The Giver (2014)

No Dissenting Views Allowed: The Giver and the Hero’s Journey

I made a prediction about the movie adaptation of The Giver before I went to an early screening. A few months ago, I had listened to The Giver on cd—a dystopia written in 1993, thirteen years before The Hunger Games. The premise is that civilization fell into ruin and now a new civilization has been created that equalizes everything to the last detail, even removing its citizen’s experiences, emotions, hormones, and memories—anything that might cause pain or unrest.  However, the founders of the civilization knew that someone would be needed to keep the memories from the past to advise them when difficulties should arise and so a receiver of memories is selected from every generation to have the memories from before “the Ruin” downloaded into him or her.  Jonas is the second receiver of his generation because the first committed suicide.  Jonas’ parents are perpetuators of the controlling society, and he decides he must leave once he realizes what it’s all about.

Some of the elements of the hero’s journey (the storyline made popular in film by Star Wars) are easily found in the book: Jonas, the special hero; the Giver, the mystical helper; the emergence from the mundane world into a special realm; the quest to restore balance to the universe. But its ending diverges from this formula. The book is famous for this ambiguous ending—seemingly open to the interpretation of the reader.   Is Jonas dying, or has he found a place outside his oppressive civilization where he can be truly human? The hero is not clearly triumphant as he should be in the hero’s journey.

Lois Lowry decided in favor of a good ending for Jonas as she wrote sequels to The Giver. But fans of the book insist that it should stand alone—that the happy ending of the story is just a cop-out. Why the insistence on the bleak? Because The Giver as a book is a parable of existentialism. Humanity is defined not by culture, rules, or religion, but by the raw passion of human emotion. But, you might argue, doesn’t the book make a strong case for love? Isn’t there a reference to Christmas? On the surface, yes, those seem to be the more positive elements of the book. But what is love in the context of the narrative? It is at its core a feeling, a raw emotion. Christmas is just one of the cherished memories, which, good and bad, are disjointed and have no intrinsic meaning.

So what was my prediction for the movie adaptation? First of all, you have to track with me that hero’s journey (monomyth) movies perpetuate a certain philosophy, a certain religion, if you will. They are not existentialist—they are neo-Platonic or gnostic. There are similarities with existentialism—a distrust of reason, society, and rationality, to name a few. Existentialism stands firm, however, in the conviction that there is no answer to life’s dilemma. The religion of monomyth faces the same dilemma (the search for meaning), seeks mysterious powers (very often within), and posits a triumphant hero (representing oneself).

My prediction was that the directors would change the message of the book by transforming it into a hero’s journey movie. I am not defending existentialism; I am a Christian. I believe that a creating and redeeming God endowed the world with meaning, with reason because he himself is reasonable. What I am defending is a certain form of freedom of speech. Lois Lowry’s message was erased and rewritten to please the public. Her book was conformed to the formula of the hero’s journey, and that formula for two decades has been the basis for all mainstream movies for children. Children as a movie audience are only allowed to hear one message, containing one specific religion, and that message is repeated over and over and over again in almost every single movie or even television show.

To see how the writers and directors achieved this conformity, look for the ways the movie bends the book out of shape. I could see it first in the character of Jonas’s goofy best friend, Asher. He was completely transformed and made into the shadow (the personal foe who is the hero’s “false self”) of the movie, a character type which is integral to a monomyth movie. Watch for the triumphant hero: Jonas becomes the savior of the entire civilization, the cross-less savior of a religion of enlightenment, highlighted by montages that predominantly portray mystical experiences—whirling Dervishes, Hindu rituals, exhilarating experiences of nature.  After watching the early screening, I wished I could post a sign in front of the billboard stating, “CHILDREN’S MOVIES: NO DISSENTING WORLDVIEWS ALLOWED.”

The book and movie would make a great study in comparison, but parents must be aware that the book, although written for a preteen audience, includes some very difficult subject matter, including the euthanasia of babies. The movie includes the same difficult issues, but adds sexuality to the mix as the characters in the movie are made to be much older than in the book. Tread cautiously—the movie is, for the most part, fairly well done and powerfully conveys the message it intends your child to hear and imbibe.

