Weekend Reads (Jul 29): Twitter (RIP), “Oppenheimer,” Barbie Theology, Hayao Miyazaki, Sinéad O’Connor
Recommended weekend reading material for July 29, 2023.
Every week, I compile a list of interesting and thought-provoking articles to offer you some enjoyable weekend reading material.
In a move that surprised exactly no one, Elon Musk announced that Twitter — one of the most distinctive brands in the tech space — was now called X. But much like everything that’s transpired during Musk’s tenure as CEO, the rebrand hit a snag with LA police. And then there’s the pesky fact that X, unlike Twitter, is pretty ubiquitous and other companies have X-related trademarks, which could lead to legal issues.
Oh, and if you’ve got a Twitter handle that you really like, nothing’s going to stop a billionaire from stealing it from you.
CEO Linda Yaccarino laid out the ambition behind the rebrand: “For years, fans and critics alike have pushed Twitter to dream bigger, to innovate faster, and to fulfill our great potential. X will do that and more.” (Pretty sure fans and critics just wanted an “Edit” button and fewer conspiracy theories.) But Casey Newton suggests that this less about corporate ambition, and more “an extended act of cultural vandalism.”
From a design perspective, of course, the tragedy is the loss of the iconic blue bird logo. Say what you want about Twitter the company, but that logo was a thing of beauty, the sort of simple, elegant, and distinctive logo any company would be proud to have. This thread by designer Martin Grasser reveals the inspiration and process that went into the logo.
Russell D. Moore reflects on the current state of American evangelicalism and its dangerous proclivity for nostalgia.
If evangelicals deny the depths of the crisis in front of us, and simply opt for the sort of public relations that can preserve the coalitions and power structures of yesteryear, we will lose a generation longing to see whether the Gospel is real or just another means to mobilize voters or market to customers. We will find ourselves in one more contest to see what kind of power we can leverage to make that happen — which, as always, will put us on the side of the crucifiers rather than on the side of the Crucified.
Adam Kotsko argues that much of modern film and TV criticism makes the same errors that Christian evangelical culture has made over the years.
One of my running jokes for many years has been that all contemporary top 40 music is effectively Christian contemporary music now, as American Idol confirmed the hegemony of the “praise band” vocal style. More clear is the fact that all mainstream criticism — especially of film and television — is evangelical in form, if not in content. Every artwork is imagined to have a clear message; the portrayal of a given behavior or belief is an endorsement and a recommendation; consumption of artworks with a given message will directly result in the behaviors or beliefs portrayed. This is one of the few phenomena where the “both sides” cliché is true: left-wing critics are just as likely to do this as their right-wing opponents.
Kotsko’s essay specifically refers to Oppenheimer, and it’s been in the back of my mind ever since I saw Christopher Nolan’s, and have tried to make sense of my own reactions to it.
Kotsko gets bonus points for referencing “Input / Output (The Computer Song)” by the Bill Gaither Trio, an absolute banger from my childhood that I haven’t heard in decades.
Related: The fundamentalism I experienced in the religious circles of my youth can now be found in progressive and “woke” circles.
Speaking of Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan boasted that the movie didn’t contain any CGI. Be that as it may, the film does contain plenty of digital visual effects, and apparently, many of its visual effects artists received zero credit.
Universal and Christopher Nolan excluded over 80% of the film’s vfx crew from the credits. Why? Who knows. It certainly wasn’t a running time issue. At three hours in length, an additional 10 seconds of credits wouldn’t have made a bit of difference to the audience. But it would have meant the world to the workers who could have had a screen credit on a blockbuster film. (It’s telling that many of the workers who were left out of the credits worked at one of DNEG’s facilities in India.)
As the article points out, this is a growing trend in Hollywood despite films — even non-superhero titles — becoming increasingly reliant on visual effects.
Alissa Wilkinson reflects on the theological themes in Barbie. (Yes, that Barbie.)
[T]he path the movie traces is more than a little theologically familiar: a paradise lost, destroyed by the “knowledge” of “good” and “evil,” and a path back to restoration (with some bonus reflections on being created for a purpose by a Creator). And there seems to be some built-in interrogation of the Genesis narrative, too. Would it be better, after all, for Barbie and Ken to have continued living naively in a paradise where Ken is just “and Ken” and everyone seems happy all the time? Or did gaining knowledge of the outside world actually make them aware of their free will and equip them to live better, more fulfilled lives? It’s a question some theologians have approached throughout history, and one that recurs when we think about history: Golden ages often appear that way because we were naive to what was “really” going on back then, not because they were actually better.
