Contains Minor Spoilers

The greatest value of art is that it offers us a window into another human person, if only for a fleeting moment. More often than not, this window becomes a mirror, and we realize that no matter who we each are and where we come from, our similarities outweigh our differences.

Amazon Prime’s original series The Wilds is perhaps the most powerful plea for empathy I have seen onscreen in a long time. There were times throughout watching the first season’s ten episodes when I literally felt the pain of one or more of the characters, even though their life experiences have little in common with my own. Part of this is due to the surprisingly sharp writing and rich teenaged characterizations, but beyond that, the show has another defining aspect: it is unafraid to depict the raw, sometimes unsettling frailty of each of its characters. And in this frailty is a subtle beauty that can both challenge and inspire us to be better vehicles of compassion.

The surface plot of The Wilds is basically a cross between Lord of the Flies and your average teen dystopian novel: eight high school girls get stranded on a deserted island and have to overcome the unpredictability of nature/their own clashing personalities to survive while a maniacal political activist secretly monitors their progress as part of a “social experiment.” There are some thrilling twists and turns that make for compelling viewing, but the core story is far more than a survivalist thriller. It is really a non-musical version of A Chorus Line, taking us behind-the-scenes of every main character and outlining the life events that shaped who they are.

Among the girls is Leah, a spirited but often paranoid book-lover who is recovering from a broken heart caused by a much older man; Dot, a Man vs. Wild nerd whose knack for gracefully handling difficult situations is mainly influenced by the years she spent caring for her dying father; Fatin, a sex-obsessed fashionista who is haunted by her own family’s repressed brokenness; Rachel, a type-A personality and former diver whose overly matter-of-fact coach provoked an eating disorder; Rachel’s twin sister Nora, a quiet intellectual who hides some serious spunk; Toni, an athlete whose bitter attitude is merely a necessary adaptation for rough circumstances; Shelby, a seemingly stereotypical southern “Jesus freak” who is fighting some serious guilt and isolation; and Martha, a gentle spirit who struggles to see anything other than good in people.

The actresses imbue their characters with a profound uniqueness and vulnerability, and the way they play (or fight) off each other is remarkable to behold. They are terrified of dying on the island but even more terrified of being unwanted, unloved, and/or rejected for who they are whenever they continue their so-called “normal lives.” Dark feelings and urges frequently torture their hearts and taunt them with the notion that even good people have the capacity for evil. But no matter how low they steep, they still find unexpected moments of compassion for each other, and they realize that the love they crave must partially be forged in the fire of their own frail deeds and words.

In a haunting scene between Leah and Shelby, Leah opens up about how she is still nursing the wounds remaining from the aftermath of her unhealthy relationship with an adult author, saying, “For 16 days, actual death has been hanging over our heads… and yet the only thing I seem to give a s*** about is love.” Shelby gradually responds:

“Isn’t that what we’re all afraid of? That we won’t be loved… that we’ll be all alone?”

It is such a simple, almost cliched question, and yet it ultimately forms the core of our existence as human beings, and it is the driving force behind how we treat each other. I know that if I were to meet any of these characters in real life without having seen glimpses of their inner demons, my first impressions would not all be flattering, and I might throw around conceited adjectives like “immature” or “lost.” Yet after seeing such inner glimpses, I suddenly felt strangely close to them as a fellow human, almost as a brother, and I ached for them to find the love and happiness they so deeply desired.

However, beyond these fictional characters, there have been real people throughout my life whom I unfairly judged and failed to love because of a lack of empathy. I only saw my own ego and supposed maturity, and I did not realize how they were dealing with enigmatic struggles far beyond my comprehension. I also had an incomplete definition of empathy. Sometimes empathy is not experiencing the pain of others, but rather experiencing the pain of being clueless about their stuggles and therefore feeling helpless. Pride oh-so-easily masks this tough truth.

The past cannot change, but the future can, and I will readily testify to the fact that The Wilds has rendered me a little more empathetic or at least more patient than I used to be. It reminded me that whenever I look into another pair of human eyes, I must see a child of God who seeks to be cherished exactly as they are, a restless wanderer journeying towards a universal light that is perhaps best captured by the following poem:

“The Dream”

Somewhere you walk in and kick off your shoes

Without worrying about whose is whose.

Somewhere that “How are you?” means “How are you?”

And cannot simply be answered on cue.

Somewhere far

But somehow always close.

Somewhere beyond “Welcome in, well, goodbye!”

Or “Have you given this product a try?”

Somewhere you talk and shut up all the same,

Free from playing the now-it’s-your-turn game.

Somewhere close,

But somehow still far.

The half-eyed man sitting limp on a bench,

Accustomed to a less-than-ideal stench.

The half-dressed girl clinging to a tall pole,

Attempting to fill a lonely heart’s hole.

The half-somethings from the have-nots and haves,

Only e’er knowing how to accept halves,

Searching for somewhere they might hear a song

Bookended by the lyrics: “You belong.”

Editor’s Note: The Wilds is rated TV-14 for content such as profanity, sexual references, and mature themes.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sam Hendrian is an alumni of John Paul the Great Catholic University (’20), with a degree in Communications Media and emphasis in Directing.

For more articles by Sam, click here.

I don’t think I will ever forget that phone call. It came at an awkward and unexpected time, as most changes seem to. I had been in California for five years, and Los Angeles for three. I had worked tirelessly, networked endlessly, and dreamed longingly. I had acquired that strange cocktail of jaded and pragmatic that creatives gain after some time… hopeful, yes, but never allowing oneself too much excitement. After all, excitement leads to disappointment, and it’s better to play the arts loose and cool, rather than emotional and possibly wounded. It’s a thick skin mentality. That was the comfortable rut I had settled into: perhaps, in a few years time, after much more hard work, I might have a bit of screentime to call my own.

And then that phone call came. A friend (it’s always a friend) was moving to Iowa to work on a newly forming writer’s team. And he asked if I would join them. 

I swear, those life-changing moments come at the strangest times.

Two months later, my bags packed and my car stuffed to overflowing with books, I drove away from Hollywood of all places, and into a screenwriting job. The irony was not lost on me. And here, from the snow-laden fields of Northern Iowa, are a few tricks I’ve learned since. Some are obvious, and some are ‘Google-able’; but all were learned, tried, and tested by yours truly. I hope they help, whether you’re a fresh faced student or a lifelong creative of any field. Here are six tips from a novice staff writer.  

1. Be Open

The most important thing in a writers’ room is story, but the means to that very important end is “The Room”, in quotes and capitalized. It’s the team: the creative mind generating ideas, working on a shared vision. Be respectful, courteous, and good-humored. Do your part to foster an environment of inspiration and generation, where ideas are proposed and tested and stretched. And the first step to this is to be a true listener. Everyone in that room is smart and capable, and their idea deserves to be heard; put your ego aside and always be open to a new direction or insight. And foremost, absolutely never use the word “stupid”, unless it’s to humbly pitch your own wild idea.

2. Be Humble

Continuing that point, be humble. Everyone starts at the bottom, and every once in a while the showrunner will simply have to pull rank and make the decision on a storyline or character direction. Know your place, and be a good sport about it. A writing room is a team; nothing aids creativity more than harmony and peacemaking amongst the players. Some of your ideas will be picked, many won’t. Learn to let things go, and don’t cling to one viewpoint above all else. Stories development twists and turns, going places you never would have imagined; this is only possible if the team allows itself to be guided by the best emerging direction, even if it’s not one’s own.

3. Be Firm

With that said, don’t be afraid to make yourself heard. If you deeply believe in or object to an idea, voice that. Your concerns are real; if you really feel a certain way, it’s a good sign your writer-instinct is reacting to a buried truth. And even if your exact idea or objection isn’t directly picked up, the very act of tackling and wrestling with that something you feel in your gut will help strengthen the story.

4. Be Patient

It’s Day One, and you’re bursting from the seams with great ideas and wonderful stories. And that’s a good thing: you’re so excited to create! Then it’s Month Two, and you’re still mapping out the pilot beats… and you want to die. But save that for your characters! Remember, breaking story is hard. It takes time, and it should take time, because more often than not incredible ideas don’t sprout overnight. They must mature and develop. Allow those seeds the days they need to grow. Managing the day’s tasks mostly falls on the showrunner, so staff writers don’t have to worry too much about the roadmap to finished scripts. For your part, practice patience when the clock creeps at a glacial pace. Trust your showrunner. You’ll get to those late night drafting sprints sooner than you think!

