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30 Nov 2022 The Terminator (1984) Featuring Dr Michelle Fletcher TRANSCRIPT We kick off our "Chosen One" season in the last years of the Cold War to talk about James Cameron's second-best film in the Terminator franchise, The Terminator (1984). Is it a sci-fi nativity play, ushering in hope for a new future? Or are we witnessing a Revelation-style final battle? Come join us as we learn about the nuclear-anxiety film genre, why apocalyptic stories are all about looking backwards, and which character Arnold Schwarzenegger originally was intended to play. ​ Episode Credits: Many thanks to Dr Michelle Fletcher for her time and expertise. ​ Dr Fletcher is a Research Associate on the Visual Commentary on Scripture , an editor of Bloomsbury’s Scriptural Traces series, and Secretary of the British New Testament Society. Make sure to check out her book, Reading Revelation as Pastiche . You can find her on Twitter @NTRight . ​ Citations: Michelle Fletcher, "' Behold, I'll be Back': Terminator, the Book of Revelation, and the Power of the Past " in Now Showing: Film Theory in Biblical Studies , eds. Vander Stichele and Copier (Atlanta: SBL Brill, 2016). Kim Newman, Millenium Movies (Titan Books, 1999). Gaye Ortiz and Maggie Roux, "The Terminator Movies: Hi-Tech Holiness and the Human Condition" in Explorations in Theology and Film: An Introduction, eds. Marsh and Ortiz (Wiley, 1998). Roland Boer, "Christological Slippage and Ideological Structures in Schwarzenegger's 'Terminator '." Intertextuality and the Bible: Semeia , 69/70 (1995), 165-193. Peter Chattaway, " Saints, Sinners, and Salvation ." Christianity Today . 20 May 2009. Sean French, The Terminator (Bloomsbury / BFI Film Classics, 2001). Transcript [Katie]: Hello and welcome to Gods & Moviemakers , otherwise known as GodMovPod, the show about how religion and the Bible shape the stories we tell on screen. ​ [Joe]: I'm Joe Scales ​ [Katie]: and I'm Katie Turner. On this season: the chosen one. Why were they chosen, do they want to be chosen and why are we so attracted to these sorts of stories? We're joined today by Dr Michelle Fletcher to talk about The Terminator . Michelle is a New Testament scholar specializing in the book of Revelation, textual imitation, reception criticism and visual art. She's a research associate on the visual commentary on scripture, an editor of Bloomsbury's scriptural traces series and secretary of the British New Testament Society. Her 2017 book, "Reading Revelation as Pastiche" uses film theory to examine the use of the Hebrew Bible in Revelation. In addition to that she has published widely on Bible in popular culture, including the Frankenstein films, the 2018 Mary Magdalene , and lucky for us, the Terminator franchise, welcome Michelle. ​ [Michelle]: Hello thank you so much for having me today, pretty excited to geek out with you both. ​ [Joe]: We're very excited to have you. ​ [Katie]: So Michelle, you've published a paper on The Terminator called, “Behold, I'll be Back”, which is a great title. ​ [Michelle]: Thank you very much, gotta love a good pun. ​ [Katie]: and that paper covers the first four Terminator films, so it's fairly safe to say that you are familiar with the franchise. [Michelle]: I am. [Katie]: Okay so we have a scenario for you. Are you ready? [Michelle]: Hit me. [Katie]: You are standing in front of the Paramount Pictures executive, and you have been tasked with pitching the next film in The Terminator franchise. You can do absolutely anything you want; you can reset something or reboot something from the previous films. You can even remake Terminator II if you wanted to, although I don't know why you would want to do that but, whatever, it's up to you. What film do you pitch? [Michelle]: Can I give a facetious answer, which is that I'd probably go for a Derek Jarman style Blue , but I'd call it post-apocalyptic Black . And I'd probably just film two hours of a blackout with some sort of wind floating, and do the next one which is the reality of the post-apocalyptic wasteland, because I feel it needs an injection of some level of the brutality of what is actually depicting, to get us back to that sort of nineteen eighties, coming out of a really dark period of the Cold War. People see [The Terminator] as fun and that Arnie injected fun into it and he very much did. And when you read the idea of what happened with him being bought on board, it changed the shape of Terminator, that he became the Terminator. He was actually meant to be Kyle Reese originally, but everybody decided that that wasn't a great casting. There's lots of sort of myths around what happened during this lunch with him and Cameron and who else was there, but when you read Arnold's account in his autobiographies, and when you read Cameron's account, it's clear that there was a shift. So, there's this idea that fun was being bought in because this larger than life figure took on the role of the Terminator. He was originally meant to be played by Lance Hendrickson who plays one of the two police officers. There is something about that dark grittiness of the 1980s that has got lost, particularly when he dons the spangly specs in Terminator Three [Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines - 2003] in the gay bar and I think it's also become cleaner looking, the machines are much cleaner. There's meant to be something dirty, the original terminator rots, he's got that flesh, “have you got a dead cat in there buddy?” It's meant to be dark and dirty, so I'd just have my post-apocalyptic wind. [Katie]: So would there be no cast then? [Michelle]: No, I'd just have a