Movement 123

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,i. r{1 :D rFr J pop I $ordon lynch on theolots and spirituality in popular culture H the media and popular culture run throu$h our veins gordon's top ten #1 Sigur Ros, untitled O (Fat Cat Records, 2002). Turn the lights down, light a candle or two, and meditate, pray or just let it wash over you. With their lyrics in an invented language, and their wash of sound, Sigur Ros sound the mystical potential of pop music. #2 Hunter Thompson, Fear and Loathing in LasVegas (HarperCollins, 2005). Disturbing and very funny (and often both at the same time), Thompson's classic novel offers a twisted view of American life, only to show how our everyday assumptions are themselves more distorted than we choose to recognise. #3 Riclcy Cervais, The Office (BBC, 2002) and Extras (BBC, 2005). Aside from the humour, Cervais' work is an astute and painful study of the insecurities and humiliations of everyday life - and of the role of love and friendship in overcoming these. i4 Lost in Translation (directed by Sofia Coppola, 2003). The Japanese setting is not incidental as the film offers a Zen-like study of the transience of our passions and despair. A beautiful study of the love and loneliness often missed by a superficial society. #5 www.theonion.com. lt can be easy to despair at the world's injustices - satire can help us to carry on, and remember what's important for us. Get clicking... #6 The Aphex Twin, drukgs (Warp Records, 2001). At times unsettling with his banging drum'n'bass, the Aphex Twin shows how electronic music can touch so many different moods. At their best, his piano pieces make you feel like you're touching the face of Cod. #7 Annie Hall and Crimes and Misdemeanors (both directed by Woody Allen, 1977 and 1989). Allen at his very best. Exploring his usual ,themes - love, death and the search for meaning in a meaningless universe - these two films show Allen's range in exploring love, happiness and the absuldities of life. #8 Banksy, Wall and Piece (Century,2OO5) - and various sites across the world. Surely Britain's foremost anarchist graffiti artist - Banksy's books are thought-provoking, and often just downright funny. 2A #9 Pulp, Different C/ass (lsland Records, 1999). Sheffield's finest don't take their eyes off the ball when singing about the grittiness of life. Dark, ironic, atmospheric, romantic - very British - and worth listening to for 'Common People' alone. #10 Super Size Me (directed by Morgan Spurlock, 2004). Documentary film at its transformative best, Spurlock's film has helped to open eyes to the system that thrives on feeding people rubbish for the pursuit of profit. This year, McDonald's shut 25 'restaurants' in the UK... Various life pressures mean that this will be the last pop culture review that I write for a while. l'm very grateful to Liam for coming up with the idea for this column, and for giving me space to indulge my various thoughts and concerns in it. Thinking back even over the fairly short time l've been writing these reviews, I can see real changes in the area of religion and popular culture. There is a coming generation of theologians and religious scholars who know deep in their bones that exploring the religious dimension of life today inevitably means engaging with different forms of media and with the content of our everyday lives. Cinema, books, TV, cyberspace have all become essential means for the contemporary exploration of both the sacred and the nature of evil - both in terms of offering us images and ideas to play and wrestle with, and in offering us a space for the spiritual search. Media and popular culture are no longer trivial subjects, but the means through which so many of the pressing questions of our time will be pursued. A new generation of academics are starting the difficult process of unpacking this relationship between the sacred and the everyday, and it will be some years before we can see whether this new academic project proves to be fruitful or not. Even if we're uninterested in such academic developments, the media and popular culture still run through our veins, shaping the environments in which we live, providing us with the language and symbols with which we think and communicate, and giving us ways of seeing and feeling how life can (and in a better world, could) be. One of the unhelpful notions of Cod that I previously acquired, and have since dispensed with, is the idea that Cod is wholly separate, far above and beyond our everyday worlds. Yet, in fact, the divine is inseparable from life itself. A question that always stands above us is how our everyday cultural practices relate to this divine life. Does our cultural practice - what we do, watch, create, consume - draw us more deeply into a rich awareness of the divine life in which we already live? Does it rest on a healthy relationship with ourselves and others? Does it deepen our imagination and desire for the most just and sustainable world, to which the divine life calls us? All these are hard questions - a life's work to answer them. But in signing off for now, I wanted to offer you a quick top ten of bits of pop culture that have given me glimpses of the excitement, pleasure/ complexity and sheer mystery of that divine life in which we all have a stake. Well, that's me. Here's to fun, creativity, richness, honesty and justice in our everyday lives, and all that fills them. I Cordon Lynch teaches practical theology at the tJ niversity of Bi rmingham. movement
