The Preacher Goes To The Movies

I comment relatively often on faith and film here on this blog (here and here, for example). In class today we discussed the fact that as preachers we cannot ignore the impact of modern media on the understanding our parishoners bring to the biblical narrative.

By way of demonstrating liberties taken by filmmakers and the way those choices work themselves into our collective consciousness, our professor provided the following list:

Things I Have Learned From Watching Movies

If being chased through town, you can usually take cover in a passing St. Patrick’s Day parade–at any time of the year.
All beds have special L-shaped cover sheets which reach up to the armpit level on a woman but only waist level on the man lying beside her.

All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French Bread.

It’s easy for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.

Once applied, lipstick will never rub off–even while scuba diving.

The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. No one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building you want without difficulty.
Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German accent will do.

The Eiffel Tower can be seen from every window in Paris.

A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.

Medieval peasants had perfect teeth.

It is always possible to park directly outside the building you are visiting.

A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.

When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other.

The Preacher Goes to the Movies