Who was the brother of Moses and helped him confront Pharaoh?

Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Church of the Masses

Home
Religious Music & Entertainment

Last updated on: May 13, 2003 at 12:50 pm by Barbara Nicolosi

2003-05-13T12:50:00-06:00 Barbara Nicolosi

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

“ONLY FOOLS ARE SCANDALIZED.” (Mother Paula Cordero, fsp)

The much-esteemed and always compellingly lucid Amy Welborn has a very thoughtful consideration on her blog today about the problem of representing sin in entertainment. How do you realistically show bad choices — the primordial stuff of drama — without promoting those bad choices? She uses the example of the cable series Six Feet Under to illustrate her point.

“6FU features a homosexual character – one of the brothers who owns the funeral home, a guy named David. David started the show in the first seasons closeted and repressed and struggling – and much of his struggle came from his religious faith (an aspect of his character which has been dropped of late). Over the past two seasons, as he has come out, the show has showed him in a relationship – a difficult one, by the way.

Is the inclusion of this character a “promotion” of homosexuality?

I’m sorry, but I just can’t get my head around that concept. If David were an angel – perhaps the only nice guy on the show who spends his days feeding the poor while everyone else hung out by the pool, or if his relationship was the only good one on the show…or if the portrayal of gay life were somehow sanitized…you might have a point. But it’s not. David is still uptight, is actually far less sensitive to his client’s needs than is his heterosexual brother, and always has the bottom line in mind – is perfectly willing to push the most expensive casket on the wall, while his brother worries about the cost to the family. David has been involved in aspects of gay life that are destructive and shallow and are portrayed as such. David’s relationship is problematic, to say the least. Alan Ball, the creator of the series, who is a homosexual man, has no fear of playing with gay stereotypes or showing the diversity of gay life, even the negative aspects.In other words…as a character, David is three dimensional.”

I have been wondering a lot lately whether this creative “problem” is purely a post-sexual revolution animal, or whether it has always been a problem for Christian artists.

Did the fellows who painted the rape of the damned on the walls of the Cathedral of Orvieto have a colloquium first about whether their images might end up salacious instead of salvific?

Did Dostoevsky worry about making his murderer too sympathetic, by telling Crime and Punishment largely from the murderer’s point of view?

Was Hawthorne worried that by making Hester Prynne a strong and resolute woman, people might also think he was endorsing unwed motherhood?

My sense is, these artists did not worry over these things. They just decorated their world from whatever was inside of them.

It seems to me to be a particular burden we put on artists today to have to doubt themselves. Maybe they have been infected by the climate of their world, and if they ust start decorating, they might unconsciously be emitting more pollution?!? All the time they are trying to vent the creative impulse, they keep having to question themselves, “Is it good? Is it good? Is it good?” (And by “good” I don’t mean technically. That’s a given.) I find this tension in my Act One students and even more sometimes in the faculty, and I wish I could be sure that it doesn’t get in the way of the storytelling. It seems to me more akin to fear than freedom.

I’ll meet Amy’s Flannery O’Connor reference, and ante up another one that seems applicable here.

“About scandalizing the ‘little ones.’ When I first began to write, I was worried about this thing of scandalizing people, as I fancied that what I wrote was highly inflammatory.

I was wrong – it wouldn’t have even kept anybody awake, but anyway, thinking this was my problem, I talked to a priest about it. The first thing he said was, ‘You don’t have to write for fifteen year old girls.’

Of course, the mind of a fifteen year old girl lurks in many a head that is seventy-five, and people are everyday being scandalized not only by what is scandalous of its nature, but by what is not. If a novelist wrote a book about Abraham passing his wife Sarah off as his sister – which he did – and allowing her to be taken over by those who wanted her for lustful purposes – which he did to save his skin – how many Catholics would not be scandalized at Abraham’s behavior?

The fact is, in order not to be scandalized, one has to have a WHOLE view of things. Which not many of us have…

I mortally and strongly defend the right of the artist to select a negative aspect of the world to portray. And as the world gets more materialistic, there will be much more such to select from.” (The Habit of Being)

Uncategorized

Previous Post

May 12, 2003

Next Post

May 15, 2003

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 March 2012 October 2011 September 2011 July 2011 June 2011 April 2011 September 2010 August 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 November 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the brother of Moses and helped him confront Pharaoh?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Joshua Aaron David Joseph