Say-tan's an Aaaaaalien!

Okay. All I can say is that the article on evangelism through Halo 2 is...amazing. And not in a good way. Sorry for the title, I couldn't resist. It's like that "Satan is a Nerd" shirt. Okay. Serious writing now:

It irritates me when people try to make everything "Christian." Everything that should be that way has already inherently been made that way by God. He made creation. He made people. So, people who are in tune with what God wants us to be doing are going to be making media, making art, that naturally has Him in it. This Lane Palmer person is trying to force a square block in a round hole. It just won't go. I highly doubt that the designers and developers behind Halo were thinking, "Hmm, what kind of morals can we insert in this game?" Not exactly plausable. So why try to force something that's not there?

When I was a kid (13 or 14), I played this one particular free MMORPG. One day, I had the same brilliant idea as Palmer. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was something along the lines of "Jesus loves you." What can I say? I was a pretty idealistic kid. At any rate, it didn't go over so well. It wound up so that I eventually got called a troll and flooded with angry whispers from highly agitated gamers. I decided I should probably not do that again.

The point is, there are some situations for which witness is good. Directly relating salvation to videogames is pretty lame. Witnessing online to a complete stranger is grounds for being labeled names ruder than "troll." Casually witnessing to unsaved friends while they're hanging out at your house playing videogames? That's pretty cool. Just don't tell them that Satan is an alien. You'll thank me later.

Bathtime in Clerkenwell

Bathtime in Clerkenwell was a simple but highly entertaining film. The soundtrack and the fun black-and-white animation combined to make a fun film. I really like simple art. Sometimes I have a hard time focusing when the image is too complex. Still, even though the images were simple and repetitive, there was always enough variety to keep my attention. And yes, the song was addictive. By the way, I have figured out the lyrics. They are--and I quote (*ahem*):

Ob-a-doodley-boogle-doodle-boogle-deetin-dat-daht-dum.
Ob-a-doodley-boogle-doodle-boogle-deetin-dat-daht-dum.
Ob-a-doodley-boogle-doodle-boogle-deetin-dat-daht-dum.
Ob a deedle-e-doh.
Hup a dootie dote duhm.

There you have it, folks. Now you can have lyrics to go with that tune that is forever stuck in your head. I'm sure you feel your life is much more fulfilled for knowing those lyrics.

A Feather Tale

A Feather Tale is a short film about a relationship between a particular woman and man. It is evident that the relationship is abusive, but any speculation beyond that is open to interpretation. Although some have been saying the woman in the film was raped or a prostitute, I disagree. I think it was rape, but within a "normal" relationship--as normal as an abusive relationship can be anyhow.

In the beginning of the film, the man calls the woman on the phone after she awakes crying. As the woman cradles the phone to her ear, it turns into the man. He looks to be whispering in her ear, reminiscent of the "bad conscience" typology in children's stories. In my perception, he was whispering words that were on the surface encouraging, but were in truth simply words to get her to come to his place so he could have sex with her. I thought the fact that she (symbolized as a chicken with a female head and legs) was delivered to him was a parallel of how women who think themselves capable of nothing better virtually hand their entire self, emotion, ego, and all, over to an abusive boyfriend for him to easily manipulate.

At first the man is gentle to the chicken, lulling it into a false sense of security and trust. Once he calms it down enough, he begins to stroke its wings. Eventually, he becomes increasingly more violent in response to the chicken's unease and finally plucks away all its feathers and begins to devour it. This is reminiscent of the stages of an abusive relationship. First, the abuser convinces the victim that he (in this case, though women abuse men as well as men abusing women) is trustworthy. Then, he gets her to completely trust him, usually to the point of him becoming the only person she trusts. Often, this is the point where she will begin to completely neglect her other relationships in favor of being with the abuser. When she begins to get uneasy about the health of the relationship, or even simply if a certain point is reached that "flips a switch" for the abuser, the relationship becomes outright physically abusive, and the abuser begins forcing the victim to do things she does not wish to do.

In the case of A Feather Tale, it seems to me that the man wanted the woman to have sex with him and she did not wish to do so. In the end, he forced her to have sex with him, causing her to lose her dignity. The imagery of the chicken's feathers being forcefully torn off, and the woman bending over them at the end of the film, symbolizes the dignity that was lost and the irreparable damage done when she was forced to play a role that she did not wish to play.