Darn you push-ups and curls! And chili cheese fries…
We are exposed to an ongoing conveyor belt of snippets from our facebook friends’ lives, thanks to status updates. From sadly and helplessly watching a person’s romantic relationship fall apart through relationship status changes and removals of entire photo albums, to discovering a another new spin-off of Farmville that we now will have to start blocking, the culture of facebook has been integrated into our everyday lives. When it comes to status updates, I am more of an conscientious observer than an active participant. So that evidently makes it my job to be the one to point out two phrases I’m seeing multiple times on a daily basis:
1) “Darn you (insert here a high calorie food item or form of exercise)”
2) “Just sayin’…”
Though you probably already know the connotation of both of these phrases (and that’s a big reason you chose to read this post today), I will offer the courtesy of explaining the usage of these facebook status gems.
Your facebook friends who are most likely to use the “darn you” status update are often the ones who give you a daily play-by-play of their work-out routine as well as an itemized list of the foods they eat each day. When a “darn you” person has just experienced an annoying exercise at the gym, they might say, “Darn you, elliptical machine!” for example. And then a few hours later when they go out to dinner with friends and someone shares their Triple Chocolate Cheesecake with them, then you better know what’s coming up on your facebook feed: “Darn you, Triple Chocolate Cheesecake!”
However, in a more practical world, it seems people should say “bless you” before naming a high calorie food. Who knows? Maybe it would actually miraculously not metabolize into fat? Maybe people should say “bless you” before naming an exercise, for the chance it would do twice or thrice as much good as it normally would to their body. To curse an inanimate object that already knows it has a negative connotation seems to only add insult to injury. But then again, we don’t live in a practical world: Instead, we live in a world where the inventors of Snuggies are millionaires.
While it’s typically exercise and high calorie that gets darned (literally cursed to hell for eternal damnation, in the hope that’s possible), I’ve also seen the “darn you” status update applied to weather (mainly snow), local traffic, and episodes of Glee that feature especially catchy songs.
As for “just sayin'”, it’s always applied at the end of a sentence- often after about 2 or 3 sentences of advice to another person or inanimate object: “So I just got back from the grocery store and everybody’s freakin’ out over bread and milk. It’s not the end of the world, people! It’s just snow! Just sayin’…”
“Just sayin'” implies the thought “now really take some time to think about what I said, but no pressure, really.”
Here’s another example:
“Some people really spend way too much time on facebook. There is a such a thing as leaving your own house and hanging out with actual people. Just sayin…”
If a person is really talented, they may try to attempt to use both phrases in the same status update: “Darn you, mother who is pretending not to speak English as her three kids run wild around the store! Ever heard of actually having some control over your own kids in public? Just sayin…”
If from now on, you never see “darn you…” and “just sayin’…” on facebook without thinking back to what you read here today, then I’ve done my job as a conscientious observer who shares my findings with the general public. If nothing else, from now on, see if you can make it a whole day on facebook without seeing either of those phrases at all. I bet you can’t. Just sayin’…
Seems like a strange pair, but we born-again Christians love our movies and TV just as much as everyone else. But where do we draw the line?
One of my favorite TV shows during 4th and 5th grade was surprisingly The Dick Van Dyke Show as it was featured in syndication on Nick at Nite. It was while watching that show (I was around 9 or 10) that it occurred to me, “Dick Van Dyke is kissing Mary Tyler Moore, but in real life, they may both be married to someone else who has to watch them kiss another person.” To me, that would just be too weird… and wrong. As much I fantasize about being an actor in a flash-sideways version of my life in some alternate path I could have chosen for myself a decade ago, I have to acknowledge that as a born-again Christian, there would be an exhaustive list of limitations for me as a legitimate actor. (Granted, Kirk Cameron got around the “have to kiss another woman” dilemma when he used his own wife as a stand-in at the end of the movie Fireproof.)
That’s not to say that there aren’t born-again Christians who act in mainstream media. For example, there’s the often-mistaken-as-a-Jew-but-actually-just-Welsh-American actor Zachary Levi, who is the protagonist of the hit show Chuck. He has been outspoken about his relationship with Jesus Christ. Click here to see what he said in one of his interviews with Relevant magazine. I am fascinated by his Hollywood success and his commitment to his faith. I would love to ask him about this very topic today; specifically this question, “As a Christian, what won’t you do in a role?” (Zachary Levi, if you’re reading this, feel free to comment and help me out. Thanks.)
