jesus camp
Apr. 22nd, 2007 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
faceless_wonderearlier this afternoon, i finally got the chance to watch the movie jesus camp. that movie made me so sad...it's a testament to how manipulable children are, and how willing certain people are to manipulate children to accomplish their own ends. the movie contained scene after scene of children being absolutely brainwashed...brainwashed in church, brainwashed by their parents, brainwashed by the summer camp, brainwashed everywhere. it makes me so sad.
issues and approach
the movie, generally, did a really good job of staying away from harping on one hot-button religious right issue or another, and focused more broadly on their tactics in sucking young children in. but, it did mention certain things. it mentioned evolution, it mentioned abortion, it mentioned homosexuality...although all of those were mentioned not as issues, per se, but simply came up as things that happened to be touched on during the persuasion and brainwashing process.
that was the key theme of the movie...what the religious right is doing to children, what a one-sided view of the world the religious right is giving children. the scene that mentioned evolution showed a mother homeschooling her child in science. what she said in that shocked me, not because of the point of view, but because of how she conveyed it to her child. she told her child what a bad thing it was that there were schools that taught evolution and insinuated that creation was stupid. okay...that's not a bad thing to say, as schools should not be deeming creation stupid. that's not the school's place. it's each person's place to reconcile science and religion, and choose their belief on the matter. what made me so mad was the next thing that the mother said in that scene. she asked her kid, rhetorically: what about a school that taught creation, and said that evolution was stupid?
she then proceeded to encourage her child in the view that a school that taught that viewpoint would be a good school, and that was the right thing to teach. i just cannot stand the thought that this mother actually espoused the idea that disagreeing with her belief is stupid, and that a school is within rights to call a belief opposed to hers stupid--and that a school was evil or bad for calling her own belief stupid. i would have been less bothered if she referred to evolution as wrong, and thought a school was okay to call evolution wrong. calling something wrong is...just less of a value judgment than calling something stupid. that's probably why it bothered me so profoundly.
this was the key theme of the movie: the brainwashing that goes on in the hardcore faction of the evangelical movement. people should see jesus camp simply because it portrays that theme so clearly.
a shame to be human
the one scene of the movie that just broke my heart happened pretty early in the part after everyone got to camp. they asked children to come speak in front of everyone, to confess their thoughts. this little boy, about eight years old, walked in front of everyone with a microphone in one hand, and a bible in the other. he was crying his eyes out. he confessed to the group that he found it hard sometimes to believe in God because he could never see him, and that there were times that he didn't believe that the bible was completely true.1
i just wanted to pick him up off the screen, pull him aside, and tell him that it was okay to have those feelings. i wanted to tell him how strong he was to have stepped in front of such a one-sidedly fundamentalist group and tell them that he was having questions. i wanted to tell him that a natural part of being human was thinking about his religious faith, questioning it, and having it grow and change with his experience and his analysis. instead, he has been raised to think that those are bad thoughts to have, that those are thoughts with which the devil is tempting him, and that he is less of a christian for having those kinds of thoughts. it made me so mad to see him up there, ashamed of his crisis of faith, because he was being raised in an environment that conceived of something so natural as deserving of shame.
justification?
the way this woman who runs the camp justifies her adamance for what she does to these children? she keeps ranting about how the muslims are doing the same thing, about how the muslims are sending their children to camps to learn how to be terrorists, to learn how to be warriors for their faith. but...that doesn't make it right! just because people of another faith are using coercion to dupe children into blindly obeying does not make it right for people of your faith to do the same, just to retaliate! she doesn't even realise that even though she is not giving her campers guns and bombs, that she is still waging a war on the souls and the minds of those children. she is not only forcing christianity on them, but forcing one brand of it upon them. she is giving them a one-sided perspective on the world.
between what she is doing, and what these children's parents are doing, and what these children's pastors are doing...all of these children are either going to go through their life blindly following this one path and inflicting it upon their children and their friends...or they are all going to go through a crisis when they find reason to challenge or question their faith, and have been raised to believe that challenging or questioning their faith is somehow unholy, and a risk to their eternal souls. they don't deserve that psychological torment.
a bit of humour
there was one scene in that movie, though, that cracked me up to no end: the one scene that mentioned homosexuality. the movie itself was distressing...and the comic relief was not intended to be such, at the time the movie was made. but, it was funny nonetheless...a somewhat welcome break of laughter, although laughter that i felt guilty for finding given that the movie scene was not thematically different from anything else in the movie.
it was after the camp was over. one of the children went with his parents to colorado springs, colorado, to attend a service at new life church.2
and there's ted haggard. there's ted haggard, preaching about the immorality of homosexuality, about how it is such a threat, and about how we need to have a good christian government that is going to stamp out such immorality, and turn this place into a good, heterosexual christian nation again.
***
1 i was really curious to see what the woman running the camp, or any of the other counselors, had to say to him after making that confession in front of everyone. but, that scene ended with him crying on the floor, in front of everyone. i'm not surprised they didn't bring a camera there...either because someone didn't allow it, or because the filmmaker used discretion and decided that such a scene would be too personal to film. either way, i can completely understand why the movie didn't show any of the aftermath of making such a confession before the group. but, i really wanted to see how the woman running this camp dealt with people who freely admitted that they were having such questioning thoughts.