5. Be Healthy

A very small tip here, but try to keep yourself as physically, mentally, and spiritually healthy as possible. As always, balance is key. Days can run long in a writer’s room, and are mentally taxing, so personal wellness is often the first thing tossed aside. Instead, make it a priority. Resist all the goodies in the snack room (sometimes), exercise regularly, and speak up if you feel the situation turning sour (or worse, abusive). A healthy environment is a creative environment.

 6. Be Grateful

Creativity and challenging go hand in hand. Hours will go long, tensions will run high, and even the best days will be tough. Whenever you find yourself hitting your head against the wall or bordering on despair, take a step back and remind yourself of where you are, and how blessed you’ve been. Be thankful. You’re in a creative space, doing creative tasks, and making a living of it: this is amazing! You’ve hit the jackpot. Keep pushing your stories, keep creating, and embrace your art.

***

That’s all I’ve got for you creative types. I hope they help. Remember: keep working, keep smiling, and keep making beautiful things. God will do the rest, through your open disposition and one unlikely phone call.

About the Author

Matthew Sawczyn is a staff writer at Renovo Media Group, and an alumnus of JPCatholic (MBA in Film Producing – Class of 2017). He loves hiking, HBO, and cuddly cats.”

For more articles by Matthew, click here. 

Contains Spoilers

It is safe to say that after staying up to 2:30 AM watching I’m Thinking of Ending Things for a second time within 48 hours, I have never been so profoundly haunted and baffled by a cinematic experience. This new Netflix film from writer/director Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich) is perhaps equivalent to an abstract painting, eliciting a strong reaction of “What was that?” upon first glance that is eventually followed by “Wow, maybe there is more there than I realized.” Though it tackles a wide variety of existential themes, it most effectively explores how dangerously close many people live to the pit of emptiness/meaninglessness, and how we have turned the eternal truth of God and the beauty of hope into deceiving platitudes.

A janitor mops the empty hallways of a high school late at night, lost in thought and tortured by regret. That, in a nutshell, is the core premise of this enigmatic masterpiece, despite the fact that the surface premise is completely different: a guy takes his new girlfriend through a snowstorm to meet his parents on an Oklahoma farm. Throughout their journey, they have several existential discussions that initially seem like they could have been taken right out of a Richard Linklater movie, except whereas Linklater tends to balance even the most melancholic of exchanges with a tinge of warmth and hope, Kaufman infuses each conversation with an underlying bleakness.

At one point, the Young Woman (as she is called in the credits despite being referred to by several different names throughout the film) expresses a thought that seems both excessively cynical and undeniably true:

“Everything has to die. That’s the truth. One likes to think that there is always hope. That you can live above death. And it’s a uniquely human fantasy that things will get better, born perhaps of the uniquely human understanding that things will not. There’s no way to know for certain, but I suspect humans are the only animals that know the inevitability of their own deaths. Other animals live in the present. Humans cannot, so they invented hope.”

Wow, that really is a downer. But let us take a moment to unpack what the Young Woman is trying to express. Hope, like religion or any other thing that seeks to transcend the shallow futility of Earthly life, is far too often used as a mere coping mechanism for suffering, coated with sweet little lies so that we can at least feel comfortable before we die. If that is all hope is, that it can indeed be called an invention, a cunning distraction from living in the here and now.

This concept is carried further in a later exchange between the Young Woman and her boyfriend, starting with the boyfriend tearfully lamenting about “the lie of it all.” “What is the lie of it all?” the Young Woman asks. He replies:

“I don’t know, that it’s going to get better, that it’s never too late, that God has a plan for you, that age is just a number, that it’s always darkest before the dawn, that every cloud has a silver lining, that there’s someone for everyone… And God never gives us more than we can bear.” 

I have heard every single one of these platitudes at some point in my life, and I have increasingly doubted their truth over the past couple years, especially as I pass countless abandoned souls staring blankly into the distance on the sidewalks of Los Angeles. Things do not get better for everyone. Sometimes, it is too late to start fresh or follow your dreams. God may have a plan for everyone, but the colliding equations of free will prevent many of these plans from reaching their full potential on Earth. Intense darkness may never be followed by dawn. Not every cloud has a silver lining, and there may not necessarily be someone for everyone. Finally, many people are given more than they can bear, and while God allows it, He may not be the one who gives it to them.

The emptiness of these platitudes hits even harder once you realize the story’s central twist, a twist that each viewer may realize at separate points in the film: the boyfriend and girlfriend are mere figments of the lonely janitor’s imagination. The boyfriend represents various versions of the janitor’s younger self, and the girlfriend represents various possible personalities/identities of a pretty woman he once ogled at a bar but could not find the courage to actually have a real conversation with.

Like many other people, the janitor’s concepts of happiness are innocent at best, self-serving at worst: namely, a successful career and a soul mate to call his own. When he fails to achieve either of these dreams, spending the latter half of his life mopping high school hallways before going home to a lonely house, he starts to fantasize about what his life might have been like had he talked to the woman at the bar and won her affection. Yet as he becomes more and more engrossed by his constantly-shapeshifting fantasies and tortured by a deep-rooted depression, he realizes the selfishness behind his concepts of happiness.

He has always wanted a woman to call “his own,” but does not this ultimately imply that she is a piece of property rather than a complete flesh-and-blood person whose identity is far beyond being his soul mate? He has also always craved a successful career, perhaps in something science-related that will bring him honor and renown. But if a pat on the back and a round of applause is all he receives in the end, is not that rather meaningless?

This film asks a plethora of tough questions, perhaps too many to be addressed in a singular essay. But if they could all be boiled down to just one, it might look like this: Is fulfillment still possible if we receive none of the things we want in life? We hope and we pray and we wish upon a star, and yet we are never actually guaranteed to see any of our dreams come true. The janitor feels like a failure for this very reason. But is failure a fate or a choice?

Maybe hope is so frequently turned into empty platitudes because it is seldom combined with its two companion virtues: faith and love. Faith is the humble acknowledgment that we do not know everything, that our concept of happiness is immensely limited and quite probably wrong. Love is the choice to see divine beauty in every person we encounter and therefore attempt to tangibly show them how precious they are, how much they belong in this universe even if they feel worthless. Hope, then, is the bridge between these two virtues: faith reminds us that we do not really know how to love, but hope assures us that perfect love can work through our imperfections if only we permit the entrance of grace into our souls. It is not a promise of happiness or freedom from suffering, but rather a sword with which we can slay nihilism even when it appears that all is meaningless.

To conclude, I would like to reflect on one last passage of dialogue from the film:

“I feel like maybe our society lacks a certain kindness, a certain willingness to take in the struggles of others.” 

Amen to that. Nevertheless, this does not have to be the final word. The janitor is only one of a myriad of humans who feels overlooked by society, seemingly banned from receiving love and therefore gradually losing the willingness to go on living. God loves each person as if they are the only person in the universe, but we cannot just tell people that and expect them to suddenly be happy and at peace. We need to be the vehicles of this love for each other, frail and fragile though we may be. Yes, hope is a human, Earthly thing, but that does not mean we must deem it as a mere invention or coping mechanism. Like the Sabbath Day, God designed hope as a gift for humanity, a frequently silent but devoted friend that can lead us to an eternal destination where its presence is no longer necessary. Let us not think about ending things; let us think about starting things anew with the grace of love.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sam Hendrian is an alumni of John Paul the Great Catholic University (’20), with a degree in Communications Media and emphasis in Directing.

For more articles by Sam, click here.

At least once a year when I was a kid, my parents would take me and my younger sister to the local drive-in movie theater.  After picking our prime parking spot, my dad would unhook the middle double seat of our minivan, place it next to the car, break out the blankets, and crank up the car radio.  Surrounded by trees and cars, back hatches open and the sound of the movie emanating from every car in the open field, it was a unique experience we always looked forward to.

But the drive-in was never our first choice when it came to theatrical entertainment, despite the cheaper tickets and the fact that you got two movies for the price of one, and we rarely made the trip there more than once a year, spending most of our movie money on the local indoor multiplex instead.