Earlier this month, I noted that a new film from master Hayao Miyzaki arrived in Japanese theaters with almost no promotion. But now his film will be opening this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
Selecting The Boy and the Heron to headline this year’s festival is also part of a larger Japanese cinema showcase planned by TIFF titled POP Japan. The sidebar is programmed to “celebrate the convergence of the cult, pulp, and popular in Japanese film and art.” Miyazaki’s films My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away were also selected for the World of Anime retrospective within the POP Japan showcase.
The Boy and the Heron — its original Japanese title is How Do You Live? — will be released in North America later this year by GKIDS.
Bandcamp’s George Grella delves into the history of the blues, “the most important genre in all of modern popular music, bar none.”
The story of the blues is intertwined with the evolution and vagaries of the music marketplace in the past 100 years. Early blues recordings came about in part by chance, but the world has enjoyed the good fortune of some towering musicians putting out singles and albums that taught other musicians, and everyone else, the vast possibilities of the music. The discography is complicated, with labels appearing and reappearing; recordings lost and rediscovered; musicians lost to time and music business exploitation. There is enough of the music on Bandcamp, though, to outline the story, fill in some essential details, start a collection, and catch a glimpse of the future.
Sinéad O’Connor, the Irish singer who became a star with her 1990 cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” died this week at the age of 56.
It was in the early ’90s that O’Connor began to establish herself as an outspoken figure, with strong social and political views. She boycotted the Grammys in 1991 in a stand against the show’s commercialism, and railed against the Catholic Church in a 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live when she tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II and called upon viewers to “fight the real enemy.” The act, which got her banned from appearing on the show, was intended as a protest against the sexual abuse of children in the church which the Pope officially acknowledged nine years later.
O’Connor changed her name to Shuhada’ Sadaqat in 2018 after she converted to Islam, though she continued to perform under her birth name.
Numerous artists, including Kate Bush, Massive Attack, Tori Amos, U2, and Ice-T have paid their respects.
Earlier this summer, Derek Webb released a video for his new single “Boys Will Be Girls” in which drag queen Flamy Grant dresses Webb up in drag. In response to the video backlash, Flamy Grant’s own Bible Belt Baby is currently the #1 Christian album in the iTunes store. The album, which also features Webb as well as queer Christian artists Jennifer Knapp and Semler, was released last September.
Despite the iTunes success, I doubt folks will be hearing Grant’s “Good Day” on K-Love any time soon.
Finally, it’s time to address some historical nonsense, writes Bret Devereaux. The Spartans, famed as some of history’s greatest warriors, were actually losers due to their lack of military prowess, their treatment of slaves, and their hedonism.
Instead of a society of freedom-defending super-warriors, Sparta is better understood as a place where the wealthiest class of landholder, the Spartans themselves, had succeeded in reducing the great majority of their poor compatriots to slavery and excluded the rest, called the perioikoi, from political participation or citizenship. The tiny minority of Spartan citizens derived their entire income from the labor of slaves, being legally barred from doing any productive work or engaging in commerce.
And rather than spending their time in ascetic military training, they spent their ample leisure time doing the full suite of expensive, aristocratic Greek pastimes: hunting (a pastime for the wealthy rather than a means of subsistence in the ancient world), eating amply, accumulating money, funding Olympic teams, breeding horses, and so on. Greek authors such as Xenophon and Plutarch continually insist that the golden age of Spartan austerity and egalitarianism existed in the distant past, but each author pushes that golden age further and further into that past, and in any event, archaeology tells us it was never so.
Related: My review of Zack Snyder’s 300, which propagates the Spartan myth. “The film’s look is so hyper-realistic, so stylized, that it ends up feeling sterile and artificial, appreciable only on a technical level but actually robbing 300 of any truly visceral impact — ironic considering the amount of blood spilt in nearly every frame.”
From the Blog
One of my goals with Opus has always been to help people see a side of Christian music that they probably never even knew existed, like these old school goth and industrial albums from the early ’90s.
Why care so much about some obscure Christian acts from the late ’80s and early ’90s, acts that faded long ago and left little, if any, legacy? Well, as I wrote above, there’s precious little understanding of Christian music history — especially when it comes to various underground genres — and I’d like to do a little bit to counteract that.
It’s a shame that so many promising artists and releases have come and gone with ‘nary a word about their efforts, efforts that are all a part of the colorful, fascinating, and diverse world that was and is indie/underground Christian music.
This post is available to everyone (so feel free to share it). However, paying subscribers also get access to exclusives including playlists, podcasts, and sneak previews. If you’d like to receive those exclusives — and support my writing on Opus — then become a paid subscriber today for just $5/month or $50/year.