After spending my entire life, to this point, enjoying movies with little thought of what those films were ingraining in me, I have recently been enlightened to the idea that entertainment is not mindless. Whether we realize it or not, movies have narratives that reflect desires, longings, or themes that not only resonate with us, but describe, convey, and even dictate how we see and interact with the world around us. Every movie has a story, and every story is riddled with thoughts, assumptions, interjections, and speculations about everything that people could imagine. All of these stories are created and interpreted by writers, directors, and producers who are trying to bring that story to life, and in the process, influencing our own theology directly or indirectly.

This isn’t about “good vs evil” or “right vs wrong”, but, instead, trying to understand why we cling to a hero, why we cry at a characters loss, or why we totally understand how it feels to feel aimless in life. To turn our minds off and simply write off these narratives as “fun” or “good” would be doing them a disservice. Instead, I encourage you that whenever you walk away from a movie and cannot get that one great scene out of your head, or you are just can’t shake a feeling you received from that touching scene at the end of the film, ask yourself “why?” From there, follow the white rabbit and discover more about yourself, the film, and the world around you…

entertainment is not mindless.