Year after year, more drive-ins have been closing down as IMAX screens, Atmos sound, and reclining seats have made indoor theaters more attractive.

But now it’s 2020 and we’re currently living in a COVID world.  Depending on where you live, indoor theaters are still closed and even if they are open you might not feel comfortable cramming into an enclosed space with a crowd of strangers, even with health precautions in place.  Drive-in theaters have been allowed to operate as a safe alternative, and after months of being cooped up at home, they’ve been touted as the savior of the theatrical experience when more blockbusters are starting to be released digitally instead.

Amid this revival, the recent release of Christopher Nolan’s latest mind-bender Tenet has brought drive-ins under more scrutiny.  Always the champion for the most up-to-date theatrical distribution, Nolan has fought for Tenet to be released in theaters so it can be seen on the biggest screen possible, without digital distribution.  But Warner Bros. has also decided that Tenet won’t be shown on drive-in screens in markets where indoor theaters are still closed.  One presumed reason is that drive-in theaters are considered to be a lesser experience to indoor theaters, and of course Nolan would prefer his newest feature to be seen in the best possible venue.  This then raises the question: exactly how worthwhile is the drive-in theater today?  Is there a place for it in today’s world of luxury indoor theaters and home theater setups as a legitimate rival for the theatrical experience, or should drive-ins be left to be considered a novelty for the occasional summer night?

First thing to consider is that drive-ins aren’t quite the nuts and bolts antiquated venues they used to be.  They sport high quality digital projection and massive screens.  Because the projector is so far back, they have to use specialized bulbs more powerful than your typical theater to reach the screen.  Technically drive-in theaters are up to date with state of the art equipment.

The actual experience can vary.  There are just too many factors when considering the drive-in to definitively put my foot down one way or the other.  The screens may be huge, but if you park too far back it may look like you’re watching it on your phone.  In my multiple trips to the drive-in this year I have yet to go in a downpour (the one time it did rain, we sat in the back of our SUV with the back hatch open, so we barely noticed) but I can’t imagine watching a movie through windshield wipers or a dirty windshield is an ideal experience.

A lot of the quality also depends on your vehicle.  Most (if not all) of the drive-ins left have done away with the exterior speaker you hook onto your window in favor of playing the movie’s audio through your car’s speaker system via FM radio station.  How good your audio will sound is ultimately dependent on the quality of your in-car speaker set-up, or the speakers you bring with you.  I’ve personally never had a problem with the sound at the drive-in.  The fact that I’ve never actually considered the audio quality until writing this article shows that in my experiences, it works.  If things are too quiet, I just turn up the volume, simple as that.

There’s no sugar coating it: indoor theaters are in a controlled environment and even with everything coming together it’s unlikely that strictly from a quality perspective you’re going to have a better visual and audio experience at the drive-in.  That being said, when Bill and Ted Face the Music opened within the past couple weeks, I made the trip to the drive-in as opposed to renting it online because it was a clear night and I was able to get to the theater early enough to grab a nice space (two or three rows from the front is my preference), so watching it on a massive outdoor screen beat watching it on my TV at home where I was at the whim of poor video quality due to compression and buffer times.

Drive-ins are notable for one aspect that indoor theaters will never be able to replicate, and I would argue it’s the reason they’ve continued to last in pockets even before the pandemic: the atmosphere.

There’s a real sense of community about going to the drive-in, and it’s the sort of community I welcomed over the past few months as we’ve all been social distancing.  It’s a place you can go with the family, even small children, or chat with your partner about the movie and not risk ruining the experience for fellow moviegoers.  I don’t know about most drive-ins, but mine tends to be one of the most diverse places in the area, each car an insular community telling a different story.  Maybe you’ll find yourself next to the van of an enthusiastic family or a couple in a 1970s Oldsmobile some young man borrowed from his dad.

In a year where we’re all sectioned off in our own protective circles, and the internet has become more contentious, the drive-in can be a place for people to come together while staying safe.  The week of George Floyd’s death, and amidst the ensuing violence and anger that occured in its wake, I found hope in going to the drive-in and finding people of all races and backgrounds laughing along to Spaceballs and greeting each other across the space between cars.  Out among the stars we were all there to celebrate what we loved, and enjoy the company of those close to us away from the confines of our home.  That was a much-needed experience of hope and connection I never would have gotten at an indoor theater, where once the lights go down we’re all in our own little worlds.

Although drive-in theaters are enjoying a brief moment back in the sun, they aren’t likely to catch on as a comparable replacement for indoor theaters anytime soon; for the best sight and sound in a controlled environment, you aren’t likely to beat your local cineplex.  However, on a clear night the drive-in is a far sight better than your home theater setup is likely to be, and the community to be found there is something I think we all could use from time to time.  I hope the drive-in’s brief moment in the spotlight will help new patrons discover it, and perhaps they may consider frequenting it from time to time in the future even when indoor theaters are open.

About the Author

Joe Campbell graduated from JPCatholic in 2012. He now works as a production manager for filmilliterates.com, in addition to being a stay-at-home dad to two kids.  He was born, raised, and currently lives just outside Seattle, Washington.  Some of his favorite filmmakers include Andrei Tarkovsky, Sam Raimi, and Joe Dante.  Besides film, his other interests include hiking, the board game Dominion, and coffee.

Click here for more articles by Joe.

After two postponements due to Covid-19, the feature film Fatima finally released this past weekend. With many theaters still in shutdown and the film primarily released on streaming,  Marco Pontecorvo’s new film in the faith genre (and first film in English) won’t be garnering huge box office success. However, its 87% Audience Rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the Critics Consensus “Hard not to respect but difficult to love” are testaments to a knowledgeable adaption of Fatima.

With a meandering European artistic style similar to that of Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life,  Fatima repeatedly showcases sweeping vistas of Portuguese countryside. Perhaps it speaks more to American frenzied minds that some find the constant montages and enormous focus on eyes and mouths a bit bland. The focus here is on character rather than storyline, and—filmed on location in Portugal by Vincenzo Carpineta—each shot fills the frame with cinematic perfection. 

The first crowning achievement of 2020’s Fatima lies in its poignant portrayal of Lucia’s perspective—a child torn between preserving her family’s livelihood in their Socialist-invaded town and remaining loyal to the heavenly Lady’s mission for her. The second achievement consists in showing just how truly young these three children are: Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta are only seven, eight, and ten when the events at Fatima unfold. Their courage in the face of crowds, prelates, and government threats is all the more astounding when the viewers come face to face with their youth. 

The third great achievement of this film is how naturally the actors are portrayed alongside the context of the First World War and its consequences. Pain and peace mingle here in all their profound simplicities. Fatima is a human story of a mother coming to meet her children where they are at. The actors, the color palette, the camera work, the soundtrack, and the editing all capture that. 

Fatima is certainly a competent and effective drama; what then keeps this film from joining the ranks of the brilliantly captivating? 

Fatima seemed to not quite know who its audience was supposed to be. If the filmmakers’ intent was to draw in many newcomers (including skeptics) to the story of Fatima and its powerful message, then the film succeeds quite well in exposing the true story. Statistically though, the majority of people who will choose to watch this film already know the story of Fatima; they’re not looking so much for a winding trail through its validity, but rather a stirring retelling of the miraculous events themselves. That extra brilliancy of storytelling is what is especially necessary in showcasing Catholic sagas for the mainstream, and in “Fatima” it was not quite there. 

After a marketing campaign that focused heavily on the miraculous climax of the Fatima story, the film itself was surprisingly lackluster in accentuating the supernatural with the Miracle of the Sun. In addition, the way the film portrays an interview between Sr. Lucia dos Santos and atheist Professor Nichols imparts confusion as to whether or not the filmmakers intend to leave their audience believers. This witty back-and-forth between the eldest Fatima seer and Professor Nichols is left open-ended and receives no concluding scene. 

Also a confusing choice is the closing quote of the film by Albert Einstein: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” This seems to perhaps be a tribute to Franz Werfel’s quote featured in the 1943 film Song of Bernadette: “For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.” But the Einstein quote actually seems to undermine the idea that Fatima was out of the ordinary; was the Miracle of the Sun extraordinary or not? And why are we telling this story if it wasn’t?