Where does a Christian draw the line when it comes to acting? I would say kissing another person on stage is harmless except when either or both of them is married. And what about “love scenes” (scenes that involve sexual activity, with or without nudity)? What about profanity? Are there any words you just shouldn’t say? Personally, I could easily curse on camera before I could say, “oh my God”; because to use God’s name in vain is breaking one of the Ten Commandments, while cursing is simply a fading taboo of shifting rules set by the expectations of culture. To me, there are plenty far more destructive ways that words can be used that go against the Kingdom of God, like gossip, malicious sarcasm, and belittling.
Here’s where it gets really tricky. If you think it’s wrong to curse in a role or play a character who has premarital sex, how is that so different from playing a character who is a murderer? At least by playing a killer, you’re truly just pretending to play a character who is obviously in the wrong. But by being filmed semi-nude under covers in a bed, you’re sending a subconscious message that sex between two consenting adults doesn’t necessarily have any spiritual concerns attached to it.
So in theory, in 1983, as a born-again Christian, if given the opportunity to have Al Pacino’s lead role in Scarface, would I, should I, could I? For it’s time, the movie Scarface contained more profanity than any other film in history. It was originally rated NC-17 for its violent content. But in the end, (sorry if you haven’t seen the movie but you’ve had 28 years to see it so I feel okay about giving away the ending) all of Scarface’s sins find him out. It’s obvious that his life of violent crime led to his own demise and in the end, it wasn’t worth it. Does that mean that this movie teaches its viewers not to waste their lives in a mob, getting involved with violence and cocaine? In theory, yes. In theory, it has positive, redeeming value because in the end, crime doesn’t pay.
That’s something I’ve observed about Christian culture. It seems most Christians are okay with a character doing obviously un-Christian things if in the end they repent: Unlike the character of Stacy Hamilton, played by Jewish actress Jennifer Jason Leigh in the 1982 movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, who decides to have an abortion and seemingly goes on to live a completely normal life, never regretting her decision. I contrast that to the song “Red Ragtop” by Tim McGraw, whether the 20 year-old protagonist gets his 18 year-old girlfriend pregnant and together they decide to have an abortion.
However, by the end of the song, though it’s not explicitly stated, the melancholy mood and subtle lyrics of the song itself convey the message “we can’t undo what we’ve done or beat ourselves up over it, but we do regret and it’s definitely a sad thing that happened”. Rightly assuming that Country music fans are mostly Christians (simple demographics), they helped the song rise to the #2 position on the Country charts.
Entertain this thought: Ask yourself privately, as a Christian, whether or not you would play the role of a character in a play, musical, TV show, or movie who would do any of the following things:
-use minor profanity
-use stronger profanity including racial or gender slurs, up to the “f-word”
-use God’s name in vain, whether it’s by saying “oh my God” or “G.D.”
-play a character who has premarital sex and never encounters any real negative consequences
-play a gay character who never actually kisses another actor
-play a gay character who does kiss another person of the same gender
-play a heterosexual character who jokingly kisses a person of the same gender on the lips, which happens quite often on Saturday Night Live
-play a serial killer and rapist, though no explicit violence is ever shown on screen and who never curses or participates in any pre-material sexual relationship
-play a serial killer and rapist, though no explicit violence is ever shown on screen and but does participate in some premarital sex and who does some cursing
-play a serial killer and rapist, though no explicit violence is ever shown on screen and but does participate in some premarital sex and who does some cursing, but at the end accepts Jesus Christ as their Savior and from that point on lives a life in accordance to the teachings of Jesus
How is it any more wrong to play a homosexual actor than it is to play heterosexual actor who has premarital sex? Though both situations are perceived much differently by the general population, when it comes to my understanding of the Bible’s teaching of righteousness, I don’t see how one is any different or worse than the other. The way I understand it, Jesus died for all sin. Sin is sin is sin. No matter what kind it is, it separates us from God and causes every single one of us to need His grace.
