all cheer for an apparently powerless victim who effectively strikes back against an aggressor. Pinedo admits that many horror films are misogynistic in, for example, punishing women for being sexually active, but she also sees horror films as having the opportunity to challenge the misogynistic status quo by providing

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models of strong women—some of the strongest in popular film, surprisingly enough.

Making Monstrous What evokes fear in one audience may not in another. While Psycho created a huge reaction upon its release, decades of film imitators may make it seem tame or boring to contemporary filmgoers who are used to more explicit violence. The Exorcist (1973) was similarly groundbreaking but may be much less terrifying to those who do not have much of a religious background and so lack the ability to view demon possession as a real threat.14 For this reason, the sort of horror films that are made in a given era can give us some insight into the anxieties of the time—or as Cowan puts it, the “sociophobics” that operate. Historian Scott Poole points out that in early American history, the Native Americans were depicted inaccurately as cannibalistic monsters, and this served the genocidal purposes of the European settlers. We not only make monstrous that which we fear but that which we wish to destroy.15 Racial minorities have often been depicted as monsters. The association of blacks with apes has long been part of racist discourse, so a film like King Kong (1933) could draw on standard white fears of the “libidinous ape” who desires the white woman. The black “savages” on the island offer her up to the giant ape, and Kong’s interaction with her is unmistakably sexual.16 Fears of “miscegenation” and the dilution of the “white race” are still expressed by racists, and generations of black men have been lynched for any perceived association with white women; in the film The Birth of a Nation (1915), a lynching is depicted as justified simply because a black man expressed a desire to marry a white woman. As societies change, we see depictions of the monster change: Candyman (1992) tells the story of a black man who was brutally murdered for his affair with a white woman and who now has become a vengeful spirit who kills others. This film at least suggests the injustice of what happened to him, but it still configures the black man as the monster. Zombie films also have a history of racist associations, but they no longer seem to have the same referent. The zombie was originally part of Haitian voudou and referred to someone who was ritually killed and

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had their soul stolen and enslaved; in that context, it represented fears of slavery. Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s turned this concept to racist purposes with fears of the “black savages” who would steal the souls of white people.17 But zombie films have altered this concept in recent decades, beginning most clearly with George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) and its sequels, Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985), which described zombies as murderous and cannibalistic corpses reanimated by cosmic radiation, who create more zombies as they kill. These fears have an apocalyptic aspect that verges into science fiction, as they forecast a future of total societal chaos in which mob violence rules and the survivors battle each other. These films have been seen as a critique of American consumerism, most visibly shown in the shopping-mall scenes in Dawn of the Dead.18 As such, they represent the fear that we are losing our souls in mindless selfishness, expressing a message not unlike Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Moral society also decays in 28 Days Later (2002), when a government-created “rage” virus gets out of hand and turns citizens into zombies who destroy each other; order can only be restored through the destruction of individual liberties, indicating a current distrust of the nation-state.19 The zombie represents a loss of humanity and human values, as well as a fear of death and decay, as their bodies are literally dead and rotting even while they continue their mindless destruction.20 Douglas Cowan has drawn attention to the religious dimensions of horror films that have so often been neglected. If the threat has a supernatural origin, it is often related to “pagan” religious traditions, Satanism, or even a perverted form of Christianity. Sometimes the latter is shown to be powerless in the face of evil, showcasing fears that Christianity is corrupt or weak. While church attendance declines, Americans continue to believe in the supernatural: most of those surveyed still believe in hell and the devil.21 We fear changes to the sacred order, evil spirits, death, the afterlife, religious fanatics, and “pagan” religions. New religious movements, neo-paganism, Wicca, Santeria, and voudou are routinely depicted as evil “cults” that practice torture and human sacrifice, demonstrating not only ill-founded stereotypes but also fears of the religious “other.” Films that configure these movements as monstrous function to support the religious status quo and legitimize prejudices against them.22

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Films in which “devil worshippers” are the villains may also represent other societal concerns. In Rosemary’s Baby (1968), a young woman is raped by the devil and gives birth to the Antichrist, and this effectively showed her loss of control over her pregnancy (in a time before the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the United States). The film also features an evil husband who manipulates his wife and a community that refuses to listen to her, pointing to fears women might have of rape or sexual abuse. But as Cowan points out, any attempt to analyze why such a film horrifies cannot only focus on the nonsupernatural elements when it clearly invokes fears of sinister supernatural forces in which many people believe.23 We fear what we cannot understand, and that may literally mean supernatural forces, even as it also includes religious and cultural “others,” societal forces, and human evil. Which brings us back to the question: Why do we choose to watch such films? The evil might be mastered in such a film, but it often is not. Perhaps we feel we have mastered it just because we can leave the theater at the end, but if the threat seems real to us, we may have lingering doubts. We remain drawn to the evil nonetheless, out of a strange fascination and sometimes admiration of its powers.

Psychotic Slasher Films It is impossible to overemphasize the influence of Alfred Hitchcock on the history of cinema. Immensely popular with both audiences and critics, his prolific career spanned five decades and produced dozens of films, many of which are regarded as classics. His ability to manipulate viewer emotions is legendary, and he has inspired generations of filmmakers. Hitchcock perfected the genre of the suspense thriller, which, while distinct from horror in some ways, contributed to its development—especially in his depiction of the psychotic killer. Hitchcock is regarded by critics as a great filmmaker precisely because his films are not simply exploitation cinema. The female victims of serial killers are depicted sympathetically in Psycho and Frenzy (1972), such that—in the words of Robin Wood—his films “deny all but the most singlemindedly sadistic male viewer any simple pleasure in the violences to which they are subjected.”24 Wood, along with Tania Modleski, argues

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that in spite of Hitchcock’s representation of women who are “punished” for their power, the filmmaker had a “thoroughgoing ambivalence about femininity” such that his films provide a perhaps unintended critique of patriarchy.25 But while the viewer is often led to identify with the female victim, he or she is also made to uncomfortably identify with the murderer, depicted as a victim of societal forces as well.26 Psycho did this most brilliantly by creating a film in two parts, the first of which posits complete identification with the female character of Marion Crane, who is then killed, and the second of which follows Norman Bates as he attempts to conceal the murder. When it is revealed that Norman and not his mother is the murderer—and that Norman killed his own mother and then adopted her identity—we are both repelled by his deviant psychosis and yet sympathetic to the fact that he is trapped. As Norman puts it, “We’re all in our private traps, and none of us can ever get out. We scratch and claw, but only at the air, only at each other. . . . We never budge an inch.” Norman knows he was born into his trap, with a controlling mother who could not allow him to develop normally, and Hitchcock allows us to feel sympathy for him even while we are horrified by his actions. As we share the nature of both the killer and victim, we are led to a clearer recognition of the nature of evil in ourselves as well as in others. Hitchcock was especially proficient at creating the identification of viewers with his characters, and in this way, he gives us the opportunity for catharsis from our own sins—as we feel horror at the crime as well as sympathy for the criminal. Tragedies do this (it will be recalled), and Hitchcock’s films often approach the standards for tragedy when they lead us to understand the flaws of the characters who are led to suffer for their actions, however inescapably. The endless imitators of Hitchcock seldom achieve the heights of tragedy, as the films verge into parody (like the Scream movies) and excess (like the “torture porn” of 2005’s Hostel). The enjoyment viewers receive in watching slasher films, however, may be similar to the enjoyment of Hitchcock’s films in spite of their artistic shortcomings. Identification with the victims allows audience members to experience vicarious punishment for their “sins” of sexual activity and yet to survive the theater intact and laughing. Identification with the survivors also allows audience members to experience the defeat of evil. And identification with the killer may allow for the cathartic release of violent

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desires. The killer may even be made “sympathetic” as his killing sprees are explained as revenge for the wrongs that were done to him. At the same time, if the killer is depicted as a “sexual deviant,” perhaps even gay or transgender (as in The Silence of the Lambs [1991]), it may serve to increase stigmatization of those who do not conform to gender norms, even suggesting that their gender identity is psychotic. In Split (2018), a man has twenty-four personalities, which include male and female persons, and the film presents his dissociative identity disorder as dangerous, in that he literally transforms into a cannibalistic monster. The popularity of films with psychotic killers has probably increased fear and prejudice directed against those with psychological problems as well as linked sexuality with violence.27 The multiple successful series of films of this sort—for example, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween—are never in the top of the box office, but the low cost of making such films assures them of a fine profit on their investment.28 In other words, not everyone goes to see these films, but they have a devoted following that apparently does not mind the repetition of the standard formula with little variation. Aside from the fear and terror invoked, the actual violence depicted seems to have become the main draw. This certainly invites concerns from moral critics, who lament the popularity of the films—but the fans keep going.

Monstrous Reversals Although horror films have often perpetuated a fear of the “other”— whether racial, religious, or sexual—some horror films have been able to offer a progressive critique of the marginalization and oppression of women and minorities. In The Stepford Wives (1974), based on Ira Levin’s novel, upper-class white men create robot duplicates of their wives in order to silence their individuality, their personalities, and their freedom. The robots are made to be perfect housewives, more interested in cleaning than politics or books; the real horror is that the men see no sin in replacing their wives in this way. The film also suggests the ease of mindless conformity for comfortable upper-class women, itself a comment on how the concerns of feminism can be silenced. In some ways, the film was prophetic of the “backlash” against feminism

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that occurred in the following decades. The 2004 remake of the film, on the other hand, expresses some of the ideals of the backlash itself, as a bitter career woman (Glenn Close, essentially reprising her murderous role from Fatal Attraction) is behind it all, and she has also murdered and robotized her husband. This film makes no attempt at serious social commentary as the original film did, instead veering into slapstick and allowing a “happy ending” as the women can be returned to normal. More recent horror films have also targeted racism or sexism. Get Out (2017) showed a white community not unlike Stepford in which white people kidnap and steal the bodies of black people in order to escape old age and death. Although the idea of stealing bodies to prolong life is a horror-movie staple, here it is given a racist cast as older white people desire to have their consciousnesses transplanted into young black persons. While it might seem odd for racists to desire to live in a black body, it is shown as akin to slavery in the notion that they view black people as having no rights over their own bodies. Their admiration for black bodies also trades on racist stereotypes that sexualize and exoticize the physical form of black persons. Much of the horror in the film comes from the idea that the mind of the occupied body does not disappear but remains a powerless observer, occasionally escaping but always afterward repressed again. The film expresses well the fears that minorities have of becoming powerless and voiceless in their oppression but also the hope of revolt, as the hero successfully fights for his life. The film was also clearly popular with all races, making $254 million from its $5-million investment.29 The Shape of Water (2017) was another film that was both a box-office hit (grossing $194 million from its $20 million cost) and a critical success, winning four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.30 Guillermo del Toro had seen the classic horror film Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) as a child and had initially thought that it was a love story between the creature and the woman. In the original film, the creature is viewed as a monster, and the woman must be saved from his lecherous desires—but del Toro reconfigures this story in his own film so that the love affair is mutual. Elisa Esposito is a mute cleaning woman who bonds with the creature and who helps him escape with assistance from her friend Giles (who is gay), communist spy Robert, and her fellow worker Zelda who is black. They all represent

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marginalized and silenced populations of Cold War America, intent on fighting for the rights of the creature as another oppressed being. The violent Colonel Strickland tortures the creature and fails to see the rights not only of the creature but also of those around him—including Elisa, whom he desires as a mute woman he can dominate. Strickland is the real monster in the film, finally himself silenced by the creature. The ending of the film has the same ambiguity del Toro lent to his film Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), as viewers might be uncertain whether the “happy ending” depicted is only in the mind of the narrator or actually in the diegetic world of the film; it may be just a fantasy that “love conquers all,” but the images express a hope of survival that is defiant in the face of oppression. Del Toro frankly admits the political message of the film: “It’s not a movie about ’62. It’s a movie that tells you that the racism, classism, sexual mores, everything that was alive in ’62, is all alive now. It never went away.” As a Mexican immigrant, he has experienced racial profiling. And he explains his attraction to monsters in this way: As a kid, I knew that monsters were far more gentle and more desirable than the monsters living inside “nice people.” . . . And I think accepting that you are a monster gives you the leeway to not behave like one. When you deny being a monster, you behave like one. It’s a very simple paradox that you understand when you find that tool to allow yourself to stop hating yourself. There are truths about oneself that are really bad and hard to admit. But when you finally have the courage and say them, you liberate yourself. And monsters are a personification of that.31

It is hard to imagine a more eloquent defense of monster movies. They function to help us see the monstrous in ourselves so that we can contain it. To recognize our “shadow side,” as Carl Jung might say, is to begin the path toward acceptance of oneself and the other and to move beyond hatred. Not all horror films do this very effectively, but del Toro’s films do. Another film that alters our usual way of seeing monsters is Colossal (2016), a parody of postwar Japanese monster movies such as Godzilla (1954). The original Godzilla has been seen as a symbol of the anger Japan felt after the dropping of the atomic bombs there, as the creature rises from the depths in response to that event. The monster wreaks

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havoc on Japan even as the United States did.32 But in Colossal, it is the rage of an alcoholic woman, Gloria (Anne Hathaway), that is incarnated into a giant monster that attacks Seoul, South Korea. Gradually, it is revealed that her rage comes from a cruel act by her childhood friend Oscar, who it is learned has his own monstrous avatar. But while Gloria wants to contain the threat, Oscar enjoys his power to terrorize, control, and intimidate others. While Gloria has seldom stood up to men, she does so now, utilizing her “inner Godzilla” to save Seoul as well as her own “soul.” Director Nacho Vigalando has said his film is about female agency and “male bullshit” and that he wanted to make a movie in which the woman stands up to male violence by herself—not as a sidekick or a victim.33 Sadly, the limited release of this film meant that it did not even earn back its investment, and few had the chance to see it. Horror films clearly have as much diversity to them as other genres. If we look to the portrayal of the monstrous in film and do not restrict ourselves to the grossest of horror films, we find significant challenges to the real monsters in our world. What people imagine as monstrous varies, but viewers of these films all seek to deal with evil in some way—by containing it, identifying with it, or just surviving viewing it. The next chapter will deal with war films, which have dealt with a different sort of horror, sometimes by glorifying it and sometimes by critiquing it.