Clearly, the filmmakers do think Fatima is an inexplicable miracle heralding a call to penance and peace. But despite its cinematic beauty, in trying to soften the story for newcomers the screenwriters may have hurt the success of their film by failing to concisely captivate their largest target audience. Still, who knows exactly who this beautiful piece might inspire? It is, after all, a respectable dramatization of one of the most beloved Marian apparitions.

Fatima is available to rent on multiple streaming platforms – see more info on the official site. 

About the Author

Maria Andress is a film production and acting alumna from JPCatholic (Class of ’17) who hails from the proud green and gold state of Wisconsin. She is currently working in film producing, and pursuing a career in period film production. She is also a travel enthusiast always on the lookout for a fascinating idea or historical tidbit that she can translate to story through the many mediums of art.

“Dear Lord, you died at thirty-three. I begin my life at thirty-three.”

Thus prays Fr. Damien upon landing at Molokaʻi, the island where “no patient leaves except in a coffin.”

The year is 1873. The terrifying, still mysterious scourge of leprosy ravages the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, and the island of Molokaʻi has been designated as a quarantine colony, where suspected patients are permanently sent. In perpetual isolation, the conditions on the island are atrocious; the demoralized, despairing population gives itself over to every sin. As adventuring novelist Robert Louis Stevenson described it: “A pitiful place to visit and a hell to dwell in… I never recall the days and nights I spent upon that island promontory (eight days and seven nights) without heartfelt thankfulness that I am somewhere else…” In blunt words, he painted the people as, “Gorgons and Chimaeras…pantomime deformations of our common manhood. Such a population as only now and again surrounds us in the horrors of a nightmare.” 

It is into this exact land of disease and decay that Fr. Damien De Veuster, a Beligum missionary and priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, volunteers to go. With fervor he dives headfirst into this ministry, making it his new life mission to improve the lives of the sick on Molokaʻi.

It is this ministry that the 1999 film Molokai focuses on, placing us on the ground of Molokaʻi, as it were, alongside Fr. Damien as he prays, toils, and suffers for his ever ailing flock. The movie boasts a formidable cast by any standard: David Wenham, Peter O’Toole, Derek Jacobi, Kris Kristenoff, and Alice Krige. Shot on location, the vibrant, breathtaking scenery contrasts sharply with the pitiful state of the island’s inhabitants. They would be in paradise, if their bodies were not trapped in a palpable hell. As the real Fr. Damien put in a letter: “I feel no disgust when I hear the confessions of those near their end, whose wounds are full of maggots…This may give you some idea of my daily work.”

Nevertheless, Fr. Damien does his best to give the citizens of the island as normal a life as he can construct (sometimes literally), as he builds houses, plants crops, organizes community activities, administers the sacraments, and tends to the dying. With zeal he gives of himself, each and every day. The work is never easy. Over his years there, Fr. Damien clashes with pillaging gangs, contends with corrupt law enforcement, fights for supplies from the outside world, and fends off sexual advances. He stops the anarchy and hedonism the island had given itself over to in its misery. He ignores the conventional words of caution against interaction with the population, touching and eating with the people, who until then had grown accustomed to fear, repulsion, and exile from the rest of the world. Imitating the Lord, Damien embraces them when no one else will. He gives himself wholeheartedly to these people and to this mission, and reasons that if God wants to, He will keep him from the disease.

In these simple yet heroic gestures— a handshake, a hug, sharing a utensil of kindness— Fr. Damien affirms the dignity of the islanders, and restores them as best he can to that state, even as their bodies literally rot away. scenes are particularly powerful in our current pandemic, in which we doubtless appreciate anew the power held in human touch. In a particularly moving scene, a drunken mob attempts to disgust and repel a disapproving Fr. Damien, carrying a maimed and rotting man named Jimmy to him. Covered in sores, Jimmy latches onto Fr. Damien, rubbing his skin against the priest’s face. Undeterred, Fr. Damien grasps Jimmy, and holds the man tenderly, with a kindness he had undoubtedly not known for years. In the actual recorded words of one patient from the island: “He overwhelms us with his care.”

Finally, after eleven years of arguably miraculous immunity, Fr. Damien contracts leprosy himself. Despite the excruciating pain, and slow decay of his body, he continues unabated, serving the physical, spiritual, and emotional needs of the colony, until his eventual death by the disease at the age of forty-nine.

Molokai is a powerful film. Wenham portrays, with excellent realism, a believable saint: a humble man, a fiery man, a tempted man, a practical man, a man who labored until he died from the sickness he exposed himself to for the sake of the suffering. It is everything a faith film should be, relying on stellar acting and strong storytelling, and letting Fr. Damien’s saintly example speak for itself. Its effective simplicity makes for a moving experience, as we watch a man give of himself every day, enriching the lives of all those around him. His is a pure, sacrificial love.

Inside the United States Capitol, on the south side of the building, rests the National Statuary Hall. A circular chamber styled after the ancient amphitheaters, it is devoted to sculptures of notable Americans; the closest thing Americans have to a secular pantheon. It was founded in 1894, when Congress invited each state to commission statues of two prominent figures from their territory, to stand as the pride of the state, and to serve as examples for every American. In 1969, ten years after it joined the Union, Hawaii submitted a statue of Fr. Damien to the Hall, placing him in the company of its first king, Kamehameha I.

Judging from the exceptional accounts of his life, from his complete self-giving to his beloved lepers, Fr. Damien presents a timely model for our country. He seems like the perfect example for us right now.

About the Author

Matthew Sawczyn is a screenwriter in Los Angeles, and an alumnus of JPCatholic (MBA in Film Producing – Class of 2017). He loves hiking, HBO, and cuddly cats.

For more articles by Matthew, click here. 

Contains spoilers for all three seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender

I was skeptical the first time I started watching Avatar: the Last Airbender. There was only one girl in the main cast, after all, which is one of the top tropes out there – the Token Female Character, who not only is fated to be the Male Hero’s love interest, but also bears the responsibility of representing and being relatable to all the very diverse and dissimilar women in the audience. I have a deep-seated dislike for the Token Female Character (TFC), as her countless iterations have almost never been relatable to me over the years, and I have always been irked by the presumption that she alone is a sufficient female presence for the given piece.

However, by the time I had been introduced to the full ensemble and watched the show run its course, I had formed my still-standing opinion that Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA, in fandom shorthand) is not only one of the hands-down best story arcs in modern television, but also, one of the hands-down best illustrations of diverse femininity and healthy masculinity I’ve ever seen.

That’s right, you heard me – the f-word and the m-word. Two of the most cringe-inducing words in the entire English language. Yeah, we’re going there. Avatar is worth it.

Femininity

Since the portrayal of women in mainstream entertainment is sort of my thing, let’s talk about that side of the show first. Let’s talk about how ATLA is a phenomenal depiction of such a wide variety of well-drawn women, so many different kinds of strength and power, so many strong female characters in the TRUE sense of the word – ie, compelling, complex and flawed, regardless of literal physical strength. If you don’t already know what I mean when I reluctantly use the phrase Strong Female Character, take a quick glance at my article about why the mainstream SFC usually sucks.

Katara

The obvious place to start is with Katara, the aforementioned Token Female Character. While she retains her TFC status throughout the first season, apart from some one-off guest appearances, not just one or two but several more female ensemble members arrive in the second season to relieve her of the burden of representing and being relatable to all women everywhere.

Here’s what I love about Katara: she’s very feminine, even girly. Why do I, a not-so-feminine, very-not-girly woman, love her for this? Because one of the most common, and most toxic, mistakes that storytellers make when trying to depict strong women is to conflate stripping her of femininity with empowering her. I wish I had a catchy acronym for this one, but I haven’t come up with one yet, so instead, here’s a long-winded explanation…

“She’s not like other girls” is one of the most infuriating, supposedly-complimentary, covertly-misogynist descriptors that can be used on a woman. What it really means is: “Most if not all women are deficient, lacking, inferior, insufficient, unworthy of being liked; what makes THIS woman extraordinary is that, unlike all those undesirable others, in spite of being female, she manages to be worthy.” 

If we follow the “she’s not like other girls” train of thought from the individual to the abstract, the underlying mindset is that femininity is inferior to masculinity. This is why it’s not just socially acceptable, but often encouraged – especially in those formative childhood years – for women to lean masculine in their self-expression. Tomboyishness is seen as a good thing; I certainly remember very vividly being proud of being a tomboy, and being conditioned to look down on girly traits. And yet, on the flipside, feminine leanings in men are widely frowned upon – once again, especially in children. And so, the mindset that masculinity is more desirable than femininity is imprinted deep in young minds and effectively perpetuated.

