Pie

As I reflect on the movie Waitress, I remember just how well the characters were developed and shown to the audience for what they were; the good, bad, ugly, and beautiful. You could see how each of them had deep struggles, mixed with social pressures to appear a certain way while there were secrets lying behind everything that made it nearly impossible to live an honest life. The main character (Jenna) was caught up in so much painful tension between desire, uncertainty, and guilty conscience, and whatever choice she made would have it's consequences. This, I think, captures the essence of the social reality we live in; we're forced to live in a society that values certain things while we have conflicting desires and/or moral standards, but we don't know really what the right thing to do is so we try out all the options to find some truth in it all... the process goes on. On top of that there is this internal struggle against oppressive authority, and a longing for freedom to do what you want in life. Most of the film focused on this aspect of Jenna's life. She wished for freedom from her repressive husband, but could not bring herself to break it off. An affair with her doctor only added to the stressful situation - part of her wanted to give full vent to her desires for him, but the other part reminded her of how wrong it was, and plagued her with guilt.

We all have different struggles and internal conflicts; most of us probably haven't been through quite the situation that Jenna was in, but we are equally as complicated. I know that there are so many times I wish i could just escape the pressure of this life....all the endless decisions and responsibilities and cravings that don't ever seem to fit together. Life is complicated. Often it seems too complicated to deal with, but somehow we manage to survive, a lot of times wishing that we hadn't. In Jenna's case everything ended up ok, and we can rejoice with her for that. But reality is a bit less forgiving, and sometimes we end up more disheartened than when the conflict was at it's peak. So....what if things go wrong? What if Jenna's situation changed, and she was left with a less favorable outcome, like being stuck with her idiotic husband for the rest of her life? I guess this is not letting the movie speak for itself, and I know that the point of the movie was not really to be realistic as much as it was to show us humanity and beauty amidst terrible darkness....and for what it's worth I absolutely love the film for what it does. But while we are talking about humanity and beauty, we might as well apply inevitable tragedy to everything; after all, that is the world we live in. Yes, there is comedy and wonderful, spontaneous joy, but we don't know that it will happen to us. It seems that the film almost sends a false message, saying that if you only follow the true desire of your heart (in Jenna's case, leaving her husband and having the baby and living on her own with her own pie shop) then everything will be ok. It's like the traditional Disney message (follow your heart, it'll all be fine)...which I cringe to say, but that's what appears to be the case.

I find that one of the flaws to Signs and Wonders is that we never really spend time talking about the idolatry in the films we watch. As a Christian community, we should be always challenging ourselves and testing the things that come our way. Movies have a lot of good in them, especially the ones shown in Signs and Wonders. But there is hardly a movie out there that lacks an idol or two, maybe snuck in between the truths so that we don't notice it. Part of being a good listener, I think, is learning to test what you hear and find out what exactly is good about it and what is not. So, I guess my main point is that, even though I totally agree with the fact that there is good stuff in movies life Waitress, there is a danger in avoiding talking about the false things that are usually mixed in there right along with the good.