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Silent films were newly popular when the First World War began in 1914. War became a subject for the new medium almost immediately, and it has been ever since. War has become vastly more destructive in modern times due to technological developments, just as films have become more sophisticated in their ability to portray the violence of war. And yet this has not always resulted in totally “realistic” depictions of war, as war films are constructed through narrative and mythic conventions that often justify and glorify combat, even (or especially) as they point to its cost in the human lives sacrificed in it. There have been films made that are clearly antiwar, but these do not do nearly as well as prowar films at the box office. Antiwar films may critique the myth that war can effectively eliminate evil, but this is not a message that people usually want to hear. Even apparently antiwar films may end up supporting a prowar ideology in spite of themselves, as highlighting the sacrifice of soldiers generates sympathy for them as well as for the war; it is hard to admit that their sacrifice is pointless and without purpose. “Support our troops” becomes “support the war” in many people’s minds, as they have difficulty separating the two. In fact, it has frequently been argued that they cannot be separated, that soldiers should be supported—and therefore the war in which they serve as well. If people do not support a particular war, it is also alleged that they disrespect the soldiers, “spitting on the troops” as they return. Stories were told of protestors literally spitting on veterans as they returned from Vietnam, but this is in fact an “urban myth” that lacks a single verified example. Jerry Lembcke has argued that this myth was utilized by the US government during the Vietnam War (and has been used throughout history) to discredit war protestors as unpatriotic. And although there were numerous Vietnam veterans who were themselves protestors against the war, their voices were effectively silenced and went unacknowledged. Instead, protestors were vilified as a “fifth 231

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column” undermining the war effort, even in some cases being blamed for its failure.1 The ideological and media forces that support a particular war obviously transcend movies, but war films are part of the apparatus. Such films have not always been tops at the box office, but those that have done well have been particularly effective pieces of propaganda. If one looks at the list of all-time top box-office hits in the United States, inflation adjusted, one finds Gone with the Wind (1939) at the top; while this might not technically be considered a “war film,” it was highly effective propaganda for the antebellum American South, suggesting slave owners were kind and noble and that the “Yankees” destroyed everything of value in their society. The Birth of a Nation (1915) was another highly successful film that generated sympathy for the South in the American Civil War, going so far as to suggest that the founding of the Ku Klux Klan afterward kept the “principles” of the racist society justly alive through vigilante violence. Forrest Gump (1994), which showed the Vietnam War as heroic and the protestors as abusive drug addicts, comes in at number twenty-six.2 In defining the genre of war films, however, I have no desire to include every film that is set during wartime or that includes any reference to a war. Sometimes the genre is defined by films that depict combat situations, but this may be too narrow a focus. I include in this genre films that have a narrative constructed largely around a historical war, especially Hollywood films that depict wars in which the United States has been involved in the last century. Many of these are focused on combat, but they may also include narratives about returning veterans and their efforts to readjust to life at home. In these ways, they provide commentary on the ways in which war has been normalized and integrated into the American experience.

The First and Second World Wars on Film The earliest films to depict war, other than The Birth of a Nation, tended to focus on the First World War. Isolationist sentiments prevailed in America in the first part of the war, and these find expression in Civilization (1915), which depicts the pointless carnage of a fictional war. The commander of a submarine chooses to destroy his own ship rather than

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fire on a civilian ship carrying munitions and meets Jesus in the afterlife, who commissions him to return to Earth to urge his king to stop the war. Jesus appears to the king to tell him, “See here thy handiwork? Under thy reign, thy domain hath become a raging hell!” That this message was meant for current leaders is clear from the title card at the beginning of the film, which states that “today, the great sorrowful eyes of this same Son of God gaze down upon blackened fields, where the mangled bodies of men are strewn. . . . As He listens to . . . the ghastly symphony of the reddest war mankind has even known, His heart must recognize the bitter truth . . . that in nineteen centuries Civilization has failed to accept honestly the teachings of Jesus Christ.” On the other hand, D. W. Griffith’s Hearts of the World (1918), made specifically to prompt American intervention in the war, depicted peaceful French villagers attacked by ruthless Germans, suggesting a need to respond and protect the innocents. These two threads run through films of the following decades, as war is depicted alternately as pointless destruction or as an effective means of rendering justice. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) was the top-grossing film of 1921, making $9.2 million from its cost of $800,000, showing that an antiwar depiction of the First World War could do extremely well just a few years after it ended.3 The film depicted the tragic consequences of a family divided in its loyalties between France and Germany and the pointless deaths of those involved. The title comes from the final apocalyptic image in the film (drawn from the biblical book of Revelation) of supernatural figures of wrath and destruction ravaging the Earth. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) was a highly acclaimed American film based on Erich Maria Remarque’s antiwar novel about the First World War, set in Germany and complete with the same sense of futility and a critique of the jingoistic enthusiasm that informed that war. Few films of the next few decades focused on war, however, until the Second World War. Many in the United States were not eager to get involved in a European war again, hence one can find a short film like Peace on Earth (1939) appearing in theaters after Hitler’s invasion of Poland. In this Christmas-themed cartoon, forest animals tell the story of how humans made themselves extinct through war, accompanied by images of soldiers with gas masks and helmets reminiscent of First World War gear. The animals discover the biblical commandment “thou

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shalt not kill,” which they find humans did not follow, and vow to live in peace.4 These pacifist sentiments, however, were very quick to disappear from films after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the subsequent entry of the United States into the war. Sergeant York (1941) had been released earlier in the year but proved to be an ideal piece of propaganda and extremely popular as it continued to fill theaters in the year that followed; with a cost of just $1.4 million, it grossed $16.4 million, giving it a rank of 116 for adjusted domestic gross and making it the highest-grossing war film for decades.5 It told the true story of Alvin York (played by Gary Cooper), a Christian pacifist drafted into the First World War as a soldier even though he had sought conscientious-objector status. Once in battle, however, he reasoned that he should “render to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” and he used his marksmanship skills with a rifle to kill twenty-five Germans and capture 132, saving the soldiers in his unit. One could not have found a better story to make the case for war, with a Christian pacifist turning to it as the most moral choice. Once the United States entered the war, the government intentionally sought the help of Hollywood in creating support and boosting morale, and Hollywood was only too happy to comply. Many films deliberately encouraged the war effort, even when they were not combat films. The best of these was Casablanca (1942), the classic and highly acclaimed film that tells the story of how a disillusioned former freedom fighter “rejoins the fight” against Nazism when he realizes that in spite of his broken heart, “the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” Set in December 1941, it served as a fitting metaphor for America’s decision to join the war. Mrs. Miniver (1942) was also highly effective in galvanizing support by showing the lives of one British family during the war, their commitment, and the sacrifices they experience. Combat films included Bataan (1943), which told the story of the soldiers who died holding off the Japanese in the Philippines; Sahara (1943), which depicted the war in Africa; Thirty Seconds over Tokyo (1944), which recounted the events of the first retaliatory airstrike on Japan; and They Were Expendable (1945), a true story about a PT (patrol torpedo) boat during the Battle of the Philippines. The title of this last film sums it up well, as the heroes frequently died in these

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films, but their deaths were not deemed pointless. They functioned not to show that war was without cost but rather to show that the high cost was worth it. As American viewers sent their sons to war and many never returned, they wanted to believe that there was some reason for their deaths, and vicariously participating in their sacrifices created a sense of catharsis that validated the war for those at home. The enemy was also effectively dehumanized, as one can clearly see in the numerous cartoons utilizing racist stereotypes that were made during the war.6 In the years that followed the war, readjustment to civilian life was crucial for the large percentage of American men who had served. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) was a critical and commercial success, earning seven Academy Awards and $23 million at the box office, placing it eighty-fifth for all-time (inflation-adjusted) domestic gross.7 The film realistically depicted the challenges faced by returning veterans in their careers and marriages and featured Harold Russell (who had actually lost his hands in the war) playing a veteran dealing with the challenges of disability. Combat films were also made, such as Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), as well as films that depicted the long pauses between combat in the war such as The Caine Mutiny (1954) or Mister Roberts (1955). Both of the latter films dealt with the challenge of having an irrational commanding officer, the former seriously and the latter more comically. These films essentially functioned as nostalgia pieces, much like the film version of the musical South Pacific (1958). Although one sees some death in such movies, it is much less than in films made during the war; instead, narratives focus on issues such as normal operational challenges, boredom, and prejudice. The popular holiday musical White Christmas (1954) told the story of a unit reuniting to show their old general how much they loved him, going so far in its nostalgic depiction of the war that it included the song, “Gee, I Wish I Was Back in the Army.”

Postwar Films and the Critique of War The end of the 1950s also featured films in which the critique of war resurfaced. Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957) was a brutal antiwar film set in France during the First World War in which three men are arbitrarily executed for cowardice after the entire unit refuses to charge the enemy while under fire. Even though to advance would have meant

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certain death, the general in charge unfeelingly insists on the executions of the men. David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) was an extremely successful film, earning $27 million from its $3 million cost and earning the spot as ninetieth for all-time (inflation-adjusted) domestic box-office return.8 It told the story of British POWs (prisoners of war) who are ordered by their Japanese captors to build a bridge and the conflict of wills between the commanding officers that results. In the end, the British commander takes so much pride in the bridge that he loses sight of the war’s objectives, going so far as to attempt to thwart efforts by Allied troops to blow it up. While not clearly antiwar, the film showed the contradictions and confusions about duty that can arise in war and certainly did not glorify it. Friendly Persuasion (1956) told the story of a Quaker family during the American Civil War, and while some commended the film for its portrait of their pacifist ideals, the film backtracks from this position when the son joins the army and the father grabs his gun to defend the family farm. The House Un-American Activities Committee helped mute the pacifist message, as they had interrogated blacklisted screenwriter Michael Wilson about its content; the committee conflated antiwar messages with anti-American communism, and the studio responded by creating a product that suggested war might be acceptable even to Quakers.9 With Gary Cooper playing the lead, audiences might also have seen him as an older Sergeant York, once again questioning his pacifist values. While it was easier to critique war during peacetime, then, the Cold War as well as the Korean War (1950–53) made it problematic to reject war altogether in the 1950s and 1960s. The top two box-office earners of 1962, for example, were Lawrence of Arabia and The Longest Day, which portrayed key battles of the First and Second World Wars, respectively. But as fears of the possibility of nuclear war grew, antiwar messages surfaced in films that realistically depicted the possibility of nuclear war such as On the Beach (1959) and Fail-Safe (1964), which I have discussed as science fiction. One also finds a critique of Cold War fear in The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966), a comedy about a Russian submarine that goes aground in New England and the resulting chaos that ensues. A standoff occurs when the sub captain threatens to destroy the town unless his missing men are found. Several tense minutes pass with weapons aimed at both sides and the possibility of death

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at any moment—enacting the Cold War in miniature—until a young boy almost falls to his death and is saved by the combined efforts of the Russians and Americans. The missing sailors are found, and the Americans help the Russians escape; each side now sees the other as human beings and friends. This film made $21 million in the United States, earning it the number-eight spot at the box office that year.10 Another notable antiwar film of the 1960s is The Americanization of Emily (1964), with a screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky that added an antiwar emphasis not present in the novel on which it was based. Set in England prior to the invasion of Normandy in 1944, the story follows Charlie Madison, an American naval commander (James Garner) who admits to being a coward and studiously avoids combat as he sees war as ineffective and pointless. Emily Barham (Julie Andrews) is a British woman whose husband, father, and brother have been killed in the war, and she is horrified when Charlie tells her mother that the death of her husband was without purpose. Charlie attacks the glorification of the “death of heroes” as what perpetuates war: “We shall never end wars, Mrs. Barham, by blaming it on the ministers and generals, or warmongering imperialists, or all the other banal bogeys. It’s the rest of us who build statues to those generals and name boulevards after those ministers. The rest of us who make heroes of our dead and shrines of our battlefields. We wear our widow’s weeds like nuns, Mrs. Barham, and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices.” Emily’s mother does in fact see Charlie’s words as a kindness, and they help her overcome her denial of the death of her family members. When it appears that Charlie has been killed on Omaha Beach and is to be made a war hero, Emily begins to understand Charlie’s cynicism about the exaltation of sacrifice—as she just wants him back. It turns out Charlie is alive, and when he wants to go public with his critique of the war, Emily convinces him to choose happiness with her rather than be a martyr for his principles. The film was configured as a romantic comedy, but Charlie’s speeches provided a serious edge and a legitimate rationale for hating and avoiding war. Rarely is a coward depicted so virtuously in films, especially one about the Second World War. Just a few years later, however, it would have been difficult to make a film with such an obviously antiwar message. The Vietnam War was unpopular from the start with many Americans, so the US government

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did not contribute to a major industry of war-propaganda films as it had during the Second World War—but neither were many antiwar films made until the conflict had ended. John Wayne did receive US government support for making The Green Berets (1968), an unapologetic piece of prowar propaganda. In spite of poor production values and an unrealistic plot, it earned $21 million at the box office and so came in thirteenth among films that year.11 Nonetheless, it was critiqued by those who did not share its politics, which suggests that it merely confirmed the views of war supporters and did little to affect public opinion on the conflict. As Roger Ebert explained his view of the film, “We seem to be fighting a war for no particular purpose against a semianonymous enemy. There is no word about democracy or freedom, nationalism or self-determination. It appears that the war has been caused entirely by the enemy and that the enemy commits atrocities because he enjoys them.”12 These problems follow the portrayal of the Vietnam War even into the following decade with the allegedly antiwar films made in its aftermath. There were actually very few films made during the Vietnam War that had war as their focus. Notable exceptions include Patton (1970), a successful biopic about the nonconformist Second World War general that was the fourth-highest-earning film that year in the United States. This film managed to transcend political differences and appeal to both the left and right, as the promotional materials deliberately promoted Patton as a “rebel” who had questioned the establishment “long before it was fashionable.”13 He was shown as a brilliant strategist who helped win the war but also a flawed man with an outsize ego and a blunt manner that led to his slapping a soldier with PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder), criticizing the Russian allies, and explicitly praying for the death of enemies. Still, all this appeared justified in order to win what was by 1970 increasingly viewed as the “last just war” by many Americans. Paradoxically, the film that outperformed Patton that year with the third-place box-office spot was M*A*S*H, a broad parody about medical doctors in the Korean War that did nothing to glorify that conflict—although it also avoided any real critique, unlike the clearly antiwar television show based on it. Both of these successful films, then, managed to make war the central subject matter without really offering any obvious opinion on it.