And when those young minds become storytellers, they churn out female characters who are supposedly awesome BECAUSE they are unfeminine. They produce a steady stream of women whose best quality is being “one of the guys,” once again passing the concept that femininity is undesirable down to the next generation. They praise women for being more like men, elevating traditionally masculine virtues like toughness and ambition while scoffing at traditionally feminine virtues like compassion and gentility. They plaster their art with the idea that to be powerful, a woman has to be like a man – that a strong woman is not a girly woman.

I could go on, but I’ve just used almost half my word count talking about the Not-Like-Other-Girls Girl. Let’s get back to Katara. As I was saying, what I love about her is that, undeniable powerhouse that she is, she’s very feminine, and the show’s creators don’t treat her girliness like a bad thing. She’s the motherly one of the group – there’s even an episode about it. She can use her bending powers to heal. Her teaching style with Aang is nurturing, gentle and encouraging – there’s an episode about that, too. She’s even costumed in a dress for most of the show, countless fight scenes included. And she is a BADASS. Remember how she goes from not even being able to control a fish-sized splash of water to SUSPENDING AN ENTIRE THUNDERSTORM? Remember when she not only BLOODBENDS, but OUT-BLOODBENDS A BLOODBENDING EXPERT? Remember when she KICKS AZULA’S BUTT?

Azula

And on that note – here’s what I love about Azula: she’s absolutely insufferable. Seriously, I can’t stand her. And I LOVE THAT. Why? Because true on-screen equality would see women in every sort of role – not just the hero, but also the sidekick, the comic relief, the anti-hero, the gray character, the troublesome third party, the mentor, and, yes, the villain. And is Azula ever a villain. She’s so freaking evil, I love it. And at the same time, she’s not just evil for the sake of being evil – she’s twisted by her terrible, traumatic childhood and desperately, single-mindedly obsessed with power because the more of it she has, the more she will please her father. 

With her perfectly manicured fingernails and lipstick, Azula is another example of coexisting femininity and strength – very different from Katara in her expression of both, which doubles ATLA’s points for diverse female representation. On countless occasions, Azula proves herself to be one of the best fighters and most powerful firebenders in the ATLA world – but my favorite Azula scene, and what in my opinion is one of her most epic moments, comes in the middle of season 2, when Zuko challenges her to an agni kai (firebending duel, for the layman). Everyone – including Azula and the audience, and excluding Zuko – knows she’s a better fighter than he is. Yet she just dismisses his challenge with a wicked smile and a “no thanks.” 

What is it that makes this moment so epic? The agni kai, throughout this show, is a patriarchal staple of firebending culture; men duel each other because they think their honor, their manhood, is synonymous with their physical strength and battle prowess. Azula knows just how powerful she is, and she’s self-assured enough that she doesn’t care to prove it. She knows she doesn’t need to throw her weight around and flex her muscles like so many male firebenders do throughout the show. She couldn’t care less whether they think she’s weak for not adhering to this patriarchal construct of strength. Someone who’s truly strong and secure in their strength feels no need to show it off and tell everyone about it, and in my opinion, that unassuming security is Azula’s most impressive trait, not the actual power she’s packing. More on this in a moment when we get to masculinity and firebending culture and Uncle Iroh!

Toph

Then there’s Toph, who’s very different from Katara. She falls more on the tomboy end of the spectrum in everything from combat – she’s as assertive in her fighting style as in her frequent arguments with other characters – to humor – joking about pit hair with the boys while Katara rolls her eyes at their gross humor. Yet she doesn’t look down on more girly characters, and is happy on occasion to lean into her feminine side, like when she and Katara go out for a girls’ night, or when she puts her noble knowhow to use dressing herself and Katara up for a party and coaching Katara on high-class manners. 

She’s also such a well-drawn character, because half of her personality is infuriating and grates on your nerves – or mine, at any rate – while the other half of her personality is SUCH A POWERFUL EARTHBENDER THAT SHE ACCIDENTALLY INVENTS METALBENDING?!?! Oh, and she’s blind, which the show keeps in mind very well – she’s constantly not making eye contact, facing the wrong direction, speaking to someone’s stomach, and best of all, cracking jokes about how things look. She’s a top-tier powerhouse without it feeling like a pushy commercialized girl-power effort by the storytellers.

Suki 

While I wish the show had dug more into Suki’s character outside of her being Sokka’s main love interest, I kind of love that she’s the one that starts him on his journey from bumbling misogynist to respectful powerhouse by giving him both a butt-kicking AND his first warrior training. I’m here for any woman who can not just take a misogynist down a peg, but also help him see how his ideas are wrong and guide him on his journey of self-education to becoming an egalitarian. Plus, female friendship is way too scarce on screen, and Suki has a sisterhood of warriors and friends for life in the Kyoshi warriors.

Mai and Ty Lee

Speaking of which, you probably won’t be surprised when I tell you how much I love that Azula has an EVIL GIRL GANG! It was very intentional on the part of ATLA’s creators to make Mai and Ty Lee, some of the baddest warriors in the series, non-benders; yet another storytelling choice that makes this show so extraordinary. 

The first time I watched ATLA, I saw Ty Lee as an example of male storytellers egregiously sexualizing a female character. While I do still think there’s some of that at play, my reservations have since been somewhat diffused by the fact that the storytellers dig into her backstory; there’s a logical cause that made her this way, just like there’s a logical cause that made Azula power-obsessed. Additionally, Ty Lee kicks serious butt while being an unapologetically girly flower child (right down to the pink aura). Even her fighting style is feminine. Forget brute force and heavy blows; Ty Lee practically dances, with a light-footed grace rivaled only by Aang’s.

I love Mai as a love interest because a) she’s not the obvious choice, and b) she has heaps of agency and character independent of her significant other; her romance with Zuko is in the back seat most of the time. How often do we see a love interest who’s not jealous or competitive when girls fangirl over her shirtless boyfriend? And while she’s fantastically monotone, Mai proves both her emotional nuance and her unique brand of strength when she has to choose between two people she loves, and chooses – at her own expense – to save Zuko from Azula. No character is more lovable than a villain who’s a good person.

Masculinity

And on the note of villains who turn out to be good people, let’s talk about the men of ATLA!

ATLA is, in my opinion, one of the best deconstructions of toxic masculinity in contemporary cinema. Whether this is intentional or not, I couldn’t say for sure – although I’m inclined to believe that the reason the show pulls it off so well is because it is done unintentionally, as any other piece I’ve seen tackle the topic has been too on the nose in its approach for my taste.

As briefly as possible, for the skeptics in the crowd, let me define my terms here. When we say “toxic masculinity,” we are not by any means suggesting that masculinity is inherently toxic. Just like there can be both healthy and toxic iterations of the feminine, there are both healthy and toxic iterations of the masculine. Where either becomes toxic when it is skewed in such a way that vice is elevated rather than virtue. On the feminine side, toxic femininity might look like manipulation, ingenuine niceness, the overvaluing of feminine beauty ideals, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, a few bullet points under the umbrella of toxic masculinity include emotional repression, aggression, and the overvaluing of physical power.

As mentioned earlier, one of Azula’s most outstanding moments is when she declines to engage in an agni kai. The agni kai is the centerpiece of the patriarchal structure of the Fire Nation; despite the Fire Nation seeming to be one of the more advanced civilizations in this world, it still views brute force and sheer physical strength as the measure of honor, strength and heroism. Firelord Ozai is the Fire Nation’s glorification of vice personified in an individual: he’s power-mongering and dominating, abusive and manipulative of even his own children, arrogant and egocentric, and perfectly content to rule through force and fear.

Aang

Because the antagonist is the patriarch of such a civilization and the embodiment of those skewed values, Aang is the ideal protagonist. In truly dramatic contrast to Firelord Ozai, Aang values peace over power and is ruled by an outwardly-focused moral code – the centerpiece of which is his commitment to doing no harm and his refusal to kill. Aang packs more power than anyone else in the show, but he’s smol and soft and sweet instead of forceful and aggressive. He loves nature, critters, flowers – he’s so respectful of life that he’s vegetarian, in fact, which is a pretty good character detail. 