Where do you draw the line as a Christian actor? Obviously to be involved in straight-up porno-graphy is out of the question for any sincere Christian. But there are so many millionths of the scale to get to that extreme. On the much slighter end of the scale is a man with his shirt off showing off his six-pack while he rides a horse bareback. Further down the scale is that same man passionately kissing a woman while in a hot tub, both in their swimsuits. Next is the same man and woman acting out a love scene in bed and though they are actually naked, they aren’t acting having sex underneath the blankets which strategically cover up certain parts of their bodies.
I remind myself that outside the culture of conservative Christianity, in reality the rest of the world behaves its own way regardless of our censorship. To imagine a real life group of people who in their everyday lives never cursed or had premarital sex (outside of the conservative Christian world) is to me, simply unbelievable. Taking away the elements of entertainment that are unChristian-like either makes the TV show or movie either A) unrealistic or B) a Christian movie like Facing the Giants.
I also remind myself that the Bible itself is full of violence, premarital sex, rape, and murder. There is homosexuality. There are concubines. There are instances were people cursed (like when Peter denied Christ). The King James Version of the Bible even contains the words “piss” and “ass”. If the entire Bible were made into an epic movie, could born-again Christians play every role?
But some point, acting is no longer simply just acting. It’s doing. So here’s my final thought about all this. In some technical, annoying way, are we as conservative, born-again Christians actually hypocrites for being spectators of popular entertainment?
Imagine this: Instead of the majority of the cast of Friends and Seinfeld being Jewish, instead they were all born-again Christians. Because of their faith-based convictions, none of them were willing to use any profanity or be involved in any situations that involved premarital sex. I know how beloved these two sitcoms are among the majority of Christians I know. But imagine a world where Ross Geller saying “We were on a break!” meant nothing to us.
Two Questions for You about This Today:
A) As much as we Christians love our sitcoms and movies, would they truly exist if we didn’t support them with our viewership because we ourselves wouldn’t be willing to play those roles the same way?
B) Where would you personally draw the line in regards to what you would or would not do for an acting role, hypothetically speaking, if you were an actor?
I sincerely would love to hear feedback from you, the invisible reader, on either or both of these proposed questions, by leaving a comment below. You don’t have to leave your name; you can easily remain anonymous if you wish.
If you’re not a conservative, born-again Christian, still free to answer as well… and please know how aware I am that the content of this entire post probably seems a bit… out there. For all I know, you may find it either laughable or offensive that we believe premarital sex is wrong or that kissing someone’s spouse is both weird and taboo. But what good is a religion that has no backbone or reasonable standards, despite how counter-culture those limitations may be? Thanks for reading despite the culture shock of it.
Recently at the place I used to work, they hired a motivational speaker. His whole two hour bit was infused with “jokes”. I guess a few people noticed that I wasn’t laughing at every joke along with them, for the most part. It’s because very seldom does a joke make me laugh. The way I process jokes, they are either for kids (“Why was six afraid of seven?”), for people without a good sense of humor (fans of Larry the Cable Guy and Dane Cook), and/or for the dirty-minded (more extreme than “that’s what she said…). I think “jokes” are cheesy. When a person tells me, “Oh, I got a joke for you,” I just wait for my cue and give them a courtesy laugh.
So what is funny? For the most part, when something is subtle and isn’t necessarily supposed to be funny is often when it’s the funniest to me. I used to work in an office 9 hours every weekday and in the midst of the afternoon lulls, I found little things to amuse me. I would start laughing out loud and no one would know why I was laughing. And the truth is, these things probably weren’t funny to anyone else.
Here’s one example: A cliché phrase I had to hear a lot around the office was “crunch numbers”. So I thought to myself, “What if they made a cereal for adults called ‘Number Crunch'”? It will be made with whole-grain and would be in the shapes of the numbers 1 through 9. That way, accountants and other professionals who work with numbers all day would have the appropriate cereal to eat in the morning.
Here’s another: One day one of my co-workers came back from lunch with a jar of candy from Cracker Barrel. They were Atomic Fireballs- the kind we had when we were kids. She offered me one. I explained to her that I only like candy that has protein in it. (Example: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Snickers, etc., but not Skittles, Starburst, etc.)