post-apocalyptic wind for two hours. Like Derek Jarman's Blue , where you just sort of imagine what it would be like the sort of the end the actual end of Terminator when the sky goes blank, when the bombs drop and when it actually…you could just have judgement day for two hours. Bleak bleakness. [Joe]: I can't really see Paramount buying this script treatment off you. [Michelle]: That's why I have to do niche New Testament things rather than my filmic career, it's such a shame. [Laughs] It could get into Tate Modern though you know, it would be a different location from its normal. [Katie]: I think Tate Modern would definitely sign up for that, but if you're stuck with niche New Testament things that's fine with us because we get your commentary. [Michelle]: Maybe I’m just not very imaginative. [Katie]: No, I think that that's very imaginative [Joe]: We should probably actually start to talk about The Terminator . [Katie]: Yes, you're right we should definitely do that but just to make sure that we are all on the same page and all remembering the same things at this point we are going to do a brief film summary, refresh our memories and we’ll carry on with our chat from there. [Film clip, Kyle Reese]: Come with me if you want to live . [Joe]: The Terminator is a 1984 film directed by James Cameron. Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Terminator, a cyborg assassin from a post-apocalyptic future who’s been sent back in time to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, played by Linda Hamilton. Lucky for Sarah though, Kyle Reese, played by Michael Biehn, a soldier from that same post-apocalyptic future has also been sent back in time. His role is different, he's there to protect her from the Terminator. Unbeknownst to Sarah, her unborn, and as yet, unconceived son will one day save humanity from extinction by Skynet, a hostile artificial intelligence set on the total annihilation of humankind. [Katie]: So before we get into the really, I would say obvious biblical imagery, I'd like to take our listeners back to the early nineteen eighties, when terminator was being conceived and then being filmed, and to sort of pick back up on something you've already mentioned Michelle which is that it's very much a Cold War nuclear anxiety film, like Dr Strangelove or Wargames ; Wargames also has the computer technology phobia that we see a bit in Terminator, so can you talk a little bit about Cold War or nuclear anxiety films in general, put The Terminator back into its historical context? ​ [Michelle]: It's coming quite late in the day and at this point a lot of the Cold War anxiety that's being played out, and that actually Cameron was more influenced by, was coming on television so you’ve got some BBC dramatizations at this point, and it is starting to get quite gritty. So, you've got that sort of metaphor floating around in sixties films and sixties sci-fi. You start to have the idea of nuclear war as something out that people might be damaged by, trying to avert it, what might happen if it actually does occur. There were reviews at this point of some of the films coming out where people were saying that this is inevitable, it's just gonna happen. So there was almost this acceptance of it as “a thing”. The dramas that were coming out on television were showing actually the reality of what would happen if nuclear fallout did occur, what would happen to reproduction, the kind of children people would actually be producing. This was always actually a fault of Terminator that all the kids look fine, they're not going to look fine. So it’s got really quite dirty at this point, the book if you want to read about this in more detail is called Millennium Movies by Kim Newman and traces the history of “end of the world cinema” – it’s called – but it’s actually on Hollywood, the rise of the bomb, the way that it's dealt with, how it works through alien films verses ones which are actually dealing with human-to-human destruction. Japanese cinema, you have The Last War (1961) where you have full-out nuclear destruction of the world, but these are all in the 60’s. So by the time we are getting to the 80’s as I said, it’s got this sense that it’s moved to TV a bit more, and it’s a bit darker and a bit edgier, so BBC documentaries where you just see people on the empty streets of London. It’s the kind of thing we’d imagine with zombie movies now. So 1983 is an enormous year in the Cold War, you've got the Pershing II missiles being located in Europe at this point, and Russia really worrying, and you have the Able Archer Exercise in 1983 as well, which is seen by historians to be the time we came closest to nuclear war after the Cuban Missile Crisis. So although Terminator was first conceived in 1982, James Cameron has this strange dream in the March of this year in Rome, and has this idea. He’s a sci-fi geek and comic-book geek and he has this idea of this machine. By the time Terminator is put into production there’s a delay because Arnold Schwarzenegger has to go back and do another film with the company he signed up with, so they have this delay of nine months where they work things through again and re-storyboard. So, it has actually had all that process of all of the anxieties of 1983 almost imbued into the film by the time that they start shooting. So it is a really tense period and it had calmed down obviously through the period of Détente, Reagan's come back in, we’ve had the comment about the “the empire of evil,” it's getting problematic, so it’s really speaking into a new time of heightened hostility with Russia and obviously by the time it gets to Terminator II, which again isn't our