#i truly love discussing with religious people about our beliefs and how it affects our day to day

[pickled-flowers]

Having very big thoughts about spirituality and humanity.. alas I am never articulate enough so I'm just gonna rent in the tags as always

[deerth]

my first mistake in witchcraft

yes i’m going to be petty over religion for a second here.

i have been slowly inching out of the broom closet as i now consciously move on from the atheist mindset to the pagan one. i was looking for more resources to research my path, and i ended up on a witchy server... woe unto me as i try to fit in once more, for it seems that not even witches are unified.

forget about all that shit about garden, cosmos and whatever witches. the religion actually broadly branches into two practices - Wicca and regular witchcraft. so you are primarily the one or the other, no matter what flavour of ritual you practice.

the primary difference between Wiccans and general witchcraft is your belief of whether religion can be used for harm or not. in short, Wiccans state “an it harm none, do as ye will” (as long as you don’t hurt anyone [including yourself], go bonkers), therefore you will not find Wiccans casting curses or hexes. we know the responsibility of our faith and we know that if you radiate bad vibes, it will come right back around to bite you in the ass later. that said, most Wiccans don’t mind witches who do curse or hex. some cultures use practices like voodoo, and even old eastern European practices were not free of rituals that were made to directly interfere with someone’s will (love spells that were supposed to make someone love you). therefore, a disclaimer: I’m not anti-hex. I would not use a hex because I feel that hate will not solve hate, and as long as you’re an adult, I trust you know what you’re doing with your power. maybe you are of an oppressed culture and have good reason to exact revenge on someone who severely hurt you, especially if you have a long-standing tradition of hexes. even Nina Simone sang “I Put a Spell on You” (albeit this is also a love spell). I know curses and hexes and even spells affecting with another’s free will are an inherent part of witchcraft and I won’t deny it. I follow my doctrine, you follow yours, that is fine by me.

what is NOT fine with me, however, is propagating hex culture among minors. why? because minors are not ready to take on that responsibility!!!! just like they are not truly ready to make healthy decisions about sex, alcohol or other substances, they cannot take true responsibility over causing harm, be it spiritual or otherwise. “what’s a little hex do?” you might ask, if you’re a minor. not to sound like a boomer, but when I was 16, I was edgy as fuck. I hated everyone while claiming to love everyone. I was in NO correct mental state to make decisions about the aforementioned things. even without casting any hexes, I made many mistakes. big ones. I hurt a lot of people. yes, I regret it all deeply. I wish I had thought things over rather than stay stubborn. in fact, most people under 20 are not ready to enter discourse, drama or a vicious cycle of hatred purely because it will always turn into “all bite but no bark”. I purposefully say it that way because although youngsters are admirably spirited and ready to take on the world... they often bite off more than they can chew. I see girlies straight out of high school trying to solve huge problems like racism, and although, again, admiring these young people, they have researched their stuff. to an extent, they know what they’re talking about... but I do believe hate will not solve hate.

one of the moderators of said server retaliated with it not being a universal truth, and claimed my take to be “unverified personal gnosis” (what is a verified gnosis, anyway? how do you measure it? especially in a practice like witchcraft where every bloody individual practises it differently and there are no priests or churches?). if the moderator happens to read this and wishes to elaborate, i’d be welcome for a bit of constructive discussion over what is and isn’t personal gnosis. I acknowledge that “hate cannot be fought with hate” is not a universal truth... that is perhaps where I went to the extreme. but believe me, I did not say it to be holier-than-thou. I was actually shocked to be called out by not one, but two moderators on my behaviour, instantly. I did not read in the rules that one would be forbidden to state their opinion or softly disagree, but perhaps it is so and I did not pay enough attention.

there comes another food for thought: is it possible to socialise without being opinionated in any way? would shutting down opinions truly prevent conflict? because I’m feeling very bitter and left out now. I know everyone on that server is not Wiccan. but to get slapped in the face right after I attempted to be friendly (laconic and feeble as that was), among who I considered to be my own people... I feel conflicted. now mind, I’m not going to leave witchcraft behind. it is my religion, and thanks to this experience, I learned that Wicca is the right thing for me. I don’t want to advocate for violence and a vicious cycle of hatred. my grandfather was Romani, therefore I believe I know a thing or two about mislabeling and hate enacted upon minorities and outcast people. does that mean I want to kill and hex every white in sight? the answer is no. if anything, me being both Wiccan and Romani, it would just add fuel to the fire. especially because Romani are stereotyped as evil witches in the first place, so it would be a double suicide. by propagating violence, I would give these people more reason to hate pagans and Romani people. both cultures are already feared and hated upon as it is. I am not going to give people more opportunity to hate me.

coming back to the minor I disagreed with in the server. I was shocked that the first thing that came to a teenager’s mind was a revenge hex. it screams of naiveté and irresponsible behaviour towards your faith. and not JUST your faith. as I am a student of psychology, I am well aware how mind patterns work, and here’s the funny thing: psychology has proven that witchcraft’s law of returns is somewhat true, not on a magickal level, but on a mental one. if you ponder over violence and revenge excessively, you are reinforcing those neural pathways in your brain. there is a reason why they say “hate breeds hate”. it is the same reason why depression is so hard to deal with. anything you obsessively ruminate over reinforces it again and again until escape seems impossible. I’m not only speaking as a witch, I’m speaking as a human being. is it correct to propagate petty violence among minors when we as adults can do better and guide young people to better paths?

I’m not saying young people shouldn’t use hexes. but I am questioning their ability to take on the responsibility of potentially hurting someone, or even just thinking of hurting someone. you plant a seed of hate and it may just grow. you knock on the devil’s door enough times and he will answer (disclaimer: I’m not Christian either, I just like the saying). soon there shall be nothing left but hate. if the person in question had not been a minor, I would have left it at that. but religion is sacred. a witch’s magick is essentially making something important to you sacred. it’s not a plaything. it’s not to be used light-handedly. it’s not a trend. and hexes should be the last resort if all else fails OR the person you hate has a damn good reason for being hated.

is it wrong to vote for love and peace? yeah, I sound like a hippie, but I think they’re right. love was not born from continuing to fight each other - love was born from unity, from coexisting. how does one fight racism? psychology says see more poc, interact with them, understand their struggles. how to fight religious fear? spend time with people of different views. how to get over homophobia? spend time with the gays and try to understand their views, and like, actually understand them. spending time with someone just to berate them is still bigotry. the interaction I mean here is coexisting with minorities in a shared space and them slowly, but surely becoming more accepted and normalised because we finally see them. even a bigot can’t stay a bigot if they are brought out of isolation. if they’re forced to see people different than them.

unfortunately, not even your own faith can comfort you sometimes, mostly because the community is still divided. there are rules on what should and shouldn’t be done, and woe upon thee if you dare to even peep one of your thoughts. I merely said thank you and sorry and left, as I always do when I feel misunderstood. it was a valuable yet harsh lesson, and I regret hoping for acceptance or even offering me a moment to be understood without being shut down without a second thought. I regret hoping for a little discussion where it is seen as a violation of rules.

again, as long as you are ready to bear the responsibility of harming another, do whatever you want. as a Wicca, I prefer staying benevolent and kind, even to those who traumatised me. you might argue that this essay in itself is not benevolent... after all, Wiccans don’t slander people behind their backs, you might say. but it is not my intent to slander. it is just me expressing sheer confusion over what I expected to be a community to hear out all voices, because why have a community at all if you allow for no discussion? do we shut off discussions entirely in fear of fights? but alas, it is human nature to be opposed, but it’s also human nature to still hold hands despite the differences - one just needs to acknowledge it.

blessed be.

[revlyncox]

The Wisdom of Love (2021)

Love as presence, embodiment, and interdependence from the perspectives of Black humanists and freethinkers. 

This talk was revised and expanded for the Washington Ethical Society, February 14, 2021. 

There is an annual occurrence that I look forward to at this time of year: leftover Valentine’s chocolate is about to be on sale. I hope this turn of events brings comfort and joy to many. I do wonder, though, if there ought to be more to this season of commitment than a box of candy. Love is wild, powerful, wise, just, and compassionate. We don’t need to be romantically partnered to pay attention to love.

Knowing what I know of this community, even though it feels like I just arrived, I admire so many of you for your efforts to repair the world. I see healers of the mind and body, teachers, people devoted to caring for family members, scientists, activists, and artists. At the root of each person’s quest, I hear the voice of love: love for family and friends, love for the earth, love for humanity, love of beauty, love of the dizzying possibilities for discovery in our universe. Our minds can provide the analysis and our hands can provide the skills, yet the longings of our hearts keep us engaged and refreshed along the pathways of hope. We need our whole selves—rational, embodied, spiritual, and emotional—to make manifest the dream of a better world.

In this community, there are several labels that circulate, though I also know there are those in our community who prefer not to carry any label at all. We might call ourselves Ethical Culturists or Humanists or Free Thinkers. A few of us might call ourselves Unitarian Universalists. These movements all have a tinge of intellectualism to them, even as we insist that our values must be demonstrated in our actions. We prize reason, and we also need to remember that reason alone, without love, is incomplete.

Egbert Ethelred Brown, who was a Unitarian minister in Harlem in the early twentieth century, saw the wisdom in bringing our whole selves into community. Though early twentieth century Unitarianism and early twentieth century Ethical Culture were different movements, I think what he said can also apply in a place that Adler said is a religion for those who want it and a philosophy for those who don’t. Rev. Brown wrote, “Religion is ethics touched by emotion. If the intellect dominates and there is no hint of emotion, a cold and barren matter-of-factness results. Conversely, if emotion leads, unguided by intellect, we are doomed to a wild sea of fanaticism. Yet mind and soul united create one music, grander than before.” (Quote from “Cold Services,” p. 33 in the anthology Been in the Storm So Long, edited by Mark Morrison-Reed and Jacqui James; see also, Darkening the Doorways by Mark Morrison-Reed; more resources here, here, and here.)

I believe that emotions bring us a great deal of wisdom. We need to consult our feelings and gut instincts to make the best decisions. In particular, I think love in the broader sense offers three lessons that will help us live out our faith: groundedness, embodiment, and interdependence. Love keeps us here, rooted in the world as it is. Love is active, practical, and at one with our physical selves. Love remembers data and frameworks that our intellect may have forgotten, and revels in the unpredictable dance of change and growth. The wisdom of love teaches groundedness, embodiment, and interdependence.

