‘Bruce Almighty’: Blasphemy at the box office

JACKSON, Tenn. (BP)—To what lengths will society go for entertainment? Outrageous athlete salaries, ridiculous reality TV shows and voyeuristic sitcoms featuring desperately dysfunctional families like the Osbornes have now been topped by Hollywood’s “Bruce Almighty,” a motion picture created for the mindless entertainment of the masses.

In addition to growing tired of all that is presented as entertainment, a troublesome issue about this latest film is that it not only reduces God to a whimsical plaything for humanity, but does so with the sole purpose of mere amusement. Hollywood has now proven that society is quite comfortable trivializing the sacred on the silver screen.

In the movie, Bruce Nolen (played by Jim Carrey) is granted God’s powers after griping about life’s circumstances and after accusing God (Morgan Freeman) of “not doing his job.” The movie is a silly tale of how he handles such supernatural abilities, flippantly raising women’s skirts, parting the waters of tomato soup, causing monkeys to materialize from people’s rear ends, and the list goes on ad nauseum.

Early on, with the goal of consoling him about his humorous, but often less-than-respected reporter job at a Buffalo television station, Bruce’s girlfriend Grace (Jennifer Aniston) tells him, “[T]here’s nothing wrong with making people laugh.” This one line, while sounding harmless, reveals Carrey’s real-life approach to acting and provides further insight to his recent comment: “Sc––w everybody. ... I make people laugh.” It is from this framework that the movie progresses with the lone objective of creating laughter.

There is much in this movie that will lead one to laughter — and if not laughter, at least smirking. Jim Carrey is a funny person. Just keeping up with his facial expressions is amusing. And throughout the story, Carrey’s high-energy hilarity forces many to laugh — at times almost uncontrollably. Topic notwithstanding, Carrey is unarguably a comic.

In and of itself, laughter is a good thing. And while “there’s nothing wrong with making people laugh” (which no doubt is the motivation of this movie), it is at the same time precisely this kind of thinking that will blind many summer moviegoers to the real issue behind their momentary mirth. The concern with Bruce Almighty is not that it makes people laugh, but that it uses the things of God to bring about laughter.

To trivialize something is to make it commonplace or ordinary. Bruce Almighty goes about trivializing the person and powers of God by making Him out to be primarily an object for entertainment — just as any other comedic tool is used to elicit laughter. God certainly does not frown upon laughing. But some things are not intended to be laughed at — they are sacred. This was clearly evidenced by the immediate moans in one theater when Bruce, at the beginning of the movie, told God to His face that He “su–––d.” It was obvious among those present — the godly as well as the not-so-godly — that some kind of line had just been crossed. (One passing side note: A quick survey of the Bible reveals that God has killed people for less than what Bruce says.)

There is much talk today in America about values. Many say that the fabric of a society can be determined by observing its moral ideals. True. However, one also might suggest that the soul of a society is reflected by what it is willing to laugh at. People in theaters may be laughing over the next several months, but God may not be. He is not a divine comedian. And with apologies to Bruce Nolan and other self-centered individuals on the planet, God does not exist for the earthly pleasures or preferences of the human race. Thoughts of God are to flow, at the least, from a profound respect and deep reverence for Him.

Yes, Proverbs says laughter is good medicine. But laugh with discernment. “No one makes a fool of God,” the Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 6:7-8. “What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others — ignoring God! — harvests a crop of weeds. But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.”

Some things should never be the source of a culture’s entertainment. In these days, unfortunately, the line between entertainment and blasphemy will be crossed — unless individuals think carefully about what is laughable.

Todd E. Brady is minister to the university at Union University in Jackson, Tenn.