focus, that's really a post-Cold War film with what it’s dealing with, with a version, that’s, the Berlin Wall has fallen at that point in that film, it’s got that sense of positivity, whereas this one is where things are tense and it’s started really started to flare up again. So that’s a brief history. ​ [Katie]: That’s so good. I feel like a round of applause is necessary. ​ [Joe]: Insert a round of applause in the track. [Recording of applause plays ] ​ [Katie]: Thank you for that Michelle. I'd like to start with The Terminator as Nativity film which has been pretty conclusively put forward by a number of biblical scholars who look at The Terminator like Roland Boer and Peter Chattaway, who all just identify it as a sci-fi nativity. What are the main parallels that we are seeing between the New Testament nativity and the Terminator? ​ [Michelle]: Biblical scholars would see this wouldn’t they? I mean we are seeing a parallel in relation to it, but in honesty it's an age old story that definitely goes back beyond the nativity which is the idea that somebody in the future is going to do something great and rise up and save a load of people. It could also be a Spartacus film in that sense: John Connor is gonna raise people up to save them, raise the slaves of the machines up. But the way that it works in the film in a way that biblical scholars have wanted to see this as a nativity film is the fact that Kyle Reese announces to Sarah Connor, who is at this point a single waitress working in LA, that she is going to be the mother of this future warrior who is going to save the whole world, the whole of humanity, although Kyle speaks far more attractively than that, I’m going to be honest. He kind of whispers it in the dark. So he says, that your unborn son Sarah, John Connor, is going to be this person. And Sarah, as the film goes on, starts to believe what he says because she realizes the Terminator is going to keep coming and trying to kill her and she realizes he's got a point, but she's still saying “Do I look like the mother of the future to you, I can't even balance my chequebook.” [Film clip, Sarah Connor]: Come on, do I look like the mother of the future?! I mean, am I tough, organized? I can’t even balance my chequebook! Look Reese, I didn't ask for this honour and I don't want it, any of it! ​ [Michelle]: So there’s this sense of a woman is not ready for a calling. The film presents this idea of an annunciation that she's going to have this child that she's not expecting, that's not planned and that it's going to do these great things in the future but there's a slight twist which obviously takes the, as Boer points out, conclusion of the nativity scene to its ultimate end which is that the messenger also is the impregnator, because they have an intimate scene, which was actually part inserted by the production company who wanted to increase the romance in the film, to make it more marketable. And Reese becomes the father of Sarah's unborn child as we find out at the end as she goes off into some storm clouds clutching a gun on her pregnant belly, showing that she has become a “Warrior Mother”. So that is the nativity but with some added guns. ​ [Katie, laughs]: I love a nativity with some added guns. ​ [Joe]: Guns and robots. ​ [Katie]: So I actually saw a lot of biblical Sarah in Sarah rather than Mary. So in the story of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis we get the narrative where they're quite at the later years of their life. They’re elderly and an angel comes and tells Abraham that Sarah is going to be pregnant and to have a baby and Sarah is listening to the conversation from just outside the tent and she has this kind of incredulous response, she can't believe it, and she laughs out loud, and that reminded me a lot of in The Terminator when Sarah is told that she's going to have a child she also has an incredulous response and it's in that line where she says and “but I can't even balance my chequebook” and there's a bit of humour in that as well, it's a funny thing to go to what she says and so it also reminded me of the fact that Sarah in the Bible responds with humour. So yeah I see that parallel there. ​ [Michelle]: That’s interesting. Gaye Ortiz, she draws attention to this in her article as well, the idea of the typical Sarah and commonality of the matriarchs. This idea of the strong women who have children, the mothers who shape the future and shape the future for their sons, right. We know that Sarah really does, the pushing out of Ishmael, the attempt to have the first son and then to get rid of him, so that Isaac can be the only son. So, we have that idea of mothers making way for the future for their children which Sarah has to learn to do and in that final scene we see her doing that, that is there. The idea of it being comical I find it quite interesting because I feel like Sarah Connor, rather than Sarah-Abraham, is “I don't want it,” there is a real rejection of her with the role and she does say “I don't want any of it.” It's not a welcome pregnancy, it’s not a woman who is seeing a child as this great gift, it's not somebody who set up in a culture where having a child is the thing that gives you an identity, and some of the ways that the film has been read, and that Terminator II has been read, as feminist films, of this idea of a woman becoming empowered, taking on a role, can in some ways be undone by this fact, that actually Sarah is earning her money, and working, and making her own choices, having sex outside of marriage, at the beginning, and that she ends up taking on this role of being mother, and it's from the point almost of