Love Keeps Us Here

To be a community that brings out the best in each other and helps create a society where everyone can grow into being their best selves, we must be rooted in the world as it is, flinching neither from the pain nor the joy that is possible in the here and now. Each of the senses available to us helps us to understand the universe and our place in it. We think, touch, taste, and feel our way into making sense of the world. Love is the capacity that helps us to keep the doors of our perception open rather than escaping into abstraction or obsession. When we are able to truly love the world and the lives it holds, trying to hide is a less attractive option because escaping would separate us from love.

The power of love to draw us into the here and now, to embrace our souls with gentle, cupped hands and breathe fire into the embers, is a spiritual perspective. Lewis Latimer shared it. Latimer was an African American engineer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was also a poet, as demonstrated in this piece, “Love is All.”

“What is there in this world, beside our loves,

To keep us here?

Ambition's course is paved with hopes deferred,

With doubt and fear.

Wealth brings no joy,

And brazen-throated fame

Leaves us at last

Nought but an empty name.

Oh soul, receive the truth,

E'er heaven sends thy recall:

Nought here deserves our thought but love,

For love is all.”

(“Love is All” by Lewis Latimer, p. 39 in the anthology Been in the Storm So Long, edited by Mark Morrison-Reed and Jacqui James; see also biographies here and here.)

Latimer suggests that our loves, plural, collectively form the strongest force that keeps us “here.” I can imagine several meanings to where “here” might be. It is not a fixed point. “Here” moves with life and time. Here is where we put one foot in front of the other. Here is the present moment, this time and place and plane of existence. Here we are, gathered in strength, rooted in the world as it is. Love keeps us connected with the ground of our being.

Love is Embodied

The second piece of wisdom is that love is embodied. Love inhabits physical form and manifests in the real actions of human beings. This is true at the personal level and at the societal level. When we are able to fall in love with the world, to keep faith with humanity while fully recognizing the human capacity for causing harm, affection becomes action. Similarly, when tangible actions and their effects lead to suffering, we know there is something is amiss. Love needs mindfulness and compassion to bear the best fruit.

Humanism, to me, is a movement of people who believe in people. We value human creations like art and literature, we seek human solutions to our shared challenges, and we value dignity and equality as humanitarian goals. Love is an irreplaceable ingredient in this tradition. People can do (have done, are doing) terrible things, individually and collectively. Love helps us to be humanists anyway, to believe that positive change is possible, that society still has something to celebrate, and that creating an environment for healing is worth the effort. We are sometimes disappointed and often heartbroken, yet we persist in the spirit of love.

Within the Humanist movement, there are those who say that it should be exclusively atheist, those who don’t think belief or non-belief is relevant or needs discussion, and those who find room in Humanism for theists who don’t mind saying so out loud as well as atheist and agnostic humanists. In all three cases, Humanism is rooted in human experience and human responsibility to create the world we long for, as well as an insistence on the worth of every person.  

Wade McCree, Jr., was the third kind of Humanist. He was a vice moderator of the Unitarian Universalist Association in the late sixties. He was also the first African American to serve as the United States Solicitor General, and so had plenty of opportunities to see the best and the worst in people. He supported the idea of love as a force that helps us to be humanists anyway, even when the evidence challenges the idea of human goodness. He wrote:

“To me, one's religion is expressed in the manner in which one relates to other human beings. If one fights relentlessly against injustice, want, hate, and every form of exploitation, then one is a religious person. The love of God is not expressed by ritual or ceremony, but by loving.” ("By Loving" by Wade H. McCree, Jr, p. 18 in the anthology Been in the Storm So Long, edited by Mark Morrison-Reed and Jacqui James; obituary here)

Across the decades, leaders agree that fierce, open-hearted, actual-feet-on-the-ground love is an expression of their deepest commitments. People are worth caring for. Love longs for the well-being and abundant life of the beloved.

Love for people in general is embodied, and so is love for individual people in particular. For anyone who has ever cared for a child or an elder or a loved one who needs direct physical care, the earthiness of love is undeniable. Lifting, holding, and carrying are physically exhausting. Sleep deprivation depletes people mentally and spiritually. Yet people care for others, often without expectation of return. Within the wisdom of love, a person doesn’t have to produce anything or contribute to the GDP in order to matter.

Advocacy is also embodied. When it’s safe to do so again, people will be walking the halls of legislatures to demand policies that help people stay alive, and this is an act of love. Marching is embodied love. Vigils are embodied love. Using your voice and your dialing fingers for phone banking is an act of love.

Audre Lorde spoke about the intersections of poetry, dreams, care and advocacy - and about how this is different from a purely intellectual project - in her 1984 book, Sister Outsider. She wrote:

The white father told us: I think, therefore I am. The Black mother within each of us — the poet — whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free. Poetry coins the language to express and charter this revolutionary demand, the implementation of that freedom.

However, experience has taught us that action in the now is also necessary, always. Our children cannot dream unless they live, they cannot live unless they are nourished, and who else will feed them the real food without which their dreams will be no different from ours. “If you want us to change the world someday, we at least have to live long enough to grow up!” shouts the child.

From Fannie Barrier Williams (who was featured in the Time for All Ages story earlier in the Platform) to Audre Lorde, it is clear that the wisdom of love is concrete, it is not a theoretical exercise. For over a century, Black freethinkers have been saying, with love, that all people deserve equality of access to health care, housing, and public services. Love feeds our commitment to abundant life. Wisdom knows that embodied care and advocacy are aspects of love.

We value people of all ages, races, levels of economic activity, genders, sexual orientations, and abilities. The force of our conviction is made real with concrete actions. Love is embodied.

Love Remembers Interdependence

We can fool ourselves into thinking we are logical all the time. I can appreciate the attraction of making moral choices through what seems like a coldly rational framework. I don’t believe that any of us are as rational as we think we are, but even if we could be, love brings us some of the data we actually need to make good decisions. Furthermore, sometimes data gives an illusion of permanence that doesn’t match the experience of being fully human.

If we only look at short-term consequences, we may fail to take into account the expense of disaster cleanup when we are figuring the cost of energy. Without love, we might not realize that it is against our long-term interests to cause species extinction as we scrape up the Great Barrier Reef. Without love, humans appear to be statistics. When humans become statistics, the result can be disastrous policymaking. Statistics might obscure the fact that Black lives matter, and that justice for immigrants makes us healthier as a nation, and that we have a choice about whether people go hungry and get evicted during a pandemic. Love is what reminds us of the fierce importance of looking out for each other.

Ethical arguments for environmental and social justice might be dismissed as mere sentimentality, because love is made out to be less reliable than money. But of course that’s not true. Our gut instincts are sometimes on to something. When we love without apology, we come to our senses. We remember that the potential results of our actions go beyond the predictive models. We remember the interdependence of all life. We remember our connection with the earth. We remember that community can be life-giving, in all the ways that community is defined. And we remember that the essence of life is change.

Alain Locke is another history-making Black freethinker whose ideas are relevant here. WES members have heard about Dr. Locke before, especially in the work of my Ethical Culture colleague Jé Exodus Hooper. Dr. Locke lived from 1885 to 1954. He was a philosopher, patron of the arts, and a professor at Howard University. Dr. Locke didn’t use the word “love” as often as he used the word “culture,” yet from the essayists and poets we’ve already heard today, I think it’s clear that there is a connection between the practice of love and the way we understand ourselves to be related to others. I am indebted to philosopher Leonard Harris for his journal article to help me understand what Dr. Locke had to say about culture and community.

Two of the ideas Locke wrote about might seem to be in tension with each other until they are closely examined. One idea is that race and culture are social constructs; that is, what draws people together in shared identity is influenced by what we see, hear, and experience; and that therefore it should be no surprise when the definition of an identity is unstable. That’s not a very controversial idea now, but he went out on a limb academically in the 1920’s for rejecting the idea that biological races exist and are biologically caused to express cultural traits.

The other idea provides creative interplay, but is not mutually exclusive with the first. Locke argued that people have an instinct to seek out people with whom they share some kind of similarity, and that even though that similarity is a social construct, this instinct to form communities is good. A shared experience with what it means to be assigned to a group as it is defined in that moment still provides what he called “a consciousness of kind,” with associated common interests and responsibilities, and is enough of a reason to lead to a sense of belonging. He wrote:

The final thing is that we shall see that human society must [have] a … consciousness of kind, and that consciousness of kind is a healthy[,] and a normal[,] and a fundamental social instinct.

(From A. Locke, Race, Contacts and Interracial Relations, Quoted in “Alain Locke and Community” by Leonard Harris, The Journal of Ethics 1:239-247, 1997. This article is behind a paywall, but we might be able to find someone with access. For a free resource on Alain Locke, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an entry that is thorough and peer-reviewed.)

Dr. Locke warned that the social instinct can go astray, and that the construct of an identity begins to be harmful when the identity becomes regarded as static. He goes on:

… normal and healthy instinct has a very abnormal expression from time to time in the false notions, the false conceptions[,] of kind which are not conceptions of social kind--not conceptions of civilization type, of the American civilization type--but [rather] conceptions of racial kind and conceptions of race type [as permanent and invariable].

(Ibid.)

Dr. Locke's support for the healthy social instinct is part of what drew him to be a patron of the arts. The 1925 publication that launched his reputation as “The Father of the Harlem Renaissance” included art, African artifacts, articles by Black intellectuals, and poems by such writers as Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Angelina Grimke. In retrospect, Dr. Harris writes that this publication was “intended as a work ‘by’ rather than ‘about’ African Americans. It was a text exuding pride, showing African-American historical continuities, and revealing a new spirit of self respect.”

In other words, the things valued and created by the people who share an identity should be celebrated, not because they represent an objective reality or timeless virtues, but because the particulars draw people to connect with one another in a healthy, human way that helps people find a feeling of belonging.

Dr. Locke’s insistence that community is both always in the process of being socially constructed and vitally important as a human instinct reminds us that love isn’t just about who we think we are, it’s about who we are becoming, and about continuing to find ways we are related beyond the current social constructions. Everything that makes us who we are and leads us to places where we feel that we can belong is subject to change because we are part of an interdependent network of living, changing, mutually-affected influences and relationships. Even in this constantly-moving dance of being, Dr. Locke says that it is still important that we find community, and that we guard against the absolutes and the inflexibility that lead the instinct for community to go awry.

