by David Keating
The Keating Files – October 8, 2020
A common critique leveled at Hollywood is that it’s a place unwelcoming to Christians and those who hold a more traditional worldview or set of values. This can be true for many segments of the entertainment world. However, something that I’ve noticed while watching some of the most highly acclaimed movies of the past several years is a degree of, for lack of a better word, nostalgia for church.
This doesn’t mean that there is somehow a Christian revolution in filmmaking happening right now, but instead, I would argue that there is a certain feeling of longing for a time when Christianity occupied a percentage of one’s time throughout the week. Christianity provided a sense of identity and meaning for many Americans in the past and Hollywood has taken note of the Church’s public absence in the culture. This feeling, I think, has slipped into film in some pretty interesting ways.
Specifically, I want to take a look at this “church nostalgia” phenomenon through the lens of A24’s Lady Bird (2017). Directed by Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird is a coming-of-age film that deals with the typical themes that you would expect of the genre. The movie takes a look at what it means to come into one’s adulthood, taking responsibility for the decisions that one makes, and it aims to struggle with the feeling of the loss of childhood and youth that happens as one ages and transitions to a new stage in life.
Gerwig has described the film as semi-autobiographical as it draws on many experiences that she dealt with as a teenager heading into her college years. The main character in the film, Christine McPherson (portrayed by Saoirse Ronan), attends a Catholic school and tries her best to cast off both her religious and familial identity. She and her best friend Julie cut class and sit in the sacristy consuming unconsecrated wafers. She voices pro-choice opinions at the school’s pro-life rally, and even vandalizes the car belonging to one of the nuns who teaches at the school. Christine essentially aims to behave in an irreligious way in her religious environment.
As part of her attempt to throw away the identity her parents have provided for her, she has (prior to the film’s beginning) begun to go by Lady Bird instead of the name that her parents gave to her. In addition to these behaviors, we also see the run-of-the-mill rebelliousness that comes with youth, such as staying out late, underage drinking, and having run ins with the opposite sex, etc.
What I find so interesting about Lady Bird isn’t all of these behaviors, but rather the way that the film portrays them. Rather than teenage angst and rebelliousness being celebrated, Lady Bird, more often than not, comes across as rather unsympathetic and (at times) selfish.
While she struggles to find out who she is, her behavior is contrasted with the actions of her parents who sacrifice money, time, and sleepless hours for her, and that doesn’t take into account the emotional toll that we see her father undergo as he attempts to provide for his family. We see that her friend Julie too is comfortable with who she is and has her priorities in the right place, even if she tags along for many of Christine’s misadventures. So, the film seems to reject the idea that all teenagers are caught up in a wandering turbulent time of directionless anxiety, consequently being awful to their parents.
The end of the film (and the end of Lady Bird’s rebelliousness) culminates with a scene that features a church. Lady Bird, after leaving for college, ends up at a party where she consumes too much alcohol, vomits, and subsequently has to have her stomach pumped at the emergency room. The morning after, Lady Bird leaves the hospital and walks to a Presbyterian church conducting its Sunday morning worship. Lady Bird listens to the sound of the choir and is moved to tears by their song. After this encounter in a sanctuary, she leaves, calling home to her parents to thank them for everything they have done on her behalf. Importantly, she uses her given name in this final scene before the movie ends.
What is Greta Gerwig communicating to her audience in this final scene? I think there is a melancholic longing for the stability that is and was provided by family, specifically family grounded in a Christian tradition. Whether or not Gerwig herself holds to Christianity isn’t necessarily the point of the film. Instead, I think that this ache over the loss of childhood, the longing for home, and the beauty of church music and liturgy all point to the tragic way in which culture has missed the fact that Christianity in the past helped to provide something to the individual and to make them whole.
The feeling of nostalgia crafted by the film serves as a reminder that not all of Hollywood is opposed to the Christian faith. Perhaps, even, there is a segment of Hollywood creators who actually miss the Church in their lives! The good news is that the Church can be there for those who want to return home to their faith and to their Christianity. We can be that welcoming presence that is offered when wayward Christians seek to return to their long past, yet not forgotten roots. This might not be everyone who leaves the fold of Christianity, but I think it’s a hopeful thing that, for some, Christianity is still missed.
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The Reverend David Keating is pastor at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Curtis, Nebraska.
Previously by Pastor Keating…
“Interstellar: Love, Time, and Space”
“Mad Men - What is Happiness? Don Draper and St. Augustine”
“Zack Snyder’s Messy Super-Jesus”
“Short Message: How Do, or Should, Christians Witness?”
“Amazon’s ‘The Boys’ - Does Christianity Have a Culture Problem?”
“Reflecting on 9/11: Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?”
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