The other day I was knocked out of a six player poker game by the youngest person at the table, he just turned 11. After swallowing my humble pie I joined my wife and the rest of the group that had recently begun watching the Notebook.
The Notebook is a wonderful example of the genre of film affectionately known as “Chick-Flick”. It is the heart-wrenching tale of forbidden love that transcends class, time, and provides hope that true love can create miracles. The description is purposefully vague because if you haven’t seen it you should. The description is also purposefully cheesy, not unlike the movie.
As a man I try to distance myself from emotionality in films and focus on the artistic or the representational because that stuff is more important, right? During the movie I noticed myself taking some deep breaths to help clear my throat, which had become inexplicable choked up. It struck me that I was having an emotional reaction to a story, but had been so conditioned to repress it that I unconsciously acted against it. As a married man I am trying to be both more aware of my emotions and also better at communicating them to my spouse. In this way I see chick-flicks as helping me practice what it feels like to have emotions, to embrace a God-created thing and to realize how that fits into us being people.
It also made me think about chick-flicks within the Bible. The story of Ruth immediately jumps to mind. Nice woman, down on her luck and then this hunky Boaz shows up to be her kinsman-redeemer, and they live happily ever after. Or maybe Jacob and his years of service to earn the hand of Rachel in marriage, only to be tricked and then devote another 7 years to marry his true love.
I guess what I am trying to say is that maybe chick-flicks are a good thing, they are meant to elicit certain emotions in us and that any theology of film should take them just as seriously as those artsy-fartsy movies that no-one watches.