 

 

The Croods (2103)

The Croods is another “coming of age and at the same time creating a whole new basis for civilization” movie—just like Brave and the How to Train Your Dragons. The parents of these brave new world-lings initially object to change and cling to the ways of the past, but through the bold steps forward taken by their children, the parents themselves evolve and emerge. In The Croods the characters actually emerge from a cave into a new, enlightened understanding of life. There is plenty of Platonic imagery here (see “The Allegory of the Cave”), but what is even more telling to me is the message of the movie that is played out through biblical imagery.

The Same Old Story

But first, here we go again with another tale told in monomyth formula. Eep and Guy are the heroes of the movie. They both have sidekicks—Guy has Belt, and Eep has her dog-like little sister, Sandy. They share the shadow of the movie, who is once again embodied in the father—this time, Grug, Eep’s overprotective dad, who just can’t seem to live up to Guy’s example or quell Eep’s utter devotion to Guy.

Why? Guy is more than just the hero. He is the helper and the hero all rolled up into one. This makes him MonoDude on steroids. Guy may be unappreciated in the beginning of the movie, but he never questions himself for a minute. Somehow he knows exactly what will happen in the future, where to go, and how to guide the Crood family to safety, which he does quite successfully despite cataclysmic danger surrounding them. And along the way, Guy converts the whole family to his way of thinking and enables them to be fearless, loving, and happy in the “real” world outside the cave.

The Same Old Lie

Now let’s turn our minds to the biblical imagery of the movie. Guy=Adam (which simply means “man” in Hebrew) and Eep=Eve. We find in the father Grug a distorted image of God. Grug lays down laws that prohibit ever doing anything new and different. Then he reinforces his laws through stories using cave wall drawings that always end in the death of anyone curious about the outside world. Grug is even shown slapping his stories’ cave drawings with a handful of red ochre, graphically portraying the “you shall surely die” of Genesis 2:17.

Here we find Satan’s angle on God’s law in the Garden of Eden. Satan wanted Eve to believe that God’s law was intentionally bad, that God was holding back from her true knowledge and experience of the world. Satan enticed Eve to view the fruit for herself, to rely on her own senses rather than on the Word of God (Genesis 3:4-6). But instead of claiming the riches of enlightenment she imagined, Eve, and Adam along with her, became guilty and sinful and were made to leave the garden.

In the temptation story of The Croods, Eep’s rejection of her father’s laws is her salvation—actually, her whole family’s salvation—from doom and destruction. Guy and his man-made fire are temptations she just can’t resist. But Eep is rewarded for her self-indulgence. In stark contrast to the true story of the Fall, Eep’s disobedience is her entrance into the lush gardens (fantastically imagined) of the primeval world. The family’s story ends with a Noahic rescue and reconciliation with the animal kingdom and an ecstatic pursuit of the dawning sun, symbolizing the impersonal “Good,” the god of Neo-Platonism—a scene that beckons its audience to emulate.

Looking Beyond

The doom and destruction of the movie is an accurate view of the world we live in according to Scripture (1 Thess. 5:2-5), but the view of God’s law is not. We can look to Psalm 19 for a list of the delights of God’s law—the law doesn’t leave us cowering in a cave as Satan would have us believe. And in Psalm 19 the sun, along with all of creation, points to the True God who is not impersonal but who instead speaks to humanity through his creation and his law. And now God has spoken to us through his own Son (Heb. 1:2), who loved his Father, obeyed him perfectly, and calls us to follow him: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Frozen (2013)

My daughters have already watched Frozen more than ten times. Our friends’ son and his Marine buddies are engaged by it. It has grossed over $1 billion—the fifth highest grossing film ever. Considering Frozen’s current overwhelming popularity alone, we should examine its message carefully.

Frozen is a difficult movie in some ways to critique—difficult because of its lack of coherence and its whimsical way of drawing in whatever elements it needs without concerning itself with the rationality of the audience. This, however, is perfectly consistent with the underlying gnosticism of a monomyth movie: the seeking of a “superior” knowledge that has nothing to do with reason.

