Off to the Movies: Les Miserables

[valarltd]

My girlfriend took me to see this. She loves it, knows the whole score, etc. Thinks it's a dramatic tale, a love story and so on.

I got a two and a half hour Christian propaganda film, the last quarter of which was watched with aching bladder and claustrophobia. I hate sitting in the middle of an occupied row.

The music was stirring enough, but the song lyrics were utterly predictable. Crowe and Jackman do quite well for actors who can sing instead of singers trying to act.

At base the story remains Christian propaganda, better than anything any evangelical studio will ever turn out. A bad man, determined to get his revenge on the society that wronged him, is transformed through the power of God's forgiveness and a child's love. But the good man, who is mired in the law, cannot accept even human mercy when it is given to him.

That is a more powerful message than Left Behind or Fireproof will ever send.

And of course, being me, there were untoward thoughts. I know someone has written the kid&curtain fic with the men raising Cosette together. I expect someone has done the Gladiator crossover and given Javert a pretty, scarred Scottish houseboy.

Not a bad movie. One I'm please to have seen, if only to be culturally more literate. But not one I'll see again.

Comments

[gabrielbelthir.livejournal.com]

The idea of redemption is most certainly not unique to the Judeo-Christian belief system. It has roots in Buddhism as well as Hindu belief systems. While the conventional understanding of 'redemption' as we understand it in the Western world mimics the J-C trappings much more comfortably (that I'll give you), we percieve wrongdoing against others whether we believe in sin or not. A person who has repeatedly harmed their fellow man in pursuit of selfishness or spitefulness is regarded by society as having 'fallen'. To change their patterns and to find meaning in life is considered 'redemption'. This is as easily a societal understanding sans trappings.

The redemptive storyline (Star Wars comes to mind) feels good. We want to believe the best of everyone around us. We want a happy ending for everyone, even if they have to eat crow for a while. We all get the feeling of 'haven't they been punished enough?' and allow the broken or fallen person to be redeemed. Eventually.

If it's Jesus and forgiveness, you're right. They've set it in Christianity, which explains the last 20 centuries quite nicely for any period piece. You can't have it both ways, bemoaning the influence that Judeo-Christian organized religion has had for two millenia and then accusing every instance of its exposition as propaganda.

Hollywood is hostile to people of faith in so much as they rarely do anything sensational that isn't indy. They need to make their money back, and so banking on the Religious Right to pay the billion-dollar bill is usually frowned upon. Thus my thoughts on anything overtly Christian coming out of Hollywood. They usually use ghost houses or smaller indy companies to do shit like that.

I'll be cashing the green stamps from your left buttcheek later this week, m'lady.

*bows and runs off*