Then she said, “I wonder what Fireballs are made out of…probably just sugar and water.” I immediately started laughing when she said that because I got this image in my head of someone biting down on a fireball and all this water gushing out of their mouth. That, to me, is hilarious. Maybe because it’s absurd.
My theory that “jokes aren’t funny” can be tested by the fact that funny stand-up comedians don’t tell really tell jokes anymore. Mainly they talk about awkward and annoying social situations. Though some comics, like the late Rodney Dangerfield, can be funny mainly because of all of just one-liners. So I guess one-liners are funny. Like Chris Tucker having a career simply based on one line: “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?!” But delivery and composure ultimately land or crash the comedic aspect.
And I guess another thing that is funny is when people do stupid things and get hurt. People falling down is always funny. It works for Johnny Knoxville. Okay, so here’s what is funny to me: random observations, awkward social situations, one-liners, and people hurting themselves. That, my friends, is comedy. Not some lame fake-story that ends with a pun or a curse word, prompting me to laugh: If I have to be reminded it’s funny, then… it ain’t funny. I’m just not a “laugh tracks” kind of guy.
Is the stereotype true that bloggers are a bit narcissistic? Well, not always. It’s just true about the ones who are good at what they do.
If you go to Google right now and type in “bloggers are”, the first four phrases that pop up are “…not journalists”, “losers”, “annoying”, and “narcissists”. Add to that, recently my arch nemesis/frenemy Ben Wilder(who within the past few months declined an invite to publicly wrestle me on YouTube) posted on my facebook wall, “Do you ever post status updates that aren’t blog posts? Seems like your ‘friends’ probably would like to be considered more than a number.” (Actually, the links show up on my wall, but are not my status updates.)
That’s ironic for two obvious reasons: 1) He also has his own blog named Out of the Wildnerness which feeds into his facebook wall as well, and 2) The reason I don’t often post status updates other than links to my newest posts here on Scenic Route Snapshots is because these posts are my status updates. To additionally regularly write status updates would, in my mind, truly put me in danger of being narcissistic.
According to Wikipedia, “Narcissism is the personality trait of egotism, vanity, conceit, or simple selfishness.” Why do some see that word as an accurate way to describe bloggers? Like actors and musicians (which unsurprisingly I’ve had my fair share of experience being both), a person who blogs, by the very nature of their hobby/career, must be wired to be “overaware” of their own life and their surroundings. Socrates is one of the Greek philosophers credited for saying, “Know thyself”. As for bloggers (along with actors and musicians), perhaps our motto is “Really, really, really know thyself and make sure everyone else does too”. We have to; in order to be good at what we do so that our audience will find us intriguing, entertaining, believable, and simply relatable. I can joke about myself being a tad narcissistic, but ultimately, contrasted against mainstream society, am I truly any more self-involved than the millions of other people on Twitter and facebook?
Would I make such an effort to write if I didn’t know that 600 to 1,000 people would be reading it everyday? Yes, because I started with zero. Would I still write if I knew for a fact that no one at all would be reading it? Of course not. Otherwise I would just write in a journal and hide it under my bed. I’m the kind of person that has to have an audience in order to continue doing what I do.
And that is the reason why, that if we bloggers are perceived to be narcissistic, we are still encouraged to continue blogging. Because despite some cartoonish criticism about our egos, we have an audience whose very presence tells us they appreciate and relate to our writing. Our writing is based on our lives and essentially, our writing is our lives; though that sounds grammatically incorrect. Actually, bloggers are very similar to stand-up comics, only we are more like sit-down comics.
We assess the quirky situations and patterns around us and share those observations with an audience who hopefully will relate. Good stand-up comics are funny and humorous in more of a “laugh out loud” kind of way. Good bloggers are interesting and intriguing; but when they are funny, it’s more of a subtle “laugh quietly to self” kind of way. Either way, the material that we sit-down comics and stand-up comics write is based on our actual lives.
By blog readers clicking on our websites, they are essentially saying, “Here we are now, entertain us.” Who are we as blog writers to say no? Even at the risk of being perceived as arrogant and self-centered; at least we have an excuse.
