There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to tell you this, even as just words on a page, even though I’m in control right now. That’s how I like it–order, structure, clear boundaries. Not the chaos and immediacy of face to face conversation. Even though you don’t know who I am.
You see, I work in the film industry. Your face just lit up! You want to know more, not just out of a need to make polite conversation–because you can tell at a glance that I’m not one for polite conversation–but because you want to know more. You need to know more. You need me to stand as your proxy and sanctify your desire to consume and be entertained. I hear that there are some people out there who hate what I do and want to give me the shovel to dig my own grave, but I’ve never met one of them. I’d like to. It’d be fun.
But you, you like the movies. You just wish they weren’t so, so, so like they are right now. Even the ones you take your family to. With the casual profanity, and the partial nudity, and the upsetting violence. But I see it behind your eyes. You like it. And you want me to tell you that it’s okay to slip your bonds of morality, for just a moment in the dark, because it’s not your fault movies are like this.
It’s mine.
But you don’t say that, do you? First you are filled with endless questions about the minutia of my working life. I copy scripts; you want to know what kind of fasteners I use. I answer the phone; no, I don’t just say “hello.” Here are my hours; here is how I take my lunch break; this is how I arrange my face when I meet someone famous.
Yes, I’m very lucky. I have met famous people. I’ve been in a van with an Oscar winner; I picked another one up from the airport–sitting in traffic, he rolled down his window to get a light from someone in the next car. Maybe it was you–if it was, I know for that minute you wanted to be me. Don’t lie. I once turned down a job assisting one director whose movie you can recite from memory and his star, who you think is hot. If I had taken the job, I would have had to wake up early to work out with them, and stay up late to do blow with them. That’s what their assistant had to do.
Which leads me to the next question you are dying to ask (and I’ve given you the perfect intro, have I not?): Is it hard to be a Christian in the film industry? What with the drugs, and the f-bombs, and the homosexuals? And there must be lying, and blasphemy, and moral decay. Oh, so you don’t want to hear any of my fun stories from set, do you? I’ve had some fucking good times with the drugs and the homosexuals and the atheists.
Let’s say, too, that I’m just like you–you’ll go along with that fiction, right? You respect whoever introduced us enough to want to believe that I am a good Christian, with integrity and moral rectitude. Now hold me in your mind schizophrenically: a good Christian, and a hedonist. Got it? Now ask me again if it’s hard to be a Christian in the movie industry. What you really want is for me to draw a line that you can stand behind so that you can know for very certain that if you were in my place, in the presence of movie stars, you would use your powers for good and be a light to the world. You need to believe that people like me are all bad, weak people and that if we were out of the picture, the moving pictures would be just as you know they could be: clean, pure, shining.
You’re shaking your head. I’ve got you all wrong–you’re not one of them–your mother is, but not you. You don’t care about ratings; you can handle adult content. Not porn, you understand, but God created the body and sometimes nudity is necessary to tell a story. You’re totally fine with all of this, and now you list for me your credentials, your favorite films, the number of Tarantino movies in your DVD collection. You stare up at me, face eager, waiting for me to bless you so you can keep spending money on entertainment, fettered by just a few restrictions. You want to know the names of movies I’ve worked on, so you can decode their secret Christian meaning. You’re going to make me feel good about what I do, about the choice that I’ve made, so that I don’t regret structuring my life around an industry known for pleasure and not sacrifice. You couldn’t make that choice. You tell me you’re not that strong. What you mean is that you’re not that foolish.
It’ll all be worth it someday, you say, and you touch me on the shoulder. It must be so very, very hard, and you must feel like it isn’t worth it. I just need to hold on to my ideals, and remember who I am, and above all not to squander any chance I have to get the Christian message out through film. That has to be what drives me, what moves me, and what inspires me. Otherwise, it can’t have been the right choice. (And you’d believe that even more if I told you that I once wanted to teach second grade in the inner city.)
At this point, I will just smile and say, oh yes, won’t that be wonderful. You are so very happy, because you have said your piece and I have listened. You have done your part to reaffirm that it’s not your fault that movies are the way that they are, because you want them to be better, straighter, holier. And if I fail to uplift you with my art, it’s because I didn’t listen, and I chose the crooked path.
And then I walk away and wish that we’d never met, because you don’t understand me, and I don’t think you ever will. In my darker moments I fear that you are right, and I wonder if I am on the wrong side. And in the clear light of day, I’m torn apart by producers with mandates and studios with requirements, and it’s hard to make art in the marketplace.
But when I turn out the light and close my eyes, the stories come. They always have. Under their strange, exhilarating burden, I am helpless.
You think that I can choose the stories I tell, but don’t you see that they choose me? The only thing that sets me apart from my non-Christian colleagues is that I believe I know who the stories come from.
And they don’t come from you.
Copyright 2004-2005 :: The New Pantagruel 1.3.