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Culture Watch:An Experience To Remember
by Lee Warren (Lee's bio)
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"Words—so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become, in the hands of one who knows how to combine them!"" --Nathaniel Hawthorne
I witnessed the potency of words in action recently when I went to see the movie version of Nicholas Spark's novel, A Walk To Remember. Pop singer, Mandy Moore plays the part of Jamie Sullivan a young Christian woman who is dying of Leukemia. She doesn't tell anybody about her illness because she just wants to be treated like everybody else, but ironically, her classmates reject her because of her plain appearance and her Christian faith.
Early in the movie, when Jamie is being made fun of at school, several teen-aged girls who sat behind my friend and I in the movie theater, laughed at Jamie along with the characters in the movie.
Enter, Landon Carter, a senior who hangs out with the in-crowd who is only concerned about having fun. After his crowd pulls a prank on a schoolmate, Landon ends up in trouble and part of his punishment is tutoring children—the same children that Jamie willingly tutors. The other part of his punishment is to play a role in the school's upcoming play, of which Jamie is also a willing participant.
While studying lines together (in secret because Landon doesn't want anybody to know), Landon begins to fall for Jamie, but he falls head over heals for her during the play as Jamie, all gussied up to play the part, sings a song that takes his breath away.
As they spend more time together, she notices that Landon is more open to listening to things that excite her than she ever imagined. He takes an interest in astronomy with her, in long walks through nature and when she tells him about a list that she keeps of things she wants to do before her life is over, he sees a woman who wants to live life to it's fullest—a completely different lifestyle than he'd ever known.
As Landon changes, they both realize how attracted they are to each other. The problem is, Jamie hasn't told him that she's dying of Leukemia. When she finally does, instead of running away, he learns to embrace every moment to it's fullest. Towards the end of the movie, Landon asks Jamie to get married and her walk down the aisle becomes a walk to remember.
As I struggled mightily not to become known as the first male in the history of movie theaters to break down in tears, I heard the teen-agers behind me sobbing. The power of words, played out on the big screen had so gripped them that they, like Landon, had a change of heart about Jamie Sullivan.
For years, Christians have claimed that the arts have the power to influence our culture—sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. But we've been told that; "It's just a movie. It's just a book. It's just lyrics. They don't really have the power to influence anybody." I wonder how those teen-agers would respond if you asked them why they were sobbing at the end of the movie. After all, it was just a movie.
Copyright 2002, Lee Warren. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
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About Lee Warren: Lee Warren is a freelance writer from Omaha, Nebraska. He has written for various publications and is currently working on a novel. If you are interested in reading more of his work or in receiving his column via e-mail, please go to his website: www.leewarrenjr.com or drop him an e-mail: LeeWJunior@cox.net.
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