The fact that ATLA is an action-adventure show packed with epic fight scenes and tasteful slow mo serves to highlight all the more Aang’s unusual fighting style: that is, that he constantly tries not to fight. He always favors reason and words in situations where he could settle things with a few airbending moves. When he does have to fight, he goes to great lengths to dodge and dance his way through every confrontation, never resorting to throwing blows unless he has no alternative.

And about that centerpiece of his moral code: props to the writers for Aang’s stellar character arc. He starts out as a goofy, fun-loving, innocent little child, and gets put through the freaking ringer – he literally DIES at one point (sidebar: ATLA did it before Game of Thrones did it). BUT – here’s the clincher. At the end, after he’s matured through trials of every sort, when everyone is rooting for him to kill Firelord Ozai, Aang keeps his innocence. With the crushing pressure of the whole world relying on him for salvation and everyone he respects telling him he’s got to finish off the show’s single most justifiably-deserving-of-death character, Aang still finds a way to hold to his values and avoid taking a life, even an irredeemably evil one.

Where the Firelord embodies the toxic exultation of vice – greed, abuse, power-mongering, manipulation – Aang constantly takes the more difficult route of striving for virtue – even when put to the test, he is gentle, kind, generous, considerate, empathetic, courageous, patient, and always prepared to swallow his pride and admit his shortcomings when he’s in the wrong. If Firelord Ozai and the civilization he has built are an illustration of toxic masculinity, Aang is an illustration of healthy masculinity: focused not on the outward appearance of manhood and power, but on inward virtue and self-control.

Uncle Iroh

And now that we’ve gotten to the topic of healthy masculinity, let’s talk about Uncle Iroh! Uncle Iroh is the DEFINITION of healthy masculinity – which, by the way, goes hand in hand with the embracing of one’s feminine side. That’s right: ultimately, all this masculinity and femininity stuff merges together and it turns out it’s really about being human. So someone like Aang or Uncle Iroh, who strives for virtues that are typically construed as masculine such as courage or self-restraint, also strives for virtues that are typically construed as feminine, such as empathy or gentility. 

While Katara, as established earlier, is a very nurturing individual, she’s got nothing on Uncle Iroh. Here are a couple of the many pearls of wisdom and support Uncle Iroh blesses Zuko with: 

“Protection and power are overrated. I think you are very wise to choose happiness and love.” Pretty much a more effective way to say what I’ve been going on about over the last page.

“While it’s always in one’s best interest to believe in oneself, a little help from others can be a great blessing.” A supportive endorsement of the healthy and difficult-to-achieve quality of being willing to lean on, accept or ask for the help of others. It’s easy to believe that being strong means being completely self-sufficient and independent, but really, it’s stronger for someone to be secure enough about their strength to ask for help.

Those are just two; I could spend days pointing out how Uncle Iroh’s sayings steer Zuko toward becoming more like Iroh and less like Ozai. Since actions speak louder than words, I’d like to point out that Iroh’s solid in that department, too. Like Aang, he’s sitting on tremendous power, but he almost never resorts to using it; he’s secure and humble enough that he doesn’t try to whip out his firebending and prove himself when his honor or strength is questioned. I could go on with endless examples of Iroh being a paragon of humanity, but let’s move on to…

Zuko

Iroh and Ozai, Zuko’s two father figures and the contrasting ends of the virtue/vice spectrum, serve as the goalposts of Zuko’s journey over the course of the series.  Zuko has one of the most iconic arcs in popular cinema, and justifiably so – I’d be hard pressed to think of a better illustration of redemption and metamorphosis.

Zuko starts out obsessively entrenched in the toxic elements of Fire Nation culture. He’s singlemindedly consumed with proving himself by – say it with me – capturing the Avatar to restore his honor. He’s quick to throw down the gauntlet for an agni kai when his authority or strength is questioned, and Uncle Iroh has to constantly pull him back from the brink of making bull-headed blunders to prove that he’s powerful and competent. And all of it, all his bravado and machismo and belligerence and obsession, stems from a desperate desire for the approval of a father who has abused, domineered and traumatized him.

In Zuko, we see both the pinnacle and the downfall of Ozai’s evil ways. Where are toxic and healthy tendencies put to the test and highlighted more than in parenthood? While the Firelord’s brutality and cruelty affect the whole world, they affect his children most personally of all. For everyone else, the struggle against Ozai is external and straightforward, but for Zuko it’s deeply internal and existential. No one is as profoundly, pervasively damaged by Ozai as his son.

But wait! Here’s my favorite thing of all! If Zuko had been loved rather than maltreated by his father, he would never have ended up on the other side, and team Avatar would probably not have been able to prevail. If you connect the dots, Ozai goes down BECAUSE he abused his son. So satisfying! So perfect! What storytelling! Zuko is an amazing character! His redemption is beautiful! ATLA is the greatest work of art of all time!

Sokka

Last but not least, let’s talk about one of the crowning jewels of ATLA’s roster of well-drawn characters: the one and only Sokka. While Aang, Iroh, Zuko and Ozai may be the most thematically crucial characters, Sokka is one of the most well written: he’s a delightfully unique combination of contradictory traits – a difficult equilibrium to achieve as a storyteller. He’s both the comic relief and the brains of the operation, the one who strategizes for battle and the one who’s constantly thinking about food, the relentlessly practical cynic and the master of puns who laughs at his own jokes until he cries. Big Sokka fan here.

Although Sokka’s character arc is phenomenal, it’s not my main point, and since I mentioned it earlier while talking about Suki, I’m going to bypass talking about that in favor of focusing on the main points I want to make about Sokka.

Like Suki, Mai and Ty Lee, Sokka is a more dangerous warrior than most benders by the end of the show. He also has the humility and ambition to learn the fighting style of anyone who will teach him, which means he masters skills from each nation, which, as Uncle Iroh teaches Zuko, is what sets the greatest warriors above everyone else.

But being able to keep up with the benders in a fight isn’t the greatest asset Sokka has to offer; he’s the mastermind, strategist, and backbone of team Avatar. He’s the one who plots their course, schemes up their missions and changes the course of battles with his ingenious inventions and strategic brilliance. He’s the one that tricks the bad guys into taking each other out. He’s the one with the gut instinct and common sense to prevent a fishy situation – or at least to recognize one, since the gaang never listens to him and always ends up learning the hard way.

One of my favorite things about Sokka is that he manages to pull off a trait that almost always annoys me in male characters: protectiveness. Whenever there’s an explosion – which happens with amazing frequency – you’ll catch everyone covering their own heads, except for Sokka, who always without fail is covering Katara (or sometimes Toph). 

What makes this usually annoying trait endearing in Sokka’s case? Protectiveness is healthy when, rather than being rooted in the idea that the other is weaker, it is rooted in self-effacing love of the other. Sokka’s first instinct is always to protect Katara – not because he thinks he’s more capable than she is, but because he loves her. If one of them has to go down, he’d rather it be him. He knows he’s not the most powerful member of the team, but he takes it upon himself to be the protector of everyone else anyway.

***

In conclusion: ATLA has my complete endorsement as one of the greatest works of character-driven storytelling ever to grace the screen. It’s fun, it’s packed with worthwhile themes, and it revolves around a diverse cast of brilliant, human, well-fleshed-out, thoroughly lovable characters with top-notch arcs. Show it to your parents, children, friends, enemies, siblings, acquaintances, strangers on the street – there is no wrong audience for Avatar: the Last Airbender.

About the Author

“I feel like I have this hole inside me that’s always been there. Like this emptiness. I’m always trying to fill it with something… I’ve tried to fill it with God. I have. But I… I just don’t know how.”

These words spoken by a deeply lost young Muslim man named Ramy (comedian Ramy Youssef) to a wise sheikh named Ali Malik (two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali) adequately capture not only the theme of the entire show, but the theme of countless real people’s lives no matter what their religion is. While tonally uneven and sometimes a bit uncomfortable to watch, the second season of Hulu’s Ramy is ultimately a satisfying continuation of the story (see James Powers’s review of Season 1), offering a funny but ultimately haunting exploration of one man’s struggle to do the right thing in a world that says nothing really matters.

