********CONTAINS SPOILERS******
The gist of the story is that Scottish princess Merida is supposed to marry a man from one of the other 3 clans. They all gather to compete for her hand in a contest of strength and weapons proficiency. The final test is archery and Merida breaks tradition by competing for her own hand and besting all 3 of the contenders with her superior archery skills. Her mother, however, is very angry about this and they have an argument. Merida runs off into the woods where she finds a witch's cottage. She asks the witch to give her a spell that will change her mother. The witch puts a potion into a cake which Merida gives her mother. When her mother eats the cake, she turns into a bear.
This is especially disastrous because Merida's father lost his leg in a fight with a bear and has been hunting it ever since. So Merida tries to hide her mother from her father while searching for a way to reverse the spell. The whole experience brings mother and daughter closer, and it all ends in a battle where Merida stands between her father and mother to protect her mother (the father believes its the bear who took his leg), and they all work together to kill the real bear. The spell is broken and Merida's parents and the other clans accept that she will not marry one of the other men unless they win her heart.
There were a lot of great things about this movie:
A strong female character- physically, mentally, emotionally
A moral to the story- mother and daughter both learn to listen to each other and gain greater respect and understanding for each other
It doesn't revolve around marriage/love- even though it was the attempt to arrange her marriage that sparked the rest of the story, most of the story is about her growing up and her relationship with her mother. In the end she it is left open as to whether or not she will ever marry one of those men or at all. (Not that there is anything wrong with stories about marriage and love, just that it has become a tired old storyline and little girls need to see there are other things to life).
There was one thing that I was disappointed about however.
All the men in the movie were bumbling idiots.
The three men she was supposed to choose from for a husband were dorky and weak. Even her father who was a king and a brave warrior was clearly whipped by his overbearing wife, right down to saying the cliche "Yes, dear."
This is disappointing for two reasons. First of all, it's insulting to men. I don't mind the occasional goofy character (male or female) in a movie. After all, it's that variety of personalities that keeps things interesting, and it can be especially fun when it's overly exaggerated for a kids' movie. But this movie had 3 female characters and about 100 male characters (most of them warriors from the other clans), and not one of the men was intelligent. I see this trend too often in sitcoms and movies that try to give women a more prominent, intelligent, strong role. They swing too far the other way and make all the male characters weak, wimpy and stupid.
The other reason it bothers me is that it is insulting to women too. It implies that women could not be the brave, strong, intelligent characters in the story if there was a man to fill that role. For example, Merida was an excellent shot with a bow, but the three men she was competing against weren't much competition either. She wasn't interested in marrying any of them, but it leaves you wondering if one of them had been a Prince Charming might she have fallen for him?
I've only seen two animated movies that did a decent job of portraying strong female AND male characters, and those are Tangled and Mulan. The men in those movies were strong, handsome, intelligent characters, and that didn't detract at all from Rapunzel and Mulan being strong, brave and intelligent in their own rights. Of course, they ended up getting married, which was fine for those stories. Brave could have been better, though, if there had been a strong male character, and the story was STILL about Merida and her growth and relationship with her mother. She could have still chosen not to get married, at least not right now. At the very least, her father could have been a stronger character.
Overall, I gave it 3.5 stars. It lost a star for it's lack of strong male characters. It lost half a star for the witchcraft, which I don't like being portrayed so cavalierly, but at least it showed in the end that witchcraft was not the solution.
Showing posts with label gender roles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gender roles. Show all posts
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Manhood and Womanhood Before (after) Sin Part 3
John Piper titled this sermon Manhood and Womanhood Before Sin. In the beginning of this sermon he said,
"The other reason I think this is a good question (i.e., God's intention for manhood and womanhood before sin) is that in the New Testament Jesus and Paul, when they use the Old Testament to answer questions about how man and woman should relate to each other, go back to what things were supposed to be like before the fall. They don't take the messed up relationships of Genesis 3 and make them normative. They come back to Genesis 2 and talk about how it should have been from the beginning."
He makes a valid point that both Paul and Jesus refer back to Genesis 2:24 when speaking of marriage. The rest of the sermon focuses on events that occurred after sin, which according to his own statement this messed up relationship of Genesis 3 should not be taken as normative. This means that his entire argument hinges on what we have explored in the last two posts- man was made first (maybe) and God only gave his instructions to man (probably not.) Even though there is nothing *in the text* to indicate that either of these statements, if they are even true, have any significance to the intended relationship between man and woman, this is what complementarians use as their foundation for "biblical" marriage roles.
The Man is Interrogated First
Piper says:
"Make no mistake: God does hold the woman accountable for her actions. She is a personal, morally accountable being in the very image of God. And what man does or fails to do relieves her of no personal, individual responsibility to know and to obey God. But in their relationship to each other God looks to the man and says, "Have you been the moral and spiritual leader you ought to have been?"
Is that what God said?
In Genesis 3:9-11 God asks some pretty straight forward questions:
Where are you?
Who told you that you are naked?
Did you eat of the tree that I commanded you not to?
Basic, clear, personal questions. No hint of anything about leadership or any responsibility for Eve's actions.
