I recently went to see the film Heretic, which tells the story of two LDS (Mormon) missionary “Sisters,” Sophie Thatcher
as Sister Barnes, and Chloe East as Sister Paxton, who knock on the wrong door
of a sadistic atheist, Mr. Reed played by Hugh Grant. Bedlam ensues.
This is a horror flick, but it is an odd horror flick. It is
very talky. The action and gore are punctuated and happen mostly at the end. So
much of it is lecture and demonstration by Mr. Reed as he leads the young women
into his house of horrors. But this sets up an enormous amount of tension, and
the effect is riveting.
When the “Sisters" arrive at his door, he courteously
invites them in. They respond that they are unable to enter unless his wife (or
roommate) is present – as long as it is a woman. He assures them that his wife
is in the kitchen happily (and shyly) baking a blueberry pie.
With that, the trap is set and the girls enter. They are
immediately locked in, but they don’t know it yet.
They sit with Mr. Reed in the cozy but creepy living-room,
where a candle glows softly on the coffee table. After several minutes of
talking, they sweetly ask to meet Mr. Reed’s wife.
Mr. Reed disappears to fetch her, and the girls discover the
candle is a ruse for the wife. It is blueberry scented and they have been
duped. There is no baking. There is no wife.
They try to leave, but it is then that they discover that
not only have they been lied to, they have been locked in the house. So they
are forced to venture deeper into the lair.
Mr. Reed then uses his trap to make a point about the faith
of these girls. There was no wife. That had become more and more apparent, but
the girls went along with the notion that, at any moment, she would step into
the room to join them.
They were told something and they believed it without
question, even as the evidence against the thing that was told to them piled
up. Might the same be true of their religious ideology? Is this something they
had even pondered? He ensnared them and then used their ensnarement to build a
metaphor that attacked their faith.
Interesting.
He leads them further into the house, and lectures them
about the many, MANY iterations that occur in pop culture. He begins by playing
the song, “The Air That I Breathe,” by The Hollies, and asks the girls if they
have ever heard it before. They respond that other than hearing it a moment ago
when he had played it, no they had never heard the song prior to this moment.
He disagrees. He tells them they absolutely have heard the
song before. Then he begins to sing “Creep,” by Radiohead. Immediately, the
audience can hear it. No wonder that was so familiar!
Mr. Reed then relates this to the story of Jesus Christ, and
points to the many iterations of this figure and this story throughout
different cultures at different times – the virgin birth, the sacrifice, the
resurrection, etc. He notes that this is a regurgitated story. None of it is
new to the man named Jesus. His story is not unique, it is a myth that has been
assigned to many figures over millennia.
He further extrapolates to the three major Judeo-Christian faiths,
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and highlights that these too, are iterations
of each other.
Adorno suggests that “standardization” is a product of pop culture
and the content it churns out. To a certain extent, I agree. Although, it might
appear that this is more a facet of human creation as a whole, rather than just
what is mass-produced by our popular culture.
As I am writing this, the well-known phrase, “There is
nothing new under the sun,” pops to mind. I attribute this phrase to
Shakespeare, and indeed he said something similar in Sonnet 59:
If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burthen of a former child!
But first (or at least previously), this was stated in the Book
of Ecclesiastes, “…there is no new thing under the sun,” long before Shakespeare
was born.
How perfect that even the notion that “nothing is new” has
been regurgitated for millennia.
And how very meta that a current pop culture artifact (Heretic)
makes a point about the mythology of several religions being regurgitated,
while the point itself, “There is nothing new under the sun,” has been churned
out almost as often as iterations of the story of a “virgin birth.”
What do you think? Is regurgitation and standardization relegated to pop culture artifacts only? Or is this more a facet of human creation as a whole?