Having fornicated with his cousin on a recent trip to Egypt that was originally intended for spiritual rediscovery, Ramy has reached a new all-time low and seeks guidance to lead him back onto the path of virtue. He finds this guidance in the person of Sheikh Ali Malik, a local Muslim leader with a wise mind and compassionate heart.

In a scene that mirrors a Catholic confession, Ramy tells the sheikh about his rampant struggle with pornography and premarital sex, a struggle that he connects to a greater problem: an unhealthy preoccupation with himself. The sheikh listens patiently and then agrees to instruct Ramy in the ways of virtue, hoping to gradually mold his desires with the will of God rather than the whims of his ego/desires.

Ramy is a receptive pupil, except for one major caveat that becomes all too tragically clear by the final episode: he is still focused primarily on himself rather than on the good of others. He starts trying to hone his sexual desires and perform charitable acts—including one that has unexpectedly disastrous consequences—but these forays into virtue are motivated by feeling better about himself rather than actually enriching the lives of those around him.

Of course, this is a universal struggle, and it is nearly impossible for fallen humans to do anything with completely selfless intentions. However, what Ramy in particular fails to understand is the true nature and purpose of love itself. Yes, he often feels love for his family, his friends, and even some of the people he has sex with, but he rarely chooses it. Sometimes we naturally desire the good of others, but more often than not, we have to choose it in the midst of emotional numbness; Ramy is still a slave to his emotions/physical desires and therefore hindered from loving in such a willful way.

Despite the fact that Ramy remains far from where he wants and needs to be spiritually, he does learn some powerful lessons that leave a lasting mark on his character. One of them is given by Sheikh Malik after the two of them are tasked with finding/caring for an abandoned dog. The sheikh says:

“You see everything as a blessing or a curse, Ramy. The truth is everything is both. We have to see the blessings in the curses, and be wary of the curses in the blessings.”

Ramy’s life presently seems to be filled with more curses than blessings, but Sheikh Malik’s words of wisdom enable him to start seeing how such curses can also be or at least become blessings. His attachment to sin is an opportunity to realize his profound need for God. His selfishness can be a wake-up call to prioritize the needs of others. His history of unintentionally hurting people can serve as a catalyst for pursuing humility and charity with sincere resolve.

On the other hand, Ramy now also sees some of the curses hiding beneath the blessings in his life. He is blessed with many friends, but these friends often give him misguided advice. He is blessed with good health and the basic needs of life (food, shelter, etc.), but these comforts may prevent him from fully empathizing with the sufferings of others. Whatever the blessing or curse may be, Ramy knows deep down that everything on Earth is fleeting, and he longs to be a part of an adventure much more long-lasting. Something eternal.

While Season 2 ends on a sour note—Ramy once again reaches an all-time low right when he seemed to have finally reached an all-time high—it still bears a glimmer of hope that will hopefully be brightened in Season 3. Some episodes are better written than others, and one or two go a bit overboard in exploring less-savory subject matter, but overall they skillfully explore rich, relevant themes that too many TV shows and movies brush over for the sake of popcorn entertainment.

Ramy reminds us that we are all imperfect, sometimes even despicable creatures—no one is immune to sin—but that we also each have the ability to seek God’s grace and let true charity enter our hearts. Because of this inspiring and generally well-executed message, I would highly recommend Ramy to adults looking for a show that is both entertaining and introspective.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sam Hendrian is an alumni of John Paul the Great Catholic University (’20), with a degree in Communications Media and emphasis in Directing.

For more articles by Sam, click here.

I remember reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe as a kid and having my mind blown when, at the end, the four Pevensie siblings return to 1940’s England and find themselves children again after having already grown to adulthood in Narnia. What a weird experience that must be, I thought, to go back to childhood after having grown up. And to then grow up again, in completely different circumstances and therefore (perhaps?) as a completely different person. To live one-and-a-half lifetimes, basically. 

The idea both fascinated and unsettled me. Although I couldn’t articulate it at the time, I think I understood that my identity has a lot to do with my story, my memory of the sequence of events in my life. And what happened to the Pevensie children got me to second-guess that understanding. What if, like those four siblings, I found myself reaching adulthood with two sequences of growing up stored in my memory? The idea felt too big and strange to wrap my head around, almost like I was trying to imagine two Jameses inside the same body. Yet I couldn’t help but try and make sense of it. 

I don’t know if it’s a pity or a mercy that C.S. Lewis didn’t devote more attention to this weird question in his children’s book. But from a young age, I’ve always gotten a mixture of delight and disturbance out of such existential thought experiments and the stories that flirt with them. Time travel, body-swapping, döppelgangers, parallel universes and teleportation – such concepts are fun, freaky and in a sense very useful, even if they have little basis in reality. They allow us to better understand fundamental concepts that we otherwise take for granted – things like time, space, our bodies and our selves – because they shake up that experience and put it in a new context.  

All of which is to say that, when I discovered the German Netflix series Dark a couple years ago, I felt like I’d hit the jackpot. The show is a veritable Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory of ornate and mind-bending storytelling, and although it isn’t for everyone, I’d call it almost essential viewing for that particular type of egghead who likes to hang out at the intersection of sci-fi and philosophy. Now that the series has dropped its third and final season, I can confirm that it’s one of my top five favorite things to come out of streaming television. Full stop, hands down, period. 

Beyond that, though, I think it also has some trenchant things to say about the uniquely chaotic moment we now find ourselves in. Although production on season three wrapped well before either COVID or George Floyd hit headlines, I can’t shake the feeling that the show’s conclusion was almost timed for the hot mess of 2020. It reads as a warning about humanity’s collective tendency to fall into fear, ignorance and violence – but also, perhaps, as a small expression of hope in our ability to overcome those things. 

If you know nothing about the show, well, lucky you – I wrote a piece about a year ago covering the basics of its premise and themes, so go check that out for some helpful context. But if you think you’d like to watch it, or are in the process of watching it, be advised about reading further. On the one hand, some pretty major spoilers follow herein. On the other hand, the show is (in my opinion) so gripping, detailed and complex that it’s still well worth your time even if you know a few big plot points.

Oh, and since this is a blog focused on Catholic media criticism, I should also warn potential viewers that Dark features occasional nasty violence and a number of needlessly graphic sex scenes. But as I noted in my previous post about it, it’s still considerably more restrained than the likes of Westworld or Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead. So just, like, follow your heart, I guess.

Spoilers Below

*** Editor’s Note: Heavy Spoilers below for all 3 seasons ***

The first season reveals how the small town of Winden is entangled in a series of “time loops” that cause various of its inhabitants to bounce through history in three 33-year increments – from 2019, to 1986, to 1953 and back again. This knotty cyclical timestream would seem to cause a lot of paradoxes and impossibilities, but as it turns out, it’s the foundation of Winden’s history rather than its undoing. 

For example, young Jonas Kahnwald is the son of Michael Kahnwald, who turns out to be the adult version of Mikkel Nielsen – the little brother of Jonas’s friend (and love interest, but it’s complicated) Martha Nielsen. Mikkel disappears early on in the show, transported back to 1986 where he stays and eventually matures to become Jonas’s father.

As you can probably imagine, this one twist isn’t isolated and is connected to a multitude of others that, at the very end of the season, has Jonas getting shot forward into the post-apocalyptic future of 2053. Throughout season one, we’ve been led to believe that a sinister figure known only as Noah is behind the unnatural events in Winden. But in the second season, we quickly discover that isn’t the case. 

Turns out Noah is just part of a larger organization known as “Sic Mundus” – short for the Latin phrase sic mundus creatus est, or “thus the world was created.” The head of Sic Mundus is a disfigured old man who goes by Adam, and if you guess that the Biblical names are more than just a coincidence, well, you’d be right. As one seasoned old time-traveler reveals to Jonas, Sic Mundus is one of two parties that are “at war” for control of the time-travelling knot that entangles Winden. 

And Jonas, it turns out, is more important to Sic Mundus than he could imagine. In fact, he’s pivotal. The major reveal of the second season’s climax is that Adam is the older version of Jonas himself. Jonas finds this to be a horrible gut-punch, as Adam has orchestrated not only the deaths of numerous Winden residents, but also several relationships and births that border on incestuous, as well as the time-shattering cataclysm that wipes everyone out and results in the wasteland Jonas witnesses in 2053. 

Whew. 