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All this changed, however, once American troops left Vietnam in 1975 and filmmakers began offering retrospective judgments. The Deer Hunter (1978) told the story of veterans before, during, and after their tour of duty and the effects this had on them. An abrupt transition from life at home to combat abroad shows the North Vietnamese killing civilians and then taking the American troops prisoner. They are treated brutally in captivity and forced to play Russian roulette. They manage to escape and return home, but the psychological damage they have suffered leads one to commit suicide. Apocalypse Now (1979) also portrayed the madness invoked by Vietnam, in a story about a colonel who adopts barbaric methods to fight the war. Captain Willard is assigned to assassinate him, but as he moves upriver toward Cambodia, he increasingly sees the chaos the war has created. By the end of the film, Willard has also stepped outside of conventional military or moral norms. These two films were ostensibly antiwar in portraying its randomness and immorality, but in fact, both movies depicted the North Vietnamese as inhuman monsters who had forced the Americans into the extremes of insanity and war crimes. Like The Green Berets, neither film deals with the ill-conceived foreign and military policy of the United States in Vietnam or its neocolonial precursors. They attempt to define no political context for the conflict or its morality.14 The problem with the war was not its injustice as such, in these films, but rather the fact that the Americans could not win it and they did not have a clear sense of why they were in the war or how they should wage it. The American soldiers are the real victims in these films, rather than the Vietnamese people, who remain nameless and foreign to us. Coming Home (1978) did not show any scenes in Vietnam but only in the United States—and again showed the psychological and physical cost to American veterans. Although it starred famed antiwar protestor Jane Fonda, this film also failed to provide any real arguments against the war, instead choosing to focus on the damage it did to American lives. Platoon (1986) utilized the same structure of focusing on the damage done to the American troops rather than to the Vietnamese. After Sergeant Barnes commits war crimes against civilians, Sergeant Elias wants him held accountable—until Barnes shoots Elias and leaves him behind for dead during combat. The young soldier who sees this crime then kills Barnes, suggesting a total breakdown of law and morality

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in war. In a voiceover at the end of the film, the private says, “I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. And the enemy was in us.” The moral struggle between good and evil is within the young soldier, as in all of us; for the rest of his life, he believes that the two sergeants will be fighting for his soul: “There are times since, I’ve felt like the child born of those two fathers. But, be that as it may, those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what’s left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life.” The battle is an internal mythological conflict between good and evil in our souls, rather than an external political one. In this way, although director Oliver Stone clearly intended his film as antiwar, the message is muted and generalized because of its decontextualization; it is a tale of individual morality that could have happened anywhere and anytime. Platoon did extremely well with domestic box-office sales of $138 million and so showed that an antiwar film could be popular. In Full Metal Jacket (1987), Stanley Kubrick returned to the antiwar themes he had portrayed in Paths of Glory, in this case focusing first on a recruit driven to homicidal and suicidal violence by being bullied during training and then on another recruit’s time in Vietnam, which culminates in his killing a mortally injured female sniper. He is unaffected by the incident, showing how Kubrick effectively deviates from the standard mythology that would require a focus on the damaged veteran; this film was more clearly antiwar than Platoon, which may be why it was not as successful at the box office (although it did make $46 million). Hamburger Hill (1987) graphically retold the story of one of the most bloody and pointless battles of the war, with hundreds of casualties to take a hill that was given back to the other side within weeks. This film made only $13 million, but the veterans who reviewed it on Imdb.com considered it to be one of the most realistic depictions of the war.15 That same year, Good Morning, Vietnam was a box-office hit that told the story of an army radio DJ in Vietnam and his gradual disillusionment with the army and the war. And a few years later, Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July (1989) made $70 million in the United States16 with the true story of Ron Kovic, a soldier who participated in the slaughter of civilians, accidentally killed a fellow soldier, and ended up himself paralyzed. Kovic became active in the antiwar movement, and by showing this, the film

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defied some of the conventions of war films that rarely show veterans protesting against war. In fact, the US military refused Stone the assistance they usually give to directors of war films, precisely because they did not like his message.17 Stone was fortunate to be able to make a film that could receive distribution and ticket sales without that assistance, which is not the case for the many filmmakers who need to create a film with a military-approved message in order to use military equipment. We can then see in these postwar films the genuine critique of war and of Vietnam in particular, even though it is sometimes imperfectly expressed. Most often, antiwar films argued that war does not have or accomplish clear objectives and leads to insanity, barbarism, and deaths without purpose. But the portrayal of war was to take a different turn after September 11, 2001, as Americans saw themselves in a noble and necessary struggle for the first time since the Second World War.

Twenty-First-Century War Films A number of cultural commentators have observed how American views of war changed as a result of the 9/11 attacks and the US response to them. Vietnam veteran Andrew Bacevich wrote in 2005 that Americans “have fallen prey to militarism, manifesting itself in a romanticized view of soldiers, a tendency to see military powers as the truest measure of national greatness, and outsized expectations regarding the efficacy of force.” He found that American “greatness” was for the first time being defined primarily in military terms.18 Guy Westwell finds this militarization of culture increasingly expressed in popular culture, “with the war movie genre just one part of a wider culture that fostered a revisionist, mythologized, and nostalgic view of war” in the preceding decades, leading Americans to “respond enthusiastically to the belligerent rallying cries of their political leaders in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.”19 That wider culture certainly included print and broadcasting media news, which Douglas Kellner and others have argued became effective means for government propaganda in the years after 9/11.20 Embedded reporters became emotionally joined to the units they followed, creating an automatic sympathy for the troops and their actions—which had been missing during the war in Vietnam. But the line between news and fictional films also became blurred at

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this time. Slavoj Žižek argued that Americans were secretly expressing a longing for a war with an apocalyptic foe and that this can be seen in Hollywood films that preceded 9/11.21 Cynthia Weber has noted that some witnesses of the attacks on the Twin Towers at first thought it was a movie, and the idea that this event resembled fictional cinema was reiterated in the days that followed: CNN even ran the names of fictional films with similar plots on the bottom of the screen while endlessly reshowing the destruction of the towers. Even more bizarre, the Pentagon actually assembled a group of Hollywood filmmakers as advisors on future terrorist threats, in the confidence that they would have valuable insights.22 The military had asked for Hollywood’s help in spreading support for the Second World War, but now the filmmakers were being consulted about real war. In the view of Žižek and others, this was clear evidence of what Jean Baudrillard had argued in Simulacra and Simulation—that we can no longer distinguish media from reality. Because of this increasingly blurred line, one might consider fictional films with terrorist villains to be part of the war-movie genre, and some have treated them as such.23 I resist that move, however, in order to attempt an analysis of allegedly “realistic” war films that depict actual historical events. The films made since 9/11 reflect some of the mythology of earlier war films and synthesize its elements into a new form. The heroic sacrificial narratives of World War II films are mixed with Vietnam-style narratives of the psychologically scarred veteran, giving a possible impression that war is being critiqued—but for many viewers, pointing out the sacrifice of the soldier will serve not to show its futility but its necessity, as most of us are not ready to follow the path of Charlie Madison in The Americanization of Emily, telling the war widows that their husbands died for nothing. That the new era of film sought to synthesize elements of the World War II film is shown through the fact that films began to return to that subject in the years just before 9/11. Steven Spielberg’s box-office hit Saving Private Ryan (1998) made $216 million in the United States (over $480 million worldwide) and was the top domestic earner that year as well as the second-highest-grossing film worldwide.24 The narrative begins with a graphic and realistic depiction of the deaths on Omaha Beach on D-Day but soon moves to a fictional story of the rescue of a US soldier behind enemy lines. Early in the film, questions are raised about

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whether it is right to risk and lose American soldiers to save one man, but then the mission changes to the defense of a bridge that gives the soldiers a valid reason to die. Like a traditional World War II film, their sacrifices are shown as great and yet worthy. The same year, Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line was less successful financially, failing even to recoup its cost in its US box-office take of $36 million.25 This film did not tell a heroic story of soldiers sacrificed for a higher good but rather raised questions about the violence of humans and the natural world, in Malick’s characteristic art-house style—clearly failing to engage audiences who wanted more formulaic genre films. Audiences did, however, reward Pearl Harbor (2001) for reproducing World War II genre conventions, as it told a standard wartime story of heroism and sacrifice. Almost universally panned by critics who found it cliché and predictable, viewers liked its formulaic nature as it earned $198 million in domestic gross. Released in May, almost all of this was earned prior to September 11, although it continued in theaters until November.26 These examples indicate that Americans had already returned to a “reclamation of war as noble, positive, and necessary” prior to 9/11, and this provided a template for the acceptance of the “War on Terror,” configured as analogous to the Second World War as it was a response to an attack on American soil.27 That this time the United States had been attacked by not a sovereign state but a group of disaffected Saudis living in Afghanistan seemed beside the point, as Americans quickly rallied to support the war first on Afghanistan and then on Iraq, even though the latter had nothing to do with 9/11. Many Americans conflated all primarily Muslim nations with terrorism, and the Bush presidency capitalized on this in creating a rationale for the Iraq War—even though President Bush made it clear that “true” Islam is about “peace,” for we had Muslim allies like Saudi Arabia.28 In the years since, however, a general antiIslamic rhetoric has become more present in the US military as well as in the White House. Americans have become accustomed to a moreor-less permanent state of war, waged against a general terrorist threat, and war films provide the dualistic mythological structure of good versus evil that is required to sustain this. The enemy was configured as pure and inexplicably evil, one who “hates us for our freedoms” rather than for particular American political, economic, or military policies that have affected people worldwide. American exceptionalism sees the

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nation as innocents abroad, gifted with a mission to save the world with a combination of democratic and Christian values. This ideology required a dualistic narrative, increasingly expressed in war films. Mel Gibson had already contributed to the mythology with Braveheart (1995), a critical and commercial success that told the story of the thirteenth-century Scottish revolt led by William Wallace. The film took considerable liberties with history to enhance sympathy for Wallace, who is configured as a savior who dies in a cruciform pose, shouting, “Freedom!” His English enemies are depicted as unilaterally cruel, inhuman, and effeminate and Wallace as consistently noble, virile, and valiant. Gibson starred in other dualistic war films in the years that followed, including The Patriot (2000), which played fast and loose with historical events of the American Revolutionary War by suggesting the British had committed war crimes such as burning a church full of civilians. Roger Ebert found the film frankly ahistorical, a “fable arguing the futility of pacifism,” which depicts the British “as gentlemanly fops or sadistic monsters” and the Americans as uniformly courageous.29 Gibson also starred in We Were Soldiers (2002), which depicted a “successful” Vietnam battle, although with significant American casualties. The standard tropes of the heroic war narrative can now be imported even into a film about the Vietnam War, which can then do very well at the box office.30 All of these films purported to be historical but created narratives that elided complexity, preferring to offer simplistic representations of the two sides in which one was totally good and one totally evil. In this way, they perpetuated the myth of the innocent and pure soldiers nobly fighting for freedom, which continues to be the dominant rationale for American military interventions. Black Hawk Down appeared in theaters in December of 2001 and told the story of the 1993 US military raid in Mogadishu, Somalia, in which nineteen American soldiers were killed. At the time, public distress about these deaths helped lead to the withdrawal of US forces from Somalia the following year, illustrative of the general American feeling that we should not be risking American lives in that area.31 The film, however, follows the heroic model of exalting the sacrifice of the soldiers, and the question of the operation’s morality barely comes up. Director Ridley Scott accepted help from the US military (he said they viewed it as a “recruitment film”), and as a result, the film

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was made according to their wishes, which included the omission of some antiwar dialogue of the character Kowalewski (played by Brendan Sexton), who had questioned the justice of the operation.32 The depiction of the Malaysian and Pakistani armed forces who supported the American troops was also omitted, and the Somalians were depicted as “snarling dark-skinned beasts,” according to Elvis Mitchell.33 It is also worth noting that over one thousand Somalians were killed, including civilians, which did not seem to play any part in the critique of the incident at the time or in the filmic representation of it; the focus remains on the sacrifice of heroic Americans besieged by Muslims. Within a few years, however, criticism of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq became more mainstream as it appeared there was no end in sight for these conflicts. As a sign of the sea change, Michael Moore was roundly booed in his acceptance speech for the Academy Award for Best Documentary for Bowling for Columbine (2002) in March of 2003, just a few days after the start of the Iraq War, as he openly criticized President Bush and the war. He received hate mail and death threats. Just a year later, his film Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), which severely criticized the Bush presidency’s response to the terrorist attacks, made $119 million at the box office, more than any documentary has ever made before or since.34 Moore did not put the film in contention at the Oscars, but Hollywood took note that the popular mood had shifted, and now presenters who criticized the war could be applauded at the awards. Nonetheless, few clearly antiwar Hollywood films were made in the years that followed, and the box office continued to reward those who made war stories that valorized sacrifice rather than critiquing it. A few films told stories of the damaged American soldiers in Iraq who committed war crimes against the citizens. Brian De Palma’s Redacted (2007) told the true story of the rape and murder of a fifteen-year-old Iraqi girl by American soldiers, but it only showed at fifteen theaters in the United States and made $65,000 domestically (although $782,000 worldwide). In the Valley of Elah (2007), also based on a true story, depicts how an American soldier tortured Iraqis, developed PTSD, and is finally murdered in a fight with another soldier who covers up the crime. Even with big-name actors, it only made $6.7 million in the United States.35 These were not stories people wanted to hear. Clint Eastwood made a pair of World War II movies at this time, telling the story of the

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Battle of Iwo Jima from the American and Japanese sides, respectively: Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima (both 2006). Together, they made $52 million in the US box office, failing even to cover their budgets.36 Both films depicted the horrific casualties of the battle, which had dubious military value in spite of the iconic flag-raising photo from it that was used to sell war bonds in America. While not antiwar films as such, these films did not glory in the battle or the sacrifices, which might be why they were received so tepidly. One war film that gloried in war and did very well at the box office was 300 (2007). While this might appear to be more of an action comicbook movie (based as it was on a graphic novel), it did purport to tell the historical story of the ancient Battle of Thermopylae, which includes the legendary defense by three hundred Spartans of the pass into Greece. This battle has become a symbol of a small courageous group defending their homeland against numerous aggressors so that in spite of their defeat (with no demonstrable military advantage achieved), it represented the willingness of soldiers to sacrifice themselves for the greater good—hence its value for encouraging similar patriotic sacrifices. In addition, its excessive violence and literally cartoonish appearance made it appealing to video-game fans, as did its dualistic narrative. The nobility of the Greeks (the founders of Western civilization) was exaggerated and contrasted with the portrayal of the Persians (present-day Iranians) as dark and monstrous; in this way, audiences might have conflated the Persians with present-day Muslims in the “War on Terror.” Most viewers, however, did not worry about this possible propagandistic impact, as it made over $210 million domestically and $456 million worldwide.37 There were also successful war films made about Iraq and Afghanistan in the following years, which essentially functioned as prowar propaganda. The Hurt Locker (2008) made only $17 million in the United States and $49 million worldwide, but this was more than any film about the Iraq War had made. It also won six Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director for Kathryn Bigelow (the first for a woman).38 It deviates from the form of classic war films in a number of ways: it is shot mainly with handheld cameras, giving a pseudodocumentary “realistic” feel. It is episodic rather than focused on a single “mission.” And it focuses on bomb defusers rather than warriors, showcasing humanitarian motives of saving lives rather than killing. Guy