Love is wise because love remembers connection. When we love truly and deeply, the tug of emotions and relationships help us to account for data and frameworks that short-term thinking has forgotten. Even if identity and community are formed on ever-changing parameters, our human connections fuel compassion and a flexible landscape with room for healing.

Conclusion

I’ll be coming to a close soon, but I wanted to say a bit about Black History Month and how my thinking has developed with this Platform Address. I originally just wanted to say something about love, because today is a day for talking about love. As I researched sources, I came to understand that I had a great deal to learn about the perspectives of Black Humanists and freethinkers. While I am very far from being an expert on Black history, I believe all of us have a responsibility to study the whole history of the movements of which we are a part. The poets and essayists I have drawn from today bring lenses that are vitally necessary for understanding how we, in our close communities and in our larger society, have arrived where we are, and give us important perspectives from the history of the Humanist and free thought movements. I anticipate that I have made some errors. I look forward to learning more.

If you happen to be enjoying some discount chocolate later this week, I hope it will remind you that love is wise. Love goes beyond romance, beyond sentimentality, even beyond human concerns. When love works in harmony with all of our senses—the clarity of reason, the skillfulness of our hands, the renewal of our spiritual path—the combined wisdom helps us to be our best for each other.

Love keeps us here. In our caring relationships, we hold secret pockets of ourselves, treasures that help us stay connected to the forces that create and uphold life. May love call us back to our truest selves. May we carry resilience and hope for one another.

Love is embodied. Whether our bodies are part of a movement for justice or part of a team that cares for one person, our actions make wisdom visible. Love knows that people matter.

Love remembers interdependence. Cause and effect transcend the next quarter and can’t be measured by a single yardstick. We take the big picture into account when the wisdom of love invites us to take a second look.

Let us love deeply. Let us love boldly. Let us love wisely.

May it be so.

[mewmewnyaart]

I'm not very good at drawing horror and blood but I recently have been getting into OFF lately so I figured I'd try to draw batter to pratice lighting and shadows

I also made my own au where batter and hugo switch places but I doubt anyone would like it or even read it heck I couldn't even get a single like on any of my posts

But here I go anyway :

So common belief that the world of OFF isnt real and that its all happening inside Hugo's head because hugo is in a comma and that the batter resembles the father and the queen resembles the mother

And that the guardians are the boy's immune system and organs that are intolerant to the drug liquid plastic that is being experimented on hugo

The mother was always a working woman and never gave hugo attention while the dad was a straight forward and loving man (I also have a personal theory that he's religious)

The mother wants hugo to live but the father wants to let the boy die because he's tired of seeing his own child in pain everyday

Ok now that I have that out of the way here's my au:

In this au its the father that ends up in a comma and hugo is the one who tries to save him from dying

Backstory to how the dad ended up in a comma:

Hugo in this au is healthy and lives a normal life the father was once a baseball player (as a hobby) so hugo got inspired by his dad and started to take baseball classes at his school

One day the dad was dropping hugo off for baseball practice and while waving goodbye while slowly moving out of the parking lot a reckless older student who wasn't looking quickly backs up his truck hitting the father and sending him into a comma

Ok now for the characters:

We enter the game as hugo and we are greeted by the judge and we start our journey of "purifying" the world just like batter

The enemies represent different family members who dislike or or even hate the father and the father's phobias or fears as well as microbes or poisons in the father's system

Then we have other characters like pets,neighbors,friends who are good guys or people who side with hugo in the this au

Also the puzzles would changed in this au

Hugo is a child and the father would probably play alot with hugo and his games since the mother was always busy ,so instead of floating boxes we'd get more complicated versions of kids puzzles like connect the dots or fill in the shapes etc.

Now for who each character represents and then I'll move on to what the goal of the game is or what Hugo's mission is:

Hugo= he represents the son in real life but he also resembles a new antibiotic that's being experimented on the father

The judge = in real he's the family house cat named milk ingame he's a guide but I have my own head canon

so alot of people tend to draw batter with his eyes closed some draw 4 eyes some draw no eyes at all

I like to think that the father irl has bad eye sight or sensitive eyes so he wears special glasses but will not wear any glasses when at home because he doesn't like to so he will walk around with his eyes closed

So milk will guide him throughout the house by purring or meowing at him

As for the smile the judge has on his face hugo likes the movie Alice in wonderland over and over so the image of the Cheshire cat would be embedded in the dad's memory which is why the judge appears that way

He views the judge as someone who is helpful

The queen = the queen is his wife however they start to have alot of problems and arguments before the father fell in a comma

And the relatives try to convince her to turn off the life support and move on with life

Dedan= irl he's the father's brother in law with a snappy attitude and he hates the father alot and even objected in thier wedding day he will do anything to hurt the father or cause trouble

The father sees his brother in law nothing more than a all bark no bite a big mouth

Japhet= in real life is the lady that lives next door (yes I KNOW japhet is male but he's based off if her in the father's head)

She's is very controlling person who enjoys gossip and can't mind her own business always sticking her nose where she can as well as pushing everyone around she does everything she can to get attention and impress people and she's flirted with the father mutiple times but she's ignored her every time

She has very loud and noisy birds and has killed thier other family cat Venice saying that she did it as self defense (Venice is Valerie basically)

The father views her as a parasite

Enoch= he resembles another dad that takes his kid to baseball practice but is in bad terms with the mother and will constantly pick on hugo for fun

He assumes if the father approaches him its because his wife told him to do so

and will constantly say that his child and wife are happy ,living a life with no problems thinking that he's got life figured out

Even though its clear that his son isn't enjoying baseball at all, is quite over wieght as well as his wife ignores him all the time not to mention he's constantly eating meaning that he has some sort of food addiction it seems he sees no irony in his life at all

The father sees him as an irresponsible over wieght person who's always lying to himself and to blind to see the truth thinking that his life is ok when it's clearly not

Zacharie = irl he's the father's best friend since middle school and they've known each other for years he was the best man at the wedding he's bisexual and in a relationship with a girl named sweetie (please don't hate me batterie shippers QWQ!) He used to crush on the father and even confessed to him on the wedding day he was heartbroken but accepted that the relationship was never gonna happen and was even mad at his best friend but realized it was wrong of him to feel that way

He eventually moves on

He likes to bring and buy alot stuff and show them to his best pal later somegimes illegal stuff (he even brought weed over one time oh boy) he's like an uncle to hugo and is always happy to help and defend his best friend no matter what

He views him as a brother and family member aswell as a very optimistic chill dude and will jokingly refer to him as "the merchant"

Sugar: irl she's zacharie's gf (before her he had 2 toxic exes and she helped him out of those toxic relationships) she and the father don't really talk all that much so he knows little to absolutely nothing about her aside from the fact that she likes to talk funny sometimes and is really into dolls and aliens and a slight addiction to eating pixie straws (straws filled with powered candy or sugar)

He views her as a silent person nothing much

The elsens= they are the people that the father meets/sees/interacts with everyday/every once in a while but don't have much of a connection with (you know like a co worker you have small talk with or barely ever see)

Now for the plot :

After the father enters a comma the son starts to go from school to the hospital (they're very close to each other and you can say hugo is 5-7 years old and ) and visits his dad everyday and calls out to him hoping it'd wake him up

The mother scolds him for running off without super vision and that his dad won't wake up if he keeps calling him that whatever he does is useless that his father will remain to be a lifeless bag of meat on a bed

Hugo doesn't give up ignoring his mother's words

She realizes that hugo has an obsession with his unconscious father that is affecting his studies along with his social life

Zacharie doesn't make this any better because he offers to pick up hugo after school to prevent him from getting abducted or lost along with his jokes all the time

She slowly starts to Contemplate turning off the life support machine wondering if it would fix everything

Hugo hasn't been paying attention in class and thier marriage has been having a issues lately her family never liked or accepted him she sees zacharie and others as annoying and problems bringers and maybe they'd have less expenses if hugo didn't have to go to baseball pratice every day not to mention he'd less likely get hurt if he stopped playing

Everyone else started to convince her to turn off life support they discuss this next to the unconscious father

She prevents zacharie from seeing hugo and locks out any other connections the fatehr has

finally she becomes convinced however there's 1 barrier preventing her from doing that.....Hugo

The only person who truly gives hugo attention and love is his father without his father he'd feel lost and scared his mother is always working and doesn't give him much attention

Everyone tells him to give up on his dad and move on but hugo stands his ground

Alot of the arguments and conversations happen in the hospital room next to the father so he hears everything in his comma which leads to the creation of the world of OFF in his head

Therefore we play as hugo through out the game (dressed in a baseball outfit) solving puzzles and fighting enemies "purifying" the world

Not much changes the boss battles the add ons etc. Will remain the same in this au

Maybe there will be more rubber duck /duck/ bird themed stuff in this au aside from the pedalos (ex:move the boxes to make them look like a duck idk lol)

However the final boss will change

Canonly batter is stopped by the judge but in this au the judge sides with hugo because its the queen (the mother) who is trying to turn the switch off and hugo is trying to prevent that

So instead of the judge stopping hugo

Hugo will meet the queen, she will tell him to halt and not bother going any further that her intentions will not change hugo will begin to tell her off everything she's done wrong she will respond saying that she's doing it for thier sake (Hugo's and her's) but hugo calls her out and tells her its not true and she loses her patience with him leading to a boss fight if hugo wins then she will refer to him as "my little sweetheart" and fade into dust

"The room" will also change instead of hugo it'll be his dad (the batter)chained to a wall (basically a prisoner in his own mind) hugo will take 1 step forward activating a trap causing him to plummet down a tube and fall unconscious for a few minutes

When he wakes up he sees the queen and all the guardians standing before him the queen states that he can give up or die trying then she speaks to the puppeteer (the player) the you are given 2 options

1.aide with the queen

2.side with hugo

If you side with the queen you will have the guardians ok your side then Hugo's appearance will change as well he will appear to have a large head with a huge gaping mouth a baby rattle and apron and speech bubbles that say "wah wah" "whine whine" (stating that his mother sees him as a cry baby)

If you defeat hugo then the switch is immediately turned off and it gives 1 out of the 2 bad endings this ending is called "check mate" as a reference to a queen from chess

If you side with hugo then you will be defeated but you won't get a game over yet instead the queen will give you 1 last chance

Then you are given 3 options

1."surrender" 2."gasp for help" 3."cry"

If you choose surrender then you will get the 2nd bad ending in which in life support is turned off the father dies hugo becomes lonely with his mother busy all the time (and not allowing him out side the house and not trusting people) which leads to hugo growing up cold,plain and unloving

At some point there's a scene where adult hugo stares at his old mother laying on the kitchen floor in pain for a few minutes instead of helping her immediately indicating that he doesn't care

If you choose "gasp for help" then you will get the good ending "aye batta batta,strike!" In which hugo will call for help (while in deep pain from the fight) after a few calls judge,zacharie,sugar and a few elsens will come to the rescue and revive you fighting by your side allowing you to defeat the queen and guardians

Everything slowly starts to go back and the father wakes up from his comma everyone in the room stares in shock but hugo had the biggest smile on his face while standing next to his dad's bed "did...I miss something?"

