The movie "Tropic Thunder" offers up a particularly funny satirical take on the Hollywood machine. The movie takes aim at actors, agents, directors, effects specialists, blockbuster action movies, Oscar-baiting dramas, pandering lowbrow comedies, and more. Perhaps most hilarious of all is Tom Cruise as utterly despicable studio executive Les Grossman. If you haven't seen the movie, just take a look at this photo, and know that his physical appearance is actually the least revolting thing about him.
Cruise does a fantastic job committing to the role, and he is joined by a great many Hollywood mainstays in poking fun at the silly and awful things that happen in the process of getting a picture up on the silver screen. Undoubtedly the reality is not quite so bad as it is presented in the movie, but it made me think of how many people and institutions often end up seeming like a caricature of what they once were.
Before I get into the thick of it and start calling out theological and spiritual figures, consider for a moment the career of a comedian like Dane Cook. Generally, they arrive on a scene and their delivery style and their jokes are new and everybody loves them. If they are imitated, it is as "the sincerest form of flattery." Then pretty soon they become an established presence, and their routine grows familiar. If they don't show promise for new, evolving material quickly, familiarity quickly breeds contempt, as other comedians and would-be comedians take to the mic to mock the worn-out routine with an exaggerated caricature. Worse still, if the comedian never evolves, they quickly become a caricature of themselves. They know they cannot just do more of the same, but apparently they are only capable of essentially turning up the volume on all their individual quirks, trying to pass off exaggeration as innovation. This fools no one.
I think I see the same thing in a lot of people, of all professional stripes. It is probably the most common for "one-hit wonder" type celebrities, who strike a chord unexpectedly and spend the rest of their lives trying to recapture the magic. It also happens when a fanatical fringe element embraces a celebrity talking head, rewarding them instead of chastising them for every further plunge into the deep end.
But honestly I think most of it has to do with aging. Identity and opinions seem to be in flux until a certain point, and then - it's like all we know how to do is keep reiterating that point. Even my spiritual hero, George MacDonald, is not immune to this. He wrote some things that were - and still are - unconventional in their take on the nature of God and salvation, particularly regarding justice and atonement. Reading his Unspoken Sermons, it seems as though he is hesitant to launch into these theories in detail, but once he does, he spends far too much time railing against penal substitution. Whatever your feelings on the subject (and I am extremely sympathetic to his point of view), after a while it gets repetitive. I hesitate to say this about George MacDonald, mostly because I like him so much, but I wonder if for many of these cases it just gets too tiring to consider things with an open mind. It is easier to just stick to your guns than to take an honest appraisal of new information, of a new perspective. We do it at all ages, but it seems to get more prevalent as we age. To put it another way, when's the last time you saw a retiree switch political allegiance? (Yes, I'm sure it happens sometimes, but it is much less common than it is for teens and twenty-somethings.)
I believe that to really have an open mind - and an open heart - means you will inevitably change your beliefs and opinions. It doesn't mean that we should just absorb without question different theories and perspectives that are presented to us. But if we never let them get close to us, if we never feel in danger of changing our own view, then we shut one of the doors to grace, and the scales will never fall from our eyes. We will become caricatures of ourselves; we will become Les Grossman.
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