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Westwell argues that there is a “potential for redemption” present in the narrative, as it “reclaims a sense of the heroic, effective, US soldier who puts his life at risk in pursuit of a mission informed by a moral imperative.”39 Rather than showing the devolution of soldiers into war criminals like In the Valley of Elah, the story showed them as “imperiled, powerless, and victimized” by their situation, isolated from the larger structures of the war, which therefore “limits understanding and allays critique” of why American troops were in Iraq in the first place.40 War films by their nature tend to focus on specific soldiers in specific situations so that the rationale for the war cannot be considered, and the focus on the psychological trauma of the individual soldier “enables us to obliterate the entire ethico-political background of the conflict.”41 The film therefore does not so much suggest that the war needs to end but rather accepts a “constant state of war” as “an acceptable and necessary part of the status quo.”42 These structures were embedded even more successfully in Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper (2014), which earned $350 million domestically, putting it in first place for its year and in the top-fifty films of all time. In fact, in that group, the only other nonfantasy films are Titanic and The Passion of the Christ.43 The film purports to tell the story of Chris Kyle, the sniper who is credited with 160 confirmed kills in Iraq and who was himself killed by another veteran with PTSD in 2013. While the film depicts him as struggling with this job, in reality Kyle admitted he enjoyed killing Iraqis and freely expressed anti-Muslim and anti-Iraqi views in his own book. As he wrote, “I didn’t risk my life to bring democracy to Iraq. I risked my life for my buddies, to protect my friends and fellow countrymen. I went to war for my country, not Iraq. My country sent me out there so that bullshit wouldn’t make its way back to our shores. I never once fought for the Iraqis. I could give a flying fuck about them.”44 Kyle seemed to view the people he killed as potential invaders of America and admitted that he had no humanitarian impulses toward the Iraqis. The film does not show us this Chris Kyle. Instead, Eastwood’s film shows a man troubled by the need to kill but who nevertheless does it: in the opening scene, for example, Kyle’s story of his first kill was altered from his autobiography so that he must shoot a child who is given a grenade by his mother, and he is deeply troubled by this. In reality, Kyle did not shoot a child but only a woman with

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a grenade and expressed no regret; she was a “savage” with a “twisted soul” who “didn’t care about anybody else nearby who would have been blown up by the grenade.”45 He doesn’t seem to consider that many of the Iraqis would probably make the same assessment of the Americans who bombed civilian areas. Eastwood’s changes serve not only to make Kyle more sympathetic but to dehumanize the woman who sends her own child into combat. As Kristian Petersen points out, the film consistently portrays Iraqis and Muslims as barbaric and inhuman, blurring the line between terrorists and the rest of the population; no one can be trusted, not even the seemingly friendly ones. When the American soldiers go into homes and verbally and physically assault people, this is shown as a legitimate response to the inability to distinguish combatants from noncombatants.46 This same confusion happened in Vietnam; there, too, it led to abuses and war crimes, as well as raised questions about why we were there in the first place. But those questions are not addressed in this film. What is most troubling is that viewers of this film did not see the ways in which the Iraqis were depicted as dangerous terrorists rather than victims of the conflict. Aside from a family who is killed for informing to the Americans, almost all the Iraqis are made to appear as threats rather than those to be saved—just as the real Kyle viewed them. The reception of the film, however, elided the anti-Muslim and antiIraqi aspects of the film, failing to notice how they are depicted visually and aurally as incomprehensible and threatening, their words rarely translated onscreen, and the Muslim call to prayer almost always linked to Muslim violence.47 As with The Hurt Locker, most major news outlets gave it positive reviews as a realistic portrayal of an American soldier, failing to question whether it served as war propaganda, and the viewers who flocked to the film presumably did likewise. The anti-Muslim bias in Hollywood films has often been pointed out by those sensitive to it, but the majority of Americans are inured to it and do not see it.48 In the last few years, there has been a diversity of types of war films made in Hollywood. Lone Survivor (2013) was a traditional war movie set in 2005 in Afghanistan, recounting the failed US attempt to apprehend Taliban leader Ahmad Shah. Once again, the Americans are seen as beleaguered victims rather than interlopers, heroically fighting for survival, and no questions are raised about the effectiveness or justice

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of their overall mission or the US presence in Afghanistan. The film did well, earning $125 million in the US box office.49 In contrast, Angelina Jolie’s brutal portrayal of the 1992 Bosnian War in In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011) was clearly antiwar, pointing out the horrors of genocide through a story of how people turned against each other to their own destruction; their deaths have no glory or purpose, and no sacrifice is exalted. This film made only $300,000, however, so clearly this message had little appeal.50 Fury (2014), on the other hand, followed an American tank crew in Germany toward the end of the Second World War, complete with a young inexperienced soldier and a grizzled staff sergeant in command. In the course of the film, the young man is taught to shoot at every German he sees, including children; to execute an unarmed prisoner; to loot villages and have sex with German women; and to never surrender but rather fight to the death in order to kill as many of the enemy as possible. As the young soldier adopts the staff sergeant’s values, there is no critique of his behavior implied. This film made $85 million in the United States and $211 million worldwide,51 suggesting that filmgoers enjoyed seeing Americans waging war without moral restraint, viewing this as legitimate—as of course, they were fighting Nazis. As in American Sniper, if the cause is just, all means are approved; this does not in fact correspond to just war theory or military rules of engagement, but in the context of the film, the viewer is embedded with the soldiers and so is predisposed to regard their actions as moral and acceptable. And in the real world, the US government has in fact become more tolerant of means that would have been rejected in earlier decades, including torture and the targeting of civilians, so perhaps it is unsurprising that viewers are unfazed by these tactics as well. Some successful films continue to raise moral questions about war. Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge (2016) told the true story of World War II medic Desmond Doss, a Christian who refused to kill but who won the Congressional Medal of Honor for courage under fire as he saved numerous men. The story presented him as a man with legitimate pacifist convictions, although his valor is still shown through combat situations. The film made $67 million in the United States and $175 million worldwide.52 Dunkirk (2017) made $188 million in the United States and $525 million worldwide telling the story of the heroic rescue of Allied troops from Dunkirk, France, in 1940, in which numerous civilian boats

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participated.53 This was an unusual war film, as it included significant episodes of cowardice in the telling of an event usually regarded as exemplary of courage and sacrifice. As Noah Berlatsky put it, while “not a criticism of war in general,” it “does subvert many of the tropes that define the war movie”—for example, in showing civilians that are more courageous than the soldiers.54 It did not follow the traditional heroic war movie formula and yet still succeeded at the box office, perhaps due in part to director Christopher Nolan’s reputation or perhaps due to its realistic filming style, but this also signaled that divergence from the formula is possible.

Conclusions Like the other genres we have examined, Hollywood war films have changed over the decades, reflecting the changing conflicts in which the United States found itself. While antiwar themes have been expressed, these are often muted by a valorization of sacrifice for the nation that authenticates the wars in which soldiers fight. In the current neverending “War on Terror,” Americans are increasingly accepting of immoral means for an allegedly just end, as paradoxically the moregraphic representation of violence feeds the fires of war support. While one might expect Americans to whisper “The Horror! The Horror!” as Colonel Kurtz does when he lies dying in Apocalypse Now, they continue to support war and its excesses—just as Kurtz did. In the conclusion to this book, I will reconsider the morals and messages that are found within the various genres and consider what we might learn from the comparisons.

Conclusions

Since I have made a point of showing the tremendous diversity of messages and morals found in films, it may seem contradictory to attempt to draw some overall conclusions. Clifford Geertz claimed that all religion is local, and I would analogize this to conclude that the “religion” of films has to be examined on an individual basis, looking at particular films and their reception; to generalize too quickly is to miss the specific. At the same time, I have attempted some conclusions about how these genres operate for viewers in serving both to shape and express their worldviews and values, in ways analogous to the effects of religions. We have seen how genres have changed over time in response to cultural and societal shifts and therefore how they can tentatively be viewed as illustrative of changes in societal values and beliefs. One can debate whether films as a part of popular culture mainly reflect the nature of society or whether they shape it. It is possible to err too much in either direction; the safest hypothesis is that it does both, existing in a network of cultural influences in which popular culture both reflects and contributes to societal beliefs and actions. It is likely, for example, that viewers of films with racist or sexist messages may be more likely to accept these messages as normal. Some may already hold those views and simply have them confirmed by the film, but others might be susceptible to being influenced. Spike Lee’s film BlacKkKlansman (2018) includes a scene in which Ku Klux Klan members view The Birth of a Nation (1915) and applaud its racism, including the depiction of a lynching; this alternates with a scene in which Harry Belafonte (playing an African American activist much like himself) tells the true story of the lynching of Jesse Washington in 1916, which as he states could well have received inspiration from the popular film released just one year earlier. Lee is clearly suggesting the power of popular culture to influence action, as his own films also attempt to do: BlacKkKlansman ends pointedly with actual footage from the “Unite the Right” rally in 251

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Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, demonstrating real-life linkages between racist beliefs and violent actions. Since The Birth of a Nation was viewed at the time of its release as a “great” film by people all over the United States, including President Woodrow Wilson, this shows that viewers who were not Klan members could watch and enjoy this film without an awareness of its racist tropes. In this way, they were probably unwittingly influenced by its version of reality and the racist values it expressed. We have also seen how genres have moved to an increased representation of minorities, in films like Black Panther or Get Out. These films would not have received significant backing or distribution in earlier decades as it would not have been believed that they could find substantial audiences. As racial understanding has progressed, Hollywood has been more likely to create and market films with diverse representations that are then viewed by more than just minorities. They might have done this sooner with success, as well, but their market caution dictates waiting until you believe you have a sure thing. In this way, films may follow societal changes more than shape them, but on the other hand, the normalization of these representations can lead to a generation of viewers who are influenced by them and finally accept them without question. White children who grow up watching Black Panther may be more sensitive to racial issues than the generation that grew up with Gone with the Wind or Song of the South, even though they do not consciously recognize this. Teenagers who went to Love, Simon might have chosen to see it because they already had gay friends, but seeing it might make them more understanding or supportive of those who come out as gay. Viewers who went to see The Big Sick because it was a romantic comedy might have inadvertently learned that Muslims are not all terrorists or even all very religious. And so on. On the other hand, stereotypes often go unrecognized and unchallenged and continue to be reinforced as a result. We have seen how sexist tropes have persisted in films, which may be explained at least in part by the fact that Hollywood is male dominated. The #Metoo and Times Up movements have increased the awareness of sexist forces in Hollywood, which we can hope will lead to a better representation of women and their stories, especially as more female filmmakers receive the financial backing for major films. At the same time, it is not the case that men

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always make sexist films and women always make liberating ones; filmmakers and their messages are diverse, just as audiences are. Still, as society evolves, we may see more films succeeding that challenge gender and racial stereotypes as they begin to receive backing and distribution. Changes in films come both from above (with financial backing and support) as well as from below (with audience response); if filmmakers perceive a societal shift, they may respond to it, but they can also affect that shift by their support for particular products and messages. We can also gain some insights about how films function to influence beliefs and values by comparing how the various genres have approached a problem like violence. I critiqued the notion that action or superhero movies are inherently fascist, as I argued that these characters care for the “greater good” more than their own power or privilege. They do not force their wills on others or suppress the democratic process, although they do sometimes act violently outside the law in order to restore justice and order. Heroes and superheroes sacrifice themselves for our sins, and by vicariously identifying with their sacrifice, we share in their moral struggles but also their virtues. Because they deal with supervillains, however, violence is usually the path they choose, and viewers may forget that in our world of ordinary humans, we need to consider diplomacy or negotiation to solve problems. War movies likewise support the use of violence to deal with “evil,” as we celebrate the self-sacrifice of soldiers and therefore uncritically support their cause. We seldom see nonviolence represented as a viable option in movies, and political analysis of the reasons that we find ourselves in wars is almost always missing, even in ostensibly antiwar films. We identify with those who suffer for us, adopting a timeless religious trope of sacrifice, but this can prevent us from considering the viability of nonviolent courses of action. In contrast, horror and science-fiction films often point to the evil in ourselves that finds expression in our untamed technological creations or internal demons. The battle between good and evil rages within us, and to contain it, we need to face our own monsters and control them. We have a moral choice regarding which of our natures to follow that lies at the heart of such films. Sometimes the evil is only an object of fear that must be violently destroyed, and such films may support the demonization of other races or religions or the mentally ill—but we may

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also gain sympathy for the monster that leads to a perspective on our own frailty. When we master our fears and express them cathartically, the release can free us from our internal demons. Whereas war movies cause people to enlist in wars, few people become serial killers by watching horror movies. Science fiction likewise tells us that we can choose to follow our best nature when we decide how we will shape the human future: we can use technology to satisfy our selfish greed, or we can harness it in service to humanity. Like religions, films can confront us with our dual nature as both good and evil and suggest that the nature we follow can determine personal as well as global destinies. The “righteous” violence of action and war movies is seldom critiqued as it is viewed as a justified response to evil, unlike the criminal actions in gangster movies. And yet the latter can express legitimate desires for social change in their liminal evocations, as they show us the imperfections of societies that create the criminals. When injustice and inequality are the norm for a group, they will seek means to survive that are not socially or legally approved—but in this way, they point toward the utopian desire for social change. When we liminally identify with this behavior, we obtain a temporary release from our own societal roles, but we also see the legitimate frustrations that may give rise to crime. All this is not to say that the films necessarily applaud criminal action, as its costs are shown, and recent gangster films directed to today’s minorities are especially pointed in their message that violence is not ultimately liberating. Injustice will only end when we address it by the means needed to change it, which includes education about it through films that dramatize it. Dealing with suffering and death is another function of religions, and we have seen genres that focus on this problem as well. So-called women’s films have historically dealt with this in the form of classic melodramas that depicted stories of female survival amid the challenges heaped on them by societies. Those who watched them could identify with their suffering and so receive some comfort in their strength, learning the values of love and courage in the face of adversity. Moral messages about confronting death also abound in children’s fantasy films in which parents die or disappear, giving children the chance to demonstrate compassion and the strength to survive. Hatred and anger are shown as weaker than love. Even romantic comedies increasingly show

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people dealing with the struggles of life and love and learning how to assert themselves as well as recognize the rights of the other, as mutual caring and respect result in deeper relationships. All these moral messages express ideals that are not always found in real life, but in that way as well, they resemble religions. Myths do not always show empirical reality as it is but as we would like it to be. While this may function to obscure reality in some cases, perpetuating myths that are harmful to people by creating unrealistic ideals, we need to have hopes to aspire to. Utopian visions do not express the nature of real life, but if we do not put them in our myths, we will never seek to follow the hopes they express. This suggests that the models of and for reality that films portray could have a salutary effect on society, if they expressed visions of a world with diversity yet equality, conflict yet peace, and freedom yet justice. They do not always do this, nor if they do so is it guaranteed that these visions will be followed. Religions have been promoting peace, love, and forgiveness for thousands of years, and yet religious people hate and kill each other. It is probably too much to expect the filmic religions to have better results. But popular culture, including popular films, will continue to influence us whether we like it or not and whether we realize it or not. Being aware of its power can help us be more discerning about what we watch and consider how we are affected by it. We need not uncritically accept what is put before us but can make choices about our beliefs and values as popular culture shapes us. This may seem idealistic in an era of fake news and socialmedia bots that obscure reality and spread hate, fear, and falsehoods. Yet we ignore the power of popular culture at our peril: if we refuse to take it seriously, we will be living in The Matrix without realizing it, unconscious products of media manipulation. Films are diverse, as are viewers, and we will all find a variety of messages in them, both good and bad; the important thing is that we remain awake, able to make judgments about them and willing to discuss those judgments with others. Societies make meanings for themselves out of such conversations and evaluations of their cultural products, whether we call those products “religions” or “films” or something else. I hope that in this book I have contributed to that conversation and evaluation and that the reader will join me in that important work with enthusiasm, sympathy, and curiosity.

