Deacon Steven Greydanus shares his personal convictions on how the aesthetics of Catholicism are used in secular media, and why he prefers that these influences remain on the edge of the presentation rather than being central to it.
Host: We’ll go to Leonardo in Woodbridge, Virginia listening on the EWTN app. Leonardo, you are on with Deacon Steven Greydanus.
Caller: Hi, thank you for being able to answer my question. So I’m calling because I have a question that relates to movies, but I feel that also it speaks to other relevant forms of media as well, and so I wanted to call in and ask what your thoughts were.
So on top of, you know, being a very avid movie lover, I’m also an avid gamer, and I’m sure a lot of your other current listeners are; and so I’m calling in because I’ve noticed both in movies and in forms of media like gaming, where a lot of different–a lot of these different forms of media have a lot of religious influences, specifically Christian influences. You can go from, you know, movies like Sister Act, and to the other side of the spectrum, like, the Golden Compass and DaVinci Code. I know it’s the same with different types of video games, I mean, your viewers would probably hear familiar names like Final Fantasy or Skyrim or Dragon Quest.
And so I noticed that on either side, in movies, and, you know, some of these Christian influenced movies and other groups of media, especially the ones that are created by people from Eastern cultures, a lot of these types in media have, you know, these religious influences that are placing clearly sort of fictitious scenarios, they’re not really using any, you know, explicit Biblical figures in any way, a lot of these movies or forms of media use the aesthetic of Christianity to tell a fictional tale. And so to my–
Host: Go ahead, just get to the question because I’m just watching the clock tick away there, so in one sentence, then, the question, because I think you made your, you set the point very well, what’s the question?
Caller: Yeah, so my question is, where do we sort of draw the line between what is–between calling these movies, are sort of to me sacrilegious, versus licit religious inspiration, like where do we draw the line between what’s sacrilegious…?
Steven: Right. That’s–it’s a really good question and you did put it really well, you’ve clearly thought about this for a long time and you have some very sophisticated thoughts about it. It’s true, certainly, and I’m not as familiar with the gaming world as you, practically at all, but I do know that Japanese artists, and I’ve seen this in anime and another cinema from the East, they are fascinated with Catholicism. And they often adopt aspects of the aesthetic of Catholicism; crosses and priests and cassocks and so forth, and divorce it from the theology of Christianity.
I would say I have a limited tolerance for that sort of thing. I can imagine alternate worlds where history played out differently, or where Christianity had an influence that became–where the faith was vestigial and therefore you have certain things that look familiar even though the theology of Christianity isn’t behind it. I’m more comfortable with these things when they’re peripheral than when they’re central. When they start to become a significant element in the story, I do become uncomfortable, and I would prefer to avoid it at that point. Even if I wouldn’t outright condemn it, I just find it healthier for my imagination to avoid the subversion of Christian images in that way. I hope that helps.