Weird people who are subtle and seemingly familiar are wonderfully entertaining.
There must be a certain off-beat frequency that both old people and residents of Portland, Oregon are evidently tuned in to. It apparently causes them to bring up the most bizarre and irrelevant conversation topics. I believe that specific strangeness is characterized in Boost Mobile’s “Unwronged Pet Carrier” commercial which is simply recognized by most of us as “that weird cell phone commercial with the Dave Grohl wannabe pulling the luggage cart and the sort of half-Venezuelan looking guy that says, ‘Is that the talking dog?'”
I am constantly subconsciously trying to figure out: What talking dog? The guy uses the word “the” instead of “a” as the article referring to the dog. It’s not just any dog; it’s one particular famous talking dog. So what famous talking dog is he referring to that I somehow missed on my facebook feed?
Some could say that this mysterious reference to a talking dog would be a cause for me to be annoyed by the commercial. But no; I recognize this as a clever marketing technique which I feel is a successful effort to relate to people who appreciate subculture-acknowledging commercials. For people who include Garden State in their top ten list of movies and The Office in their top ten list of TV shows. And who blocked Farmville within the first two weeks of its existence.
For those of us who appreciate the talking dog commercial (which coincidentally are the same kind of people who found this post and are currently reading it now) I think it’s safe to say that most of us could easily picture one of our grandma’s actually saying “Is that the talking dog?” during dinner. The talking dog commercial is subtle yet memorable. Granted, I’ve been with Verizon Wireless for 10 years now and have no intentions on ever switching, but I definitely want to publicly thank the cool people at the whatever marketing agency who gave us the talking dog gem of a commercial.
What is “Portlandia”? Now’s your chance to find out…
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.
I’m asking, since I surely don’t know from personal experience.
Just like finding out what it takes to be cool, the search for a “normal” person is another somewhat abstract search in which perception determines the outcome. Being normal can be seen as a bad thing, as synonyms may include “average”, “unexciting”, “boring”, “drab”, “dull”, or “unoriginal”. But in a society where sometimes the desire to be noticed by being different becomes pretty obvious and predictable within subcultures (example: goth, emo, the regular cast of L.A. Ink, etc.), I have discovered a new appreciation for “normal” people in my life. In fact, I see being normal as an admirable thing- though for me, it’s a pretty unattainable goal.
On the surface, my life would seem pretty normal and American. Out of college, I got an office job, got married at age 27, and now I am having a kid at age 29. I am not involved in anything that could be deemed crazy, extreme, or dramatic. And it’s not that I made it a point for my life to appear so normal, it just happened that way. But if my life was a reality show (which I would never sign on to- that means you, TLC), it would become obvious very quickly how my quirks alone would disqualify me from being normal. Yet maybe that’s why America is obsessed with reality TV- because it breaks down people whom we may consider to normal, and we like that because it reaffirms to us that it’s normal to not be normal.
In preparation for writing this post, last Saturday during breakfast I had my wife help me think of the most normal people we know. We were able to come up with four. One of them is a guy named Jon, who I work with. So when I mentioned to him yesterday that he is one of the most normal people we know, he laughed and said, “Well it’s good to know that somebody thinks I’m normal”, implying “…if you only knew…”
So far, as I’ve asked people on facebook and in real life what makes a person normal, not one person has volunteered to admit that they are normal. The typical response is to quickly search their family tree and circle of friends to find a candidate for normalcy, only to put the rare “normal person” in the same mystical category of unicorns and that flying dog thing from The Never Ending Story.
It’s just not normal to be normal. And ironically, if you truly are normal, that makes you a little weird. Below are The Rules of Being Normal, followed my some feedback from facebook on what makes a person normal.
The Rules of Being Normal
1) Look normal. When thinking of normal people I know, I disqualified one guy simply for being “too good looking”. And another for being under the age of 40 and having an ironic mustache. In the same way that Jesus’ physical appearance kept him from standing out from his Jewish countrymen, so must a normal person not be found regularly standing out from the crowd, in order to be considered normal.
2) Act normal. Being relevant has a lot to do with it. And well-rounded. It means being able to participate in conversations that even when you don’t know a lot about the subject, you don’t make it obvious. And you don’t have to always dominate the conversation by bringing up something bizarre in an effort to contribute and feel a part of the group- because that definitely alienate you instead.
3) If all else fails, keep someone close to you who is definitely not normal or a lot less normal than you. If my wife was weird, no one would ever know it because she’s married to me. By simply being the “most normal” person in a group of people who aren’t normal, you by default become normal. And that counts.
Nick Shell Friends, I need your help again with another post I’m writing. Think of the most normal person you know. Now, what makes a person “normal”?
Cyn Z.- I think that depends…if you are referring to what society deems “normal,” then it is usually a very boring, uninteresting, mundane type of person…in my opinion. “Normality” has never been a good selling point for me concerning anyone…
October 27 at 8:37pm · Like ·
Brad J.- goes with the standards set by society
October 27 at 9:46pm · Like
Amy S.- I have no idea, but I’m curious to see what you come up with!
October 27 at 10:07pm · Like
Nickie R.- maybe a good balance in life and no crazy extreeme ways of living? atleast this makes sense in my head.
October 27 at 11:19pm · Like
Ashley R.- Yeah I think someone normal would be the you know 9 to 5 person, simple easy life, laid back.
October 27 at 11:46pm · Like
Jason L.- its gotta be me Nick…I put my pants on like everybody else in life..I hold them up in front of me and a little low and I jump repeatingly until I have both feet in. I do this with my shoes on and a parakeet in my mouth every morning..now that’s normal
October 28 at 12:00am · Like
Tiffanie B.- normal means 2 things to me either they blend in with everybody else & don;t stand out or you look at them & think they do what society thinks they should:)
Saturday at 9:46pm · Like
Benji R.- Normal person in my opinion must be someone who has respect and to be proud in themselves even in the different society or status..That’s very important for being normal.