Acknowledgments

Like the Oscar winner who worries he may forget to thank someone while receiving the award, I am aware that I might fail to name everyone who has aided me in writing this book. First of all, my gratitude goes to Jennifer Hammer, my editor at NYU Press when I wrote the first edition, who encouraged me to update the book and who has been so helpful every step of the way with both editions. My thanks also go to all the staff at NYU Press who assisted, especially Amy Klopfenstein. The anonymous reviewers of the proposal gave crucial suggestions that have immensely improved this version. Thanks to Grand View University for granting me a sabbatical to work on this and to all my colleagues there, especially Mark Mattes, who has encouraged and inspired me in our conversations about scholarship. I am grateful to Bill Blizek for asking me to be the editor of the Journal of Religion & Film, which has provided me with so much more knowledge of this field, as well as the opportunity to collaborate with him in developing international conferences that the journal has sponsored. Past and present colleagues involved in the Religion, Film, and Visual Culture Group of the American Academy of Religion have provided thoughtful reflections and conversations over the years, including but not limited to: Amir Hussain, Rachel Wagner, Ken Derry, Clive Marsh, Jeanette Reedy Solano, Rubina Ramji, Stefanie Knauss, Brent Plate, Tony Michael, Kutter Callaway, Syed Adnan Hussein, Daniel White Hodge, Craig Detweiler, Robert Johnston, Joe Kickasola, Douglas Cowan, Kent Brintnall, Gail Hamner, Antonio Sison, Jim Thrall, Eric Michael Mazur, Chris Deacy, Dereck Daschke, Terry Lindvall, Vaughan Roberts, Heidi Campbell, Jeff Mahan, Jolyon Mitchell, Jon Pahl, Kristian Petersen, and Sheila Nayar. This is obviously only a partial list of the scholars who have influenced my work in this area. I would also like to again thank the students in my 2002 class on religion and film who read and responded to the original book.

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Finally, I would again thank my wife, Liz, and my three children, Karl, Grace, and Clara, with whom I have watched and discussed more movies than I can count; they all contributed in their own ways to this book, reminding me of films to include and helping me find new ones. I am blessed to have all of them in my life. John Lyden

Notes

Introduction 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11

12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20

“Social Media Fact Sheet.” “Number of Social Media Users.” “Worldwide Grosses.” This is not to say that television is without its religious impact. See, for example, Callaway and Batali, Watching TV Religiously. In this vein, in the first edition, I cited a 1982 essay by Darrol Bryant and a 1995 essay by Conrad Ostwalt, both of which suggested that movies can be “like” a “secular religion.” But they were among the relatively few scholars of religion and film willing to draw such analogies at that time. Lyden, Film as Religion, 12, 251. Plate, Religion and Film, vii; 2nd ed., xiii–xiv. Plate, 1–13 (both editions). Marsh, Theology, 34–39. Marsh, Cinema and Sentiment, 7. See, for example, Chidester, Authentic Fakes; Wagner, Godwired; several of the chapters in Forbes and Mahan, Religion and Popular Culture; and my own essay “Definitions,” in which I argue that the line between religion and popular culture has become increasingly fuzzy. Several of the other essays in that volume also suggest the “religious” dimensions of various aspects of popular culture. Pete Ward, for example, critiques celebrity culture as a “parareligion,” which lacks the requirements of a formal religion and subverts its own status as sacred through contradictions and ambiguities. “Celebrity Worship,” 322–23. See, for example, McCutcheon, Manufacturing Religion; Sacred Is the Profane; Studying Religion; and Fitzgerald, Ideology of Religious Studies. Lyden, “Definitions,” 8–10. Notable recent theological interpretations of films that are informed by knowledge of film technique include Detweiler, Into the Dark; Downing, Salvation from Cinema; and Anker, Beautiful Light. Wright, Religion and Film, 25. Wright, 26. Lynch, Understanding Theology, 15. Lynch, “Cultural Theory,” 281 (emphasis in original). Lynch, 282 (emphasis in original). Lyden, “Film,” 80–99.

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Lynch, “Cultural Theory,” 278–81. Lynch, Understanding Theology, 12. Brintnall, “Psychoanalysis,” 305. Although, interestingly, the genre has achieved considerable success on television, notably with The Sopranos (HBO; 1999–2007) and Breaking Bad (AMC; 2008–13). Both series broke new ground for television and have been critically acclaimed.

Chapter 1. The Definition of Religion 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15

16

17

18 19 20

Smith, Imagining Religion, xi. Schilbrack, “Religions,” 1119. Godlove, “Religion in General,” 1029. Godlove, 1041–42. Schleiermacher, Christian Faith, 17. Otto, Idea of the Holy, 10. Otto identifies the Buddhist concept of “emptiness” with an experience of the “wholly other” (30, 39); he also associates it with Taoism (201n2). It is noteworthy that he says almost nothing about Confucianism, which is perhaps not surprising as it seems to lack that sense of radical transcendence. See Eliade, Sacred and the Profane; Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion. See Hick, Interpretation of Religion. Tillich, Systematic Theology, 11–15; Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, 1–4. Tillich, Ultimate Concern, 8. Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, 11–12, 16–18; Tillich, Systematic Theology, 13. Tillich, “Significance of the History,” 80–94, see esp. 88–89. Tillich gave this talk on October 12, 1965, ten days before his death. See also Tillich, Christianity and the Encounter. Stark and Bainbridge, Theory of Religion, 22–23. For example, one finds this debate revisited by theologian David Ray Griffin, who argues for a theological explanation, and J. Samuel Preus and Robert A. Segal, who favor naturalistic explanations, in an exchange of articles in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion 68:1 (March 2000): 99–149. There is technically a distinction between the claim that religion can be naturalistically explained and the claim that religion is basically hegemony-promoting ideology, but in practice, the two ideas have tended to be joined in the reductionist critiques of many social scientists. Like all definitions of religion, Geertz’s has been critiqued, but I still find its value greater than those of the critiques. In this, I agree with Kevin Schilbrack’s assessment in “Religion, Models Of.” Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, 23. Geertz, 7. Geertz, 90.

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Geertz, 93. Geertz, 96–97. Geertz, 98–99. Geertz, 100. Geertz, 108. Geertz, 112. Geertz, 114. Geertz, 116. Geertz, 118. Geertz, 121. Geertz, 122. For a summary and critique of this view, see Hollows, “Mass Culture Theory,” 15–23. Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, 116. Here I must disagree with Margaret Miles when she claims that films lack the religious power of icons precisely because they are not viewed repeatedly: “Most people see a film only once. A few people see ‘cult’ films again and again, but most of us buy the video of a film we have enjoyed, only to let it collect dust” (Seeing and Believing, 190). This statement represents to me people who do not really like movies but not myself or those whom I would consider movie lovers. Although some people act as she claims, many people do not, and it is not clear that we should let those who are less involved with movies define how they function for the more “religious.” Surely it would be a mistake to conclude that Christianity lacks religious power in our culture simply because most members do not attend church weekly and many “Christians” only attend on Easter and Christmas. The more involved people will define the nature of the religion, and there may well be many more people who repeatedly view films than Miles realizes. In the years since she wrote these words, online fan culture has also developed into a massive phenomenon that gives credence to the idea that there are more people rewatching films than she might have realized. See, for example, Marsh, “Audience Reception,” 255–74, esp. 266–67 on communal fandom as a context for the viewing experience; and Plate, Religion and Film, 80–91 (2008); 2nd ed., 42–65 (on rituals and film). Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, 111–12. Kracauer, “Basic Concepts,” 173–77. Bywater and Sobchack, Introduction to Film Criticism, 165–69. This was noted by Jean Mitry. See Bywater and Sobchack, 170. McCabe, “Realism and the Cinema,” 21–27. Baudry, “Ideological Effects,” 345–55. Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation. Gunning, “Aesthetic of Astonishment,” 818–32. Carroll, “Jean-Louis Baudry,” 778–94. Allen, Projecting Illusion, 4.

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46 Allen, 100–106. 47 Allen, 134. 48 Gill, Native American Religions, 71–73.

Chapter 2. Myths about Myth

1 Doniger O’Flaherty, Other People’s Myths, 26–27. 2 See Pals, Seven Theories of Religion, 16–53, for a summary and critique of Tylor and Frazer. One of the things they neglected was the fact that a belief in magic and mythology persists even in modern technological societies, suggesting that a scientific worldview has not displaced it and may be compatible with such beliefs. 3 Arvidsson, “Aryan Mythology,” 327–54. 4 Jung, “Archetypes,” 3–41. 5 Jung, 6. 6 Jung, “Psychological Approach,” 3–96. 7 Jung, “Jung and Religious Belief,” 278. 8 Jung, “Religion and Psychology,” 155–63. 9 This critique is made by Michael Palmer in his Freud and Jung on Religion, esp. 184–87. 10 For example, see Iaccino, Jungian Reflections; Rushing and Frentz, Projecting the Shadow. 11 See Campbell, Hero, esp. 49–243. 12 “Campbell typically ignores the story in myths—most ironic for someone lauded as a master storyteller.” Segal, Theorizing about Myth, 141. Segal does note that in Hero, Campbell pays more attention to plot details than in his other works, but even here Campbell does not give extended analyses and quickly goes to comparisons. 13 Campbell and Moyers, Power of Myth, 161. Campbell speaks of “loving one’s fate” even if it involves suffering and quotes Nietzsche in support of this ideal. He also quotes the Buddha’s dictum that “all life is suffering,” ignoring the fact that the Buddha sought an escape from this, not an affirmation of it. 14 Here I must agree with Maurice Friedman against Robert Segal: “Campbell seems to want a unity of inner and outer, as Segal says, yet it is not the actual outer but a mysticized and universalized outer that comes from his projection of his inward philosophy on it.” Friedman, “Psychology, Psychologism, and Myth,” 471. 15 “The Biblical image of the universe simply won’t do anymore.” Campbell, Myths to Live By, 89ff. 16 This claim privileges one group’s proximity to the divine, whereas (in his view) all have the divine within them already. Since Judaism seeks a relationship with a named God rather than an identity, it claims this relationship is only available “through membership in a certain supernaturally endowed, uniquely favored social group.” Campbell, 95–96. 17 Segal, Joseph Campbell; Friedman, “Joseph Campbell’s Psychologizing,” 385–401. 18 Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, 119.

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19 Geertz, 120. Also see 142–44, where Geertz faults Durkheim for reducing culture to society and Malinowski for reducing society to culture. Geertz favors a dialectical model for the interaction between culture and society, well expressed in the supporting article, “Ritual and Social Change,” 142–69. 20 Smith critiques the tendency of anthropologists (especially Lévy-Bruhl) to mystify “primitives” as alien and prelogical in “I Am a Parrot (Red),” in Map, 265–88. I must disagree, however, with his attempt to tar Geertz with the same brush (282, 286), as I believe that Geertz does not separate mythical language from ordinary language (as “absurd” or “illogical”) but simply distinguishes them in order to show their dialectical interaction. 21 Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, 345–59. 22 Geertz, 355. 23 Eliade, Sacred and the Profane, 85–87, 105. Also see Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, 388–408; and Cosmos and History. 24 Eliade, Rites and Symbols. 25 Eliade, Sacred and the Profane, 110–13. 26 Eliade, Cosmos and History, 147–59. 27 Eliade, Myth and Reality, 170–74. 28 Eliade, 185. 29 Eliade, Myth and Reality, 192; Eliade, Sacred and the Profane, 205. 30 Eliade, Sacred and the Profane, 203. 31 See Eliade, Myth and Reality, 21–38, where he argues that all myths of origin are based in a cosmogony. Eliade later softened this claim by distinguishing myths of ancestral-anthropological origins from myths of world creation to a greater extent, in Quest, 72–87. 32 Cho Bantly, “Archetypes of Selves,” 201. 33 Some critics have also pointed to Eliade’s early relationship to Romanian fascism, and they feel that it may have affected his view of myth more than he admits. See, for example, Strenski, Four Theories of Myth, 70–103. 34 Smith, Map, 96–103. 35 Smith, Imagining Religion, esp. 36–44. 36 Smith, Map, 296–97. 37 Smith, 299–300. 38 Smith, Map, 302–8; Smith, Imagining Religion, 96–101. 39 Smith, Imagining Religion, 90–96; Smith, Map, 72–74. 40 Smith, Map, 309. 41 Smith, 301. 42 Doniger O’Flaherty, Other People’s Myths, 28–33. 43 Doniger, “Minimyths and Maximyths,” 109–27; see esp. 116–18. Also see her essay, “Post-Modern and Colonial,” 63–74. This book includes the reflections of a number of scholars on the validity of cross-cultural comparisons in the postmodern age; most are optimistic about the task although more cautious than their predecessors in the history of religions.

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44 45 46 47 48 49 50

51 52 53 54 55 56

Notes

Doniger O’Flaherty, Other People’s Myths, 32. Doniger O’Flaherty, Dreams, 37–53. Doniger O’Flaherty, 132–35. Doniger O’Flaherty, 126. Doniger O’Flaherty, Other People’s Myths, 124. Doniger O’Flaherty, 131–32. Religion scholars have begun to devote serious attention to the “religion” of Star Trek fandom—for example, in Porter and McLaren, eds., Star Trek. Star Wars fandom has also been likened to a religion by myself and others: see Lyden, “Whose Film”; and Derry and Lyden, Myth Awakens. Doty, Mythography, 89–104. Here Doty questions the “myth” of science and the alleged dichotomy between myth and science. Doty, 107–12. Doty, 7. Doty, 436. Doty, 441. Doty, 28.