"...daddy *breaks into tears*"

The 3rd ending called "better late than never" is triggered when you choose "cry"

Hugo will cry very loudly

The mother changes her mind and doesn't turn off life support but hugo stops visiting his dad and similar to the 2nd bad ending hugo grows up to be cold and unloving 13-16 years later hugo visits his father again and he finally wakes up from his comma and is discharged from the hospital after 1 year of rehabilitation therapy

By now the mother had remarried and the father missed his son's childhood so now he has to relive his life

However hugo meets a girl who is a complete opposite to him at work and church (rainbow hair,optimistic,enjoys music of various kinds,loves cute things,baking,jokes,and artist etc.) And is forced to work with her as well as she tries to get Hugo's attention so he asks his father for advice on how to get rid of this woman which leads to alot stuff going on and hugo allowing how to love and live life leading him to falling in love with the girl and becoming a new man

(This is personally my favorite ending lol and I MIGHT write fanfic of it on wattpad or here idk tbh )

Anyway this my OFF au I GUESS the name can change to the ON au or OFF/ON au lmao idk

Reblogs and feed back is appreciated

PLEASE DONT STEAL MY AU i worked hard on this thing spent 5 hours to write it all

Heh I sat this as of anyone is even gonna read whatever I dount it'll get noticed at all

[dustydahlin]

Beloved - Your New Identity in Christ!

Subject: A look at our new identity as Beloved. How a closer look at this biblical identity statement can draw us into a deeper relationship with God.

This is going to be exciting! Today, we will be discussing our identity as the Beloved of God. I am excited about this because an appropriate teaching on our identity as Beloved requires a discussion on what I believe is one of the Bible’s deepest topics. A topic that gives life, changes lives, and sustains the soul through life’s most difficult times.

But before we dive in, I want to disclose the purpose of this study. I believe that God has a word for us. I believe God has given this study as a Word that is intended to be more than positive affirmations and personal declarations. I believe that God desires to lead us into deeper experiences. I pray that this is more than just another identity lesson. Something more than just information that creates positive feelings. This teaching, I believe, can truly baptize the heart into the rich joy of God’s goodness.

That being said, let us begin with a recap of what we have already learned about a biblical understanding of our identity in Christ. In the Bible, the believer’s new identity is presented to reveal much more than something about us. It is divinely inspired to communicate more than just personal professions of WHO WE ARE. It highlights a deeper truth. The Bible presents our new identity in such a way as to demonstrate something specific about God – the Giver of identity. Also, each identity statement reveals a specific expectation of God for his people. This is what Douglas Buckwalter says:

“These names are rich in theological detail. The giving of personal names in biblical times often signified a religious conviction about their recipients or something that would be done through these people. The giving of Christian names, likewise, expresses something about the religious status and character of the person and group named and something about what God has done, is doing, and will do in and through them. These names, in effect, provide us with a first-century compendium of Christian belief."​

​

It should become more and more evident to us that the Bible, first and foremost, points us to God. It reveals His actions, His desires, and His covenant faithfulness to His people. The same thing is revealed through the Believer’s identity. We must first ask, "what does this say about God?”

Secondly, we must ask the question, “What does this require of us?” These biblical designations also highlight Heaven’s expectation for God’s people. Each name, statement, and designation shows something different. Each one is unique. There are around 175 different identity statements in the New Testament alone (Douglas Buckwalter). Each one of these communicates a specific revelation about God and about what is expected of God’s people. Of Beloved, we must ask the same thing. What expectation does this communicate of us?

This being said, let us address the answer to our first question…

​

Theological Implications - What does this say about God?

​

It should be obvious that our identity as Beloved emphasizes the love of God. The rich, infinite, and lavish love of God. I believe this, as alluded to earlier, is the deepest topic in the entire Bible. God’s love. This is nothing short of breathtaking. It is not indifferent. It is not cold. It is not distant. It is not without emotion. The fact of God’s love is one of the most life-changing and sustaining pools in which we can dunk our thirsty hearts.

And yet, sadly, it seems this has become a platitude. We have heard it said so many times. We have said it so many times. We have read it so many times. It can be very easy to forget how precious and profound it is. God is restlessly concerned about us. He is attentive and active in His care for us. Our God pursues us.

​

​1 John 4:8 tells us that “God is love.” Love is an integral part of God’s character. It motivates His actions, and it guides His decisions. So loving is God, the Psalmists, the Prophets, and the Apostles seem incapable of separating love from all that God is. God’s love was seen through creation. He created a beautiful and perfect universe for mankind. As a Master Craftsman, He fashioned the world as the perfect place in which to have a relationship with His Beloved – those created in His image. God’s love was seen when His Beloved fell in Eden. They, not He, brought death into the world. They scratched the surface of a perfect canvas. They tore the fabric within the frame of God’s plan. And yet, God’s love was seen in His actions to restore mankind. His love was seen in the gracious historical movement of redemption. As He moved His Beloved back to a right relationship with Himself, God’s love was seen. With the work of Christ, God’s love is seen in the eventual crescendo of recreating the heavens and the earth. God is love.

Rom. 8: 35-39, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God.”

Our Identity as Beloved further illustrates this. We are Beloved of God. God loves us! This tells us that God is love. It communicates the loving commitment of God to us. It reveals a God that is active in His care and concern for people. He chose it; He dispenses it. It informs us that love comes from a personal God. He offers His affections to all that would receive it.

​

​Rom. 5:1-5, “… Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God… and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

​

Finally, our identity as Beloved emphasizes two primary concepts. First, it conveys God as being the loving Groom. This is absolutely a picture of closeness, intimacy, and tender affection. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew for “beloved” is ‏דּוֹד (dowd). It can be seen about 32 times in Song of Solomon. The symbolism of this Old Testament Scripture grants us a glimpse into the Heart of God for His Beloved. God’s love for His Beloved (the Bride of Christ) is greater than any earthly love possibly imagined. Even the sweetest and most romantic of earthly loves pale in comparison.

Secondly, this reveals the love of a Father for His children. In the New Testament, the title of Beloved (ἀγαπητός - agapētos) is associated with the eternal love of the Father for the Son. It is also used of God’s love for His children. In Ephesians 5:1-2, Believers are affectionately described as “beloved children” having received the most lavish gift of love imaginable – the substitutionary sacrifice of Messiah. God is truly a loving Father to His children. He is protective. He is generous. He is nurturing. He is unconditionally caring.

1 John 3: 1-2, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are… Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”

Identifying Christians as Beloved reveals the extravagant love of God. Now that we have answered the question of what it says about God, let us attempt to answer the question of what it requires of us!

Practical Expectations - How does our new identity as beloved instruct us?

​

Now that you know you are Beloved of God. Now that you have had a brief glimpse into the depths of God’s love. Now let us look at heaven’s expectation for us! This particular designation infers that we “be loved.” Being the Beloved of the Lord, we are to celebrate and rest in that love. Having drunk deep of the waters of God’s love, we now get to treasure it. We are to allow that constant stream to regularly flow over us.

This is one of my favorite passages:

Eph. 3:17-19 says, “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith— that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." 

Wow! Speaking to a people that already have the Spirit of Christ dwelling richly in their hearts, this Sacred Text tells us to root ourselves in love. We are to rest upon the foundation of God’s love. This is a place where we can send out our roots into the nutrient-rich soil of God’s boundless loving-kindness. I submit that our first response to the love of God is that of rest and celebration. Being Beloved, we are to treasure, cherish, and rest in that precious reality.

​

When God delivered His people from their bondage in Egypt, it revealed God’s love. He had not forgotten about His people. It was nothing less than a demonstration of God’s love and faithfulness. But it did not stop there. Not long after delivering the Hebrews from slavery, God commanded the most peculiar thing. In Leviticus 23, God gave a directive. God spoke and commanded His people. With great authority, God instructed His people to regularly rest and celebrate. God instituted seven festivals and celebrations that were to be regularly engaged. They were intended to train His people to rest in, and celebrate, what God had done, is doing, and will do. Israel was His Beloved! He desired His people to rest in His love and celebrate His covenant faithfulness. From God’s perspective, these festivals were to train His people to trust him and to remember His goodness. It was to provoke their hearts to worship. But from the Israelites’ perspective, it became "just another command.” It was just another thing. It was something they had to do. In this passage, we can conclude that rest and celebration are God’s design.

Often, I wonder if we do the same. I wonder if the ocean-silencing love of God has become a platitude. I wonder if it has become just another teaching. Just another sermon. Just another passing phrase. I wonder if we, also, forget to rest in (and celebrate) our God. Like Israel, we are God’s Beloved! He loves us intensely!

The Ephesians 3 passage is one of my favorite passages. It is so profound, and it is so simple. It also shows us that establishing ourselves in God’s love leads us deeper. As we root and establish our hearts and minds in the love of God, we position ourselves “to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” This is something that we can train ourselves to do. With the Help of the Spirit, we can train ourselves to rest in and celebrate God’s love. As we go. As we work our 9-to-5’s. As we struggle to pay our bills. As we work through broken relationships. As we sludge through the waters of loneliness. As we stare at the towering wall of discouragement. We can train ourselves to rest and celebrate. On the fly, wherever we are, we can make intentional and conscious efforts to pray, meditate, worship, fast, and thank God! We can utilize the spiritual disciplines to train ourselves to rest in God’s love. We are, after all, His beloved. We are vessels of His affection. There is ALWAYS something for which to be thankful!

