Discuss about the Reflections On Blockbuster Experience In Contact.
Over the years, many Hollywood filmmakers have focused on the theme of a parallel universe, the extraterrestrial beings and the presence of other Earth-like planets. The debate whether God or gods created the earth or it was just a scientific phenomenon – the Bing Bang Theory – that resulted in the formation of the Universe and the Earth is yet to end. In most films, the inherent theme of Christianity is visible even in the scientific depictions. In this reflective journal, I will focus on three movies namely Avatar, Contact and The Dark Knight and try to unearth the themes of Christianity. In addition, I will explain and analyze the worldview from both western and non-western perspective as depicted in the three movies. In the reflective journal, I will also link the eight fundamental questions raised by Sire in his book The Universe Next Door and find if there are any similarities or distinctions between the movies, Sire’s questions and Christian Theism (Sire 2009).
The movie came out in the year 2009 and was an instant hit. Directed by noted filmmaker James Cameron, the movie was a sci-fi action thriller revolving around the fictional planet of Pandora (IMDb 2018). The people residing in Pandora were known as Na’vi. The Na’vi people followed Pantheism as their religion where they had no God and only worshipped nature. Further, we see that the people in Pandora consider plants, trees and seeds as souls and storehouse of memories. In contrast to the Na’vi people, we find that the humans are engaged in their selfish interest and are willing to go to any extent to fulfill their selfish interest. I have noticed that the movie has projected more than one worldview that is evident from the different characters. The character of Parker Selfridge, played by Giovanni Ribisi, I can say is the epitome of greed, selfishness and everything we humans have become today. Selfridge is only interested in obtaining the precious mineral, ‘unobtanium’. In one scene, when Dr. Grace Augustine (played by Sigourney Weaver) confronts Selfridge regarding his lack of conscience concerning the Pandora community, Selfridge says, “What do they want? We have tried money and education, but nothing works”. Here, we can clearly see the inference to the capitalist view of the world. The worldview thus depicted is the anti-capitalism.
I also found evidence of pantheistic spirituality as another worldview depicted in the movie. As mentioned earlier, the Na’vi people are connected to nature and every aspect of their life revolves around it. Even the home they stay in is a huge tree, which they call the Hometree. The Hometree infers to Mother Earth, who shelters the human beings. From the prayers, to having meals – the Na’vi people connect everything to nature. It teaches the humans the lesson that God is not the one who has created us, the plants or the trees and animals but he is all these things. This view on God and Nature is predominantly a non-western worldview (Sideris 2010). This aspect of the movie has a connection with my own worldviews. I have long held the view that we humans are moving towards increased artificiality leaving behind everything that is natural and godly. We cut trees and destroy forests to build structures and then plant trees on occasions and chant slogans of saving the earth by planting trees. I believe we humans are turning into hypocrites.
Released in 1997, Contact is a movie that narrates the life story of an astrophysicist Dr. Elle Arroway who finds evidences of the presence of extraterrestrial life in the faraway star called ‘Vega’ (Hollywoodreporter.com 2018). She sets on a mission to establish the first contact with the star. While on her mission, she has to confront several constraints from politicians, military and spiritual leaders who serve as obstacles to her mission. However, she finally manages to receive funding from S R Hadden (played by John Hurt) who also had a similar inclination towards discovering new things like Ellie. In the end, the Ellie succeeds in traveling to “the other side” and meeting the alien who guises as her father.
While watching the movie, I observed an interesting romantic angle between Elli and Palmer Joss (played by Matthew McConaughey), as a spiritual individual. These two shared a strange relationship where one was an atheist and the other, a devout Christian. Both had attraction towards each other but differed in ideologies. The worldview depicted in this movie was mostly through the struggle between these two characters (Krämer 2013). Other important characters like Michael Kitz (played by James Woods), the National Security Adviser, Drumlin, Joseph the religious zealot (played by Jake Busey) also add to the struggle between the two worldviews – scientific naturalism and Christian beliefs.