“But wait,” you might ask (or you might not, as there are plenty of other things to be bamboozled about in the foregoing explanation), “if Sic Mundus is one of two groups at war over time travel, what’s the other group?” In other words, who are the good guys?? 

Enter season three.

As if the writers didn’t have enough on their plates, season three immediately smacks us with the revelation that a parallel version of Winden exists, one in which little Mikkel was never glitched back to 1986, and never grew up to become Michael Kahnwald, and consequently Jonas was never born. But don’t worry, fellow mystery-junkies, as there’s plenty of weirdness going on in alt-Winden as well. This time, it’s at the hands of a mysterious old woman who goes by the name (wait for it) Eva. Eva is the leader of the other group, this one called “Erit Lux” (“there shall be light”), and she’s eventually revealed to be the (or an (???)) older version of Martha. Which means that Martha is the Eve to Jonas’s Adam, both the love of his life and his mortal enemy. 

Breaking the Cycle of History

And now I’m getting to the point. 

Back in March, when COVID first exploded, there was a brief sense of optimism that perhaps this global crisis could bring people together and overcome the virulent political discord that has consumed our culture for years now. There was, for a time, a sense that we were “all in this together.” 

Yeah, nope. That didn’t last. The pandemic and the lockdowns were almost immediately weaponized by different sides of the media, by political figures, by organizations and individuals. It took hardly any time at all for us to start going at one another’s throats about masks and social distancing, about government intervention and infringement of rights, about the devastation of the economy and the rising death toll. And we’re still doing it. 

Then, with a precision and force that felt almost inevitable if not downright calculated, another news story about a white cop killing a black man exploded across the nation. Riots began in Minneapolis, and they spread to many major cities, and then there were protests everywhere, and reforms and Instagram blackouts, and fights about “Black Lives Matter” versus “All Lives Matter,” and then CHOP fka CHAZ happened (is still happening?), and statues started getting pulled down, and hey, listen, I’m not gonna pretend that I’m keeping adequate track of it anymore. 

But between all the COVID and BLM stuff, there’s a clear pattern emerging. There’s a war being waged over how all our lives are connected, and what that demands of us as individuals. The different battles and camps in this war are kind of messy, but broadly speaking I think they can be pared down into a couple of basic ideological conflicts. 

The fight about COVID is largely about freedom versus safety; about whether it’s worth it to demand (sometimes major) sacrifices on the individual level in hopes of preserving the health of the wider community. And the fight about racism is, among other things, a fight about history – about the responsibility we may or may not have for the sins of previous generations, and about whether we are doomed to perpetuate those sins without some kind of radical intervention.

These questions get under people’s skin in a very personal way (I know they get under mine), and so we flee from them: first, by instinctively huddling together with like-minded people, and second, by demonizing those who think differently. This allows us a sense of safety from the bewildering complexity of both the present situation, and the past decisions that brought us here. But this sense of safety doesn’t actually fix anything, because it has us cling to our safe, simplified vision of the world rather than grapple with it on its own terms. And this only makes our problems repeat and warp into even worse ones, like a rut in the road sucking wheels into it and getting deeper all the time. 

At its core, Dark is laser-focused on this constant human impulse to flee from reality. The show isn’t so much about time-travel as it is about people motivated by fear: its characters spend all their time trying to either escape reality or force it to fit their vision. Adam and Sic Mundus have concluded that their twisted world is unacceptable, and so they try to simply destroy it. Meanwhile, Eva and Erit Lux are convinced they know how things are supposed to play out, and focus all their energy on ensuring that “everything happens as it always has.” 

In a sense, Sic Mundus strike me as a twisted version of political progressives, and Erit Lux as conservatives, but maybe that’s a bridge too far. In any case, one of Dark’s final and most trenchant lessons is that dualities are unsustainable. As one character puts it, reality is three-dimensional, and the war between Adam and Eva is pointless because both are wrong. But as disconnected from reality as their God-playing may be, it still exacts a very real toll on them, their loved ones and ultimately the whole world.

Through a final twist that I won’t spoil here, Adam and Eva finally realize their errors. The truth is revealed to be something much bigger than either of them, and by accepting that fact they finally find a sort of salvation for themselves and their respective worlds. Significantly, it’s not really Adam and Eva who bring about this salvation, but rather Jonas and Martha – their younger, more innocent and less dogmatic selves. Jonas and Martha are lovers, not enemies, and they’re able to view the world around them with a degree of compassion that both Adam and Eva have lost. 

The very structure of the show itself mirrors this compassionate view, I think. It offers a sort of eternal perspective where “everything is now” and “the beginning is the end.” Because of its looping narrative form, we kind of get to see the whole story all at once, and this allows us to deeply understand the characters involved. We empathize with them even as we also see the scope of their wretchedness. I like to think that’s a little bit like how God sees us. 

If only we could have such an openness to the others out there, to the “libtards” and “deplorables” that we’re so ready to blame and assume the worst of. But unfortunately the zeitgeist of today is geared toward making us enemies of each other, not beloveds. However much they may claim to protect tradition or pursue progress, to defend communal health or exercise sacred liberties, the combatants in today’s cultural war are really just interested in control. Control of the world and control of history. Control that they can never really have.

Adam and Eva’s worlds share a common doom: to relive the same suffering in an endless loop, because their efforts to escape or control that loop only make it stronger. “Everything happens the way it always has,” until Jonas and Martha finally hand over control to a higher truth that lies outside of themselves. And everything will continue to happen for us the way it always has, until we realize that we can never save ourselves. Maybe 2020 will finally smack that lesson through our thick skulls. Maybe Dark can help us learn it. 

About the Author

James Powers is a writer for the Impacting Culture Blog and an alumnus of JPCatholic’s MBA in Film Producing (’19).

For all articles by James, click here.

There’s a conversation in the pilot of Kim’s Convenience between Mrs. Kim (affectionately called ‘Umma’) and her daughter Janet, a back and forth about why Janet is not married yet. It’s a familiar family scenario, made even more hilarious when Umma pulls the church directory out to show Janet all the available boys Umma’s found for her. But Janet objects. “There’s no such thing as a cool Christian Korean boy,” she laments. “They don’t exist!” And it is precisely this combination– cool, Christian, Korean– that this Canadian show on Netflix nails to a tee.

Set in Toronto, the show centers around the Korean Canadian Kim family, and their family-run convenience store. Mr. Kim (known as ‘Appa’) runs the store, aided by Umma, and Janet. Estranged son Jung works at a nearby car rental agency; the healing of this mysterious break between Jung and Appa constitutes a subplot for much of the first season. Otherwise, the show centers around the quieter moments of running the family store, and the comical interactions between family members. A gathering place for the community, the convenience store serves as a playground for realistic but ridiculous scenarios. It came as no surprise to learn that show creator Ins Choi had previously worked on “Corner Gas”; like that Canadian classic, the ability to find humor in the everyday really brings Kim’s Convenience to life. 

Boisterous but lovable Appa does his best to keep the store afloat, always available to offer fatherly wisdom from behind his tilted glasses and ever present coffee mug, while wise Umma fights to keep the family close, selflessly sacrificing herself for her husband and children. Janet and Jung, second generation Korean-Canadians, work to bridge the gap between the two cultures they’ve grown up in, facing the authentic challenges of balancing and harmonizing the two worlds. But, as in all stories about family, the themes are universal. I think I remember having this exact conversation with my own dad. 

The family is also Christian, an identity that’s a normal, integral part of their lives. Their wholesome, heartwarming relationships demonstrate a family that’s really trying its best. The Kim family is full of real, everyday love, even the joyously messy kind. Their wholesome, heartwarming example shines as a refreshing reminder to live the daily Gospel, no matter if at a church gathering or in a convenience store.

A lesser known gem on Netflix, Kim’s Convenience is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face. It’s sharply written, endearingly funny, and a celebration of Korean culture. The show is set to move into its fifth season, so there are plenty of episodes already available to dive into! Do yourself a favor and step into Kim’s Convenience, where you’ll find a family that’s truly cool, Christian, and Korean.

Editor’s Note for Parents: Kim’s Convenience is rated TV-MA, primarily for language and some innuendos.

About the Author

Matthew Sawczyn is a screenwriter in Los Angeles, and an alumnus of JPCatholic (MBA in Film Producing – Class of 2017). He loves hiking, HBO, and cuddly cats.

For more articles by Matthew, click here.