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Sunday, December 21, 2003
Barbara Nicolosi & the Conversion of Contemporary Media
The Catholic supersite Godspy.Com has published an in-depth and thoughtful interview with Barbara Nicolosi, director of Act One: Writing for Hollywood and fellow blogger ("Church of the Masses").
It seems to me that the prevalent theme of this interview is the Christian's relationship to contemporary culture, what H. Reinhold Neibuhr portrayed (among his five "types" of Christian interaction) as "Christ opposed to culture" vs. "Christ transforming culture": practically speaking, do we abandon television and the cinema if they don't conform to our liking, or do we transform its content by working within these industries? This issue came up in Barbara's discussion of the movie Therese, a project by an independant Catholic film maker. Those who are hoping and praying for the success of 'Therese' (as I have) might find themselves defensive when reading Barbara's extremely harsh criticism of the film -- but even so, I believe she offers some valid points that are worth listening to, and which may apply to other forms of media as well:
Many Christians have advocated the abandonment and isolation of secular media, and given what is usually on these days I can understand the temptation. However, I agree with Barbara's questioning whether this is the appropiate strategy for the Church. If more Christian artists could join her in working with the industry to transforming the content of film and television, critics of the media would have a lot less to complain about. Oh, and lest I confuse my readers by my earlier post -- excusing Barbara's lack of appreciation for J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Jackson's films (*harrrrrumph*), I certainly appreciate her efforts to bring Christians into the mainstream television and film industry. Christians are called to be the "salt of the earth", and artists have a distinct role to play in the transformation of our culture (Barbara refers to Pope John Paul II's 1999 letter to artists).
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Against The Grain is the personal blog of Christopher Blosser - web designer
and all around maintenance guy for the original Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club (Now Pope Benedict XVI).
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