The first view was depicted strongly through the lead character in the movie, Ellie. She was an atheist who believed that the mysteries of the Universe and cosmos could not be explained with the help of the bible. Ellie always believed in rational reasoning rather than depending on the verses of the God. Joss, on the other hand, reasons everything as the will of God and that no human should disobey the will. When Ellie was contesting against Drumlin to become the first person to go to the star, Vega, Joss destroyed her chances by asking her if she believes in God. Ellie being an atheist refused to answer directly this was then advantaged by Drumlin as an opportunity to go to the trip. This scene brings forth contradictory thoughts to the fore. On one hand, an atheist Ellie chooses to be honest in answering the question, while on the other, the deceitful Drumlin uses the preaching of the Bible to earn the opportunity. Through the character of Drumlin, I believe the filmmaker wanted to show the contrast between an atheist and an opportunistic believer of God.
The Dark Knight, released in 2008, is a masterpiece by Christopher Nolan simply because of its portrayal of the Joker (Rottentomatoes.com 2018). The entire movie has something to preach and teach to the audience but in an extremely disturbing and different way. Batman, the lead character in the movie played by Christian Bale represents the good in the society while the Joker (played by the late Heath Ledger) represents the dark side. The Joker shows no specific intention to harm the people of Gotham, he just wants to bring in chaos and enjoy the show. As he himself states, “I am an agent of Chaos”. The worldviews depicted through both the antagonist and the protagonist includes nihilism and Christianity.
Nihilism is the view that claims nothing in the world is good, godly or great. Further, nihilism believes that nothing in the world is real (Phillips 2010). Joker portrays all the aspects of a nihilist and almost makes us as audiences; agree to his contentions and arguments. Joker seems to reject every kind of authority, even that of God. The climax scene provides an excellent example of Joker’s nihilistic ideology when he waits for the people in two different ferries to blow themselves up. Here, the Batman claims that his people have shown that good still exists and that Joker has lost. The worldview of Christianity has prevailed over nihilism. However, Joker reveals that he has achieved his goal to defeat the good that Gotham has that is Harvey Dent (played by Aaron Eckhart). The Joker, thus accomplishing his goals, turned Harvey, who had been instrumental in bringing the criminals of Gotham to justice, into a “two-faced” evil. The movie ends with Batman taking the blame for the crimes committed by Harvey Dent in order to keep the faith of the people alive in the good.
After analyzing the three movies and the worldviews depicted in those, I can now discuss the eight fundamental questions put forward by Sire and see if I could establish any link to the movies. Sire first mentions the seven questions that define the worldviews and then adds the eighth question to depict the personal implications of the first seven questions.
The first fundamental question is about the real reality. To this, Sire answers that God or the gods are the real reality; everything else in the universe revolves around this reality. This has been portrayed in the movie Contact, although not directly but through the character and dialogues of Palmer Joss in the scene where he questions Ellie if she believes in god. After the meeting ends and Ellie loses to Drumlin as the one going to the trip to Vega, she asks Palmer Joss why he asked her this question. To this, Joss replied that he could not choose someone who does not believe in God. We could easily comprehend the omnipresence of God as the ultimate reality and those who do not accept this reality, cannot themselves be real or human. The second question asks about the nature of external reality, the world around us. The author here explains that different people define external reality differently; to some the world may be created and to others it may be autonomous, matter or as spirit, chaotic or orderly, subjective or objective. The Joker in the movie The Dark Knight represents the class of people who believes external reality or the world around us should be chaotic.
The third fundamental is about defining the human beings. The author defines humans as extremely complicated machines or sleeping gods. In fact, human beings are also defined as persons created in the image of God. This idea of human beings is represented with the use of alien forms of human beings in the movie Avatar. The Na’vi people depict somewhat the ideal form of human being that we desire. Coming to the fourth fundamental question, the author asks the fate of a person after death. To this, he assumes that we might answer personal extinction or transformation to a higher state to be the stage defining death. Even reincarnation or departure to a shadowy side of the universe is considered death. The reincarnation concept is covertly depicted in Avatar as the lead character Jake, reincarnates to a more able and perfect avatar of himself in Pandora. In fact, he loves his reincarnated self and hopes to stay in this form because as he says this world is far better than the world he lives in.
