Hollywood's rules

When George Orwell wrote his terrifying novel 1984 about a state that attempted to control every aspect of its citizens' lives he was compelled to invent the 'Thought Police' to patrol the few cubic centimetres inside the heads of the people.

And he invented a stripped down form of English called 'Newspeak' which had the ultimate aim of making it impossible to think a forbidden thought. Orwell's book is a tribute to the power of language to shape the way we think, and a testament to our minds' tendency to drift into prohibited channels.

For our thoughts to be regulated by a power outside ourselves, that power must give us only a limited number of ways to think, effectively excluding all other options. The secular film industry is engaged in precisely this secret war against us. This article is an attempt to expose their techniques by examining three recent films' attitude to rules.

Pleasantville

The first is the slightly obscure Pleasantville (dir. Gary Ross, New Line, 1998, Certificate 12). A late 1990s' brother and sister, David and Jennifer, are catapulted into the middle of a TV soap opera set in the apparently idyllic town of Pleasantville where they become Bud and Mary-Sue Parker, children of George and Betty. It is the 1950s so everything is black and white. Dads work during the day and go to the bowling club in the evening; Moms cook apple pie and iron shirts. The streets are neat and safe and everyone is happy. But with the arrival of the newcomers everything starts to change - colour comes to Pleasantville.

Colour comes to those prepared to break the rules, to defy decades of convention. It comes as Mary-Sue challenges the idea that romance is no more than holding hands and seduces her boyfriend. It comes in the malt shop, where gentle Mr Johnson discovers the joy of painting with a full palette of colours, where before only black and white were allowed. And as these characters take on the rules that are never defended or even questioned, they turn into colour people walking in a black and white world. The mayor and others draw the line against change by banning colour. But by now the genie is out of the bottle, the citizens of Pleasantville have been soaked by gentle rain for the first time and loved it, and in a touching scene crusty old George Parker is awakened to see his wife as a valued person rather than a cook and washer. At last the whole town turns into full, vivid colour.

And then the Parker family sit on a park bench and ask one another, 'What happens now?' With a shrug and a laugh George replies, 'I dunno.' This film sets up a false contrast between totally unstructured 'freedom' and strict formalism. It fails to offer us a middle option where the rules there are have reasons behind them but everything else is allowed.

Billy Elliot

Next is the stunningly successful Billy Elliot (dir. Stephen Daldry, Tiger Aspect Pictures/Working Title, 2000, Certificate15). Billy is eleven years old. Being male he is expected to play football and box as his leisure activities and, come the time of his leaving school, follow his father and elder brother down the local mine. There he will work until his retirement. His children will walk the same road. The problem is that Billy wants to be a ballet dancer. This isn't what boys do around Everington colliery, as his father Jackie makes clear with a few choice (swear) words. But so strong is Billy's desire that he persists in attending lessons with the enthusiastic support of the teacher who puts him forward for audition at the Royal Ballet School. Apoplectic would probably do justice to the reaction of Jackie and Tony, Billy's elder brother. Still Billy keeps on, inspired by a letter given to him by his mother before her death. Then one day Jackie sees him dancing. Billy's talent is as evident as his enjoyment. Jackie's opposition evaporates and he does everything he can, including crossing an NUM picket line, to provide the resources for the coach ticket to the audition.

What is the message here? At the start Jackie and Tony (an even more bigoted and militant version of his father) believed in one and only one course for a young male life, the limits were immovable and arbitrary. At the end both are willing to endorse all manner of behaviours: men crying in public, men being ballet dancers and men having sexual relationships with other men (as illustrated by Billy's next door neighbour who grows up to be unambiguously gay). Billy Elliot shows us a false dichotomy between vigorous enforcement of arbitrary traditions and uncritical acceptance of all possible lifestyles.

Chocolat

The same contrast is found in Chocolat (dir. Lasse Hallstrºn, Miramax, 2000, Certificate 12). The mysterious Vianne with her daughter Anouk arrives in Lansquenet, a French town 'grown cold from tradition' and quickly opens a chocolate shop. It is Lent so the loyally church-going residents are supposed to be denying all self-indulgence, but Vianne has other ideas. With more than a hint of the occult she discerns each person's hidden burdens and sets about to relieve them with tailor-made chocolate confections. So Luc's mother finally allows him to ride a bike, realising that cuts and bruises are part of growing up. Josephine finds the courage to leave her abusive husband. The local priest preaches a sermon about including people rather than cultivating a superiority complex. Even the Comte di Reynaud, architect of the opposition, finally succumbs to the delights of chocolate and is released from continually having to deny that his wife has left him and run off to Venice. All these and more attend Vianne's chocolate festival on Easter Sunday.

What Chocolat never makes clear is what is still not allowed, if anything. The old rules have been blown away but what has replaced them? Whilst offering genuine liberation from the slavery of entrenched ideas which frequently kill enjoyment of life, this film refuses to set any boundaries at all.

It's tricky

What makes a Christian response difficult is that we may fully endorse some of the real liberation that these films depict. Betty Parker is finally acknowledged as a whole, loved person by her husband; Jackie Elliot is freed from the burden of never being allowed to cry, even for his dead wife; Luc is allowed to go tearing round the town on his bike and play with other children. The mindset that produced these three films is one that stands before everything that is considered sacred and asks: 'Why?' Why is it not okay to enjoy myself sexually with someone I'm not married to? Why can I not paint in colour? Why should men not sleep with other men? Why is dancing only for girls? Why must a battered wife remain with her husband and never mention his abuse to anyone? A society without firm foundations for its rules crumbles under the force of this assault.

God's rules

But these films make no differentiation between rules of any nature. It is just as okay for Mr. Johnson to use colour paints as it is for him to use them to paint a naked woman - any restriction would be oppressive. Chocolat, Pleasantville and Billy Elliot - secular society wages its covert war against all our minds by giving us only two ways of thinking when in reality there are three. Rules that are shaped by accident of circumstance will inevitably include rules that restrict us as people; absence of rules, whilst superficially appealing, give us no guidance for life and no sense that we are ultimately worth anything. But if God made the world and is interested in how we behave in it, then his rules have eternal worth and a righteous demand on our obedience. Only the eternally loving God can shape rules which set us free to be whole people within his limits.

So to the secret war Hollywood is fighting against our minds we need to say that some rules stand for all time simply because they are God's rules and require no justification or defence, but that all other inventions of society are open to interrogation. This is the third option missing from the three films we have considered and from the media in general. But it is the only way to stand up against the onslaught of 'Why?', the only way to preserve structure in a world fragmenting around us.

Simon Wheeler

© Evangelicals Now - August 2001
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