The Intersection of Christ, Culture, and Cinema...

 Christ, Culture, and Cinema.  What does it look like when these three things converge at one point?  In October of 2019, following the urging of my son Jarod, my daughter Madelyn and I went to the movies to see the movie Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix.  The Joker is rated “R.”  This movie received media criticism, stirred up the law enforcement, frightened theater owners,  and created an air of potential violence that might ensue by those embracing chaos and disorder.  I have to admit that when I sat down in the darkened theater I looked around at my fellow movie-goers - mostly younger people (younger than me), chomping on chips and popcorn waiting for the experience of this duly hyped movie.

What unfolded before my eyes was not anything I had expected.  The movie was dark...and it kept getting darker...right up to the very end.  I wasn’t bombarded with violence, bloodshed, and gore (although there was some of that).  Rather, I was confronted with a character whose life was molded and shaped by circumstances beyond his control.  Arthur Fleck (played by Joaquin Phoenix), is introduced to the audience meeting with a Social Worker, demonstrating profound depression and withdrawal, potentially over-medicated on psychotropic drugs, looking for a glimmer of care, support, and dare I say it:  Love.  

As the movie unfolded  the audience learned that he was adopted by a woman who was mentally unstable, abused (physically and emotionally) as a child by her boyfriend, removed from her home by the state...only to be reunited with her and given the responsibility to care for her as “the man of the house.”  He lives his life with the false premise planted in his head by his broken mother that he is “happy.”  Arthur Fleck is anything but happy.  The irony is that he is a clown performer who is trying to figure out how to be a stand up comic.  He wants the world to laugh with him...not at him.  

But the world laughs...it laughs hard...and then turns dark, condescending, reactionary (to his mental and emotional challenges), and in some cases...violent.  Pushed to the brink by accomplished and non-compassionate businessmen (who start to physically assault Arthur Fleck) he breaks...his emotional and psychological bowl overflows...chaotic violence ensues...two bodies lay dead on a subway car and one dead body on a staircase in the subway station trying to run away.  And the society is surprised...shocked...even horrified.  The maelstrom that has created “Joker” is in fleeting abject denial of any complicity in the creation of this chaotic mess.

Welcome to the twenty first century intersection of Christ, Culture and Cinema…the broken, battered, beaten-down, marginalized, disenfranchised abound around us.  Broken families, abused children, bullying (both physical and emotional) can be found everywhere you look.  Social media feeds are filled with horrible stories and the societal reaction is almost universally the same:  “How can this be?   How did this happen?  We never saw this coming…”

Maybe we “never saw it coming” because we never looked backwards to see “where” it was coming from.  Value and worth are first and foremost found in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob...The God who “so loved the world that He sent His one and only son...” Value is found in the knowledge that God, through Jesus Christ, values you more than anything in all of the universe.  This value cannot be found in a pill, unearthed by time with a social worker, in the laughter of an audience, or in the overflowing of our emotions as we strike out in unbridled anger.  Value is found in the One who willingly came...willingly died...for you.

AND IF God...who willingly did all of this for us...took the time to come down to us...to listen, touch, heal, and hold broken people, how much more should we be doing this with those around us.  This type of care and compassion calls upon us to value what God values.  This type of love and concern calls upon us to be merciful to those who have not been shown mercy.  Truth be told, the likes of the fictional character Arthur Fleck abound in our society today - searching for love and compassion; seeking value and worth; desiring to be understood...they want people to laugh with them and not at them!  

Truth be told, I really did not want to go to the movies to see Joker.  I’d much rather go to the movies and drift away in laughter or travel to some made up science fiction world.  Little did I know that by going to see this very dark movie I would be reminded of what happens when love doesn’t triumph, mercy doesn’t reign, and compassion is not expressed.  Little did I know that I would be overwhelmed with a sense that as a minister of the Gospel I need...no, I must! do more for the broken, battered, beaten, and “worn down by life” people who walk silently (and sometimes not so silently) around me in my community.  I need to value as Jesus values...because every broken life matters to God.