Chapter 3. Rituals and Morals

1 Strenski, “Rise of Ritual,” 73. 2 Bell, Ritual, 93–137. 3 Frazer, Golden Bough. For a fine summary, see Pals, Seven Theories of Religion, 32–44. 4 Freud, Totem and Taboo. Catherine Bell discusses the influence of Frazer on Freud in Ritual, 12–14. 5 Girard, Violence and the Sacred. 6 On the development of the Hindu view, see Beck, “Fire in the Atman,” 76–95. 7 Wyschogrod, “Sin and Atonement,” 124–25. On the continued role of sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity, also see Lyden, “Atonement.” 8 Ashby, Sacrifice, 36. 9 Taylor, Atonement, 176. Although Taylor’s work is not recent, his work still has value, as he remains one of the few biblical scholars to have devoted most of his career to the doctrine of the atonement. See also his Jesus and His Sacrifice and Forgiveness and Reconciliation. 10 See Hengel, Atonement, 63. On the link between Judaism and Christianity on this point, see Mussner, Tractate on the Jews, 90–94. 11 Doty, Mythography, 230–34. 12 Girard, Deceit; Girard, Theater of Envy. 13 Aristotle, Basic Works, 1460. 14 Aristotle, 1466–67. 15 Fergusson, “Oedipus Rex,” 67–95.

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16 Weisinger, “Myth and Ritual Approach,” 392; also Hardin, “‘Ritual’ in Recent Criticism,” 172. 17 Some of the debates about the film and whether it would lead to any actual female empowerment are summarized in Ortiz, “Feminism,” 244–45. 18 Turner, Ritual Process, 94. 19 Turner, 78. 20 Turner, 50. 21 Turner, 96–97. 22 Turner, 125–30. 23 Turner, 185–88. 24 Turner, 172–74. 25 Wagner, in Godwired, raises the question of whether violence in videogames can be considered “real.” Buddhist lama Trinley Dorje argues that violent videogames can be useful for the catharsis of violent urges, as virtual violence is only an illusion without consequence for life in the world (182–83). But Wagner wonders whether games that blur the line between the virtual and the real problematize this too-neat distinction: “Brink games, then, present us with real moral decisions. If a game . . . purports to perfectly replicate the real physical world, then players have a responsibility to question whether or not the game’s representation of possibilities is accurate.” (177). 26 Pahl, Empire of Sacrifice, 60–61. 27 Smith, Imagining Religion, 53–65 (quotation from 65). 28 Niebuhr, Interpretation of Christian Ethics. 29 Bell, Ritual, 139–55. 30 Bell, 157. 31 Bell, 160–61. 32 Bell, 164–65. 33 For Bell’s own discussion of the scholarship on this point, see Bell, 197–202.

Chapter 4. Religion- Film Dialogue as Interreligious Dialogue 1 2 3 4

Gill, Native American Traditions, 3–4. Gill, 6–7. Smith, Map, 242. George Catlin could thus observe in the 1830s that “I never saw any other people of any colour, who spend so much of their lives in humbling themselves before, and worshipping the Great Spirit, as some of these tribes do.” Gill, Native American Traditions, 13. 5 Gill, 9. 6 Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, 30. 7 Rahner, “Christianity,” 128.

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8 Rahner, “Christianity,” 132; see also Rahner, “Observations,” 282–83. 9 John Hick initially developed this view in God and the Universe, 120–47. His definitive formulation of his view is perhaps that given in An Interpretation of Religion. 10 Cobb, “Beyond ‘Pluralism,’” 93. 11 Panikkar, Unknown Christ of Hinduism, 19. 12 Panikkar, Intrareligious Dialogue, xxiii–xxvii. 13 Heim, Salvations, 219. On Cobb, see 143–44. On Panikkar, 170–71. 14 Heim, 221. 15 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 6–10. 16 Walsh, 12–16. 17 Black, Hollywood Censored, 39, 302–8. Also see Quicke, “Era of Censorship.” 18 Well documented by Doherty in Pre-Code Hollywood. 19 Black, Hollywood Censored, 169–72. 20 Black, 216–17. 21 Black, 84–106. 22 Black, 278–81. 23 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 317–18. 24 For a good summary of this period, see Malone, “Roman Catholic Church.” 25 Smith, “Devil in Mr. Jones,” 102–20. See especially 104–5 and 109–12. 26 Smith, 112–20. 27 Smith, 105.

Intermission. Thoughts on Genre and Audiences

1 Jim Kitses offers this critique in “Authorship and Genre,” 63. 2 See Neale, Genre and Hollywood, for a thorough study of the notion of genre and its uses in film criticism. Neale points out repeatedly that genres are fluid constructions and that hybridization has become increasingly common—also that film theorists have too often used fixed definitions of genres that have restricted the interpretation of particular films. 3 In my 2003 edition, I made reference to Barker and Austin, From Antz to Titanic. Barker had already published film-audience reception studies in Barker and Brooks, Knowing Audiences; and with Arthurs and Harindranath, Crash Controversy. Since then, Barker has continued to publish audience reception studies, including Barker and Mahijs, eds., Lord of the Rings, and he also has served (since its creation in 2003) as editor of the online journal Particip@tions, which focuses on audience reception studies of all media. Other works include Austin, Hollywood Hype; Staiger, Media Reception Studies; and Reinhard and Olson, Making Sense of Cinema. Specifically in regards to religion, see Hoover, Religion; Marsh, “On Dealing”; and Marsh, “Audience Reception.” 4 Hickey, “Be Suspicious.” Hickey points to the methodology of Fandango as flawed due to the fact that it always rounds up, likely because they want to sell tickets. IMDb’s methodology is better in that they take into account how many movies

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someone has reviewed as well as the likelihood that some reviewers will rate films artificially high or low to influence the rating. See note 3 prior for some of Barker’s works. Barker and Austin, From Antz to Titanic, 22–25, gives Barker’s critique of Leland Poague’s psychoanalytic interpretation of It’s a Wonderful Life. Barker and Austin, 45–49. Barker’s concept of the implied viewer is based in part on Wolfgang Iser’s concept of the implied reader, though Barker finds Iser’s approach overly intellectualized in its assumption that readers must consciously “make” meaning out of a text rather than achieving a cognitive and emotional relationship with it via largely unrecognized processes. The fact that Iser spoke of books rather than films is surely part of this difference between their approaches, as Barker acknowledges. Barker and Austin, 177–90.

Chapter 5. Westerns and Action and Superhero Films

1 Lawrence and Jewett, American Monomyth; Myth of the American Superhero; and Captain America. 2 Neale, Genre and Hollywood, 136. 3 For a study of the history of how Native Americans have been depicted in movies, see Kilpatrick, Celluloid Indians. For more on how Native filmmakers are changing their image, see Marubbio and Buffalohead, Native Americans. Also see the documentary Reel Injun (2009), directed by Neil Diamond, Catherine Bainbridge, and Jeremiah Hayes. 4 Interestingly, this line apparently does not come from any film, in spite of its cliché nature; similar lines appear in Shane and in Hondo, both made in 1953, but neither is identical. 5 Lawrence and Jewett, Myth of the American Superhero, 106–25. 6 Sims, Women of Blaxploitation. 7 “Spike Lee.” 8 See the documentary Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity (1999), directed by Jackson Katz. 9 Brintnall, “Psychoanalysis,” 302. 10 Brintnall, Ecce Homo. 11 “Superman (1978).” 12 “Batman (1989).” 13 Brown, Modern Superhero, 17–18. 14 See, for example, Richter, “Marvel Cinematic Universe”; Proctor, “Avengers Assembled,” 8–16. 15 John McTiernan quoted in Ali, “‘Die Hard’ Director.” 16 Yogerst, “Superhero Films,” 6. 17 Kaplan, From Krakow to Krypton, 14. See also Brod, Superman Is Jewish? 18 Yogerst, “Superhero Films,” 9. 19 Yogerst, 10–11.

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Yogerst, 17. Yogerst, 14–15. Quoted in Yogerst, 20, from his personal interview with Uslan. Quoted in Stevens, Captain America, 2. Stevens, 3. Brown, Modern Superhero, 13. Brown, 5. See, for example, Derry et al., “Bulletproof Love.” See “All Time Box Office: Domestic Grosses,” Box Office Mojo, accessed June 8, 2018, www.boxofficemojo.com. Candy, “Chadwick Boseman Agrees.’” Lebron, “‘Black Panther.’” Lepore, Secret History. Charlotte Stevens has analyzed a fanvid that reedits scenes from the 1970s television show of Wonder Woman to show how women can alter feminine spectatorship in empowering ways by recasting the depiction of the character. Stevens, “To Watch Wonder Woman.” Fawaz, “‘Where No X-Man Has Gone,’” 355–88. See also Fawaz, New Mutants. Stan Lee, posted on Twitter, August 15, 2017, https://twitter.com/TheRealStanLee. Wagner, Godwired.

Chapter 6. Gangster Films 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Black, Hollywood Censored, 107–37. Black, 305. Warshow, “Gangster as Tragic Hero,” 127–33. Munby, Public Enemies, 14–17. Munby, 44. Munby, 48. Munby, 60–61. Munby, 119. See, for example, Ray, Certain Tendency, 326–49. The scene in which Michael commits the murders neatly illustrates the dual nature of the film, for it is shot in such a way as to “be simultaneously involving and repellent, a mechanism for making the viewer want the murder to happen and for making him feel appalled when it did.” Ray, 336. 11 That Coppola intended to make Michael less sympathetic is confirmed by his own remarks: “I was making a harsh statement about the Mafia and power at the end of Godfather I when Michael murders all those people, then lies to his wife and closes the door. But obviously, many people didn’t get the point I was making. . . . I felt Godfather II was an opportunity to rectify that.” Coppola, interview in Playboy (July 1975), 60. 12 Although it is worth noting that the moral complexity of the sequel seemed less appealing to audiences than the first film: while the initial film made $135 million

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at the US box office, the sequel only made $57 million. Still, this hardly represents a box-office failure. “Godfather” and “Godfather: Part II.” David Sims argues that Goodfellas was the “last great mob film” as it “upended every concept of nobility and honor in organized crime without undermining its appeal.” Sims, “Goodfellas.” Lopez, “Actor Named.” Munby, Public Enemies, 225–26. Harris, “Chi-Raq.” “Something Fishy.” Earning $159.6 million in the US box office on an investment of $5.5 million. “The Sting.” The Bling Ring made only $5.8 million with a cost of $8 million; Matchstick Men made $36 million but cost $62 million. “The Bling Ring” and “Matchstick Men.”

Chapter 7. Melodrama and “Women’s Films” 1 2 3 4 5

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Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure.” Mulvey, “Afterthoughts,” 12–15. Brintnall, “Psychoanalysis,” 302. Ortiz, “Feminism,” 240–41. See Neale, Genre and Hollywood, 179–204, for a discussion of the evolution of the term melodrama and its connections with the so-called women’s film. Basinger, Woman’s View, 23. Basinger, 494–95. Two more remakes, in 1976 and 2018, have returned to this story with some variations. In the former, it is not totally clear if he intentionally ended his own life to save her career, but it is shown as likely in the latter. Basinger, 438–44. Faludi, Backlash. All these problems were already identified in research at the time of Faludi’s first edition in 1991. See Faludi, 5–9. Making $659 million in the US box office, it is still fifth in overall domestic revenue and second worldwide with $2.1 billion. “Titanic.” A study of this phenomenon is found in Pipher, Reviving Ophelia. Heath, Gospel, 6. Heath, 27. Heath, 18, 22. Walker, “Why Smart Women Read.” Fisher, “How Much.” Taylor, Scarlett’s Women, 130. Gage, “Marital Rape.” Only 4.1 percent of the directors of the 1,300 top-grossing films 2002–14 were women; as late as 2014, only 7 percent of the directors of the top-250 grossing films were female, which is 2 percent less than in 1998. Lauzen, “Celluloid

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Ceiling”; Lang, “Number of Female Directors.” See also Half the Picture (2018), the excellent documentary directed by Amy Adrion, on the exclusion of female directors from Hollywood; my review of the film can be found in the Journal of Religion & Film 22:1 (April 2018).

Chapter 8. Romantic Comedies

1 Barker and Austin, From Antz to Titanic, 154. 2 The few books that have considered romantic comedies have usually focused on the “classic” films of the 1930s and 1940s—for example, Harvey, Romantic Comedy; and Kendall, Runaway Bride. One book that takes the genre up to the present is Grindon, Hollywood Romantic Comedy. 3 Grindon, 2. 4 Interestingly, this represented a change from the original ending in which Tess becomes adept at sports writing to bridge the gap to her husband, but producer Joseph Mankiewicz and director George Stevens felt this made her appear too capable. The ending with her wrecking breakfast was designed to show her imperfection, and although both the stars and the screenwriters objected, the change was made. In any case, the line about “Mrs. Tess Harding Craig” was the same. “Woman of the Year.” 5 Johnson, “Sex Worker.” 6 With $92 million in the US box office, this was only the second romantic comedy to pass the $90-million mark; the first was Arthur (1981) with $95 million. “Romantic Comedy.” 7 Lippman, “I Did It.” 8 All three of these films are in the top twenty-one of romantic comedies of all time for the box office: Pretty Woman is fourth with $178 million, Runaway Bride eighth at $152 million, and Notting Hill number twenty-one at $116 million. “Romantic Comedy.” 9 Speculation initially swirled about the epigraph to the film: “AUTHOR’S NOTE: The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Especially you Jenny Beckman. Bitch.” Neustadter confirmed he wrote the film about an actual relationship in “(500) Days of Summer.” Interestingly, when he shared the script with her, she identified with the man rather than the woman in the story, suggesting that perspective is everything. 10 The most famous film of this sort is surely Annie Hall (1977), Woody Allen’s semiautobiographical account of his relationship with Diane Keaton. 11 “Falling for Grace.” 12 “Crazy Rich Asians.” 13 “Tyler Perry.” 14 Livingston and Brown, “Intermarriage in the U.S.” 15 Fools Rush In (1997), starring Salma Hayek and Matthew Perry, did reasonably well with $29 million in the US box office; The Big Sick made $42 million. “Fools Rush In”; “Big Sick.”

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16 All numbers are from Box Office Mojo, accessed August 28, 2018, www .boxofficemojo.com.

