On Sunday we had our first discussion of the Reel Life 2018 casual worship series. We started with Ready Player One , currently the sixth highest grossing film worldwide this year. We ate popcorn, watched a trailer and a short clip from the film, sang hymns, lit candles, and had time to think together about some of the themes.
Ready Player One has received a lot of attention for its nostalgia and celebration of pop culture – many of the references are to the ’80s but earlier and later decades are also referenced in many ways. The film itself is set in 2045 in a future where the world is generally not appealing. There is poverty, economic inequality, and the increasing control of large corporations, but in many ways the world does not look all that different than our own – a matter of degree more than a significant upheaval. In this dystopic future, the general approach for the people is one of escapism. They escape to “The Oasis”, a virtual reality universe, where everyone spends their time. As the main character Wade Watts says “People escape to the Oasis because of all the things they can do, but they stay because of all the things they can be.” These themes of virtual reality and online identity are ones that arise for us in our society today.
In many ways the world of Ready Player One is a likely future. We already see our society wrestling with these questions and moving in this direction. In our use of social media, as well as in online gaming and other ways, we find ourselves wondering about questions such as:
- How do I share who I am online?
- Is my online identity the same as my “real” identity? What does it mean to my sense of self if I see these as different?
- What does friendship mean when I do not see the offline identity of a friend?
Because of the prevalence of social media and online communication, even choices not to engage (or the inability to engage because of age, understanding, or a lack of technology) impact how we are perceived and how we are able to interact with others. Of course, there is also the question of privacy, which I’ve explored in a previous weekday wonderings post.
While Ready Player One attempts to challenge the escapism of “The Oasis”, with some characters arguing for the importance of the real world, the main character Wade Watts embraces the game of “The Oasis”, and the film becomes its own combination of escapism and nostalgia. You can sit down and watch Ready Player One and forget about all the challenges we were facing as you escape into the beautiful visual effects of the virtual world portrayed, as well as the nostalgia of the surfeit of pop culture “Easter Eggs” everywhere in the film. We might not mind being reminded that the real world matters, but people are going to see the film because of a desire to escape and be nostalgic.
There’s lots to say about the film, and lots to think about regarding this larger human tendency towards nostalgia and escapism. While in many ways our faith calls us to the importance of the world right here and right now (and Jesus spent a lot of time talking about very practical physical things, like bread), there are also strains of our religion that feed into nostalgia (the “golden age” of the church in the 50’s and 60’s, which ignores all the problems of that time) and escapism (a focus on heavenly reward has denied the need to improve our world and address of the bodily, practical needs of others – to bring to life the “Kingdom of God” right here and right now). I don’t think nostalgia and escapism are always a problem – it’s about how much of our life they take up, and what else fills our life with meaning.
If you’re interested in reading a bit more about Ready Player One, you might look at these reviews by Alison Willmore and Lindsay Ellis .
We’ll see you on Saturday at 1:30pm for a screening of Black Panther, which will be the film talked about in worship on Sunday as our Reel Life 2018 series continues!
Rev. Emily Gordon
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