{"id":967,"date":"2016-01-14T11:23:48","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T17:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/?p=967"},"modified":"2016-01-14T11:26:54","modified_gmt":"2016-01-14T17:26:54","slug":"heres-what-the-oscars-have-to-say-about-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2016\/01\/heres-what-the-oscars-have-to-say-about-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s what the Oscars Have to Say About Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"From<\/a>
From The Revenant, photo courtesy 20th Century Fox<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Oscar nominations came out this morning. And religion, believe it or not, was everywhere.<\/p>\n

OK, so it\u2019s not like War Room<\/em> made the cut. Faith-based films may be getting better, but they\u2019re not ready to climb the stage at the Dolby Theatre just yet. \u00a0But when you look at the best picture nominees, you\u2019ll see that many of them contain religious elements. At least one front-running film is explicitly about faith\u2014even as it illustrates how that faith can be twisted into something terrible.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/a>
Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo from Spotlight, photo courtesy Open Road Films<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Spotlight <\/em><\/strong>(six nominations) is predicated on the Catholic priest scandal that came to light (thanks to the Boston Globe<\/em> investigation dramatized here) in 2002. The priests netted in the scandal didn\u2019t just abuse their young charges physically, but spiritually. Time and time again, we hear how victims believed that priests were just a step below the Almighty Himself. They were His avatars in a sense\u2014His hands and feet. \u201cHow do you say no to God?\u201d one now-grown victim asks. The scandal shook the faith of many a Catholic, including the lapsed ones who conduct the investigation in Spotlight.<\/em> One says she can\u2019t celebrate Mass with her grandmother anymore. Another, whenever he sees a priest, grows angry. \u201cThey knew and they let it happen! To kids!\u201d Mike Rezendes (Oscar-nominated Mark Ruffalo) says. \u201cIt could\u2019ve been you, it could\u2019ve been me, it could\u2019ve been any of us! We gotta nail these scumbags! We gotta show people that nobody can get away with this\u2014not a priest or a cardinal or a freaking pope!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mad Max: Fury Road<\/em><\/strong> (10 nominations) also contains a religion gone wrong\u2014specifically the personal religious cult of the movie\u2019s big bad, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). \u201cI am your redeemer!\u201d he bellows. \u201cIt is by my hand you will rise from the ashes of this world!\u201d Joe has fostered a cult of personality around him, and he\u2019s treated like a living god by his fanatical War Boys. He expects them to die for him, promising an afterlife by his side in Valhalla if they perform their duties well. And so when they, kamikaze-like, prepare to sacrifice themselves for Joe\u2019s unholy cause, they spray their mouths silver and contemplate eternal happiness, \u201cshiny and chrome.\u201d It\u2019s all a bunch of bunk, naturally\u2014and War Boy Nux eventually comes to understand that. And when he turns away from this false religion to something altogether better and more lovely, I think we find echoes of a worthier faith<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But organized religion isn\u2019t always a bad thing in this year\u2019s best picture nominees. In Brooklyn<\/em><\/strong> (three noms), the Catholic Church is shown as an intrinsic part in the life of Eilis (Saorise Ronan) and those around her. It was the church that helped give her a new life in the United States, where kindly Father Flood (Jim Broadbent) takes her under his wing. Her landlady, Mrs. Keogh (Julie Walters), is a deeply, and comically, religious woman. \u201cI\u2019ll thank you to keep (God\u2019s) name out of a conversation about nylons, thank you very much,\u201d she says. \u201cHe might be everywhere, but He\u2019s not in Bartocci\u2019s on sale day.\u201d And when Eilis\u2019s sister dies unexpectedly and despairs of ever seeing her again, Father Flood tells her that he believes she will.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve argued that Room <\/em><\/strong>(four noms) may be the most Christian movie of the lot before. But even if you chuck my notion<\/a> that the story serves, at times, as Christian metaphor, it still contains a bevy of explicit religious nods: It\u2019s obvious, for one thing, that Ma told Jack that he\u2019s a gift from God, and she\u2019s been filling his head with Bible stories. In fact, when the two are (spoiler alert) finally rescued, Jack (Jacob Tremblay) refuses to have his long, long hair cut\u2014believing that it makes him strong, like Sampson. Even now in an increasingly secular age, many parents turn back to religion when they have kids, believing that it\u2019ll help ground them and instill some moral underpinnings. And maybe the inclination to turn toward faith is even stronger when you\u2019ve been locked inside a single room for years.<\/p>\n