Chapter 9. Children’s Fantasy Films 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19

“Ticket Price Inflation.” Tenzek and Nickels, “End of Life.” See Manninen, “Suffering and Soul-Making.” Mazur and Koda, “Happiest Place on Earth,” 316. Schreiber, “Most Racist Moments.” Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs. See p. 56 on Disney’s Aladdin. Quoted in Wallace, “Mickey Mouse History,” 35; see also Mazur and Koda, “Happiest Place on Earth,” 315. Langfitt, “Disney Magic Fails.” Rika, “Disney.” Casley, “‘Lilo & Stitch.’” Ness, “End of an Era.” Carnette, “Disney’s Coco.” Cartoonist and author Alison Bechdel originated this test in her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For in 1986. Mazur and Koda, “Happiest Place on Earth,” 313–14. “Shrek.” Some within Pixar have suggested that it would have been necessary for them in any case, apart from the acquisition by Disney, to create the “hedge fund” of sequels to safeguard the bottom line. See Luckerson, “How Pixar.” Garrett, One Fine Potion, 6. For statistics on books, see p. 3; on films, see p. 5. Other books include Neal, Gospel; Bridger, Charmed Life; Granger, Looking for God; and Lyons, Teaching Faith. Petre, “J.K. Rowling.”

Chapter 10. Science- Fiction Films 1 2 3 4 5 6

Sobchack, Screening Space, 7. Ketterer, “Frankenstein’s ‘Conversion.’” Sobchack, Screening Space, 34–35. Sobchack, 38–39. Sobchack, 45. Wells may have meant to suggest a cautionary word to the British Empire, as it was poised to lose its dominant position in subsequent decades. Orson Welles also made history by adapting the story to a radio play in 1938, which many listeners mistakenly thought was an actual news program; their willingness to believe this may have been due to fears of unrest in the world, which was soon led to the Second World War. 7 See Cowan, Sacred Space, 109–30, for a comparison of the film with the novel on their portrayal of religion and faith.

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8 Kaminsky, “Don Siegel,” 136. 9 All these films had successful runs at the box office; worldwide grosses in order of release for these four films were $203 million, $131 million, $161 million, and $159 million. All numbers are from IMDb, accessed August 29, 2018, www.imdb.com. 10 Creed, Monstrous Feminine, 16–30. 11 Dielissen, “Reproducing Ripley,” 335–42. 12 Jurassic Park (1993) and Jurassic World (2015) and their sequels likewise are based on the premise that greedy capitalists fail to see the dangers or environmental sins in creating dinosaurs, and they are punished when their creatures turn on them. These are cautionary tales about science without moral boundaries, motivated by profit rather than the stewardship of nature. 13 Making $56 million that year at the box office, it was the highest-grossing film of 1968. “2001: A Space Odyssey.” 14 Wessel, Alien Encounters, 184–85. 15 With $760 million in the US box office and $2.7 billion worldwide, Avatar holds the record for world box-office earnings and the second place for US domestic. “Avatar.” 16 Cowan, Sacred Space, 43–45. 17 The HBO television series of the same name develops the concept quite differently, with robots self-consciously battling for their existence in a war with their human creators. 18 I will not attempt to repeat here what I have written elsewhere about Star Wars, including in the first edition of this book as well as in my “Apocalyptic Cosmology”; “Apocalyptic Determinism”; and “More Things Change.” 19 See Cowan, Sacred Space, 35–39. 20 Campbell, “Problematizing,” 25. 21 For more on the representation of race in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, see Hodge and Boston, “Racism Awakens”; and Call, “Do, or Do Not.”

Chapter 11. Horror Films 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10

Cowan, Sacred Terror, 17. Cowan, 171. Pahl, Empire of Sacrifice, 55. Anthony Perkins recounts how Hitchcock was not “prepared for the amount and intensity of the on-the-spot laughs that he got from first-run audiences around the world. He was confused, at first, incredulous second, and despondent third.” Quoted in Rebello, Alfred Hitchcock, 163. See Creed, Monstrous Feminine; and Kristeva, Powers of Horror. Zillman and Weaver, “Gender Socialization Theory,” 85. See, for example, Cowan, Sacred Terror, 48–50; and Poole, Monsters in America, 17. Cherry, “Refusing to Refuse,” 188. Cherry, 195. Cherry, 196.

Notes

11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32 33

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Pinedo, Recreational Terror, 55–65. Pinedo, 66. Pinedo, 69–95. See also Clover, Men, Women, and Chainsaws. Douglas Cowan notes that when he showed The Exorcist to a class not too long ago, they were so nonplussed that some of them even went to sleep. Cowan, Sacred Terror, 170. Poole, Monsters in America, 21–25. Poole, 30. Klassen, Religion and Popular Culture, 58–60. Poole, Monsters in America, 200. See Martin, “Failure.” Poole, Monsters in America, 196, 200. Cowan, Sacred Terror, 53–54. Thomas, “New Religious Movements.” Cowan, Sacred Terror, 187. Wood, Hitchcock’s Films Revisited, 345. Wood, 376; Modleski, Women Who Knew, 3. Wood, 347–48. Poole, Monsters in America, 154. For example, Halloween (1978) made $70 million worldwide from an investment of about $300,000; Friday the 13th (1980) made $59 million for a cost of $500,000. Even the more expensive sequels and remakes always make a profit, such as Halloween (2007), which grossed $80 million from a $15 million investment, or Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), which made $115 million with a cost of $35 million. All numbers are from IMDb, accessed August 8, 2018, www.imdb.com. “Get Out.” “Shape of Water.” Applebaum, “Guillermo del Toro.” Ryfle, “Godzilla’s Footprint.” Lyden, “Colossal.”

Chapter 12. War Films

1 Lembcke, Spitting Image, esp. 1–5. “I found virtually no reason to think that the alleged acts of spitting actually occurred. I argue here that myth is less about something that did or did not happen than about the belief that it did” (emphasis in original; 5). This myth has been reinvoked in the years since Lembcke wrote his book, in reference to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 2 “Ticket Price Inflation.” Gone with the Wind is listed as having grossed $1.87 billion and Forrest Gump as $728 million, both adjusted for inflation. Unadjusted, these films grossed $198 million and $330 million, respectively. The Birth of a Nation grossed $10 million in 1915 from its cost of $100,000. All numbers are from IMDb, accessed August 15, 2018, www.imdb.com.

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3 “Four Horsemen.” 4 This film was remade as Good Will to Men in 1955, featuring updates with flamethrowers and atomic bombs. This cartoon was clearly reacting to fears of nuclear holocaust that emerged after the Second World War. 5 “Ticket Price Inflation.” 6 Examples include Tokio Jokio (1943), a parody of “Japanazi” propaganda, and The Ducktators (1942). 7 “Best Years.” 8 “Bridge on the River Kwai.” 9 McBride, Two Cheers for Hollywood, 40–41. 10 “Russians Are Coming!” 11 “Green Berets.” 12 Ebert, “Green Berets.” 13 Ray, Certain Tendency, 315. 14 Apocalypse Now Redux (2001) was a version of the film that included scenes that never made it into the original; these included a military funeral for one of the slain soldiers that exalts his sacrifice as any prowar film might, showing that even while Coppola was making the film, there were portions of it that stood in tension with its antiwar elements. 15 “Platoon”; “Full Metal Jacket”; and “Hamburger Hill.” 16 “Born on the Fourth.” 17 Robb, Operation Hollywood, 25. Stone noted that this was also the case for Platoon. 18 Bacevich, New American Militarism, 2. 19 Westwell, “In Country,” 21. 20 Kellner, “9/11,” 41–64. 21 Žižek, Welcome to the Desert. 22 Weber, Imagining America, 3. 23 See, for example, McSweeney, “War on Terror”; and McSweeney, American Cinema. 24 “Saving Private Ryan.” 25 “Thin Red Line.” 26 “Pearl Harbor.” 27 Westwell, “In Country,” 21. 28 Bush, “Islam Is Peace.” 29 Ebert, “Patriot.” 30 The film made $78 million in the US box office, making it number thirty-four that year overall. “We Were Soldiers.” 31 At the time, I was teaching a course at Dana College in Nebraska in which we discussed the ethics of US military interventions. Class members included a ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) student who supported the American presence in Somalia for entirely humanitarian reasons and a Vietnam veteran who did not want to see any more young men die overseas. Most of the class were young people from rural Nebraska who agreed that American troops did

Notes

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

49 50 51 52 53 54

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not belong in Somalia. This isolationist stance, which I also saw expressed by students during the genocide in Bosnia, came to an end precipitously with 9/11, after which most students unhesitatingly supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and many joined the military to participate. I recount this as my students were almost always “typical Americans,” and their change in attitudes over these decades was emblematic of larger US trends. “As Black Hawk Down Director.” Mitchell, “Film Review.” “Fahrenheit 9/11.” “Redacted”; “In the Valley of Elah.” “Flags of Our Fathers”; “Letters from Iwo Jima.” “300.” “Hurt Locker.” Westwell, “In Country,” 23–24. Westwell, 27–28. Žižek, “Soft Focus.” Quoted in Westwell, “In Country,” 30. Westwell, 34. “All Time Domestic.” Kyle, McEwen, and DeFelice, American Sniper, 240. Kyle, McEwen, and DeFelice, 3–4. Petersen, “Hollywood Muslims in Iraq.” Petersen, 96–98. See, for example, Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs; Ramji, “Examining the Critical Role”; Ramji, “From Navy Seals”; Hussain, “Islam”; and Bayraktaroğlu, “Muslim Male Character Typology.” “Lone Survivor.” “In the Land of Blood.” “Fury,” “Hacksaw Ridge.” “Dunkirk.” Berlatsky, “Tropes of the War Film.”

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Name and Subject Index

Allen, Richard, 32 Allen, Woody, 25, 270n10 anti-Semitism, 39, 43, 61, 106, 141, 262n16. See also Judaism Aristotle, 70–76 Arnheim, Rudolf, 29 Bacevich, Andrew, 241 Bainbridge, William, 20 Barker, Martin, 115–16, 165, 266n3, 267n7 Basinger, Jeanine, 153–57 Baudrillard, Jean, 31, 34, 242 Baudry, Jean-Louis, 30–31 Bazin, André, 29–30 Bell, Catherine: and secularity, 87–90; types of ritual, 62–64, 77–78 Breen, Joseph, 106–7. See also “Hays Office Code” Brintnall, Kent, 8, 127–28 Brown, Jeffrey, 132 Brubaker, Ed, 132 Buddhism, 17, 67, 260n7, 262n13, 265n25; and interreligious dialogue, 100–102, 104, 112 Bush, George W., 132, 243, 245 Campbell, Joseph, 41–44, 48–49, 119, 262n12–n16 Carroll, Noel, 31–32 Casas, Bartolome de las, 95–96 censorship, 104–8, 137–39, 144, 220. See also “Hays Office Code” Cherry, Brigid, 219 Cho, Francisca, 47

Cobb, John, 100–104 Columbus, Christopher, 95 Confucianism, 18, 260n7 Cowan, Douglas, 217, 222–24, 271n7, 273n14 Craven, Wes, 221 Creed, Barbara, 203, 218 cultural studies, 5–7, 94 del Toro, Guillermo, 227–28 Dielissen, Carina, 203 Disney, Walt (company), 10, 183–93, 271n16 Doniger, Wendy, 52–55, 58–59, 263n43 Doty, William, 55–57, 59 Durkheim, Emile, 43, 48, 263n19 Eastwood, Clint, 123, 125, 245–48 Ebert, Roger, 238, 244 Eisenstein, Sergei, 29 Eliade, Mircea, 17, 57–58, 263n31; criticisms of, 47–50, 263n33; on myth, 45–48, 65 Ephron, Nora, 171–73 Faludi, Susan, 158 fascism, 39, 46, 48, 129–31, 135, 263n33 Fergusson, Francis, 72 Fisher, Maryanne, 163 Fitzgerald, Timothy, 4 Frazer, James, 38, 64–66, 70, 72, 262n2, 264n4 Freud, Sigmund, 20, 39–41, 53, 65 Friedman, Maurice, 43, 262n14 293

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Name and Subject Index

Gage, Carolyn, 163 Garrett, Greg, 195 Geertz, Clifford, 4–5, 21–28, 33–35, 41, 58, 77, 89, 98, 111, 251; criticisms of, 260n17; and reductionism, 43–45, 48, 263n19, 263n20 Gibson, Mel, 124, 244, 249 Gill, Sam, 35, 97 Girard, René, 65–70, 74 Grindon, Leger, 165 Gunning, Tom, 31 Harris, Aisha, 144 Hauptmann, Hans, 39 “Hays Office Code,” 106–7, 123, 137, 153. See also censorship Heath, Elaine, 162 Heim, Mark, 101–3 Hick, John, 17, 100, 103, 266n9 Hinduism, 16, 42, 52–54, 58, 67, 73, 101, 112 Hitchcock, Alfred, 218, 221, 224–25, 272n4 Islam, 67, 90, 112, 243, 245–48, 252 Jesus, 36, 38–41, 46, 56, 69, 233 Jewett, Robert, 119, 123, 129–30 Jonestown (1978 mass suicide), 109–10 Judaism, 46, 48, 91, 102, 112, 129, 135, 138, 141; views of sacrifice, 67–70. See also anti-Semitism Jung, Carl, 39–43, 228 Kaplan, Arie, 129–30 Kellner, Douglas, 241 Ketterer, David, 198 Koresh, David, 110 Kracauer, Siegfried, 30 Kristeva, Julia, 218 Kubrick, Stanley, 114, 204, 235–36, 240 Langer, Suzanne, 28 Lawrence, John Shelton, 119, 123, 129–30 Lee, Spike, 124, 144, 251–52

Lee, Stan, 135 Lembcke, Jerry, 231–32 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 43–44, 51 Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien, 43–44, 263n20 liminality, 77–85, 105; in action films, 125–26; in children’s films, 183–85, 194–96; in crime films, 9, 140–49, 254; in horror films, 10, 217–18, 221; in romantic comedies, 166–69; in women’s film, 160–63 Lippman, Julia, 173–74 Lumière, Louis, 28–31 Lynch, Gordon, 6 Malinowski, Bronislaw, 43, 263n19 Marsh, Clive, 3 Marston, William, 134–35 Marx, Karl, 7, 20, 43, 95 McCabe, Colin, 30 McCutcheon, Russell, 4 Mitchell, Elvis, 245 Mitchell, Margaret, 163 Modleski, Tania, 224–25 Moore, Michael, 245 Motion Picture Production Code. See “Hays Office Code” Moyers, Bill, 42, 262n13 Müller, Friedrich Max, 38–39 Mulvey, Laura, 151–52 Munby, Jonathan, 138, 144 Native Americans, 16, 35, 94–97, 120, 187, 205, 222, 265n4, 267n3 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 87 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 42, 204, 262n13 Ong, Walter, 129 Origen, 38 Otto, Rudolf, 16–17, 48, 260n7 Oviedo, Gonzalo Fernandez de, 95–96 Pahl, Jon, 84–85, 217–18 Panikkar, Raimundo, 101–3