2 i'm sure you know where this is going, and i'm sure you're giggling already, as well. trust me. as soon as they showed the words "colorado springs" on the screen, i knew where it was going. i was on the cusp of giggling, just hoping that the movie might not be about to so clearly serve irony on a silver platter. then, they did it. and i laughed, in spite of myself.
issues and approach
the movie, generally, did a really good job of staying away from harping on one hot-button religious right issue or another, and focused more broadly on their tactics in sucking young children in. but, it did mention certain things. it mentioned evolution, it mentioned abortion, it mentioned homosexuality...although all of those were mentioned not as issues, per se, but simply came up as things that happened to be touched on during the persuasion and brainwashing process.
that was the key theme of the movie...what the religious right is doing to children, what a one-sided view of the world the religious right is giving children. the scene that mentioned evolution showed a mother homeschooling her child in science. what she said in that shocked me, not because of the point of view, but because of how she conveyed it to her child. she told her child what a bad thing it was that there were schools that taught evolution and insinuated that creation was stupid. okay...that's not a bad thing to say, as schools should not be deeming creation stupid. that's not the school's place. it's each person's place to reconcile science and religion, and choose their belief on the matter. what made me so mad was the next thing that the mother said in that scene. she asked her kid, rhetorically: what about a school that taught creation, and said that evolution was stupid?
she then proceeded to encourage her child in the view that a school that taught that viewpoint would be a good school, and that was the right thing to teach. i just cannot stand the thought that this mother actually espoused the idea that disagreeing with her belief is stupid, and that a school is within rights to call a belief opposed to hers stupid--and that a school was evil or bad for calling her own belief stupid. i would have been less bothered if she referred to evolution as wrong, and thought a school was okay to call evolution wrong. calling something wrong is...just less of a value judgment than calling something stupid. that's probably why it bothered me so profoundly.
this was the key theme of the movie: the brainwashing that goes on in the hardcore faction of the evangelical movement. people should see jesus camp simply because it portrays that theme so clearly.
a shame to be human
the one scene of the movie that just broke my heart happened pretty early in the part after everyone got to camp. they asked children to come speak in front of everyone, to confess their thoughts. this little boy, about eight years old, walked in front of everyone with a microphone in one hand, and a bible in the other. he was crying his eyes out. he confessed to the group that he found it hard sometimes to believe in God because he could never see him, and that there were times that he didn't believe that the bible was completely true.1
i just wanted to pick him up off the screen, pull him aside, and tell him that it was okay to have those feelings. i wanted to tell him how strong he was to have stepped in front of such a one-sidedly fundamentalist group and tell them that he was having questions. i wanted to tell him that a natural part of being human was thinking about his religious faith, questioning it, and having it grow and change with his experience and his analysis. instead, he has been raised to think that those are bad thoughts to have, that those are thoughts with which the devil is tempting him, and that he is less of a christian for having those kinds of thoughts. it made me so mad to see him up there, ashamed of his crisis of faith, because he was being raised in an environment that conceived of something so natural as deserving of shame.
justification?
the way this woman who runs the camp justifies her adamance for what she does to these children? she keeps ranting about how the muslims are doing the same thing, about how the muslims are sending their children to camps to learn how to be terrorists, to learn how to be warriors for their faith. but...that doesn't make it right! just because people of another faith are using coercion to dupe children into blindly obeying does not make it right for people of your faith to do the same, just to retaliate! she doesn't even realise that even though she is not giving her campers guns and bombs, that she is still waging a war on the souls and the minds of those children. she is not only forcing christianity on them, but forcing one brand of it upon them. she is giving them a one-sided perspective on the world.
between what she is doing, and what these children's parents are doing, and what these children's pastors are doing...all of these children are either going to go through their life blindly following this one path and inflicting it upon their children and their friends...or they are all going to go through a crisis when they find reason to challenge or question their faith, and have been raised to believe that challenging or questioning their faith is somehow unholy, and a risk to their eternal souls. they don't deserve that psychological torment.
a bit of humour
there was one scene in that movie, though, that cracked me up to no end: the one scene that mentioned homosexuality. the movie itself was distressing...and the comic relief was not intended to be such, at the time the movie was made. but, it was funny nonetheless...a somewhat welcome break of laughter, although laughter that i felt guilty for finding given that the movie scene was not thematically different from anything else in the movie.
it was after the camp was over. one of the children went with his parents to colorado springs, colorado, to attend a service at new life church.2
and there's ted haggard. there's ted haggard, preaching about the immorality of homosexuality, about how it is such a threat, and about how we need to have a good christian government that is going to stamp out such immorality, and turn this place into a good, heterosexual christian nation again.
***
1 i was really curious to see what the woman running the camp, or any of the other counselors, had to say to him after making that confession in front of everyone. but, that scene ended with him crying on the floor, in front of everyone. i'm not surprised they didn't bring a camera there...either because someone didn't allow it, or because the filmmaker used discretion and decided that such a scene would be too personal to film. either way, i can completely understand why the movie didn't show any of the aftermath of making such a confession before the group. but, i really wanted to see how the woman running this camp dealt with people who freely admitted that they were having such questioning thoughts.
2 i'm sure you know where this is going, and i'm sure you're giggling already, as well. trust me. as soon as they showed the words "colorado springs" on the screen, i knew where it was going. i was on the cusp of giggling, just hoping that the movie might not be about to so clearly serve irony on a silver platter. then, they did it. and i laughed, in spite of myself.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-23 07:20 am (UTC)Another image from this film was when the girl was walking around with the "Life" message taped on her mouth, protesting abortion. How old was she again? Does she even understand the implications and reasons of abortion? Can she in any way sympathize or relate to someone of sexual maturity in that situation? Ugh, it just killed me.
If you thought this one was interesting, you should check out Hell House, unless you've already seen it. Its also quite interesting to see how some more religious people see the world. (No offense to anyone who is religious out there, but there is a line between being religious, and THIS type of religious.)
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Date: 2008-05-08 07:51 pm (UTC)