The Revenant<\/em><\/strong> (which leads Oscar\u2019s nominations with 12) taps into that same instinct to believe in something transcendent. Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) indeed believes. In one of the movie\u2019s most beautiful scenes, he meets with his dead son in a torn-up church, the bell swinging mutely from the rafters, the walls festooned with religious pictures and iconography. Throughout the movie, he sees glimpses of his dead wife, and in a flashback\/vision, we see a bird crawl from underneath the dead woman\u2019s shirt \u2026 perhaps emblematic of her soul taking flight. Clearly, Glass has notions of an immortal soul\u2014a belief that may sustain him. That sense of spirituality rubs hard against the more materialistic atheism of John Fitzgerald. True, we hear him say a prayer over Glass as he tries to murder the guy, but it\u2019s obvious that Fitz doesn\u2019t believe it\u2019s being heard by anybody but he and Glass. He tells a companion about how one of his friends\u2014starving and alone\u2014found God. \u201cTurns out, God, he\u2019s a squirrel,\u201d Fitz says with a glint. \u201cA big ol\u2019 meaty one\u201d which Fitz\u2019s friend shot, skinned and ate.<\/p>\n

\"From<\/a>
From The Martian, photo courtesy 20th Century Fox<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even the largely humanistic The Martian<\/em><\/strong> (seven noms) offers a couple of nods to faith. \u201cMy father was a Hindu, my mother was a Baptist,\u201d says Venkat Kapoor, the guy on the ground trying to bring home the stranded Mark Watney. \u201cI believe in something<\/em>.\u201d Mitch Henderson, a guy nominally in charge of the crew sent to Mars in the first place, nods quietly. \u201cWe\u2019ll take all the help we can get.\u201d And while it wasn\u2019t that faith that eventually saved Mark\u2014human creativity and courage are put at the fore here\u2014religion still plays a role. Watney, stranded on Mars and in desperate need of a way to grow food, pillages the belongings of his newly departed workfellows. He finds a wooden cross in one of the bins\u2014the only flammable item he can find. He shaves part of the cross as fuel for a chemical reaction\u2014one that eventually leads to his ability to grow a whole lot of potatoes. Even on Mars, it seems, the cross can do some pretty amazing things.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Oscar nominations came out this morning. And religion, believe it or not, was everywhere. OK, so it\u2019s not like War Room made the cut. Faith-based films may be getting better, but they\u2019re not ready to climb the stage at the Dolby Theatre just yet. \u00a0But when you look at the best picture nominees, you\u2019ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2036,"featured_media":968,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[119,26,128,193],"class_list":["post-967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","tag-awards","tag-faith","tag-oscars","tag-religion"],"yoast_head":"\nHere's what the Oscars Have to Say About Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Oscar nominations came out this morning. And religion, believe it or not, was everywhere. OK, so it's not like War Room made the cut. Faith-based\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2016\/01\/heres-what-the-oscars-have-to-say-about-faith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Here's what the Oscars Have to Say About Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Oscar nominations came out this morning. And religion, believe it or not, was everywhere. OK, so it's not like War Room made the cut. Faith-based\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2016\/01\/heres-what-the-oscars-have-to-say-about-faith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Watching God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-01-14T17:23:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-01-14T17:26:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/469\/2016\/01\/the-revenant-set-design-006.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"511\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Paul Asay\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Paul Asay\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2016\/01\/heres-what-the-oscars-have-to-say-about-faith\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2016\/01\/heres-what-the-oscars-have-to-say-about-faith\/\",\"name\":\"Here's what the Oscars Have to Say About Faith\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-01-14T17:23:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-01-14T17:26:54+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#\/schema\/person\/b7d54df93630808a5dce9d242d5e0183\"},\"description\":\"The Oscar nominations came out this morning. And religion, believe it or not, was everywhere. OK, so it's not like War Room made the cut. Faith-based\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2016\/01\/heres-what-the-oscars-have-to-say-about-faith\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2016\/01\/heres-what-the-oscars-have-to-say-about-faith\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2016\/01\/heres-what-the-oscars-have-to-say-about-faith\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Here’s what the Oscars Have to Say About Faith\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/\",\"name\":\"Watching God\",\"description\":\"Finding faith with a box of popcorn.