Film as Religion, Second Edition. John C. Lyden
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is less (or more) able to enforce its strictures. All religious communities show the remarkable ability of humans to avoid their own rules as well as sometimes to follow them. There seems no reason to dismiss the religion of popular culture out of hand because it is alleged without evidence to lack morality, commitment, or community, though these judgments are common. As modern fandoms develop and the study of them increases, more scholars (including myself) have taken them seriously as expressing coherent worldviews and values.50
William Doty
William Doty is one scholar of myth who avoids making blanket judgments on popular culture and who sees the mythic dimensions present in a range of human activities outside of what is normally called “religion.” In particular, he rejects the common rationalistic dichotomy between myth and science, as he believes science itself has become a modern myth through which we understand the world. We believe that we have left myth behind and so entertain the “myth of mythlessness,” when in fact we have simply invented a new, scientific myth based in the rejection of transcendence (just as traditional myth was based in its acceptance). In either case, an untestable assumption based in a particular worldview determines what conclusions one will reach about the reality or unreality of the transcendent.51
Doty questions the common dichotomy between biblical stories and myths, as the biblical authors themselves used mythological materials to develop their understandings of, for example, the divinity of Jesus.52 We cannot so rigidly distinguish “our” stories from “theirs,” nor distinguish “history” from “myth” as neatly as some scholars would like. All our understandings of events are already colored by a particular mythology, but this does not mean that myths are “false” distortions of history. They are “fictional” in the sense that they are made and represent an interpretation of events, but “fictional need not mean unreal and certainly not non-empirical” or incomprehensible, as “the most statistically driven science is shaped by the values of the underlying mythical orientations of cultures.”53 In our history and science as much as in religion, we cannot directly reproduce the object of study without importing our interpretations of it into our analyses; there is no pure objectivity in any discipline, and so all modes of knowing are “fictions” created by us to help us understand the world. We should not denigrate the religious interpretation in relationship to the scientific or historical, as we need a variety of languages and methods to express our varied understandings of reality.
In addition, Doty recognizes the mythological dimensions of popular culture. Aided by postmodernism, he points to the “shattering of a coherent worldview” in Western thought that has brought about a radical “de-centering” in our experience.54 No longer are we able to naively assume that we know what “reality” is or that our systems of thought can reproduce it. Deconstructive criticism looks for multiple meanings rather than a single one in a narrative and does not assume that there is a single “reality” referred to by it; the various meanings in a text are released and critiqued. In Doty’s view, “To deconstruct the mythic text would similarly be to expose the structures by which it works, to lay out the possible alternative futures to which its gestures might lead, to show how its expression is molded and shaped by its cultural contexts.”55 Although Doty thus uses deconstruction as a method of ideological critique, he does not propose abolishing myth altogether as some more reductionist forms of criticism have, largely because he realizes that myth will always be with us in one form or another. He does not then approach myth either totally negatively or in a “value-neutral” fashion but via a “progressive, prohumanistic” method that argues we can reenvision “those oh, so rewarding mythical resources of our common inheritance.” Doty makes it clear that he is “not interested in merely sustaining a conservative status quo that represses the mass of our population” but rather hopes “to stimulate ethically involved forays into the possible futures toward which mythological materials give us hints and promises.”56 His utopianism allows him to realize the value and necessity of a mythic worldview in constructing a new future and makes him willing to look in a variety of places for materials to reenvision it.
Conclusions
These four theorists all offer ideas about myth that can be fruitfully applied to the study of film as religion. With Eliade, we can see that films are mythological in the sense that they create an alternate world, a sacred apart from the profane, and that we enter into a separate space and time when we view a film; this relates to the idea that film offers a sort of alternate reality experience, as noted in the previous chapter. On the other hand, Eliade’s tendencies to view most myths as cosmogonies and to rigidly distinguish myth from history have been found limiting in the study of religion—just as his assumption that all “real” religions have a transcendent referent may be questioned. He views the myths of popular culture as generally degenerate forms, inferior to traditional religions, and this assumption too must be questioned if we are to have a more objective understanding of film as religion.
With Smith, we can see how myths often involve a fundamental tension or conflict in a situation that is not resolved via the myth so much as laid out for us to observe. Films also deal with conflicts between basic values (e.g., family versus career or moral conviction versus wealth), usually suggesting that the conflict is illusory and we can really “have it all” (e.g., be perfect parents and have great jobs), at least in the mythological universe. The fact that a tension remains between the myth and the reality we know in our daily lives indicates that Smith may be right in asserting that the conflict remains unresolved (at least after we leave the theater). But myths—and by extension, films—may also be more successful at providing resolution than he is willing to admit. Even if we cannot be perfect parents and perfect career women/men at the same time, as our filmic counterparts manage to be, the model proposed in the film can serve as an ideal to which we aspire, however inadequately, and one that helps us partially resolve the conflict in our daily lives. Similarly, the Christian ideal of self-sacrificial love is seldom if ever realized adequately, but the story of Christ serves as a model that Christians seek to follow—for even though they know that they cannot achieve it, it may inspire them to do more than they would otherwise. Smith’s understanding of the basic incongruities involved with religion will be discussed again in the next chapter, in relation to the concept of ritual, and there I will have occasion to say more on this point.
Doniger’s view of myths can also be applied to films, for although she, like Eliade, views them as degenerate forms of traditional mythology, her analysis of myths applies quite well to films. They are narratives that express some of our culture’s understandings of the basic experiences of sex, love, pain, death, and so on and how we construct meaning in the conflicts surrounding such experiences. Films are also like the Hindu myths described by Doniger that conflate the “reality” of dreams with that of everyday experience, suggesting that the line between the “imaginary” world of myth and our own world is fluid—for films also trade in the “slippage” between the world of the film and the world outside the theater, ever seeking greater “realism” in the viewing experience. In both cases, an alternate reality is proposed that is distinguished from the everyday even while it is related to it, providing a different view of reality that can “correct or complement,” as Geertz puts it, our view of the everyday.
Doniger is only really able to denigrate the myths of popular culture through her assumption that they lack the ability to enforce a moral vision. But honesty compels us to admit that few American religions can truly enforce their moral visions anymore, unless they are part of isolated communities that have strict sanctions on those who violate their codes. The greater degree of freedom in modern American society, compared to earlier ages or other cultures, may be the real reason people of many religious backgrounds can basically do what they want without fear of tremendous social repercussions (as long as they do not violate civil law). There is certainly no reason to propose that films lack a moral vision, for while we may not always find the morality of films to be profound or deep, there are clear moral norms that are upheld in most popular films. This does not mean that characters never do a bad thing or that they are always punished for it, but overall, films tend to support a variety of moral positions that are often repeated: for example, violence is justified when used against tyrants or criminals, family and love are more important