Lastly, as Beloved children, we are to imitate the Love of God. Ephesians 5:1-2 says this, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” As we train our hearts to meditate upon this great love, we allow the loving example of our Heavenly Father to seep into the very fabric of our being. As we train to establish ourselves in Christ’s love, we learn to walk after the pattern of our God. As God’s beloved children, we are to look up to the example of our father. Being Beloved of God implies that we will live lives of outrageous love, as we have seen from our Father. As we have been loved, so shall we love others.

1 John 4: 7-11, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

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“To love someone means to see him as God intended him” (Fyodor Dostoevsky).

“I am persuaded that love and humility are the highest attainments in the school of Christ and the brightest evidences that He is indeed our Master” (John Newton).

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jesus of Nazareth).

Additional Recommendations:

Militant Thankfulness: An Essential Practice to Experiencing a Full Spiritual Life (my book)

Bibles

Crazy Love!

How Happiness Happens

Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine

[vediosexmelayuucvf120-blog]

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Introduction: The full name of the book is "American Idol after Iraq" which is published by Blackwell - Wiley in 2009. The author of the book Nathan Gardels has been the editor of New Perspectives Quarterly since it began publishing in 1985. He has written widely for the daily papers and journals since mid 1980s and he has been a Media Leader of the World Economic Forum (Davos) as well. Apart, he has given speeches in Islamic Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (IESCO). Gardels holds degree on Theory and Comparative Politics from UCLA. His co-author Mike Medavoy has had a very active role in making large number of Hollywood movies. Throughout his career in Hollywood, he has been active in politics as well. In 1992 and 1996 he advocated Bill Clinton and in 2008 he was in favor of Barack H. Obama. He was born in Shanghai, of Russian-Jewish parents; he graduated with honor in History from UCLA.

Summary

In this must-read book the authors explain and mainly discuss the public diplomacy and Hollywood role in shaping it, mainly in the new era after 9/11 terrorist attacks. The foreword is by Joe Nye, Harvard Professor which is mostly well-known with his notion of "soft power". Once again, Nye asserts the importance of the soft power- Weapon of Mass Attraction- and recalls that not missiles and bomb but the American soft power was the key in collapse of Berlin Wall and consequently Soviet Union, the Evil Empire as Reagan called it. Nye believes that in wake of the new century American soft power is not as powerful as the past decades. It is because of the mistreatment of the prisoners in Gitmo and Abu Ghoraib prison by American troops. The world does not believe and trust America as before. Professor Nye puts forward that in the Information age success is not merely the result of whose army (hard power) wins but also whose story (soft power) wins. He recalls the US challenge and problem with Islamists hardliners and extremists in which hard power is needed to defeat them but WMA is needed to win the hearts and minds of the moderate Muslim which are the majority in the Muslim world. He accentuates the fact that democracy and human right could much more easily achieved with soft power with a long lasting effect. Obviously, the most important tool as soft power for America are its giant media-industrial complex and Hollywood which broadly discussed by the authors in their script.

HEARTS, MINDS AND HOLLYWOOD:

Hollywood, as the authors put forward has been the largest machine of dream making and storytelling in human history. Unlike most countries in the world America's image is based not only on who they are and what they do, but on how the Americans present themselves to the world through their global window. The most attractive and glamorous production of this machine has been the image of America as the promise land of infinite possibility and opportunity where individual liberty is in hand and the society is always on the move. In its 100 years it has opened a new window toward the world in which America has been seen through it and Americans has seen the world through it, as well. Some believe it has been truly and largely successful in telling and selling the American (version of) stories in past 100 years. "The dreams of America - individual freedom, middle class, prosperity, social mobility, the rule of law- which were made the dreams of the world, too, were pictured by Hollywood."

Other than that it has been used as a tool by the American Government fighting against "freedom" enemies, Fascism, Communism. Even the author argues that during the tensest day and peak of the Cold War, it was J.F.K who ordered the managers in the Hollywood that the Ian Fleming 007 espionage novels ought to be made into motion pictures. Other than that he mentions that to fight against Fascism and Nazism in the twentieth century Hollywood made the fist celebrity known globally, Charlie Chaplin who diminished and underestimated the power of Hitler in The Great Dictator. It followed the Wilsonian ideal in America's role in bringing democracy and self determination to the other parts of the world. These are samples which shows that Hollywood in its lifetime has used and been used as a tool and actor for America's political purposes. By creating roles known globally, like Rambo and James Bond, Hollywood has beaten its enemies, world foes and made it believable that the US is the ultimate savior of the world. Its values are absolute and universal and needed to save human and humanity. Accordingly, Washington eagerly sought to employ Hollywood's influence and soft power at home to make people in favor of his own foreign policy objectives.

But it could not be generally accepted that America's secret weapon, Hollywood, the biggest soft power tool is playing a positive role all the time. Not only foreigners criticize Hollywood to spreading violence, porn culture through its images in the world but within the US there are who reprimand and knock the film industry as well. To a great extent Fukuyama asserts that "It is perceived as the purveyor of the kind of secular, materialistic, permissive culture that is not very popular in many parts of the world, especially the Muslim world." It is living without any responsibility which is creating the greatest tragedy of our time. It is emptied of a spiritual dimension. Many believe that Hollywood is not doing a great job in elevating spirituality and morality of America in the world to win the hearts and minds of the people, but conversely Hollywood is sowing the seeds of loathing and hatred in the world generally and in the Muslim world particularly. Some, like Bill Bennett, Ronald Reagan's secretary of education openly and famously charged that Hollywood is undermining the America's mainstream values. This is much clearer when we take a look at the PEW foundation Poll in April 2005, which nearly 61% of Americans are concerned what their children see or hear on TV. Accordingly, "Soft power does not necessarily increase the world's love for America. Soft power is still power and still makes enemies". If there is a resistance to military presence and occupation, surely there would be an opposition and resentment to cultural invasion and occupation. For example even in Turkey which is America's NATO Ally, the most popular novel in 2004 which was sold more than 800000 copies envisioned a war between Turkey and the US in which finally Turkey wins. Even American brand of secularism which is pictured in movies has been the source of concern among the religious leaders in the West. Pope Benedict XVI carried forward the worry that aggressive secularism reflected in the media was eroding the religious Foundations of America. He told American bishops that "America's brand of secularism poses a particular problem. It allows for professing belief in God and respects the public role of religion, but at the same time can subtly reduce religious belief to the lowest common denominator. The result is a growing separation of faith from life."

Although the Noble poet Octavio Paz called America "the Republic of Future" which always eyes on future and new horizon in which Hollywood has been successful to create. But now due to democratization of digital media all around the world the future is not a Gospel for American soft power and its culture. For instance, although American soap operas largely viewed and seen from Malaysia to Canada, but in South Korea, for example 92% of TV and video games are domestically produced and are telling and selling their own stories.

In the age of globalization, we may be witnessing the end of "the end of the history"-which Francis Fukuyama stated after the end of the Cold War. Process and era of globalization, accelerated the modernity and post modernity and diversification around the world. The Singaporean diplomat, Kishore Mahbubani, makes this critical point in his book, "The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible shift of Global Power to the East" asserted that the great paradox about the failed Western attempts to export democracy to other societies is that in the broadest sense of the term, the West has actually succeeded in democratizing the world. One key goal of democracy is to empower its citizens to make them believe they are masters of their own destiny. The number of people of in the world who believe this has never been higher. Even in the undemocratic society of China, citizens have seized the opportunities provided by the economic freedom they enjoy to completely change their lives.... In the global term there has been a huge democratization of human spirit." Due to the point that some assert that in a democracy the voting booth and the box office share the same public. So, Hollywood has largely been considered to be the United States of America muscle in public diplomacy to win the hearts and minds of public as well as elites around the world. The trend of globalization and democratization of the media and the increasingly power sharing in many centers - the rise of the rest -as Fareed Zakaria calls it, results in an atmosphere in which Hollywood is not the expected and absolute winner. Apart, by the development of the communication technology mainly Internet and the emergence of Netizen (Network citizen) now everyone is their own story teller and filmmaker which is growing largely in numbers. It leads all people to move to the same neighborhood, more and more people want to see and hear their own stories on the screen, to see that their own ideas and cultures has been projected and reflected on the screen and then to enjoy the latest offerings.

CONCLUSION:

The authors assert that as Harry Warner, one of the founders of Hollywood believed "the movies should educate as well as entertain people". The author puts forward due to the change in challenges that the world and America are facing, the media and Hollywood strategy should be changed to meet the problems of the new era. Some recommendations are given on close cooperation of public diplomacy and mass culture. Some of them include the matter of sensibility which should be considered in media and Hollywood to promote the empathetic understanding of other civilizations and ways of life. It is insane to try to impose the American way of life and the liberal model of "good life" to the world. "To Be able to put oneself in another's shoes without prejudgment is an essential skill" as a Chinese cellist asserts. Among the recommendations is the breaking the American public narrow mindedness by promoting more cultural cooperation with other cultures, promotion of the exposure of the worthy American cultural products, elevating the level of exchange in students and journalists and cultural figures as well and creating a joint committee by Washington and Hollywood on cultural relations. They believe it may work to restore the American dream and stance in the new era again.

[originaljediinjeans]

I think here on Tumblr is the only place I “could” discuss this. If I brought it up on a Facebook support group my post might not get approved by admins because of how what I am about to describe touches on multiple sensitive issues. Also I have certain friends in those support groups that might not like seeing what I have to reveal. 

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We’ve been called “Mormons” in the past but we’re trying to step away from that. Those of you who have heard of the Church know that the Church has come under fire for its policies towards LGBTQ+ people, based on teachings that promote the traditional family and traditional marriage as the center of our lives and the thing for which we are rewarded the most in Time and Eternity for having. For very strong personal reasons I accept the Church’s teachings about the importance of marriage and family.

In the last few years I have added a good number of LGBTQ+ friends into my social circle. A few of them are very vocal about their identity and lifestyle on their online profiles. I have had good experiences with some of these people and I have grown to care about them as peers and as friends. Some of them I have stood by (mostly via internet) as they have struggled with their own mental health problems. I want to have good relationships with people from all backgrounds. There is no reason in my mind that I can’t. 

