Scarred by Cinema
by Eutychus
Growing up Southern Baptist is not without its whimsy. In fact, Southern Baptist life in the sixties and early seventies was largely astereotypical from what one would consider it today. We were more concerned with dressing nicely on Sunday morning than with any actual concern for our eternal souls and as long as there was enough fried chicken for the potluck dinners, we were happy enough. It was more of a social organization than a religious one, tied together within a religious framework that we bowed down to on Sundays and Wednesday nights.
If God was pretty much an ignored entity (in favor of his son, whom seemed to always hog the limelight), the devil might as well have been a cartoon character. The idea of a supernatural creature who was the complete embodiment of all evil was pretty much superseded by the idea of a comical devil who tempted us to do naughty things and then slunk away depressed when he couldn't get his way. No one gave him much thought, myself included. The height of rebellion for me at the time was to wear a t-shirt to Sunday school.
The Exorcist was released in 1973, the same year that I graduated from high school; I already had a headful of new options fighting for attention in my befuddled brain. The church I was attending at the time paid the movie scant attention. The film featured (as is well known by now) Linda Blair (who is still turning heads even now) as a young girl who is physically possessed by a demon in all sorts of icky ways. It gets even ickier as an exorcist is summoned to perform the Catholic liturgy for expelling demons.
The phrase "pea soup" comes to mind.
When The Last Temptation of Christ came out there were rabid Christians warning us not to go see the film because it would corrupt us wildly and give us bad thoughts. I remember no such warnings for The Exorcist; indeed, the only caveat for seeing the movie was for the gross-out factor. The ickiness, which reportedly topped anything which had ever been filmed before, except in certain exploitation films. In fact, I would suggest that the ick factor is exactly the reason why most people came to see it in its initial release.
It was afterwards that the messages started to sink in and the true horror of the film began to affect me. Most horror films create their scares by inflicting the monsters from without. The Exorcist was about an uncontrollable monster that took over from within. It set up a whole new paradigm for someone who had never really considered anything more evil than devil's-food cake. Not only did it introduce me to a new sort of evil, it made me think that the same thing could easily happen to me. For a short time, as I had just begun to wander away from the church, I considered it a very realistic possibility.
The same effect was felt within the church as well — and if the movie did have one good effect, it was that it made many Christians consider something that, although biblical, they had never really considered before. Discussion was rife on topics such as "could a Christian become demon-possessed?" “Could this happen to me?” “How do we define possession?”
In the long run, the film may have done more harm than good, since the Christian church seems to have evolved to the point where it sees demons where none may, in fact, exist. But when your tunnel vision turns to a reality you had not considered before, it's easy to get carried away.