Why did God talk to Adam first? I don't know, because it doesn't say!. Maybe he flipped a cosmic coin.
Does it matter who God spoke to first? I think if it did, he would say so.
Let's assume for a minute that Piper is correct and the order in which God spoke to Adam and Eve has some meaning.
God goes on to deliver the serpent's consequences before Eve's and Eve's before Adam's.
God continues to show no discernible pattern throughout the Bible, and here is one example:
In Luke 1:27 an angel comes to Mary to tell her that she will give birth to Jesus.
In Mathew 1:18-1:20 an angel tells Joseph about the baby, after Mary is already pregnant.
"The other reason I think this is a good question (i.e., God's intention for manhood and womanhood before sin) is that in the New Testament Jesus and Paul, when they use the Old Testament to answer questions about how man and woman should relate to each other, go back to what things were supposed to be like before the fall. They don't take the messed up relationships of Genesis 3 and make them normative. They come back to Genesis 2 and talk about how it should have been from the beginning."
He makes a valid point that both Paul and Jesus refer back to Genesis 2:24 when speaking of marriage. The rest of the sermon focuses on events that occurred after sin, which according to his own statement this messed up relationship of Genesis 3 should not be taken as normative. This means that his entire argument hinges on what we have explored in the last two posts- man was made first (maybe) and God only gave his instructions to man (probably not.) Even though there is nothing *in the text* to indicate that either of these statements, if they are even true, have any significance to the intended relationship between man and woman, this is what complementarians use as their foundation for "biblical" marriage roles.
The Man is Interrogated First
Piper says:
"Make no mistake: God does hold the woman accountable for her actions. She is a personal, morally accountable being in the very image of God. And what man does or fails to do relieves her of no personal, individual responsibility to know and to obey God. But in their relationship to each other God looks to the man and says, "Have you been the moral and spiritual leader you ought to have been?"
Is that what God said?
In Genesis 3:9-11 God asks some pretty straight forward questions:
Where are you?
Who told you that you are naked?
Did you eat of the tree that I commanded you not to?
Basic, clear, personal questions. No hint of anything about leadership or any responsibility for Eve's actions.
Why did God talk to Adam first? I don't know, because it doesn't say!. Maybe he flipped a cosmic coin.
Does it matter who God spoke to first? I think if it did, he would say so.
Let's assume for a minute that Piper is correct and the order in which God spoke to Adam and Eve has some meaning.
God goes on to deliver the serpent's consequences before Eve's and Eve's before Adam's.
God continues to show no discernible pattern throughout the Bible, and here is one example:
In Luke 1:27 an angel comes to Mary to tell her that she will give birth to Jesus.
In Mathew 1:18-1:20 an angel tells Joseph about the baby, after Mary is already pregnant.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Manhood and Womanhood Before Sin
This post is in response to Manhood and Womanhood Before Sin by John Piper. It was written in 1989, but conveys some beliefs that are still quite popular among complementarians. In this post, I'm only addressing his first argument.
The Man was Created First- Or Was He?
Genesis 1:26-27
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."
Scholars have offered several explanations for the placement of this creation account, since it is before Eve's apparent creation from Adam's rib. The Talmud offers this explanation:
Midrash Rabbah 8:1:
Rabbi Yirmeyah ben El'azar said: The Blessed Holiness created the first human being with both genders, as it is written, "Male and female [God] created them" {Genesis 1:27}.
Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman [agreed and] said: The Blessed Holiness created the first human being double-faced [with two fronts of the body], and then sawed them apart and made backs for them, a back for one and a back for the other.
Other scholars objected: It is written "[God] took one of his ribs" {Genesis 1:21}! [The word understood as "rib" is tsela- see Hebrew text below]
[Rabbi Shmuel] answered: It means "one of the two sides [of the double being]". As Scripture says, "For the tsela of the Sanctuary..." -- where the translation of tsela is "side".
This is the most likely explanation. The word used for man in Genesis 1 is Adam, which is used for humankind. It is not until Genesis 2:23, after the man/woman Adam was separated, that the word "iysh" is used for the first time to distinguish man from "ishshah" (woman). In addition, we are created in the image of God, and God is Echad or plural One, with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This explains how a man and a woman are to "become one flesh." In the beginning, they were literally one flesh, and marriage should be a picture of that unity.
1 Timothy 2:23
"For Adam was first formed, then Eve."
Does this contradict the explanation of the man/woman Adam? No, I don't think so. Adam got to keep the body that was formed first before Eve got her newly formed body. Paul's purpose in stating this was to refute a teaching that was circulating that woman was the originator of man.
1 Timothy 2:12
"I most certainly do not grant authority to a woman to teach that she is the originator of a man."
But let's just say that John Piper is correct and Adam was, in fact, formed first.
He claims, "Now God wants to say something more about the relationship between man and woman. And what he wants to say is that when it comes to their differing responsibilities, there is a "firstness" of responsibility that falls to the man."
There is nothing in the text to indicate that the purpose of this passage is to show us anything about who has more responsibility before God. This is entirely his opinion. All the Bible does is state the facts of who was created first (if Adam was indeed created first), but does not say why or that it has any meaning at all. He acknowledges that other teachers have pointed out that the animals were created before humans, so if being created first automatically implied a position of leadership, the animals should lead the humans.
