First we'll talk about Brendan...
This one has stumped me for a while now but when I think about the super heroes he loves and his love of Star Wars, who can help but love the bad guys in those? They're awesome! I don't think I've known any boy who didn't love Darth Vader at one point in their lives. He can control you with his mind and fight with a lightsaber. So cool! Same with all of the super heroes (at least in their cartoon/comic forms). The bad guys look cool and do/say silly things. In fact the bad guys that existed in our cartoons growing up have been changed to be bumbling idiots instead of evil guys that you're genuinely afraid of. Best example? Pete the Cat from the Mickey Mouse cartoons. Does anyone remember that episode (usually shown around Halloween) where Pluto goes to doggy hell and stands before a jury of cats with Pete as the judge? He was downright scary back then! Now he's just mean and goofy (no pun intended, lol). So, my conclusion with all of this is that I think because bad guys are less scary now, it makes the old bad guys not as scary and therefore likable.
Now for us...
First, Dexter... If you're not familiar with the show, he's a serial killer but he works for the Miami Metro Police as a blood spatter analyst. He's obsessed with blood and so he kills with knives. But before you go thinking he's all evil, he lives by a code that only "allows" him to kill people who deserve to be killed. People who've done unspeakable things and gotten away with it by our judicial system standards. And so yes, what he does is bad, but he's channeled it to where I wouldn't call him evil. Why do we make these "exceptions" for something that by biblical standards isn't okay at all? The culture we live in these days is a scary place with laws bending to almost the breaking point at every turn. And so the thought that there could be someone out there who is helping protect you in a way you could never even think about much less try, is actually comforting. At least in my mind. The fact is our judicial system "works" but that doesn't always mean it's right. It is fair to have a jury of your peers but humans are fallible and therefore not always the best judges. Don't take this to mean I think we need to bring computers into the mix or anything, just acknowledging that a system that was put in place by people of faith is no longer working well. And I'm not saying that people that do not believe in a higher being can't have morals.
Then Breaking Bad... A chemistry teacher finds out he has cancer and has no way to pay for treatment, much less find a way to provide for his family if he dies. He goes on a ride-along with his DEA brother-in-law and sees a former student running away from a Meth lab. Long story short... he decides he can cook a pure Meth that will bring in a ton of money and help him meet his goals. As the series continues his morals slip until he the drug business is all-consuming and he loves the power that comes with it. So... why the heck would someone like me love a show about a substance I've never seen in real life and would never know how to get if in some bizarre universe I wanted it?! Because a man of middle class stature who is a teacher for Pete's sake should be able to afford the health care he needed and turned to desperate measures to save himself and his family. It's also a fascinating realm of existence that I have no knowledge about. And in a time when this country is trying to legalize marijuana so that maybe crime, drug abuse, and turning to heavier drugs will decrease, it's good to see the dark side of things.
To sum things up... One of my favorite book series of all time is Frank Peretti's This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness. They open your eyes to spiritual warfare. They've also caused me to no longer be able to watch scary movies, lol. Especially ones like The Exorcism of Emily Rose. They made demons too real and so that movie in particular scared the heck out of me! All of that to say I think it's important to be aware of the dark. If we live with our heads in the sand pretending our faithful lives are all that matter, I don't think we will be prepared for the demons of this world. We won't be prepared to witness to the lost and bring them into the light.
Ok... promise next post will be back to light-hearted kid talk :-)
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