The fifth fundamental question asked by Sire is the reason for humans to know everything and anything. Here, he reiterates the idea that since humans are an image of the God who is all-knowing, they have access to all the information of life. In Contact, the human beings like the lead character Ellie are shown to the existence of extraterrestrial beings without even exploring the universe. This relates to the fifth fundamental question of Sire. As the sixth fundamental question explaining worldview, the author questions the ability of humans to demarcate the right from the wrong. While explaining this, the author claims that the struggle to survive both culturally and physically led to this ability of humans. In addition, he again states refers to humans as created in the image of God, who has good character and ability to judge between right and wrong. The Joker portrayed the role of an anti-God, I should say, who had the power to distinguish the good from the bad, the right from the wrong and then turn the good and the right into bad and wrong.
The seventh question deals with the meaning of human history to which, the author replies that it is the realization of the purposes of God. The purpose commands that people should create a paradise on earth. This question does not resonate to any of the three movies however; the purpose of Selfridge and his company from Avatar to mine the mineral unobtanium and use to restore life on earth could be taken as suggestive of this fundamental question. The final question was later added by the author in the latest edition, which asks the question of the worldview as a matter of commitment. The author asks, “What personal, life-orienting core commitments are consistent with this worldview?” The answer to this question is all encompassing as it states that the worldview varies according to the individual values and beliefs about the world. To a Christian, the core commitment of fulfilling the will of God is his worldview whereas to a naturalist it is the inner peace. In all the three movies, this fundamental question is inherent in different forms. In Avatar, the core commitment of Na’vi people is to give back to nature whatever nature has given them, to the Western corporate, corporate commitment is to obtain the mineral and sell it at high price to restore the lost energy on earth. In the movie Contact, the personal commitment is to make the first contact with the other beings in the cosmos and establish the credibility of science. In The Dark Knight, the personal commitment of the Joker is to destroy everything good and right and establish chaos because that is the only view, which is real.
Christian Theism is the belief in which it is claimed that God is the one who has created the universe and everything that has life and that is natural. It also states that the Bible and the ‘fear of God’ should guide our lives as humans (Chambers 2015). However, I must say that my ideas of the world are not in alignment with this worldview because I am not a Christian and I do not worship the Christ. I am Sikh and to me, the verses and virtues of my Gurus form my worldview.
The movies that were discussed in the paper present different worldviews that both collide with and align to Christian Theism. The theme of pantheism showed in the movie Avatar contrast Christian Theism because it depicts pantheist spirituality as the world view where God or gods are not the creators but part of nature. The movie Contact has depicted many similarities to the worldview of Christian Theism through Ellie herself. Her rejection of the God seemed to have revealed the truth about God when she finally achieves her mission. I found the movie The Dark Knight in complete contrast with the Theism worldview. The dominance of the antagonist in the film reveals that the themes of Christianity or Christian Theism are outright rejected.
Conclusion
In the end, I can conclude that as per my personal view about the world, all the three movies had some lessons to teach about Christianity and other worldviews. I found it interesting to see that the movies that were made in a Christian dominated country and filmmakers who were mostly Christians, had the courage to go against this worldview. Whether it is the Na’vi people of Pandora, the belief of Dr. Arroway against Palmer Joss or the nihilism of the Joker against the city of Gotham – All presented their own worldviews that were both western and non-western.
References:
Chambers, T., 2015. Review of” Debating Christian Theism”. Essays in Philosophy, 16(2), pp.298-315.
Hollywoodreporter.com (2018). ‘Contact’: THR’s 1997 Review. [online] The Hollywood Reporter. Available at: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/contact-review-1997-movie-1019683 [Accessed 26 May 2018].
IMDb. (2018). Avatar (2009). [online] Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/ [Accessed 26 May 2018].
Krämer, P., 2013. Reflections on the blockbuster experience in Contact (1997). Movie Blockbusters, p.128.
Phillips, N.D., 2010. The dark knight: Constructing images of good vs. evil in an age of anxiety. In Popular culture, crime and social control (pp. 25-44). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Rottentomatoes.com (2018). The Dark Knight. [online] Rottentomatoes.com. Available at: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_dark_knight/ [Accessed 26 May 2018].
Sideris, L.H., 2010. I See You: Interspecies Empathy and Avatar. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature & Culture, 4(4).
Sire, J.W., 2009. The universe next door: A basic worldview catalog. InterVarsity Press.
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