He brushes this off by pointing out that "When the Hebrew people gave a special responsibility to the "firstborn" in the family, it never entered their minds that this responsibility would be nullified if the father happened to own cattle before he had sons." Of course not. Because being firstborn doesn't necessarily mean God will call you to be the leader. If you're an animal, you just might get sacrificed. If you're a human, there are special blessings and inheritances for the firstborn, however example after example shows that doesn't mean much when it comes to who God calls to leadership.
Abel and Cain
Noah's son Shem was the forefather of Jesus, even though Japeth was the oldest (Gen 10:21).
Jacob and Esau
Joseph and his brothers
Manasseh and Ephraim
And so on...
Mark 10:31
"But many who are first will be last, and the last first."
What do the Hebrew word pictures say?
According to Dr. Frank Seekins in Hebrew Word Pictures, the word for Father is ab or Alef Bet. "The word picture tells us that a father is the leader [first] or the strength of the family." (pg. 14)
The word for Mother is em or Alef Mem. "The word picture tells us that a mother is the strong [or first] water... the life giver." (pg. 62)
So there is strong evidence to indicate that man was not, in fact, formed first, rather Adam was a man/woman being who was later separated. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant to challenging the complementarian argument, however, because there is nothing IN the text to indicate that being created first has any significance. Certainly, if woman had been created first, patriarchs would have believed that indicated something as well. They would have said, "Of course the woman couldn't manage on her own! That's why God created man, because the poor helpless woman was lost on her own until God created the man to rescue her." Can't you just hear it now?
The Man was Created First- Or Was He?
Genesis 1:26-27
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."
Scholars have offered several explanations for the placement of this creation account, since it is before Eve's apparent creation from Adam's rib. The Talmud offers this explanation:
Midrash Rabbah 8:1:
Rabbi Yirmeyah ben El'azar said: The Blessed Holiness created the first human being with both genders, as it is written, "Male and female [God] created them" {Genesis 1:27}.
Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman [agreed and] said: The Blessed Holiness created the first human being double-faced [with two fronts of the body], and then sawed them apart and made backs for them, a back for one and a back for the other.
Other scholars objected: It is written "[God] took one of his ribs" {Genesis 1:21}! [The word understood as "rib" is tsela- see Hebrew text below]
[Rabbi Shmuel] answered: It means "one of the two sides [of the double being]". As Scripture says, "For the tsela of the Sanctuary..." -- where the translation of tsela is "side".
1 Timothy 2:23
"For Adam was first formed, then Eve."
Does this contradict the explanation of the man/woman Adam? No, I don't think so. Adam got to keep the body that was formed first before Eve got her newly formed body. Paul's purpose in stating this was to refute a teaching that was circulating that woman was the originator of man.
1 Timothy 2:12
"I most certainly do not grant authority to a woman to teach that she is the originator of a man."
But let's just say that John Piper is correct and Adam was, in fact, formed first.
He claims, "Now God wants to say something more about the relationship between man and woman. And what he wants to say is that when it comes to their differing responsibilities, there is a "firstness" of responsibility that falls to the man."
There is nothing in the text to indicate that the purpose of this passage is to show us anything about who has more responsibility before God. This is entirely his opinion. All the Bible does is state the facts of who was created first (if Adam was indeed created first), but does not say why or that it has any meaning at all. He acknowledges that other teachers have pointed out that the animals were created before humans, so if being created first automatically implied a position of leadership, the animals should lead the humans.
He brushes this off by pointing out that "When the Hebrew people gave a special responsibility to the "firstborn" in the family, it never entered their minds that this responsibility would be nullified if the father happened to own cattle before he had sons." Of course not. Because being firstborn doesn't necessarily mean God will call you to be the leader. If you're an animal, you just might get sacrificed. If you're a human, there are special blessings and inheritances for the firstborn, however example after example shows that doesn't mean much when it comes to who God calls to leadership.
Abel and Cain
Noah's son Shem was the forefather of Jesus, even though Japeth was the oldest (Gen 10:21).
Jacob and Esau
Joseph and his brothers
Manasseh and Ephraim
And so on...
Mark 10:31
"But many who are first will be last, and the last first."
What do the Hebrew word pictures say?
According to Dr. Frank Seekins in Hebrew Word Pictures, the word for Father is ab or Alef Bet. "The word picture tells us that a father is the leader [first] or the strength of the family." (pg. 14)
The word for Mother is em or Alef Mem. "The word picture tells us that a mother is the strong [or first] water... the life giver." (pg. 62)
So there is strong evidence to indicate that man was not, in fact, formed first, rather Adam was a man/woman being who was later separated. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant to challenging the complementarian argument, however, because there is nothing IN the text to indicate that being created first has any significance. Certainly, if woman had been created first, patriarchs would have believed that indicated something as well. They would have said, "Of course the woman couldn't manage on her own! That's why God created man, because the poor helpless woman was lost on her own until God created the man to rescue her." Can't you just hear it now?
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