Technology and Our Culture: How Does Modern Film Reflect Our Faith?

“For now we see as through a glass darkly, but then we shall see face to face” 1 Corinthians 13:11.


The technological nature of movie viewing reflects the value system of our culture. John C. Lyden argues that the Star Wars series focuses on the need to preserve our humanity; naturally, spiritually, and ethically. This theme is also constant in The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, all of which I will discuss here. My goal is to analyze the way these modern films critique our technological era, and the potential it has to take away or restore our humanity, which includes our faith in religion.
The definition of faith means accepting something as fact without evidence. When you are viewing a movie, you need to have faith in the storyline and the characters in order to enjoy the film. Going into the theatre, you ostensibly know that what you are about to view isn’t real. However, you allow yourself to be taken into the fantasy world for ninety plus minutes, and at least temporarily transported into an imaginary time and place. If you were to liken film viewing to religious gatherings (not so far-fetched an idea when you consider the rituals involved) it is clear that movies infiltrate in ways missionaries do not. For example, in the 2001 Australian census, 70,000 people marked their religion as Jedi Knight (Plate 1). There is also a less noted but highly popular cult called “Matricism” which sprang up from the principles denoted in The Matrix trilogy.
Ironic, when you consider the fact that instead of a human preacher in a pulpit giving us spiritual guidance, we receive the proverbial sacrament from a movie projector.
Clearly, religion is imagistic, participatory (even when it’s passive), performative, and world creating (Plate 2). The same adjectives can be applied to film, which make movies a powerful medium to express ideas.
The film industry itself is a secular organization which often replaces the ritual of going to church (Saturday night at the movies, anyone?). Brent Plate argues that religion creates a different world, beyond merely physical, (as does film) and subsequently invents a new society by framing and projecting. Both give their audience an inside look at a potential utopian or dystopian society.
According to Andrew Gordon, “we have created a machine world for ourselves that seems drained of spiritual values, a world in which we feel impotent and alien (Screening the Sacred 83).” This is made clear in all three films in the following ways: In The Matrix, human society is enslaved by machines, originally of human creation, who have turned against their “makers” and proliferate by synthesizing the energy output of the human body. The humans are unaware of this, as their minds are perpetually stuck in a computer-programmed virtual reality. When the main character, Neo, is “freed” from the egg-shaped cocoon his physical body is encased in, he is flushed down a hollow tube, along with the rest of the ‘waste’ then pulled out of the sewage water- in a similar fashion to the baptism of Jesus by John-who is represented here by Morpheus.
The Matrix blends the Buddhist ideas of fate and the Judeo-Christian theme of a messiah and a chosen people. For example, the last human city of Zion is the place where those freed from the matrix live and presumably wait for the day when their savior, Neo, or the “One” arrives, and the machines’ vicious rule ends This can be dually viewed as the enlightened “one” found in Buddhist texts (Clark).
The Wachowski brothers, who made the film, cleverly blended various religious philosophies, which effectively gave its audience a fundamental message- all religions have the common denominator of faith, which is what keeps us human. Loss of our humanity is the result of our lack of trust in ourselves, and the “force” which binds us to the natural world and each other. The disastrous end result is illustrated by war, civil unrest, and the dependence on automatons.
Similar in ideology to The Matrix, The humans represented in The Ghost in the Shell are mostly, if not entirely robotic or android. One of the main characters, Batou, is a cyborg, whose only human trace is his “ghost” (human spirit). Even the somewhat-human Togusa has a CPU, which is accessible by the input/output plug located at the base of his neck. He can easily download information or be hacked into; just like a regular computer*. The main issue of the film is that young girls are being taken from their homes by the Yakuza and their “ghosts” are being dubbed into beautiful mannequins, creating seemingly perfect and compliant living dolls. Their souls are trapped inside the gynoid effigy, creating a prison from which they cannot escape. A strain of the doll prototypes go haywire, killing everyone in their path, and then self-destructing. Togusa and Batou pursue the corporate cover up of the murders with the aid of the Major- a female counterpart to Batou who has no body. Only her “ghost” remains, which can be downloaded from the Net. She watches over the other two, and is explicitly compared to a guardian angel. It propagates the idea that the soul transcends the physical body. In the film, human souls co-exist with androids and machines because they have to. However, it questions the very nature of our “human-ness”. According to the director, Mamoru Oshii, it concludes that the world does not revolve around the human race. It presumes all forms of life, animals, humans, and even robots-are equal. The point is to co-exist and transcend outmoded ways of seeing other life forms. The Frankenstein-like dolls are the result of the efforts of a dishonorable corporation, aptly named Locus Solus. The corporation is an excellent example of how we make business, money, and power our religion, losing touch with what is truly important.