who would have thou€lht opera could be so controversial? the comes t GTTGUS o town It is pretty hard to review Jerry Springer the Opera. Do you talk about the new audience brought to opera, do you talk about the offence caused to some Christians? Perhaps you discuss the religious hatred bill or you make comparisons with the Danish cartoons. Maybe it's best to look at the content, but even then you have to choose between the actual content and the allegations about the content by those who won't go and see it, but still wish to comment. l've seen it three times now. When I first saw it, in London's West End, it was a fun night out at the theatre, a birthday treat. I was aware that there was some fuss around it, and that I probably shouldn't invite people who describe themselves as born-again to accompany me on this venture. I was not amazed by it, inasmuch as I have seen films and stand-up comedians that have engaged me more, but I was amused, and I certainly wasn't offended, though I am not easily offended. I got the impression that I wasn't the only person there who wouldn't usually be at the opera, and this is probably no bad thing for opera, providing they can find a way of following up on this new market. It is certainly a spectacle. Opera actually works well as a medium for making a point and making it accessible. The plot in brief: Jerry interviews a load of misfits the way he does, he is idolised by the audience, people fight and scream, and occasionally Jerry takes a swipe at himself. lt is not unlike a trumped-up version of the actual show. Except for the fact that a choir sing swear-words, and juxtapose this street language with the grand theatre and classical accompaniment of the music. I don't think the volume of swearing increases its effect - if anything it lessens it - but for the record there are 174 swear-words, not the 8,000 advertised by some. The whole thing is satire. Deliberately you are left guessing about what is being satirised, you are, quite brilliantly, left to make up your own mind. Yes, Jesus and Satan feature heavily, but arguably they are there to comment on Springer's self-importance rather than it being an attack on religion. Likewise the joke could be on the audience of the programme, or even the audience in the theatre, you just don't know. What we certainly do know is the strength of feeling the show has generated in the Christian right. lt is the first time that groups such as Christian Voice have been able to gather such a large opposing coalition in the UK, and it was reminiscent, though on a smaller scale, of some of the protests their US equivalents have been doing for years. The TV screening by the BBC in January 2005 was unique for a variety of reasons. Not least for the attempt made by Christian Voice to raise f 75,000 for a private prosecution against the BBC, after the public legal body wouldn't take it forward. Then we began to see a co-ordinated local campaign with collections of conservative and evangelical groups trying to prevent showings at local venues. Some venues cancelled, ticket sales were hit in others, and the production team responsible for the show had to cut costs. When I went to see it while on holiday in Plymouth, authorities were ready for trouble; none came that night, but it did subsequently. While the ability to see a funny opera may seem like a minor freedom of expression issue, the danger behind it is polarisation of opinion. SCMers as much as anyone would hope we avoid a stark argument between religious and secular worldviews, with no room for the frey areas in between. There will be middle-of-the-road Christians offended by the play, even if they may not view it as an affront to a desire to see the whole world share all their views. But those who make such protests must be careful about their targets. This is not the same as the cartoons of Mohammed in the Danish newspaper. Stuart Lee, the comedian involved in writing the play, puts it well: 'Everyone's anxious to draw parallels, but the Danish cartoonists wandered into a world of protected religious symbols they didn't understand. We have used a set of icons whose implications we appreciate, within a tradition of imagery.'The old argument holds, if you don't want swearing and controversy set to music, go and watch something else, but if you fancy it, then you could do worse. I movement ierry springer the opera directed by Kate Moore, seen by Tim at Cambridge Theatre London and on tour in Plymouth. see www. jerryspringertheopera.com. the whole thing is satire. deliberately you are left $uessin€ about what is bein$ satirised, you afe, quite brilliantly, left to make up yout own mind Tim Cobbett is Vice President (Academic Affairs) at the students' union of Edinburgh University, and a former member of SCM's Ceneral Council.
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