I am autistic, and I have struggled with mental illness off and on since my teen years and issues about marriage and sexuality and my beliefs about them have been at the center of a good portion of those struggles. My parents and my counselors and doctors would all tell you that I have a very “black and white” way of thinking and they are correct. For me, something either has to be all one way or all another way. I have worked very hard since I was a child to try to understand that things that are different can coexist, and things that are not all one way can be just as they are. 

There is a part of me that is always trying to reconcile having LGBTQ+ friends and associates with my faith. I have done everything I can to study the scriptures and the teachings of church leaders in order to understand the concept that the Savior taught that we must love those who are different from ourselves. He dedicated His life to making a special effort to reaching out to everyone who was outcast, downtrodden, and left behind in any way: He asks as much of me as well as everyone who follows him.  

After this last weekend’s General Conference, I saw the usual backlash on the internet against how certain topics were addressed by the General Authorities. I admit, it was enough to trigger a meltdown. I was able to pull myself out of it. I came to the conclusion that the issue with myself is that I am not ‘homophobic’ as much as I have anxiety about certain topics. I wonder how much homophobia itself is related to actual anxiety etc, but that is not the main issue here. The main issue here is me and how I feel. 

I don’t want to “hate” people for who they are. And I don’t. But I have two seperate lines of thinking when it comes to my LGBTQ+ friends: 

One: I love and respect them and I am so grateful that I can be friends with people who are different from me

Two: I do not approve of the lifestyle choices of people that I am acquainted with because my Church teaches that sexual relations are only legitimate between a man and woman legally married. 

I have to carry those two mindsets in my interactions with certain people--I think it’s partly due to the fact that I’m autistic that sometimes I can’t deal well with the effort of being, in a sense, “double-minded.” It can feel exhausting because I’m trying to resist my natural tendency to think only one way. But I come from a church and a culture that teaches that basic values should not, cannot be compromised, and that only reinforces my mental rigidity, and that makes accepting other ideas harder. I confess sometimes that rigidity lends itself to feelings of anger and hate--but I don’t like to dwell on them. I don’t want to.

I hate reading or hearing that my opinions about anything are wrong, even if it’s not directly addressed to me. But I have a growing paranoia that I’m going to get hate for my opinions anyway (but if it comes because of this post so be it--I have honest concerns and I need to address them and I hope the right people find this post).

A lot of what I see on the internet tells me that my church is wrong about everything: about sexuality, about gender differences, about the leadership, I could go on for quite a while. There are people who question how it is “fair” that the highest rituals of our religion are exclusive to people who do as the Church teaches. There are people who protest that if God’s love is so universal and far-reaching that they should be allowed to have full participation in the Church regardless of their sexual behavior. There are many who claim that the Church wants them to “suffer” rather than have fulfillment from romantic and sexual relations with people they are attracted to. All of those concerns are valid. I don’t know the answers to all of their questions. However, I don’t think that questions or other people’s complaints are a reason to abandon faith. 

My biggest concern is that as much as I “love and respect” my LGBTQ+ friends, I feel hypocritical and evil for associating with them because I have negative feelings towards their way of life. I feel like a bad person because I don’t “love” them unconditionally, or that I have to pick and choose how to love them. I think I am being fake with them. I have always been concerned about these friendships at least in theory but now I am an adult and being able to deal or not deal with them is going to have real consequences. 

(Yeah, it’s Satan, I know).

When I was younger, I had the assumption that I was supposed to not interact with people who were immoral in any way, that it would make me “unclean”. I have since learned, of course, that that attitude is very wrong. I get that there are plenty of people in my church who treat LGBTQ+ people very poorly and I know that that has caused serious problems--some of my LGBTQ+ friends are from that background. I know that Jesus Christ would never condone members of His Church being unkind to others just because of their sexual orientation. 

(Side comment that may hurt the validity of my quandry: I know that it sounds like the General Authorities of my church are talking down about LGBTQ+ people, or at least saying things that sound hurtful or aren’t what people like to hear, but the Church has always taught that we need to show love and kindness to all people, that we are all children of our Heavenly Father, and that being disdainful of others who commit sin is not the right way, even if we aren’t trying to make them “repent.” Those teachings are still valid even if the members don’t always live it. Also, back in 2015 the Church supported legislation in Utah to promote equal housing and employment for LGBTQ+ people, and the Church recently supported a hate crimes bill in Utah that includes protections for LGBTQ+ persons. I feel that the Church is trying to promote peaceful relationships and equal rights for access to basic needs). 

I have a very real paranoia that if my LGBTQ+ friends knew how I “really” felt, they would abandon me. I belong to a church that is actively seeking to put them down, in their minds, and the flawed culture of imperfect members is hard to disentangle from Church policy. I have a very real compulsion to “out” my “problematic” side and just get it over with, to post here on Tumblr or on Facebook that I am a “toxic” person who should be shunned. In fact, since last October I have been tempted to commit suicide over the mere possibility that this ugly beast exists in my soul. 

(Yeah, that’s definitely Satan)

I still believe that homosexual behavior is a sin. I have no intention of leaving the Church or criticizing its leaders, even if they are imperfect. But I accept that same-sex attraction and gender dysphoria is a reality for many people, and there is nothing wrong with those feelings in themselves, even though living in a world dominated by cishet people is very difficult. I also know that Heavenly Father does not approve of homophobia. The “natural man” is the one that gives in to fear, anger, and hatred. 

But there are people who would interpret my religious views as homophobic no matter how I felt about them as individuals. I am afraid that the people that I am actually friends with might think of me as homophobic merely for belonging to this Church and for accepting some of its teachings. And there are people who think that if I don’t unconditionally “accept” and support their sexual lifestyle choices that I don’t truly “accept” them. I’m afraid of my own homophobia and it hurts. I’m afraid of attitudes of hatred and prejudice taking over me and then costing me my relationships with other people. 

I am afraid that as we get closer to the Second Coming that the conflict between people fighting for what they believe are their rights and the Church trying to stand its ground will get very heated. I don’t know how that’s going to affect me but I’m not looking forward to it. However, I don’t want to worry about that now. And I shouldn’t. My life is better for my relationships with people who are different from me, including those of differing sexual orientation. I know that my Savior has commanded me to love other people the way that He loves--loving them for who they are and encouraging them to follow Him--and I want to. 

I just really need help reconciling my feelings, or at least knowing that such reconciliation is possible. I’m not concerned about doing the right thing as much as am I going to be okay and do my LGBTQ+ friends really accept me without me having to compromise my beliefs? These issues put me under a lot of mental and emotional pressure. What is it going to take for me to be strong enough to withstand it?

Sincerely, Me, a person who struggles with mental illness and wants to do right by the people she cares about

Please interact: open-minded people who are religious/spiritual, Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, people with knowledge or experience of mental illness, LGBTQ+ people who are more tolerant of religious people; people who have struggled with similar thoughts or fears a plus

DO NOT INTERACT: athiests and exmos, antis, etc., anyone who just wants to talk down to me about my beliefs or “educate” me; also far-right religious people who misinterpret religious beliefs to justify homophobia

[moments777]

Two Reasons Why Religion and Politics Cannot Be Separated

By Bruce Ashford

“Never discuss religion or politics with those who hold opinions opposite to yours; they are subjects that heat in handling, until they burn your fingers.” So wrote Thomas Chandler Haliburton, a Canadian politician and judge, in 1840. Haliburton is not alone. He was merely expressing what many modern Westerners think: we shouldn’t talk about religion and politics in polite company, especially if the two subjects are joined together and more so if the people in the room do not agree.

This sort of common wisdom is well-intentioned but wrong. It is unhelpful advice and, ultimately, impossible to put into practice. Here are two reasons why Christians should not try to separate religion and politics (even though they should separate church and state), followed by two answers to two common objections.

Two Reasons:

First, we human beings are deeply and inescapably religious, and “religion” cannot be defined restrictively as “the worship of a supernatural deity.”

When the Bible teaches that all people are deeply and inescapably religious, it is not saying that all people worship a supernatural deity (Rom 1:25). No, the Bible recognizes that some people reject the worship of a supernatural being. Instead, it is saying that all people embrace Someone or Something as ultimate.

That Someone or Something sits on the throne of a person’s heart, commanding his loyalties, shaping his life, and offering some sort of salvation. That Someone might be the God of Jesus Christ or the Allah of Muhammad. Alternatively, it might be sex, money, power, or success. But it is a god and a functional savior nonetheless.

Often, it is the combination of two or more objects of worship. In other words, the human heart is a playground for the gods.

Second, we cannot separate our private self from our public self. If religion were merely the mental and mystical acknowledgement of a supernatural deity, then we could easily relegate that belief to the confines of our private lives and to certain religious ceremonies. But religion is not that. As the Bible defines it, religion is the central organizer of a person’s thoughts and loves. If a person really and truly embraces the God of Jesus as the Creator and Lord of the universe, that embrace will have a cascade effect, pouring down and out into that person’s beliefs, feelings, values, and actions. Similarly, if a person absolutizes sex or money or power, that absolutization will cascade outward from the private recesses to the public words and actions of that person. We cannot disintegrate the person by severing the public from the private.

Two Objections:

Any number of objections might be raised against this view. For now, I will limit myself to acknowledging three objections evangelical Christians have raised.

One objection is that “politics doesn’t save; therefore, we should not waste our time.”

The point of the objection usually is that Christians sometimes put more energy and affection into their political views and activism than they do their personal devotion to the Lord or their efforts to share the gospel. In response, we affirm that Christians should put energy and affection into their own spiritual formation and into sharing the Gospel. But we also affirm that politics and public life are avenues to exercise our spirituality and witness to the Gospel.

Every sphere of culture—art, science, education, business, family, and yes, even politics—is a field of activity provided by God, corrupted and misdirected by sin, and in need of being redirected to its creational design and its true end in Christ. As evangelical Christians living in a democratic republic, we should engage in politics and public life as an aspect of our witness, as a way of seeking the common good for our society.