Name and Subject Index

Petersen, Kristian, 248 Pinedo, Isabel, 220–22 Plate, S. Brent, 3 Plato, 31, 38, 53, 70 Poole, Scott, 222 Pudovkin, V. I., 29 Rahner, Karl, 99–100, 103 reductionism, 20–21, 35, 43–45, 48 Renan, Ernest, 39 Sagan, Carl, 204 Schilbrack, Kevin, 15, 260n17 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 16 Secularization, 90–91 Segal, Robert, 43, 260n15, 262n12, 262n14 Sims, Yvonne, 124 Smith, Jonathan Z., 15, 263n20; on interreligious dialogue, 96, 109–10; on myth, 48–52, 57–58; on ritual, 85–87 Sobchack, Vivian, 197–98 Spielberg, Steven, 148, 242 Stark, Rodney, 20 Stevens, J. Richard, 132 Stone, Oliver, 240–41, 274n17 Strauss, David Friedrich, 38

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Strenski, Ivan, 61 Superman (comic book character), 46, 128–32 Tarantino, Quentin, 114, 124 Taylor, Helen, 163 Tillich, Paul, 17–19, 22 Turner, Victor, 78–80, 84, 87 Tylor, Edward, 38, 262n2 Uslan, Michael, 130–31 Vigalando, Nacho, 229 Wagner, Rachel, 136, 265n25 Warshow, Robert, 137–38 Weaver, James B., 218–19 Weber, Cynthia, 242 Westwell, Guy, 241, 247 Wood, Robin, 224–25 Wright, Edgar, 114 Wright, Melanie, 5–6 Wyschogrod, Michael, 67 Yogerst, Chris, 130 Zillman, Dolf, 218–19 Žižek, Slavoj, 242

295

Film Index

Adam’s Rib, 168–69 Affair to Remember, An, 156, 172 A.I. Artificial Intelligence, 212–13 Aladdin, 184, 186–87, 189 Alien, 202 Alien: Resurrection, 203 Aliens, 160, 202–3 Alien 3, 203 All Quiet on the Western Front, 233 American Gangster, 143 Americanization of Emily, The, 237, 242 American Me, 143 American Pie, 83, 173 American Sniper, 247–49 Anna Karenina, 76, 106 Apocalypse Now, 239, 250, 274n14 Arrival, 204 Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, 28–29, 31 Automata, 213 Avatar, 205, 215 Avengers: Age of Ultron, 130 Avengers: Infinity War, 130 Baby Boom, 169 Baby’s Breakfast, 28 Bachelorette, 160 Back-up Plan, The, 176 Bad Moms, 160 Ball of Fire, 167–68 Bambi, 184 Bataan, 234 Batman, 128 Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, 129–31

Beaches, 159 Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The, 199 Beauty and the Beast, 184–85, 189 Best Years of Our Lives, The, 235 Bicycle Thief, The, 30 Big Sick, The, 179, 252 Birdcage, The, 180 Birth of a Nation, The, 222, 232, 251–52 Black Hawk Down, 244–45 BlacKkKlansman, 251–52 Black Panther, 132–33, 135, 146, 215, 252 Blade Runner, 208 Blade Runner 2049, 208 Bling Ring, The, 148–49 Book Club, 179 Born on the Fourth of July, 240–41 Bowling for Columbine, 245 Boy Meets Girl, 181 Boys Don’t Cry, 77 Boys in the Band, 180 Boyz n the Hood, 143–44 Brave, 190 Braveheart, 244 Brazil, 198 Bridesmaids, 160, 175 Bridge on the River Kwai, The, 236 Bridges of Madison County, The, 82–83 Brokeback Mountain, 179–80 Brother from Another Planet, The, 215 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 146 But I’m a Cheerleader, 180 Caine Mutiny, The, 235 Call Me by Your Name, 180 297

298

| Film Index

Candyman, 222 Cannibal Capers, 186 Captain America: Civil War, 130 Captain Marvel, 133 Carlito’s Way, 143 Carol, 180 Casablanca, 170, 234 Casino, 143 Casino Royale, 127 Catch Me If You Can, 148 Catwoman, 133 Chi-Raq, 144 Cinderella, 189 Civilization, 232–33 Clockwork Orange, A, 200 Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 204 Coco, 185, 188, 193 Coffy, 124 Colossal, 228–29 Colossus: The Forbin Project, 207, 209, 212, 214 Coming Home, 239 Contact, 204 Coraline, 193 Crazy Rich Asians, 178 Creature from the Black Lagoon, 227 Crimes and Misdemeanors, 25

Dirty Dozen, The, 83 Dirty Harry, 123 District 9, 205 Django Unchained, 124 Do the Right Thing, 144 Down for Life, 143 Dracula, 219–20 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 199 Dumbo, 186 Dunkirk, 249–50 Elektra, 133 End of the Road, 105 Enough Said, 179 E.T. The Extraterrestrial, 33, 82 Ex Machina, 215 Exorcist, The, 222, 273n14

Fahrenheit 9/11, 245 Fail-Safe, 199, 236 Falling for Grace, 178 Fatal Attraction, 158, 227 Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, 81 Fifty Shades (film series), 162–63 Fit to Fight, 104–5 500 Days of Summer, 177, 270n9 Five-Year Engagement, The, 176–77 Flags of Our Fathers, 245–46 Dances with Wolves, 205 Forrest Gump, 64, 232, 273n2 Dark Knight, The, 131 40-Year-Old Virgin, The, 177 Dawn of the Dead, 223 Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The, 233 Day after Tomorrow, The, 200 Foxy Brown, 124 Day of the Dead, 223 Day the Earth Stood Still, 199–201, 207, 215 Frankenstein, 219–20 Frenzy, 224 Dead End, 107 Friday the 13th, 226 Deadpool, 33 Friday the 13th, Part III, 219 Deadpool 2, 33 Friendly Persuasion, 236 Death Wish, 123 Friends with Benefits, 176 Deer Hunter, The, 239 From Prada to Nada, 178 Departed, The, 143 Frozen, 185, 190 Dial M for Murder, 221 Fruitvale Station, 144 Die Hard, 83, 124–27, 129

Film Index

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Full Metal Jacket, 240 Fury, 249

Hunger Games, The (film series), 162–64 Hurt Locker, The, 246–48

Gandhi, 87 Gangs of New York, 143 Gattaca, 200 Get Out, 227, 252 Ghostbusters, 160 Gigi, 155–56 Girl Most Likely, 175 Girl Next Door, The, 173 Girls Trip, 160 Godfather, The, 73–74, 139–42, 145–46, 172, 268n11 Godfather: Part II, The, 140–42, 146, 268n12 Godfather: Part III, The, 140 Godzilla, 228–29 Going the Distance, 176 Gone with the Wind, 76, 163, 167, 232, 252 Goodfellas, 142, 269n13 Good Morning, Vietnam, 240 Green Berets, The, 63–64, 238–39 Guardians of the Galaxy, 215 Guilt of Janet Ames, The, 154–55

I, Robot, 212 I Feel Pretty, 178 Imagine Me and You, 180–81 In & Out, 180 Incredibles, The, 192 Incredibles 2, 192 Independence Day, 63, 202 Independence Day: Resurgence, 202 I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, 180 Inside Out, 185 Interstellar, 200 In the Land of Blood and Honey, 249 In the Valley of Elah, 245, 247 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 201–2, 223 Irishman, The, 143 Italian Job, The, 147 It Came from Beneath the Sea, 199 It Happened One Night, 166–67 It’s a Wonderful Life, 116

Hacksaw Ridge, 249 Halloween, 226 Hamburger Hill, 240 Handmaid’s Tale, The, 200–201 Harry Potter (film series), 195–96 Hearts of the World, 233 Her, 213 High Noon, 127 High Plains Drifter, 123 Holiday, The, 175 Home Alone, 194 Hook, 194 Hope Springs, 179 Horrible Bosses, 83 Hostel, 225 How Do You Know, 175–76 How Stella Got Her Groove Back, 179

Jackie Brown, 124 Juice, 143–44 Justice League, 129 Just Right, 179 Kids Are All Right, The, 180 King Kong, 220, 222 Kiss, The, 104 Kitty Foyle, 153–55 Kubo and the Two Strings, 193 La Cage aux Folles, 180 Lady Eve, The, 167–68 Lawrence of Arabia, 236 Left Behind, 195–96 Lethal Weapon, 124–25 Lethal Weapon 2, 125–26 Letters from Iwo Jima, 245–46 Life as We Know It, 176

300

| Film Index

Lilo & Stitch, 184, 187 Lion King, The, 184, 187 Little Caesar, 137–38 Little Mermaid, The, 189 Lone Survivor, 248–49 Longest Day, The, 236 Looper, 210 Love, Simon, 181, 252 Machine, The, 213–15 Maid in Manhattan, 170 Making Love, 180 Man of Steel, 129 Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The, 122 Mary Poppins, 193–94 M*A*S*H, 238 Matchstick Men, 148 Matrix, The, 207, 255 Matrix Revolutions, The, 208–9 Menace II Society, 143 Metropolis, 206 Midnight Cowboy, 108 Mi Familia, 144 Minority Report, 200 Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, 127 Mister Roberts, 235 Moana, 187–88 Moonlight, 180 Mrs. Miniver, 234 Mulan, 187–90 Mummy, The, 220 My Neighbor Totoro, 192 New Jack City, 143 Nightmare on Elm Street, A, 226 Night of the Living Dead, 223 Nine to Five, 83 No Strings Attached, 176 Notting Hill, 175 Now, Voyager, 157, 159 Now You See Me, 147 Ocean’s Eight, 147–48, 160

Ocean’s Eleven, 147 Ocean’s Thirteen, 147 Ocean’s Twelve, 147 Office Space, 83 Oliver & Company, 184 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 127 On the Beach, 199, 236 Other Woman, The, 161 Our Family Wedding, 178 Pale Rider, 123 Pan’s Labyrinth, 228 ParaNorman, 193 Passion of the Christ, The, 247 Pat and Mike, 168 Paths of Glory, 235–36, 240 Patriot, The, 244 Patton, 238 Pawnbroker, The, 107 Peace on Earth, 233–34 Pearl Harbor, 243 Peter Pan, 184, 186 Pinocchio, 184–85 Planet of the Apes, 199, 204–5 Platoon, 239–40 Pocahontas, 187, 189 Ponyo, 192 Pretty Woman, 169–70, 174–75 Princess and the Frog, The, 188, 190 Princess Mononoke, 192 Proposal, The, 169 Psycho, 218, 222, 224–25, 272n4 Public Enemy, 137, 145 Redacted, 245 Revenge of the Nerds, 173 Risky Business, 80–81 Rocky Horror Picture Show, The, 27 Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, 209 Rosemary’s Baby, 224 Runaway Bride, 174–75 Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!, The, 236–37

Film Index

Sahara, 234 Sands of Iwo Jima, 235 Saving Private Ryan, 242–43 Scarface, 137–38 Scream, 225 Searchers, The, 121 Sergeant York, 234 Shaft, 124 Shane, 74–75, 121, 267n4 Shape of Water, The, 227–28 Shootist, The, 123 Shop around the Corner, The, 172–73 Shrek, 191 Silence of the Lambs, The, 226 Skyfall, 127 Sleeping Beauty, 189 Sleepless in Seattle, 172–73 Sling Blade, 75 Smash-up, the Story of a Woman, 154–55 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 184, 189 Solo: A Star Wars Story, 209 Something Borrowed, 175 Something’s Gotta Give, 179 Song of the South, 186, 252 Sorry to Bother You, 201 South Pacific, 235 Soylent Green, 200 Spider-Man, 9, 128 Spirited Away, 192 Split, 226 Sprinkler Sprinkled, The, 28 Stagecoach, 121–22 Star Is Born, A, 155 Star Trek (film and television series), 55, 204, 209–10, 214, 264n50 Star Trek: First Contact, 204, 209 Star Trek: The Voyage Home, 210 Star Wars (film series), 129, 188, 195, 208–9, 215, 264n50, 272n18, 272n21 Star Wars: The Force Awakens, 188, 215 Star Wars: The Last Jedi, 209 Steel Magnolias, 159 Stepford Wives, The, 226–27

| 301

Sting, The, 146–47 Straight Outta Compton, 145 Suicide Squad, 130 Superman, 128 Switch, The, 176 Take This Job and Shove It, 83 Tangled, 185, 189 Tarzan, 184 Terminator, The, 209–10 Terminator Genisys, 212 Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, 212 Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 160, 210–12 Terms of Endearment, 159 Thelma and Louise, 77 Them!, 199 There’s Something About Mary, 173 They Were Expendable, 234 Thing, The, 201 Think Like a Man, 179 Thin Red Line, The, 243 Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, 234 300, 246 Titanic, 114, 159–60, 247 To Each His Own, 156–57 Torch Song Trilogy, 180 Tower Heist, 147 To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, 180 Toy Story, 184, 191–92 Trader Mickey, 186 Trainwreck, 177–78 Transcendence, 214 Trip to the Moon, A, 29 Twelve Monkeys, 200 28 Days Later, 223 27 Dresses, 175 Twilight (film series), 161–63 2001: A Space Odyssey, 204, 206–7 2010: The Year We Make Contact, 207 Ugly Truth, The, 169 Unforgiven, 123

302

| Film Index

Up, 185 Victor Victoria, 180 Waiting to Exhale, 179 Wait Until Dark, 221 Walk Proud, 143 WarGames, 207 War of the Worlds, 201 Waterloo Bridge, 76, 156 Waterworld, 200 Westworld, 207 We Were Soldiers, 244 When Harry Met Sally . . . , 170–73 When Worlds Collide, 199

White Christmas, 235 White Heat, 139 Why Did I Get Married?, 179 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, 194 Wizard of Oz, The, 63, 194 Wolf Man, The, 220 Woman of the Year, 168, 270n4 Wonder Woman, 134–35, 268n32 Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, 28 X-Men, 9, 128 X-Men: Apocalypse, 130, 133 X-Men: Dark Phoenix, 133 X-Men: Days of Future Past, 210 X-Men: The Last Stand, 133

About the Author

John C. Lyden is Professor of Liberal Arts and Liberal Arts Core Director at Grand View University. He was formerly Professor and Chair of the Religion Department at Dana College. Since 2011, he has been the editor of the Journal of Religion & Film.

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