From “mirror mazes” to “crazy mansions”, it’s often the wacky building itself that is creepy with its peculiar layout, strange placement, and whatnot.
In between bad dreams and good dreams are the ones that are just plain weird. And while all dreams we have are a least a little strange, some of them specifically can not be classified as negative or positive; for me, I’m specifically referring to the dreams where I’m at an odd location. It could be a dream taking place in the Swiss Alps (I still remember a dream I had in the 10th grade where I was greeted by a mountain goat on the top of a mountain in Switzerland- it wasn’t significant in any way, but I will never forget the randomness of it) or a remote village in Thailand that I barely remember driving through on a motorcycle from back in 2004.
But I would have to say the most subtle weird dreams are where I am in an unusual house, where it is so odd it’s almost spooky. Like when I dreamt that 250 townhouses in the development were all attached: The only way to get to mine in the middle of them all was to crawl through hundreds of other people’s living rooms and kitchens, because evidently there were no front and back doors on everyone’s townhouses anymore- just two hidden exit doors for the entire 250 connected homes.
When we think of “spook houses”, our minds often go to some cheesy place we pay $10 to visit around Halloween called Slaughter House! where ultimately a subpar Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and gorilla with a chainsaw (with no blade) jump out at us in the same quarter of a mile stretch. To me, those obvious caricatures of villains are not scary, because they’re so predictable and anticipated. Take away the men in costumes, the motorized mummies that pop out from the wall, and the eerie sounds effects streaming from an iPod somewhere. What’s left is a building. That, to me, is where the potential lies for spookiness.
And I’m not even taking this to the extreme of an old abandoned house that is rumored to have spirits and ghosts. I simply mean that the place has a weird layout in which the exits are not obvious. It’s the idea that I could be lost- and I guess for me, being lost in a strange place is still scary, despite the fact I’m no longer an 8 year-old boy.
If you’ve ever dined at a Buca di Beppo restaurant, you know exactly what I mean: all the kooky black-and-white photographs on the wall, the spumoni type colors of the interior of the walls, the random LP records glued to the ceiling featuring unheard of Italian singers from the 1950’s. The place is a maze; the first couple of times I went to the restaurant, I got lost finding the restroom, but I had trouble finding the table where I was sitting.
Much less scary than the reality of demons dwelling in abandoned buildings or even the cheap thrills of popular Halloween spook houses, there will always be the kooky and creepy dreams where I’m in a weird house and I don’t know how I got there. And as for Buca di Beppa- though their Italian food is good stuff, man, their restaurant buildings give me the heeby jeebies.
Trends are only truly cool when they’re not quite cool yet. And by the time they are in style, they’re pretty much going out of style.
Recognizing the hilariousness of how in many offices in America, it is standard that everyone dresses professionally Monday through Thursday, but on Friday, everyone goes casual with jeans and often t-shirts, at the beginning of the summer I decided to start making Thursday a “buffer” day for how I dress in the office, encouraging everyone else to participate. How do you transition from khakis and dress shirts to jeans and t-shirts? Hawaiian shirts.
They are button-down shirts with collars. Perfect, tacky transition. At first, only one other coworker would join me in Hawaiian Shirt Thursday. But then, if for no other reason they felt like they were missing out on something cool, one by one, others began joining us. By the end of the summer, I had half of the office on my side. Some people dug through their closets to find the shirt; some actually went out and bought one. And now, even in autumn, many of us are keeping the tradition going.
Of course, this isn’t the first trend I’ve started at work. In an effort to make sure I was drinking enough water everyday, I went to Whole Foods and bought a glass Voss water bottle that I refill several times throughout the day. At first, coworkers joked with me, “Isn’t it a little early in the day for vodka?” By now though, several of them have privately approached me to ask where they could get a water bottle like that. And sure enough, the glass Voss water bottle is no longer weird in my office, but instead it’s the norm.
But the irony with trendsetting is that by successfully coming up with an original and unpopular idea, it eventually becomes unoriginal and popular. Prime example: Crocs. For the last couple of years, I’ve looked on from a distance at the weird plastic rainbow colored Birkenstock rip-offs. They were so trendy. You’d see moms and their kids out at the mall, all wearing Crocs. Even though I wanted some, I refused to buy them. Because they were too cool at the time.
However, this week I came to a realization. The Birkenstocks I have been wearing were given to me by my parents Christmas 1999. I had already paid $35 five years ago to have them resoled. It was time for me to either have them repaired again, or pay $110 for new ones. Or… pay $30 for some brown Crocs.
To entertain the idea of buying Crocs, I checked around Cool Springs during my lunch breaks while riding my mountain bike instead of driving (another office trend I’ve been trying to start since April), but sure enough, I had trouble finding any Crocs for sale. Eventually, some girls behind the counter at a Hallmark told me to check out the Croc stand across from Fossil in the mall.
Needless to say, with yesterday being Thursday, I wore my Hawaiian shirt, with Crocs, while drinking water from a Voss water bottle. And boy was I cool. Yet I wouldn’t have been caught wearing Crocs if they were still trendy. The trend of wearing Crocs is over; which is why it was more difficult than I had imagined to find them. I’m not saying that Crocs aren’t cool anymore; they’re just no longer a fad.
And so an important rule for a trendsetter is to not get involved in a trend that is overly popular. But once a trend is over, then it’s “game on” to participate. Some fads, after their prime, become an outdated, yet timeless classic. Like Hawaiian shirts. And Chuck Taylor’s. And the wondrous Rubik’s Cube. WWWD bracelets? Not so much.
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