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Lessons from pop culture
Do you have bored teenagers at home this summer? Watch a fun movie with them and teach them how to glean Biblical lessons from pop culture. I recommend a PG-rated film written and directed by Tom Hanks, That Thing You Do!
On the surface, That Thing You Do! is a fun movie about a garage band from Erie, Pa. called The Oneders (later renamed The Wonders). The band experiences a meteoric rise to fame and a rapid demise to “one-hit wonder” status in the span of two months in 1964. But there is much more to this movie than a lively tour through 1960s pop culture. Christian youth can learn important lessons from the band members.
The deeper and more important theme of the movie is “change,” which viewers witness on two levels: change in the individual lives of the main characters and the cultural change of the 1960s.
We witness cultural changes in the form of stores staying open on Sundays, the rise of the corporate store (TeleMart) competing with mom-and-pop shops, abundant affordable appliances, transistor radios, portable recording equipment, 50,000-watt radio stations, air travel, the cultural power of the partnership between the television and corporate pop music industries, go-go dancers, hints of the budding sexual revolution, and a cavalier male attitude toward infidelity.
On the individual level, we know that young people grow and change in cultures that change around them. This is certainly true of the characters in That Thing You Do! An obscure bunch of kids from western Pennsylvania playing in a band with a strange name that nobody can pronounce (“The O-need-ers”) find themselves touring the nation and playing before large adoring crowds and ultimately jetting off to Los Angeles to celebrate their success, pay respects to the corporate music titan who made them household names, appear in a movie and on live national television . . . and suddenly, they go their separate ways and the band falls apart. That’s change.
As with any maturing young—or old—adult, temptations occur. And as the band members experience this period of tumultuous personal change, we discover what is truly important to them. In other words, we learn who or what is god, or God, to the band members as their lives change rapidly in a rapidly changing world. We learn that beauty and material things are important to the drummer’s (Guy) girlfriend (who dumped him for a dentist. Jazz and a jazz musician named Del Paxton are Guy’s gods before his relationship with the lead singer’s (Jimmy) ex-girlfriend (Faye) starts to take off. Faye’s god is Jimmy until she “opens her eyes.” A beautiful girl—a Playboy Playmate—becomes the lead guitar player’s (Lenny) god. Jimmy’s god is his music. And we’re not sure what the god of the bass player’s life is. Is it the Marine Corps? Is God his God? We know for sure that he knew Scripture.
What can Christian youth learn from movie? As with the lives of Faye and The Wonders, we too should recognize that we are growing, changing, and maturing as culture changes around us. We learn from The Wonders that we will face many forms of temptation along the way. Most important, we learn that the First Commandment matters every day. We must ask ourselves daily: “Who or what is my God or god?” If God is our God, He promises we will experience an abundant life through faith in The Wonder—Jesus Christ—rather than a series of one-hit moments of empty worldly excitement. That’s a good lesson to learn in the heat of summer.
back to top18 Comments to “Lessons from pop culture”
There is no particular reason to believe in life after death. If this possible illusion inspired people to behave better, the illusion might be worth the delusion. If it inspired people to behave better, than the delusion might be worth the trouble.
Therefore, behave yourself. At least for today. On Sunday…well, your are supposed to behave yourself on Sunday as well. On Monday…well that’s too far into the future to worry about.
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#1 is a perfectly, well, almost perfectly, incoherent comment.
I will go get on the treadmill. Anyway, set a good example today.
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Lee, I enjoyed this analysis. This is one of the best ways to teach young people to think for themselves. It is great table talk during a meal, when you have all shared a media event or book. It sharpens both the talker and listener if everyone respects and listens to each other. I find it is something that one continues to do with grown children, who often give added insight back.
To me, it is the carrying out of God’s desire that we teach our children when we get up, through out the day and in the evening. God provides us plenty of opportunities to teach and learn.
I once sat through a seminar in which a teacher showed how he did this in his classroom in a christian school. I wished my own children would have had him as a teacher, instead of the man who was boring them to death. He meant well, but…
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I’d like to say, as a teenager, that this movie might not appeal to teenagers much– or at least the ending won’t. It’s an entertaining and clever film, but at the end, everything falls apart. The community breaks down, and everyone goes their own way. There’s no closure, no happily ever after (summing it up in the credits doesn’t count).