R. C. Sproul recently gave a helpful description of gnosticism as a guest on a White Horse Inn podcast: “Gnosticism fundamentally is anti-intellectual…. [It] arose out of an attempt of people to combine oriental dualism, Greek mysticism, and a certain few elements of Christianity drizzled the mix.” Let’s look at how all three come into play in Frozen.

Oriental Dualism

If you want to explore the multitude of illogical and irrational elements of Frozen, you can turn to YouTube where many videos gleefully pick it apart. Thanks to “Honest Trailers” (“Trailers that tell you the TRUTH about your favorite movies and TV shows”) by Screen Junkies—which is NOT for kids—I felt better about my own interpretation. “Good” and “evil” are evenly balanced as they duke it out throughout the movie: “When disaster strikes, watch Anna save the day by teaming up with her sister, a merchant, a hot guy and a snowman to defeat villains like her sister, a merchant, a hot guy and a snowman.”

Greek Mysticism

Our monomyth “circular map” can help us figure out the interpretation of Frozen: while Elsa seems to be a hero, her biggest role in the movie is being the Shadow of her sister, Anna. Note: the Shadow in monomyth never possesses the desirable characteristics in the story, though he or she often does change for the better in the end. So—Elsa versus Anna, let’s go:

Elsa: cold, tense/angry, critical, relationship-shunning, shackled

Anna: warm, relaxed, impulsive, relationship-seeking, free

Here we find the strongest message of the movie—girls (in particular) are encouraged to imitate the passionate, thoughtless “goodness” of Anna rather than the more critical Elsa. Women have told me they love Frozen for depicting Anna’s falling in love in one day as a mistake. In the context of the movie, I see this more as part of her character development—not a moral judgment that the movie makes. Doesn’t Anna fall in love with Kristoff in one day, too? And from what I can tell, isn’t it the very next day that she switches affections? But rationality has no part in Greek mysticism—this heroine wins the day through pure emotion.

A Drizzle of Christianity

Many Christians have engaged with Frozen because they see Anna’s willingness to die for her sister as Christ-like. Anna’s devotion to Elsa, her desire to pursue her sister no matter what, is to me the best part of the movie. But remember, the Christian elements are only a little drizzle mixed into a pot of very non-Christian elements. This merging of religions is what is known as syncretism. According to Paul in the first chapter of Galatians, a distorted gospel is no gospel; “accursed” is anyone who preaches it.

Looking Beyond

So what is the distorted gospel here? It is that anyone’s act of self-sacrifice is redeeming as long as it is done out of love. The main difference between Greek mysticism and Christianity is that in Greek mysticism there is no mediator between “the divine” and man. It is an inward and immediate knowledge—and this is what the character Anna represents. Her impulsive act restores Arendelle to a Eden-like kingdom.

Christianity has only one Redeemer, one Mediator, through whom we have access to the Almighty God. Christian faith is not the fuzzy “believe in your dreams” of monomyth. Christian faith is an act of rationality, a trust, a resting in God’s love and mercy that he offers to us through true historical events, through real flesh and blood—the incarnation, the perfect obedience, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension of his only begotten Son, who alone among people could accomplish redemption for sinners. And one day “the one who is not ashamed to call us brothers” (Hebrews 2:11) will come back and make all things right—on a particular day and in glorified flesh. Until then, we must test all “other gospels” by his Word.

Something funny in all of this: poll little girls to find out whether they would rather be Anna or Elsa. So far I’ve found that the popular choice is Elsa….

 

 

How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)

Imagine the world of monomyth as a closed-off sphere. No power, natural or supernatural, enters or leaves. No opposites exist. Inside all is one. Good and evil may be different, but they can and must be resolved. Let’s take a little stroll through both HTYD movies to see how this world system plays out in them.

Flashback: How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

The hero, Hiccup, is the son of the chief in a Viking community that struggles to survive by slaying the dragons that attack and pillage it. Hiccup, however, turns out to be a “dragon whisperer.” He is special because he can’t kill a dragon. Why? He comes to realize that dragons aren’t really the enemy: they are just misunderstood and oppressed by a much larger dragon.

