This column is about the importance of doing your homework before investing time and money in those things which may not measure up to principles you espouse.
I am still reeling from the sting of a major disappointment recently, and all because I did not do my homework pertaining to a movie.
When a friend loaned me her brand-new copy of the movie "The Last King of Scotland," I held it like it was a treasure. I was looking forward to seeing this fictional tale of a Scottish doctor who travels to Uganda, eventually becoming the personal physician and confidante of the brutal dictator Idi Amin (played by Forest Whitaker).
The Wall Street Journal called Whitaker's Oscar-winning portrayal of Amin "one of the greatest performances of modern movie history," and friends who already saw it raved about it too. So it never occurred to me to make my own determination of its worth.
But not long into "The Last King of Scotland" I heard the blasphemous use of the Lord's name.
"I don't believe he said that!" I complained to my husband dozing nearby.
Seconds later the very intoxicated and brazen Dr. Nicholas Garrigan (played by James McAvoy) slurred the words again to express to one of Amin's wives how beautiful he thought she was.
From that point on, my demeanor changed. I wasn't being entertained; I was being assaulted!
Instead of stretching out on the sofa, relaxed, I sat straight up, looking at the unfolding drama as if it were some uninvited stranger boldly making himself at home in my house.
I wondered: Was this offense in the book of the same name by Giles Foden that the movie was very loosely based on? Which of the movie's screenwriters --- Jeremy Brock or Peter Morgan --- had the audacity to pen it in? Was this disturbing to Whitaker, to McAvoy, to producer Kevin MacDonald? Why weren't Christians out in droves protesting the offense?
Had I done my homework, something as simple as Google "The Last King of Scotland" and "Jesus Christ" --- for one of my values is NOT to patronize any entertainment that trashes the name of my Lord --- I would have found a review written by Jonathan Rodriguez for ChristianAnswers.Net. It warns about the movie's content.
He wrote that many Christians will be offended by the insertion of the f-word between the words of the name of Jesus Christ. He added that if he had not been reviewing the movie, the use of the phrase would have caused him to walk out of the theater.
People as a rule do not take kindly to disrespect shown to those they love or see as not deserving a cruel put down. The outcry in April against radio shock jock Don Imus for his remarks about the Rutgers University women's basketball team testifies to this.
You would think the entertainment industry would realize this by now.
Imus was accustomed to pushing limits. But then he went too far. People demanded his resignation --- and got it.
The entertainment industry has gone too far when it denigrates the name of the God of Christians.
Our homework? Become more vocal in protesting offending movies.
"Letters are very powerful," Bishop Michael Saltarelli of Wilmington, Del., told me recently when I spoke with him briefly about the entertainment industry at a gathering of the U.S. bishops' communications committee.
But don't limit your comments to writers and producers alone, he said. Go for the sponsors. Carole Norris Greene is a columnist with Catholic News Service.
|