Our palpable frailty becomes evident in each film, as we become increasingly robotic. Darth Vader is almost entirely machine. Luke is well on his way (mechanical hand and forearm). The ‘freed’ slaves from The Matrix are full of electrical input/output holes. As mentioned before, even the most human-like being in Ghost in the Shell has a CPU inside their body.
I have used these movies as examples to express what happens when monstrous technological creations, e.g. The Death Star in the Star Wars series, or the dolls in Ghost in the Shell, represent the loss of faith when human power is left without boundaries (Film as Religion 223).
All three films have a major character or characters that are transformed into redeemers, saviors, or martyrs. This is a fundamentally Christian theme; however, there are also significant Buddhist principles which are reconciled. In Star Wars, Luke is his father’s redeemer; he sacrifices himself to show Vader the true meaning of his love (for him) and his faith (in the Force). Darth Vader becomes Luke’s savior; he kills the emperor to save Luke’s life, and is thus redeemed for his evil deeds. Although he dies shortly afterward, he has atoned for his evildoings, and becomes one with the Force (there is a shot of him alongside Master Yoda and Master Obi-Wan Kenobi which illustrates this point). This re-establishes the people’s faith in the Force, which had all but lost its value in Luke’s time. At the beginning of Episode Four, Obi-Wan and Yoda were the last of the Jedi order, living in exile, largely thanks to Darth Vader’s massacre of the Jedi twenty or so years before. Influenced by the evil Darth Sidious, Young Anakin Skywalker had lost his faith in the teachings of the Jedi due to his fear of loss and lust for power. Although he was urged to “let go” of his attachments (Buddhist ideology) it was beyond him to do so. After losing all of his limbs in an epic battle with Obi-Wan, Anakin (now Darth Vader) is forced into a machine-like state, with most of his bodily functions relying on the construct of his mechanical suit. He can’t even breathe without its assistance. To make a parallel to Ghost in the Shell, Anakin’s “ghost” still resides on the inside, but it is twisted and warped, and under the control of the Emperor.
The discarnate Major from Ghost in the Shell sacrificed her physical body for two reasons: 1.- in order to escape the authorities (who wanted the information stored in her memories) who would use her data for world domination, and 2.- in order to save her comate, Batou from an equal fate.
Characters within these films are in some sort of self-inflicted “prison”. Their bondage stems from human reliance on technology and rejection of the natural and spiritual world. In The Matrix, the everyday person is so hopelessly dependent upon the system (of the Matrix) and afraid of the unknown, that only a small percentage of the millions of humans are actually “free”, and in most cases, they will only accept the abstract idea of the Matrix if they are children. Neo has a difficult time coming to terms with the ‘reality’ that machines run the world and use humans as a power source because it opposes his programming.
Viewing films such as these, which reflect on the current state of affairs, as well as several of many possible futures, we are shocked to conceive of a world where our souls are on the market. It is not so hard to imagine a pacemaker or artificial leg because these things have already become our reality. One hundred years ago, you would have been sent to the funny farm if you told someone to call you from the plane to discuss your laser eye surgery.
In a commodity based, consumer-driven culture such as ours, it appears nothing is too precious to sell or buy. There are churches inside shopping malls; this is what our society has become.
When we whole-heartedly put our faith into science and progress, the values of family, friends and altruism fall by the wayside. If we accept the message of these films, we can clearly see the disaster which can easily befall us if we become too arrogant. There is hope for us if we realize the true nature of ourselves, and our connection to the divine.

Endnotes

1. Neo from The Matrix has an almost identical construct at the base of his neck. In Star Wars, telepathy is used, which is different from the other two, but similar in idea of our interconnectedness to the physical and non-physical world.*


Works Cited
1. Plate, S. Brent. Representing Religion in World Cinema: Filmmaking, Mythmaking, Culture Making. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
2. Martin, Joel W. And Ostwalt, Jr., Conrad E., Screening the Sacred: Religion, Myth, and Ideology in Popular American Film. Westview Press, 1995.
3. Lyden, John C. Film as Religion: Myths, Morals, and Rituals. New York University Press, 2003.
4. Polk, Bryan. Seeing the Field: Religious Themes in Popular Film, 2003.
5. Schoefield-Clark, Lynn. Spiritual Themes of the Matrix Reloaded. May 16th, 2003. Religion and Ethics Newsweekly (Episode no. 638). <www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week638/feature.html>.
6. Suchenski, Richard. Senses of Cinema. Mamoru Oshii, 2004. <http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/04/oshii.html>.