I’d like to posit that teenagers don’t want to see that. I certainly don’t. For teens, life is full of uncertainty, difficult decisions, unclear pathways. Life hasn’t settled down, in fact, it’s just getting shaken up. Showing teenagers a movie where there isn’t a clear ending is cruel! Adults who have made the big life decisions and who are ’stuck’ with their choices may enjoy seeing a movie where the ending is left wide open, but young people want to be assured that happily ever after, or at least, certainty of some sort, is possible.
We’re not all starry-eyed innocents who think every Cinderella finds her Prince Charming. But we’d rather know that a Cinderella finds contentment in scrubbing floors and marries the neighbor boy, than to hear that she went off to seek her fortune and the movie is over. When you’re a teenager, ‘closure’ is a long way off. We want our entertainment to assure us that we will reach it.
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Interesting comment, Hantheroo. Would those in your crowd rather see more romance than sex? Is that also true for the music and videos? I notice Taylor Swift’s song video where she is swept off her feet by Prince Charming just won on the CMT awards.
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I do have to say that my teens did like this movie when it was out. They did not just like movies with a happy ending and liked Buddy Holly and Richie Valen’s bio movies also.
Everyone has different tastes in movies and also we need different ones for different times in our lives. Still, the whole idea of using them for discussion points is valid and helpful, unless it takes all the fun out of watching them!
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Hantheroo – Good comment.
I hate to tell you this, but once you get older & think things have “settled down”, something will come along to shake things up again. Then things will seem to settle down, & then…yup, along comes something to shake it up again. Sometimes more than one thing comes along to shake things up!
The secret to dealing with this is to accept that life is that way (but it does take awhile to find this acceptance), & trust that God is in control & won’t lead you wrong. Keep hanging on to Jesus.
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Madeleine L’Engle said that all true art is Christian art. That is, even if it has no explicit gospel message, if it is true in representing human nature, it is necessarily reflective of the Truth.
That can be so even when the artist doesn’t intend it. I maintain that Sex and the City is Christian in that sense, even though the writers would not think so and might even be offended to hear it. Meanwhile, something like American Pie is not, even though on the surface it might not seem much different.
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I like Hantheroo’s comment. I grew up in a world where the Lone Ranger shot the gun right out of the bad man’s hand. John Wayne fought throughout Iwo Jima with bullets flying all around him and never got hit. Did I mention that he was also clean shaven too? Good Marine.
And the good guy always got the girl. Except when Shane killed the bad guy and left. I thought that was dumb. But that was also a new generation coming up; mine was over.
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This is a web site where people like certainty and cling to a belief they know how everything will end. At five, my granddaughter is getting a kind of sanitized type of children’s literature, but pretty soon she is going to start learning there are lots of grays and unanswered questions, and grown ups have to learn to deal with that part of reality.
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There are bored teenagers?
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Nooooo Mumsee, it can’t be, bored teenagers? – LOL
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#4 Brilliant observations, Hantheroo!
I think in the USA a great many teens have seen too many instances where cohesion and loyalty to the “team” (team being an easy sub for the marriage or the family) has eroded. These young people don’t need to be reminded that dreams don’t always come true. They’ve seen those whom they might otherwise respect (politicians of both/all parties, fathers, mothers, religious leaders stumble). The kids know that the grownups in authority are often selfish and place self-gratification ahead of any higher goal. (”I’m just not fulfilled in this marriage anymore!”)
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Good observations Lee.
My wife and I saw it when it was released, and own a copy. (also the cd, where Mr. Hanks wrote or co-wrote much of the songs)
My kids also love it, but we will see it again with your comments in mind.
-take care
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I maintain that Sex and the City is Christian in that sense, even though the writers would not think so and might even be offended to hear it.
Interesting. What truths have you observed it pointing to?
I ask as one who endured a couple of episodes of the cleaned-up version. It struck me as tedious and insipid — the sort of thing that Seinfeld fans might be forced to watch in hell, with all the self-absorption and none of the humor. Fans who like to see what each of the four co-stars will be wearing in each new scene might love it, but there didn’t seem to be much else to it. Should I have stuck with it longer?
