Moving Away While Looking Back

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I've noticed something rather odd going on in our culture these days. It's a contradiction really.  As a whole the culture is in a very big hurry it seems to move away from the "Christian" or "traditional": traditional values, and traditional views of marriage, of gender, and even of freedom.

However, at the same time, our screens, big and small, are filled with heroes of myth and legend of old.  OK, some are not so very old.  We are seeing fairy tales brought to life anew and re-imagined for a new generation. Classic...ahem... traditional, comic book heroes are breaking box office records. Does it not seem strange, in a world so bent on leaving all that is old, traditional, black-and-white, and even remotely "Christian" behind that this should be the case?

Perhaps some of our filmmakers (our culture's storytellers) are sensing a tension, sensing that something has been lost, or is in the process of being lost. Sitting back and observing all that is happening around me, I feel like I'm living in a culture that is moving in one direction, while looking back over it's shoulder. It is a culture that seems to be swept up in something it doesn't quite understand.

What To Do, What To Do, What To Do With You

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"You are the most aimless person I know!", my friend said with a laugh. 

My heart constricted.  "I don't want to be," said the little voice inside my head. I've struggled for years with wondering, searching, questioning.  What do I want to be when I grow up? Most of my career has been in education and I do greatly enjoy it.  I feel comfortable here.  But do I love it?  Am I passionate about it as others I know are passionate and devoted to their chosen careers?  No, not really. 

Sad and troubled, I discussed the matter with another friend. As we talked she suddenly seemed to have a brilliant thought (or what she considered to be a brilliant thought, anyway).

"Not all who wander are lost" she exclaimed. "I think Shakespeare or Lewis or someone said that. It was someone famous."

"It was Tolkien," I said with a smile.  How funny that I just happen to be taking a class on Tolkien this month.

But she had a point.  It's something I've been thinking about for a very long time but have been afraid, maybe even ashamed to admit.  Maybe a career isn't ultimately what I want.  Maybe that is not where my happiness and fulfillment lies.  For so long I thought it did.  I view a career as a means to an end.  I want to find satisfaction in a job well done, certainly, and in being challenged.  I want to enjoy those around me and the environment in which I find myself, but that is where it ends. I feel guilty saying that. I feel as if I should want a career, as if I'm squandering all that potential my parents, especially my Father, saw in me. But it just isn't what I want. And that's OK.

My true passion is for learning, exploring, growing, seeing and trying new things.  That's not exactly a career.  It is a way of life though.  It is a way of being. I'm not really sure what that means for me.  I know it does not mean I'm going to run out and join a circus or anything like that.  But it does mean that there will be changes to how I prioritize and live my life and how I look at my life/work balance going forward.

In other news, I visited Knoxville, TN, this past weekend.  It was wonderful and painful and gloriously happy and sad all rolled into one.  I loved it.  I didn't want to leave when the time came. One of my friends even asked me if maybe I should never have left Knoxville in the first place. It's something I've wondered often since I left.  Maybe I shouldn't have.  I do know that the few times I've gone back since I moved away it always feels like going home.  It feels like it does when I go back to Brazil - safe, familiar, comfortable.  Home. And, like home, once you've left, there's a little bit of that you-can't-ever-really-go-back feeling.  But I want to.  I so desperately want to.  But, like so many things right now, I'm unsure, and I'm scared... so, for now, it's another thing I'm going to just take my time and be patient about.  In the meantime though, I made sure I got a t-shirt. 

Cinderella

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This weekend millions of families and little girls made their way to the theatre to see the brand new live-action version of "Cinderella".  Of course, I had to go too.  The movie was excellent!  Directed by Kenneth Branagh, one of my all-time favorite directors, it bore his signature style:  color, pageantry and outstanding British actors. Branagh really played this movie straight.  Often fairy tales are brought to the big screen in a kind of campy, over-the-top way such as 2007's "Enchanted" (don't get me wrong, I LOVED "Enchanted" but it was still over-the-top).  Or, they movie makers go the other direction and take their movie WAY too seriously, as in 1998's "Ever After".

"Cinderella" walks that fine line of being a fantasy but not being campy.  Branagh was the perfect director for this.  His vivid use of color and costume make the scene very story-like, you know it isn't the world we live in, the real world.  His use of excellent actors who play their characters as they are and imbue them with real personalities without overacting helped give the movie it's realism.  The viewer is swept up until a very real fairy tale world where anything is possible.

There have been a number of fairy tales brought to the big screen in recent years:  "Into the Woods", "Maleficent", "Alice in Wonderland" (technically not a fairy tale but a story so well-known as to be on par with most fairy tales), two movies based on Snow White and so on.  Most of these movies have a few things in common.  They all alter the original story in significant ways.  In "Maleficent" we see good and evil turned upside down.  King Stefan is a villain in this version and Maleficent the heroine - a troubled, dark heroine.  While I enjoyed the film, this bothered me, for the same reason the book and subsequent Broadway musical "Wicked" (which I also greatly enjoyed) bothered me.  Because what "Wicked" and "Maleficent" seem to be saying is that there are no true heroes and villains, no true good and evil anymore.  It all depends on your perspective.

"Into the Woods" suffers from similar problems.  We have a disillusioned Cinderella who is unhappy with her Prince.  Prince Charming seduces the Baker's Wife and the Wicked Witch saves the day.  Once again we see there are no heroes and no villains.  Who is to say what or who is good or bad? 
That is a very postmodern and frightening idea.  No wonder young people these days have no moral compass!  Story has been the method of passing along morals and values from one generation to another since the dawn of time.  What does it say about our society when the stories we tell fail to provide any kind of guidance?  What does it say when our stories tell our young people that there is no good and no evil, there is only your perspective?  Everything is subjective and everything is OK as long as that is YOUR truth - that is what these stories are saying. (The theme from "Jaws" just started playing in my head right now as I'm thinking about this - scary!)  


"Cinderella" is such a refreshing contrast to all these recent films.  There is good and there is bad.  Cinderella is sweet and innocent and tries to live up to her mother's ideal:  "Have courage and be kind". Cinderella perseveres through the loss of her parents and mistreatment by her stepmother and stepsisters.  Through it all she remains gentle and kind.  The stepmother and stepsisters are constantly mean, belittling and demeaning to Cinderella.  In one of the final scenes, Cinderella asks her stepmother why she has treated her so badly.  "Because you are young and good and innocent and I..." The stepmother does not finish her sentence.  This quote seems to imply that the reason the stepmother treats Cinderella so poorly was just because she could.  And there Branagh sets up the clear distinction between good and evil - and he doesn't even have to say the word. Finally, here is a movie with a real center, a real message which transcends generations.  Have courage and be kind.