Hiccup is also oppressed—by his much larger father, Stoick, who plays the role of the Shadow as fathers often do in monomyth. In Stoick’s Viking mind, dragons are evil. He even goes so far as to call Hiccup’s pet dragon, Toothless, a “devil” (scene selection 12). But the enlightened son Hiccup has learned that dragons are really people, too, and paves a way to a new civilization: a community where Vikings, even Stoick, and dragons happily coexist.

Back to the Present (2014)

The dragon/Viking community is still thriving, but as Hiccup explores the rest of his world, he finds a Viking civilization still at war with dragons—more enemies for him to reconcile! Watch how Hiccup becomes more dragon-like as the movie progresses. First he is flying Toothless Titanic-style, then skydiving, and finally learning to fly with his self-engineered wings. Viking and Dragon, good and evil, unite to become one in the monomyth world through the MonoDude hero.

The Helper in the movie is shaman-like, but Hiccup really has no need for her besides affirmation that he truly is what the movie portrays him to be. He is the Chosen One, the reconciler who has “the heart of a chief and the soul of a dragon.”

Looking Beyond

The whole drive of these two movies is to invite the audience to emulate Hiccup in the real world conflicts—just become one with the enemy! But are enemies and opposites possible to reconcile in the real world? Biblical reconciliation addresses the greatest problem in the real world—separation from God because of the sin in our own hearts.

1. God our Father isn’t stoic. Romans 5:8. God is love.
2. The separation is real. Romans 5:9. God is also holy and just. He cannot coexist with sin or pass evil off as mere misunderstanding
3. Reconciliation must include justice. Romans 5:10. God sent his own Son to die for sin and thus created the only way for sinful men to enter into his grace and favor—by faith in the only True Reconciler, Jesus.

The second movie seemed to me to be so much more complicated than the first. It was like it had to do backflips to try to engage the audience. The monomyth form of reconciliation doesn’t satisfy our souls as Jack finds out in Chapter 16 of MonoDude. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Time Travel Devotional

Emily Whitten from Redeemed Reader and I have teamed up to write a time travel devotional for their summer reading challenge. You can find it here. Redeemed Reader has a great concept for this reading challenge: reading time travel books as a family, then listening to Worldview Academy interviews and reading devotionals to remind themselves of the true Time Maker.

Brave (2012)

Brave (2012)

Brave on the surface reads like a fairy tale: the princess Merida tries to change her fate through witchcraft and winds up turning her mother into a bear. A fairy tale, however, would end with the mother and daughter estranged forever, their story held up as an example of why daughters should obey their mothers. Brave is not a fairy tale; it is a movie that follows the monomyth formula. Myth has power beyond fairy tale. Myth creates entire imaginary worlds with their own internal meaning and morality.

A New Destiny

The self-proclaimed theme of this movie concerns fate—listen for Merida’s voiceover at the beginning: “Our fate lives within us, you only have to be brave enough to see it.” She then goes on to say that some people never find out their destiny: “But there are some who are led.” All of this talk about fate is pretty fuzzy. Is Merida led to a fate that is already there, or does she change her own fate? The movie doesn’t clearly come down on one side or the other; fortunately for Brave, monomyth movies aren’t required to submit to niceties, like etiquette or reason. Remember, they create their own meaning….

Brave first of all portrays Merida as one of those people special enough to be led to find out her own destiny. She is guided by little supernatural lights, “will-o’-the-wisps.” They lead her to a supernatural helper, a little old woman who appears to carve wooden toys, but who is actually a bumbling, benign witch. This witch helps Merida change her mother Elinor so that Merida will escape the fate Elinor has chosen for her: marriage. Does Merida really have the ability to change her fate? Of course, we know this shaggy-headed MonoDude-ette will come out victorious in her quest—what other fate could there be for a monomyth heroine?

A New Society

In recent years, there has been a string of primitive-themed CGI-animated films. Each carefully depicts a savage society. Out of that brutish, narrow-minded group clinging to survival, a new generation led by an adolescent monomyth hero is depicted as emerging, having evolved beyond the old society by internalizing new values—the values which the writers of these movies have carefully chosen.