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When I was in a writing class in colege, we had a guest speaker who was a well-known author. Someone asked him whether all children’s books needed to have happy endings, and his answer seemed to be profound: Usually, but not necessarily. But they absolutely must end with hope. I haven’t seen this movie; I do think that an unsatisfying ending might very well be one of the things parents and teens could talk about. Also, be sure that teens are in interaction with some godly old people who have followed God and seen His faithfulness through many decades of good and bad.
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RR #15: Oh I dunno if you should have stuck with it longer. If you don’t like it, there’s no reason to do so.
I loved the show … I may be one of about 10 heterosexual males who did, but I thought it was funny and very well-written and acted.
OK, as for the truths … you would, in fact, need to watch longer to begin to see these, and probably all six seasons to really get the full sense. I’ll sum it up briefly, although it would take a while really extract it all.
First, I will stipulate that there is no overt religious message in it. No one gets converted or anything. But because it is realistic fiction and honest about human need and human nature, it cannot help but reflect truth.
The first thing to notice is the overall arc of each of the four main characters.
Miranda (Cynthia Nixon): Miranda is emotionally closed. She does not trust men or believe in love, really. Sex and her career are, she tells herself, enough.
But then she meets Steve (David Eigenberg). They come from two very different worlds; she’s a lawyer, he’s a bartender. They have a brief relationship and break up because of their differences. But he keeps coming back, insisting he loves her. When she has eye surgery and asks him to help her get home after, she tries to make him leave once she’s safely in her apartment. She does not want to show any vulnerability. But when she wakes up the next morning, he’s there, sleeping on the floor next to her bed, having stayed until the bandages come off.
They end up married and with a baby. And then (this is the really greatly overlooked aspect of their story) Steve’s aged mother, suffering Alzheimer’s moves in. By now Miranda has given up her resistance to a man’s love, had a baby she thought she would never want and even left Manhattan for Brooklyn so they could afford a house. Having his mother move in seems like a last straw and yet … when the woman wanders off one day, Miranda spends hours finding her, and then takes her home and gives her a bath.
True selfless love, something that would have been completely foreign to her six years earlier.
Charlotte (Kristin Davis.) Charlotte is the wealthy WASP of the group, all about status. She lives with an aspiration to marry someone wealthy and highly placed, and finally does: Dr. Troy MacDougall (Kyle MacLachlan.) But the marriage is ruined by a combination of his sexual dysfunction, his emotional distance and his domineering (in a very funny way) mother-in-law. She ends up married very happily to a pudgy, bald divorce lawyer — having figured out that wealth and social status is the least of what’s important.
Samantha (Kim Cattrall). She’s the fully most sluttish one of the four, having absolutely no tolerance for monogamy and no interest in love. Just sex sex sex all the time. The one time she does try loving a man, he betrays her and only hardens her cynicism. But eventually, she does become involved with someone, a much younger man who is becoming an actor. When she develops breast cancer and loses her hair to chemotherapy, he shaves his off in sympathy and support … unconcerned that he might lose a good movie role because of it.
Carrie: (Sarah Jessica Parker). Her story is largely about perseverance and recovering after failing. She has a chemistry with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), but he can’t commit. She’s with him, then without, then with … she has other suitors and other relationships, and eventually leaves New York to move to Paris with a Russian artist (Mikhail Baryshnikov) … who leaves her essentially alone in this strange city because of his work. Mr. Big finally comes to his senses and, as the series concludes, they’re clearly going to marry (which they did in the unnecessary but fine movie that came along after the series.)
Along the way, there are a lot of important moments. When Miranda becomes pregnant, she considers abortion, and gets as far as going to the clinic … but then doesn’t. We find out that Carrie did have an abortion many years ago … when someone asks her how long it took to get over it, she says: “Any day now.” So rather than glamorize or glorify abortion, the show makes clear that it has consequences.
I could go on but it’s time to go home. Suffice it to say, the main characters all come to us at the start of the series as fun-loving socialites who have bought into the myth of the pleasures of consequence-free no-strings-attached sex, and who, over the six-year span of the show, come to see the value in monogamy, fidelity and true, vulnerable love.
I just think there’s a lot more there than many people see.
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Oh, one other moment just occurred: There was an episode where Samantha tried to seduce a priest … on a lot of shows, the outcome of that would have been predictably tawdry. In SATC, the priest remained true to his vows, reproved her gently and there was actually some intelligent dialog about the meaninglessness of easy sexuality (although it didn’t change her mind.)
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