Of course, this means that our manner of public interaction should be shaped by the gospel. It should be shaped both by truth and love. If a Christian aims at truth but not love, he will become little more than a loud-mouthed amateur lobbyist standing in the public square sweating and yelling at passersby. If a Christian aims at love but not at truth, he will become a sellout, sacrificing biblical convictions in an attempt to seem more loving or more tolerant in a society that has turned against Christian convictions.

Another objection is that “no political party or program encapsulates God’s wisdom and will for the world.”

Again, this statement is true but it is not a reason for us to try to separate religion and politics. We must make clear that we are finite and fallen humans, unable to know comprehensively or with certainty how to apply God’s will to certain policy issues or political circumstances. In other words, no political party or platform will encapsulate God’s will for a particular country.

For that reason, we must be clear that the gospel transcends political parties and platforms. It doesn’t transcend them by demoting them into insignificance, but by showing where they have gone right and wrong. As evangelical Christians, therefore, we must continually evaluate our parties, platforms, and policy stances in light of the Gospel and biblical teaching. But we must not—in an attempt to make clear that God transcends and sits in judgment of all earthly political programs—make the mistake of trying to separate religion and politics.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, all people are religious. We cannot separate our religion from our politics because we cannot separate our heart loyalties from our public life. In one way or another, our heart loyalties will radiate outward into our public words and actions. Exactly how our religious commitments radiate outward and translate into public life is significant, because religion and politics can be mixed in good or bad ways, but whether they radiate outward is not up for grabs.

So let us put the Gospel to work for good in our current social, cultural, and political context. Sow it deeply into the soil of our society and culture. Let us faithfully apply our Christianity to the public square, praying that our witness will serve as a compelling preview of God’s coming kingdom. Let us never tire in our efforts for our nation, praying that God would give us the combination of humility and boldness that only he can provide.

🙏🏻💻📱☕️🛡🗡

[hero-israel]

"The modern anti-Semite is more subtle than his great-grandparents. He doesn’t smash our windows or our bones. He insinuates himself into consciences that are already troubled and works on spirits that are already half-broken. And we are too responsive to his serpent insinuations. When the history of Jew-hating in our time comes to be written, Jewish collusion in it will feature heavily.

To the question I don’t have – but is something like, “How do any of us, as Jews, fulfil the great task imposed on us?” – here is my part-answer: stop apologising and resist the sirens who would lure you on to the rocks of guilt and self-dislike, singing of Jewish materialism, Jewish legalism, Jewish exclusivism, Jewish supremacism, Jewish imperialism, Zionism…

It isn’t that we expected the world suddenly to love us after the camps were liberated. We are wise in the ways of human psychology. We know that people turn against those to whom they feel obliged. It is hard to forgive those you have wronged, and we knew we would not be forgiven the Holocaust. But we thought anti-Semitism itself might take a short break – admit its errors, lick its wounds and go into hiding for a while. Embarrassment, if nothing else, would surely deter most anti-Semites from showing their faces. “Not yet,” we thought they’d say. “Not a good idea after what’s just happened.” What no one could have expected was the speed with which they found a way round any such compunctions....

Moral sophistry is now the enemy to remembering, bringing accusations that Jews exploit their sufferings and fail to learn from them, that whatever they were owed in the way of pity they have since forfeited.....

Decisive in [Jeremy] Corbyn’s emergence as a folk hero is the triumphant amnesia of the young. Of the history of socialism in the 20th century, of the dogmas that still exert a hold on ideologues such as Corbyn, causing him to turn his face away whenever words such as Jew, Israel or anti-Semitism are spoken – some boast of knowing nothing. What does it matter? We weren’t there. “What you don’t understand about my generation,” one young journalist wrote after last year’s election, “is that we don’t know or remember who Gerry Adams or Hezbollah were – so when you tell us that Jeremy Corbyn was their friend, we don’t care.”

Considering how easy the Internet has made it to find out about the past, such ignorance is surprising. But every promise of enlightenment the Internet has made, social media has broken. It revels in the selfish minutiae of the now; having neither eyes nor ears, its stock in trade is malicious rumour. People retweet what they will not take the time to confirm – a slander; a conspiracy theory, of which the Holohoax is just one; or a malevolent meme such as that posted by a Labour politician three years ago – “I have often said the Holocaust victims who died with dignity must be turning in their graves at the horrors done in the name of Judaism.”

How are we to describe the obscenity of that? Can the tweeter truly be so ignorant of what went on in the camps that she can speak, nostalgically, of Jews dying in them with dignity? Or is there method in the ignorance, truth playing second fiddle to propaganda – Jews dying with dignity in the horrorless Holocaust only to show up how little dignity Jews of our age grant those they kill in horror-filled Israel?

Thus the moral seesaw on which Holocaust relativists love to frolic – the contestable atrocity that was the Holocaust now rising, now falling, but always ultimately outweighed by the incontestable outrage that is Zionism. It was played upon again in a fringe meeting at last year’s Labour Party Conference where that prize catch, an Israeli anti-Zionist, argued for the necessity for the party to discuss everything openly, including the Holocaust. “Holocaust yes or no?” he posited, as though the truth of Auschwitz waited on a thumbs up/thumbs down decision. Holocaust: like or dislike? It was a line of enquiry that was given a definitive thumbs up later in the day when a distinguished British film director and member of the Labour Party [Ken Loach] appeared on the BBC to defend it.

If "never again” is to be more than the exchange of pious velleities, it has to encounter the brute realities of today. The reality, then, was this: after some preliminary bare-faced lying – insisting that charges of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party had “no validity whatsoever” but were made only to discredit the party leader – Citizen Z, as I will call him, spoke the following, now infamous words: “I think history is for us all to discuss, wouldn’t you?… The founding of the state of Israel, for example, based on ethnic cleansing, is there for us all to discuss… So don’t try to subvert that by false stories of anti-Semitism.”

There you have it in one easy lesson: how to toy with denial while not denying; how to associate the Holocaust with Israel for no apparent reason (though the emotional logic is clear enough: the one retrospectively drives out any sympathy for the other); how to affect an open mind even in the act of closing it; how to shut out all discussion of Israel’s founding while pretending a willingness to discuss it; how to scatter libels like confetti while protesting your innocence of all malign intent; how to refute the charge of anti-Semitism even as you’re accusing Jews of lying.

Later, [Loach] wrote to the New York Times to deny he’d said what he’d said. Of course he would never question the historical fact of the Holocaust. I can believe that in the cold light of day his own words shamed him. But in the heat of battle, in defence of party, entramelled in that ideology, which demonises as imperialism even the first steps towards a Jewish Homeland, there was no calumny he wasn’t willing to support. Jews subvert the truth, falsely charge the Left with anti-Semitism, falsely steal another people’s land, so why shouldn’t they – just for the music of the argument –falsify history. This is how the poisons agglomerate and spread.

Historians ask what it took to make a civilised people consent to the slaughter of millions. Here is what it took: it took the language of exclusion. Jews threatened the healthy functioning of the national project. To even the most educated they could be represented as alien, inimical, inhumane and dangerous. Society is never more murderous than when it has an idea of itself to protect, an ideology of commonality, a rigid structure of shared belief, no matter whether its source is the extreme right or the extreme left, secular or religious.

“Never again” is the sacred promise we gather annually to reaffirm. It must be more than a mere wish. It binds us in the necessity to be strong minded and alert. And that means alert, above all, to the words those with hatred in their hearts employ to exploit the guilt in ours."

--Howard Jacobson

[jcspacey]

Animation is Not Just for Kids

The first essay I ever wrote in college was a “surprising reversal” essay, where we had to take a widespread idea or misconception about something and shed some light on how that idea is actually not true. The topic I chose was how animation is not just for kids-- that adults can like it too. I want to share some of the things I wrote in that essay, but present it in a more informal way. (I got an A on the paper, by the way XD)

[Disclaimer: The only animation I really watch is movies from studios like Pixar, Disney, and sometimes DreamWorks, so those are the main examples I have and what I mainly focus on in this. I’d love to hear thoughts from people who watch animated movies and TV shows from other studios as well!]

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Back in the summer of 2018, Pixar released their highly anticipated sequel Incredibles 2. The film was very successful-- it broke box office records and received mostly positive reviews. But controversy soon arose about the language used in the film. One Twitter user addressed the film’s director, Brad Bird, and expressed their displeasure at hearing swearing in a kid’s movie. Bird responded, “With all due respect, it is NOT a ‘kid’s movie.’ It is animated, and rated PG” (@BradBirdA113). This Twitter user’s tweet reflects a common opinion in our culture-- that animation is “kid’s entertainment.” 

This sentiment is shared in Hollywood as well. Live action films and shows get more respect, since they are viewed as more “sophisticated” or “mature.” Animated films rarely get a Best Picture nomination, and the Best Animated Picture award has only been around for about 10 years. Directors of animated films have also been quoted as feeling like second-class citizens in Hollywood (Gardetta 272). 

As an adult whose favorite films are animated, I have sometimes felt embarrassed when saying what my favorite movie is. But that shouldn’t be the case. In reality, no adult or teenager should feel embarrassed about liking animation, because “the animated cartoon is a perfectly respectable art-form with a considerable tradition behind it and with special advantages for both artist and audience” (Sisk 243). While most people assume animated films or television shows are for children, animation is actually a medium that has value for all ages. 

First off, it is important to recognize the difference between a medium and a genre, because the confusion between the two is a major contributor to the misconception of animated entertainment. A medium is the method by which art is created (For example: watercolors, acrylic paints, or charcoal and pastels). A genre is the category of composition within that medium (think landscape, still life, or abstract). Many confuse animation with being a genre when it is actually a MEDIUM of story-telling. There are many genres within the medium of animation such as action, comedy, drama, and so on. Animation is NOT a genre itself. To view animation simply as a genre for kids would trivialize them. Animation is a beautiful art-form. It is extremely flexible, and there are many stories that are just better told through animation than live action (I’m looking at you, live action Disney remakes). 

There are many examples of animation that isn’t intended for children at all, or made specifically with adults in mind. I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t know much about these movies/TV shows, but I promise you if you look up “adult animation” you will find them. These shows are labeled this way because they often have strong language, violence, or sexual content. This is why you can’t just throw all animation into a pile and slap a ��kid’s media” label on it. There’s definitely animation out there you probably don’t want your kids to be seeing!