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#\/schema\/person\/b7d54df93630808a5dce9d242d5e0183\",\"name\":\"Paul Asay\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/be136f94fadd74743ab6da681563930d?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/be136f94fadd74743ab6da681563930d?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Paul Asay\"},\"description\":\"Paul Asay is an author, journalist and entertainment critic who now serves as a senior associate editor for the popular Christian entertainment review site Plugged In (pluggedin.com). He has been published in a variety of other secular and Christian publications, including The Washington Post, The Gazette in Colorado Springs, YouthWorker Journal and Beliefnet.com. He has a love of old movies, a disturbing affinity for bad ones and an appreciation for all things geek.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/author\/paulasay\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Here's what the Oscars Have to Say About Faith","description":"The Oscar nominations came out this morning. And religion, believe it or not, was everywhere. OK, so it's not like War Room made the cut. Faith-based","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2016\/01\/heres-what-the-oscars-have-to-say-about-faith\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Here's what the Oscars Have to Say About Faith","og_description":"The Oscar nominations came out this morning. And religion, believe it or not, was everywhere. OK, so it's not like War Room made the cut. Faith-based","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2016\/01\/heres-what-the-oscars-have-to-say-about-faith\/","og_site_name":"Watching God","article_published_time":"2016-01-14T17:23:48+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-01-14T17:26:54+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":511,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/469\/2016\/01\/the-revenant-set-design-006.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Paul Asay","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Paul Asay","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2016\/01\/heres-what-the-oscars-have-to-say-about-faith\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2016\/01\/heres-what-the-oscars-have-to-say-about-faith\/","name":"Here's what the Oscars Have to Say About Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-01-14T17:23:48+00:00","dateModified":"2016-01-14T17:26:54+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#\/schema\/person\/b7d54df93630808a5dce9d242d5e0183"},"description":"The Oscar nominations came out this morning. And religion, believe it or not, was everywhere. OK, so it's not like War Room made the cut. Faith-based","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2016\/01\/heres-what-the-oscars-have-to-say-about-faith\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2016\/01\/heres-what-the-oscars-have-to-say-about-faith\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2016\/01\/heres-what-the-oscars-have-to-say-about-faith\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Here’s what the Oscars Have to Say About Faith"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/","name":"Watching God","description":"Finding faith with a box of popcorn.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#\/schema\/person\/b7d54df93630808a5dce9d242d5e0183","name":"Paul Asay","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/be136f94fadd74743ab6da681563930d?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/be136f94fadd74743ab6da681563930d?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Paul Asay"},"description":"Paul Asay is an author, journalist and entertainment critic who now serves as a senior associate editor for the popular Christian entertainment review site Plugged In (pluggedin.com). He has been published in a variety of other secular and Christian publications, including The Washington Post, The Gazette in Colorado Springs, YouthWorker Journal and Beliefnet.com. He has a love of old movies, a disturbing affinity for bad ones and an appreciation for all things geek.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/author\/paulasay\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2036"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}