This particular adolescent heroine not only emerges beyond her mother’s strict rules of etiquette and propriety, she actually changes her mother. Watch the progression of Elinor’s character through the story: she is transformed from a rule-following, well-dressed, effectual yet frustrated queen into a loose-haired, free-spirited, apparently happy woman. Elinor sets aside her crown (watch for it…) and follows her daughter, who is the proto-type of a new society.

Merida plows her way ahead into a new way of living that is free from rules. She wants to enjoy a man’s occupation, archery, but she doesn’t succumb to the “old way,” the primitive, savage life that her father and the clansmen portray either. Her freedom does come from shirking the responsibilities of civilized life, but it is ennobled by her enjoyment of beauty and nature. And in the end, through Merida’s choice to live a new kind of life, through the victory of her quest, even the unruly clansmen are shown to achieve unity. Her quest brings harmony to the kingdom. Merida has led the way to the dawn of a better existence for everyone in her world.

Looking Beyond

1) As Christians, we believe what the Bible says about destiny. Our merciful, loving, and unchanging heavenly Father is, thankfully, in control of each of our lives: “…in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Psalm 139:16). We can never remind our children enough of this priceless truth or bless them enough with the security that it provides.

2) As Christians, we also believe what the Bible says about society. Merida is the fictitious firstborn in her kingdom; she cannot and should not be followed in the real world. Her world does not operate like ours, and there is no way people in the real world can emulate her and function normally. We have to abide by rules, and we have to take on responsibilities of marriage and civilization or society in the real world quickly crumbles.

Jesus, God’s Son, is the Firstborn of all creation and Firstborn of a new creation (Colossians 1:15-20). Through his resurrection, his followers enter into a society, a new humanity that has present and eternal communion with God the Father. The old law, with its rules and restrictions and condemnation, he nailed to the cross. The new law of love and holiness—we are by no means lawless—is planted our hearts by our Helper, the Holy Spirit. Our children can understand more of this than we give them credit for, and in the light of God’s Word, the shallow message of Brave loses its power.

I’ll be reviewing more primitive-themed monomyth movies soon: starting with How to Train Your Dragon and then tackling The Croods. Meanwhile, print out the worksheet above and start trying to pick out the monomyth elements in Frozen. It should make for some great family discussion!

Epic (2013)

Lush scenery and fantastic, tiny “leaf people.” We aren’t, after all, supposed to believe everything in this movie. It’s just fantasy, right? Yes, but what do your children come away with? Epic’s two clear messages make two good starting places for a family discussion if you are so inclined.

Collectivism
Multiple sidekicks, multiple heroes, multiple leaves. Same old story. “We are all leaves of one tree” is repeated in the dialogue and is even reflected by the movie’s structure, which makes it a little more complex than many other monomyth movies, but the elements are there in abundance and so is the pagan worldview.

Dualism
Good and bad are equal, but different? That is one of the underlying beliefs of pagan religion, but it’s not true of nature nor humanity post-Fall. Good (defined as life) and evil (defined as death and decay) are almost completely unmixed in this movie; even the loveable bad Frog, who is tough on the outside turns out to be really a good guy at heart. The entire movie is spent between the two forces duking it out, particularly in the conflict between one of the heroes and his Shadow. (Spoiler alert: Good wins as a result of the completion of the quest. And the collectivism is maintained by Skype…).

Looking Beyond
Where do I see Christ? In the tree. Well, not the tree itself; I have to look beyond it to the vine. Jesus proclaimed that he was the True Vine in John 15. He does not say that all people are part of this one vine. In fact, he makes it clear that the people who do not abide in him are cast into the fire. But for those who trust and obey…communion with God the Father and the love and joy that accompany it come through abiding in Jesus Christ his Son alone!

The vine metaphor also can be extended to Christ’s work of salvation on the cross: the True Vine underwent death and decay on the cross and in the grave. He rose from the dead, conquering death itself, and will never die again. New life and true life are found in the True Vine alone. (BTW did you catch that false death and resurrection in Epic? That was sooo MonoDude….)

Your Turn!
Want to pick it apart further? Leave a comment below listing the MonoDude elements and the characters that portray them, or if another part of the movie leaves you longing for the True Hero, please share!