Then we have those animated movies and shows that actually are intended for all ages-- the children and family movies, if you will. An adult or teenager can also find rich enjoyment in these films since they often explore complex themes, messages, and emotions that perhaps only an older viewer can truly appreciate. Pixar is especially noteworthy for finding ways to hide in plain sight the existential questions and fears adults face in the disguise of an “innocent” family film. Ellen Scott of Queen's College, City University of New York stated, 

“…these Pixar features exploit the tendency of the ratings system to judge the ‘adultness’ of a film based on its sex and violence quotient alone. They remind us of something that the rating system apparently doesn’t know: that sexual titillation and violence are not the only wages of adulthood” (161).

There is no shame in being an adult who doesn’t gravitate towards that more “adult” stuff. I’m one of them. I lean towards family animation because I don’t want to see sex, gore, or strong language. But I do enjoy exploring darker themes and the other aspects of adulthood, because sex and violence isn’t all there is to being an adult. 

These films explore the other “wages of adulthood” by incorporating themes such as death, feelings of worthlessness, depression, growing up, and letting go. Themes such as these stimulate discussion and engage the minds of adult audiences.

To illustrate, Toy Story 3 contains arguably one of the darkest scenes in American animated film. You know what I’m talking about-- the incinerator scene. The toys struggle to escape, but soon find themselves accepting the hopelessness of their situation. Grasping hands, they exchange terrified looks as they slowly descend to their seemingly inevitable end. That’s dark stuff! Quite shocking to include in what many might call a children’s film. Additionally, the movie contains many sequences addressing the existential theme of obsoleteness, such as when the toys have to deal with the fear of being discarded before Andy leaves for college. To quote Scott again:

“Ostensibly, of course, the scenes are about toys being thrown out. But they raise deeper questions about death and beyond that the end of material existence--void--that are far more complicated than even those raised in most films with adult ratings” (158-159). 

Moreover, the movie’s final moments are tinted with melancholy as they compel us to contemplate our own childhoods and how we had to leave them behind. I saw this movie for the first time when I was 10, and that final scene affects me more now than it ever did as a child.

The fact that these films can relate to both children and adults is part of why they are so impressive. Take Finding Nemo for example. While kids might relate to Nemo and his plight of having an overprotective parent and learning to become more independent, adults might relate more to Marlin and his struggles with anxiety and raising a son as a single father.

But Pixar isn’t the only animation studio investigating these deep, and sometimes thoroughly adult, themes. Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame, while modified from the original novel to be more suitable for a family audience, still deals with obsession, lust, and genocide. In the DreamWorks film How to Train Your Dragon 2 (spoiler alert), Hiccup’s father is actually killed by a mind-controlled Toothless. There are so many other examples, and ones that are far better than these, I’m sure. These films aren’t just mindless fluff, there are real, difficult concepts in them that make them extremely compelling, accessible, and enjoyable for all ages. 

But what about those animated films that are truly intended specifically for children? What about animated media that maybe isn’t so deep or philosophical? You know what-- YOU CAN ENJOY THOSE AS AN ADULT TOO. Sometimes we don’t want to contemplate our existence or the meaning of the universe while consuming media. Sometimes we just want to have fun with our comfort TV show or movie. 

Basically what I’m trying to say is, who cares what the intended audience is supposed to be. Watch what ever makes you happy! Just don’t disregard animation because of its reputation of being childish, because that is far from the truth. It’s a fantastic medium with fun to be had for every age.

To finish, I’ll share this quote from Daniel J. Moloney, a dean at a university in Pennsylvania (in context, he’s talking about the Disney renaissance movies, but I think it applies to most animated family movies/shows. My main point in this essay to point out that children and family movies are just as valuable for adults, and I think this quote drives that point home):

“So just what is the appeal of animated films for so many adults? On a purely objective level, the films are works of technical and artistic genius. They present excellent music and lyrics and incorporate elements of comedy, drama, and suspense. They sport good scripts and field fine voices. Their visual and auditory presentation is so powerful it can bring an audience to the point of awe.

But it is not only their objective qualities that make these films so wildly successful. I believe the most compelling element of these animated films is that they tap into the heart of the human struggle: our day-to-day relationships with one another and our tattered but unshakable belief in goodness. In these films there is little gratuitous violence, no foul language, no discomforting sex, no overt politics, and no religious controversy— staples of our daily life and most of our cinematic entertainment.

Even more important, the viewer of these films can be fairly confident that good will prevail, that by the time the final credits roll, the transformative power of love will have been affirmed. In a word, these films give us hope.”

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this subject! Also, let me know what your favorite animated movies and TV shows are!

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Works Cited

@BradBirdA113. “With all due respect, it is NOT a “kids movie”. It is animated, and rated PG.” Twitter, 2 July 2018, 3:10 p.m., https://twitter.com/BradBirdA113/status/1013907729461727232

Gardetta, Dave. “Mr. Indelible: Brad Bird’s The Incredibles May Have Left a Permanent Mark on Filmmaking, but Animation Directors Still Can’t Get No Respect in Hollywood.” Los Angeles Magazine, no. 2, 2005, p.78. EBSCOhost.

Maloney, Daniel J. “No Admittance without Children.” Commonweal, no. 13, 14 July 1995, p. 30. EBSCOhost.

Scott, Ellen. “Agony and Avoidance: Pixar, Deniability, and the Adult Spectator.” Journal of Popular Film and Television, vol. 42, no. 3, 2014, pp. 150-162. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/01956051.2014.881773.

Sisk, John P. “The Animated Cartoon.” Prairie Schooner, vol. 27, no. 3, 1953, pp. 243–247. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40624571. 

[emilyiswrightt]

Audience Studies (3P18) Blog #2:

If you read my previous blog post, you know we touched on the subject of power in audiences. Today I will be expanding on audiences and power to show why we should care. To start us off, why should we really care about audiences and power? Do their outcomes truly affect our day to day lives? The answer to this is absolutely! We should care because stories in the media matter and who tells the story matters as well. Let's put this into terms of a movie. When making a movie, producers search and do roll casting for each position. The purpose behind this is to find the perfect actor for the role. The producer doesn’t want the wrong actor in the place. Now think about your favourite actor. Personally, I love any Adam Sandler and Will Ferrel. These actors are known for starring in comical films, and their roles are always light hearted and funny. Comedy films are my favourite, but I do love a good historical film based on true events. My personal favourite historical films are those based on World War Two. Although my favourite actors are Adam Sandler and Will Ferrel, I would not want them to be part of the cast in this type of film. Their funny style of acting would not fit in with the seriousness of a film based on a World War. To me, this shows that who is telling the story is just as important as the story itself.

Circling back to the topic of this blog post, I want to discuss Dependency Theory (Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Melvin DeFleur, 1976) and the four processes of audience involvement with media personae (Brown, 2015).

Dependency Theory is known as a way to study how media affects mass media. It speculates an internal link between media, audiences and large social systems otherwise known as their interactions. The diagram this theory presents finds a correlation from society (which the degree of structural stability varies), media (which the number and centrality of information functions varies), audience (which is dependent on media information) and effects (which as cognitive, affective and behavioural). The consensus drawn from this theory is that learning from real life situations is limited and therefore people need to use the media to gather information to fulfill their needs. The individual will become increasingly dependent on the media if their medium satisfies their needs. My grandfather religiously watches “The National, CBC News” at 9pm with a nightcap to fulfill his media needs. I have never personally seen him sit down and watch another news source. Over the years of this news source airing, he has become dependent and it has become part of the person I know him as today. Often my friends and I like to joke around with him by telling him he better get going inside, The National will be on soon! We all recognize this in him which has become a fun talking point for us millennials, who are not so used to sitting and watching an hour long news report. Social stability is when audiences reconsider their behaviours and beliefs in the situation of strong social change. This includes things such as riots, elections or maybe even a national health pandemic, such as COVID-19. During strong social changing situations media dependency is increased as there is a need for information. During the pandemic of COVID-19 many people rely on news sources for information on case numbers, breakouts and more. This is important to the health and safety of each individual. An active audience chooses their dependency on factors such as economics, society and culture (“Media Dependency Theory”, 2020). If there was a news source that more actively fulfilled my grandfather's needs, he would turn to that rather than The National.

Now to switch gears, let me tell you about media personae! You may be just as confused about what media personae as I was when I first heard about it, so let me briefly explain it first. Media personae is essentially a well recognized and known individual who is constantly in the public eye. Persona can be defined as “the personality that a person (such as an actor or politician) projects in public” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). Another word that you may be more familiar with to describe this is a celebrity. We will examine how Brown, W. (2015) examines the four processes of audience involvement with media personae. These four processes are parasocial interaction, transportation, identification and worship. Firstly, parasocial involvement. This is the “Involvement, broadly defined, is the degree of psychological response of a person to a mediated message or persona” (Brown, p. 260, as cited in Lecture 3, Good 2020). When I think of this, I think of “BieberFever”. For those of you who don’t know, a famous music artist, Justin Beiber won the hearts of many many girls. I never personally had Bieber fever, but many of my friends did. This is when an individual was so obsessed and felt romantically towards him, we would say that they had Beiber Fever. I found this video on YouTube that perfectly represents this: https://youtu.be/Mm7XGjU5qq0

Next, transportation is when a person is involved with a story and puts themselves in the narrative. As a story is being told the person becomes so emotionally involved it is as if they too are in the story. When I was younger my favourite books series was The Percy Jackson Series. When reading these books I became so involved I would imagine myself in the narrative as a character. Outside of the book I would continue to research Greek mythology to further my knowledge. I was so involved in this series it became part of the person I was. Following this is the process of identification. This is when a person themselves forgets who they are and becomes the other. To better explain this, as cited in Lecture 3 (Good, 2020), “Identification ends and worship begins when a persona becomes the primary focus of a media consumer’s Qme and aWenQon and object of his or her love” (Brown, p. 271). This leads us to our final process, worship. Worship is when people begin to give celebrities or people with status attention, which ultimately increases their status.

Once again, I hope the discussion on Dependency Theory (Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Melvin DeFleur, 1976) and the four processes of audience involvement with media personae (Brown, 2015) helped your knowledge with audience power!

Until next time,

Emily

Resources

Definition of PERSONAE. Merriam-webster.com. (2020). Retrieved 25 October 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/persona.

Good, J. (2020) COMM 3P18: Audience Studies, week 3 notes [power points slides].