Learning to pay attention to popular culture
Have fun with this old test question from an "Exegete the Culture" final exam
When you read this short post (on Wednesday), I will be in a car making my way home from the plains of Kansas to the Southern Highlands of Appalachia.
That’s a long drive and we have one errand to run along the way. So I have prepared, in advance, something special for faithful Rational Sheep readers.
It’s a test.
Actually, it’s a question from a final exam that I gave years ago at Palm Beach Atlantic University — the last place I was able to teach the “Exegete the Culture” seminar that I will soon bring back to life as a Senior Follow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College, with the help (we hope) of some Catholic and maybe even evangelical academics in Houston. This is in the planning stages and we hope to have details in the next few months.
So what’s up with this test question?
Our culture has taught us, for decades, to sit back and let tidal waves of popular culture roll over us without paying any kind of critical attention to the words and symbols on our screens. The pace of these signals has only increased in this age of omnipresent digital screens.
It’s just entertainment, right?
Not really. Talented entertainers — good ones and bad ones — are usually trying to tell us stories about subjects that matter to them. I would argue that this cultural, moral and even religious material sinks in, to one degree or another, whether we want it to or not.
It helps to try to pay attention. That’s the point of this test.
It will help if you have seen the classic 2002 thriller “Signs” by M. Night Shyamalan.
It’s great if you can watch the end of this film in sequence on a DVD or a streaming service. However the following three YouTube clips will allow you to answer my question. This is a sci-fi movie that is supposed to be about an alien invasion. In reality, it’s about a priest who has lost his faith after the tragic death of his wife. He also cannot understand the seemingly meaningless, random messages that she gave him minutes before she died.
Now, here’s the test question. You will need a notepad and pen.
What are the final words spoken in “Signs”? What do these words have to do with the final image seen in the movie, just before the credits?
Play close attention to the young boy, speaking to his father, as he awakens from a combination asthma attack and alien poisoning. There used to be a longer version of these scene on YouTube, but I cannot find it. Ignore the stupid music that has been inserted as the credits roll (I assume for copyright reasons). The key visual image is still there.
The first clip is the wife and mother’s death scene, talking to her husband (played by Mel Gibson). The final two scenes are parts of the alien attack on the child and the crucial final moments of the movie.
Clip 1:
Clip 2.
Clip 3: Again, ignore the silly music added over the credits.
Again: What are the final words spoken in “Signs”? What do these words have to do with the final image seen in the movie, just before the credits?
From my point of view, this is a positive Hollywood signal, for people of faith.
What were the words? Then what did you see?
Be brave! Comment. I’ll give the answer when I get home.
I will wade in. The wife leaving a message for the brother to ”swing” foreshadows the final confrontation with the alien. Dad “gets it” first by asking abiut coincidences and encouraging the brother to action. Because of this, they discover how water affects the creature. The final statement, when the dad agrees with his son that “someone saved him” leads to the final scene showing the father dressed as a priest with an almost too obvious cross on the bathroom door. There are a lot of layers but I will go with the wife’s death caused him to lose faith but, her message, while dying, foreshadowed his return to faith. Coincidence? It is an odd one if so.