Additional Topics

Thank you for your questions and interest in additional discussion topics.  Frank vs God not only triggers discussion from the overt dialog content in the movie, but also about the themes depicted and edited from the final cut of the movie.

Choices and discussions about what to include and what not to include in the final cut of the movie was an ongoing process – even after the director’s cut was completed.  Choosing between what was scripted and what was shown began from day one and continued through just before the box office release.  The movie production choices made were a microcosm of the choices and decisions we make every day as individuals when we chose our own behavior, actions, and entertainment.    And we certainly face choices every day about how we will act in and react to the world around us.

Core activities of the human condition: speaking, drinking, sex, and prayer are all part of the movie and everyday lives. What commentary does this movie offer us about how to go about these activities?  What are the circumstances and consequences of everyday actions such as those depicted in this movie, compared to other entertainment around us? What approach to these activities are appealing to you as a consumer of entertainment?  Is it different from what you expect in your own daily life or the life habits of your fiends and family members?  What changes to the story itself, story depictions, themes, words, and actions would have made it more entertaining to you but maybe not to other audience members?  What choices do you think the director and producers had to grapple with?  Did they get it right?

Watch Your Language

Comments lewd, crude, and rude are everywhere we turn: school hallways, the aisles of stores, the lines in which we stand, and the living rooms in which we sit. Words that couldn’t be said on TV at all have made their way into primetime and one or two are pretty common on the evening news. In the same vein, movie ratings don’t mean what they did 10 years ago, much less 20 years ago.  A lot of people have trouble with even a little profanity.  A lot of people have little trouble with it at all. So what do we do?

The answer isn’t necessarily easy. When the Bible speaks of swearing it doesn’t have anything to do with crude language. “Swearing”, in the Bible, means making a promise and using something other than your own simple honesty to back it up. “I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God” – that’s swearing in the Biblical sense.  It’s fair to say, too, that expressions of surprise, relief, and disbelief can fall into the swearing category; OMG, TGIF, and “Jesus!” all fit. As common place as those are in our society, the Bible takes a pretty dim view of just tossing the name of God around.

Crude language is another matter. If we honestly translated the Scriptures we’d see a lot more of what we consider crude today. Koine Greek, the language of the New Testament was a street language; coarse and unrefined, it wasn’t the stuff polite, educated conversation. Still, the apostle Paul suggests that we watch our words and suit them to the sensitivities of the people around us. To put it in our setting:  it’s worse than crude, it’s uncaring and dismissive to just drop the “F” bomb without regard to those around you.

So, what’s okay in a movie? Is it enough to warn people with a rating code, or should film makers clean it up? Do some stories need swearing or crude language to really make their point? Who gets to decide?  It seems we hardly care at all about swearing any more, why does crude language make people so upset?

What’s Sex Got to Do with It?

We are created as sexual people. According to Genesis, God affirmed that in no uncertain terms. However, like all aspects of our being human our sexuality can become a target and a tool of mistreatment. That’s at least one reason that in almost every culture in the world our genitals are covered from view and our sex lives are acted out with some degree of privacy. When Christian theologians came up with the idea of Original Sin a heavy layer of shame was added.  It’s a complicated way to live. Sexuality is a key part of what it is to be human, but it is also a weapon to dehumanize people, especially women. It can be a key to intimacy, but it can also be an escape from intimacy. It is a gift, a joy, but it has all too often also been a source of vulnerability and terror. It can be the subject of great art and deep reflection, but sometimes it’s nothing more than a cheap attention getter.

In just a couple of generations sex in the movies has gone from the innuendo of a fluttering curtain or a flickering flame to full frontal nudity and graphic scenes of intercourse. It’s pretty clear that our society has become much more open to overt displays of sexuality. But, has that openness resulted from a new appreciation of God’s ancient affirmation, or is just the consequence of cheap attention getting in our media? (After all, sex sells – really well.)

When it comes to our movies what is the role and what are the effects of sexual innuendo and images? Why are there such clearly different rules for male nudity than female nudity? How does real intimacy fare in the movies? What effect does movie sex have on our expectations of sex?

Highs and Lows

It might be surprising, but the Bible isn’t anti-alcohol. Most famously, Jesus turns water (a lot of it) into wine (a lot of it) to help a family celebrate at wedding.  While there’s only one mention of him actually drinking wine, there are several stories that Jesus attended events at which wine was served.  That shouldn’t really surprise us; after all, in the ancient world wine was a safer choice for your health than was water. The Old Testament, too, generally affirms the goodness of wine.

Just as clearly, though, the Bible condemns drinking wine to the point of drunkenness. Over imbibing, it reminds us, can lead to some horrible choices with even more horrible consequences. So, while “alcoholism” and “addiction” aren’t words used in the Bible (and weren’t even concepts in the ancient world), and tobacco was unknown, substance abuse does get some attention. The apostle Paul, in particular, reminds people to care for their bodies because they are “God’s temple.”

In our society there’s very wide acceptance and affirmation of alcohol, and a growing acceptance of marijuana use. Even after decades of effort a large minority of people still smoke (and start smoking) tobacco. More dangerous drugs of all sorts have become more available at higher potencies and lower cost. Stress and social pressure – the things that lead many to use alcohol and drugs – certainly haven’t decreased in our lives.

So, what should we do? A great many people are careful in their use of “recreational drugs” like alcohol and marijuana and never cross the line into addiction or harder drugs.  Do we try to be one of them? Others reject it all and never look back. Do we become one of them? What does it mean to treat the body like God’s temple?

Coming soon.

Send us suggestions!

Coming soon.

Send us suggestions!