Do I personally think that I am narcissistic as a writer? Compared to an Amish writer, sure. But I do believe in the importance of balance in life. I am very aware of my faults and shortcomings and I’m easily willing to admit them (especially as it makes great writing material); therefore, it’s okay to be very aware of what I am good at. It doesn’t help that in virtually every post I embed it with several links to things I previously wrote. Or that I have a “Featured In” page which lets everyone know where I am received the slightest amount of credibility.
We’re obviously living in the age of reality TV as we find much entertainment value in the lives of seemingly normal and “nonfamous” people. Sure, I specialize in writing about the department of “self”. But the way I look at it, that means that readers are inclined to want to read about “self”. They find enough of “themselves” in “myself” to relate. It doesn’t have to be a “selfish” thing to “know thyself”.
So is the stereotype true that bloggers are a bit narcissistic? It took me 832 words to answer that question, so you tell me.
Find out what it takes to impress a movie snob like myself when it comes to the “boo!” factor.
One of my biggest pet peeves in life is when someone starts telling me about a movie, and in a subconscious effort to be cool or to be a hero, blurts the ending. Usually, that takes away much of the incentive to spend the two hours to watch the movie. But recently, a coworker blabbed the twist ending to Orphan and it actually intrigued me so much that I watched it this past weekend with my wife and my mother-in-law. And though I typically can’t say this about most movies, especially not “scary” ones, I give it an A+. So what makes for a good scary movie, according to me, a self-proclaimed movie guy?
It doesn’t have bad acting. A few weeks ago I tried to watch Fire in the Sky, the 1993 thriller about alien abductions, and couldn’t make it past the first 20 minutes because the acting was simply not believable. It was somehow both too cartoonish and too bland. Like Christian movies and low budget sci-fi movies, scary movies also tend to feature unknown actors who are unknown for a reason. For a scary movie to be good, the acting itself can not be a distraction.
It doesn’t exploit violence and gore. Granted, I don’t mind excessive violence and gore if it’s necessary to the plot. I’m a huge fan of the Saw franchise. But I didn’t like Saw III, Saw V, or Saw 3D individually because I felt the violence and gore itself was over-the-top and mainly there for shock value alone, whereas I felt that with first Saw, Saw II, Saw IV, and saw VI, the violence and gore had a purpose directly related to a meaningful plotline.
It doesn’t contain soft-core porn. The thing that has kept me from seeing Hostel is that I have heard from multiple people that “there is a soft-core porn scene in the beginning of the movie”. A good scary movie doesn’t need obsessive nudity in order to be a good scary movie. (When any kind of movie has excessive nudity and sex scenes, I almost always believe it’s in there as a desperate attempt to make an otherwise drab movie seem interesting.) There was nudity in One Hour Photo, but it was extremely relevant to the plot and had a purpose. I’m not saying I morally approve nudity, but I am saying that when it’s done in good taste, it can at least keep from distracting from the quality of the movie itself, as opposed to most Friday the 13th movies.
It doesn’t contain special effects which I can tell are fake. In Saw 3D there were several death trap scenes where I could totally tell the newly dead bodies where just hollow rubber dummies. That’s how I feel about the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the Final Destination series. I am a snob when it comes to special effects of any kind. That means I don’t want to see any blood that looks too watery or any noticeable uses of green screens.
It doesn’t end with all the main characters dying. The movie is scarier if at least one person lived to tell the story. I’m not saying that it has to end well. One of my favorite scary movies is Skeleton Key- no one really dies in it but it doesn’t really end on a happy note either. Yet the creativeness in how they pulled off that combo impressed me. Same thing with One Hour Photo.
It doesn’t end unfinished. If the name of the movie is Freddy Vs. Jason, then either Freddy or Jason better clearly win the fight by the time it ends. I’m fine with a movie that ends while leaving the door open for a sequel. But if that’s the case, I want that movie to be able to stand alone as a film that in of itself actually makes sense and has closure. The first Saw movie does this perfectly.
If a horror/thriller movie passes these six tests, there is a good chance it will be at least a good one. It’s not about how many times you get spooked when something surprises you by jumping out on the screen or a high dead body count. The movie itself has to be legit and in tact as a whole. Otherwise, instead of walking back to your car after the movie as look around the parking lot for any suspicious shadowy creatures, you’re shaking your head at how stupid that movie was instead.
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