To continue in the theme of recent posts…
I recently got around to watching Across the Universe. I know the movie was all the buzz last Fall, but I don’t get to see many movies these days so I waited until it finally arrived through Netflixs. I loved the whole concept of a musical journey through the sixties to the soundtrack of the Beatles, I just wasn’t expecting it to be so depressing. It had the obligatory happy ending of course, but the general message was “live for yourself because trying to make a difference in the world is pointless.”
The film portrayed the existential struggles of youth, the crisis of the Vietnam war, and the struggles of the civil rights movement during the sixties in ways that deliberately spoke to their exact parallels today. On one level it is disturbing how little has changed since then. The characters sought to bring change to their world and failed. As the characters sought unity they found selfishness. As they sought spiritual answers they met the hollowness of consumerism. As they attempted to serve something bigger than themselves they found despair, madness, and death. As they sought to work for peace they found apathy, hypocrisy, and corruption. In the end they just had to give up on those passions and causes and find contentment for themselves. To put it in Beatles terms – “And, in the end, the love you take/ Is equal to the love you make.”
I found the message depressing and disturbing mostly because I’ve heard forms of it over and over again from the church. “Don’t bother trying to change the world, you won’t make a difference anyway.” “Just focus on your own relationship with Jesus, that’s all that really matters.” “There is so much evil and corruption out there that you can’t ever really change things.” And the implicit message – “see none of this is new, people have tried to work for peace and justice before and they failed, so just grow up and get over it.” I’m sick of these messages. I’m sick of the defeatist, “all things conspire against you so just give up” attitudes. What will it take for people to actually have hope?