inception with Reese that she becomes more powerful, becomes this person who is more able to find her own identity and so in that sense I suppose, they undo an independent woman and turned her into someone who motherhood gives her identity. So not a culture that accepts it but motherhood that makes her which is quite an interesting reading of it and brings the two together, the world's collide of ancient biblical narrative of wanting to have a child, verses 1980’s where this is not what you'd want but both giving you identity and changing you. ​ [Joe]: I really found we, as in Sarah, doesn't really have a great understanding initially of what's going to happen or why this is happening to her, and it kind of is drip fed to her by Kyle Reese in between the times when he's yelling at her, he was alternating a lot between yelling and whispering at Sarah, but there's this really great section where he just talks about why he comes back to the past and you know it’s a one way trip, he's not going back, why has he abandoned his life, and he says “to meet the legend Sarah Connor” and he talks about her. That was the moment for me that really just had this, this something more given to Sarah in the script to be, rather than just the mother of a saviour let’s say, so it is quite an active role The Terminator sees for Sarah in her future and she kind of has to wrestle with that, so I wonder whether this is a good opportunity to kind of slide into our thematic discussion for the series and talk about what makes a Chosen One. We've brought Sarah Connor as an example of potentially a chosen one character. If I put that to you, what makes a chosen one? ​ [Michelle]: In the context of The Terminator ? ​ [Katie]: We’re sort of looking just in general and I would say that for me one of the things that sort of separates a chosen one from a saviour, if we are going to split those two, is that with the chosen one you tend to have a character who's living a totally normal existence, and then something happens and they are chosen, and it's only after the being chosen that they find that something about themselves is really important, is able to make a big difference, and that shift happens post being chosen, whereas the saviour figure tends to be special right from the very beginning, born special. ​ [Michelle]: Whereas The Terminator, its retrospectively saying the difference will be made in the future, so they become chosen by the future speaking to them in the past, in some sense. Would John ever become great had Sarah not known that John was going to become great, and this is the brilliance of time travel that the film brings in and it's where it complicates it, that you have the paradox of, is it because Sarah knows the John's going to become great and be a great warrior that actually John becomes a great warrior. Where does the time loop happen, so this is where the enunciation bit comes in, that there is this discussion all his specialness which will invariably change who he is in the future and changes who she is at the same time. What's quite interesting and I will answer within The Terminator world as that’s what we're talking on this, is that what they wanted to show within the filmic universe of this, and one of the things that got picked up on to the point that on one website it got picked as the most, one of the top ten most hopeful films ever made, do you want to know why? ​ [Katie]: Go on then. ​ [Michelle]: It's because it shows any one individual can shape and change the future. That's why they felt it was one of the most hopeful films ever made, and so it’s interesting the idea of a chosen one because what Terminator wanted to sell itself on was the premise, which is quite an American individualistic idea, that every single one of us through our own actions can be the chosen one, any of us can change the future within our own self and who we are, so while Sarah is seen to be the chosen one because Reese tells her she will be, the vibe from the film which has been picked up by audiences and one of the reasons it’s moved into this sort of cinematic classic, is that it speaks to each of us to say that all of us are chosen one if we realized the power of one. [Katie]: So that's so fascinating that you've gone to that point because I was doing a little bit of reading about chosen one tropes and one of the things that I read, not talking about Terminator at all, is that because chosen one figures tend to be this common, normal person who are then selected and then something about them that's already there becomes special, that it allows individuals to imagine themselves in their normal ordinary lives also becoming chosen and something becoming special or that they can make their own destiny, that maybe something about themselves as a normal everyday person actually is special and has some kind of power or resonance, whereas a saviour figure, we can't really map ourselves on to it, you can't imagine yourself being Jesus, you know? ​ [Michelle]: It's interesting with Sarah Connor as well because obviously Linda Hamilton, she’d done a couple of pictures, but she wasn't well known at this point, and she is this figure that could have things projected onto her, she doesn't have that star-studded persona which is so important when we’re watching films and deciding is someone a chosen one. Arnold Schwarzenegger cannot be a chosen one because he's already special, he's already shinning and if anybody ever tries to describe any of Arnold’s roles to you as an everyman, it’s not right, because he is him, even at this point after Conan (the Barbarian - 1982) he's not so famous, but if you have that man stood there like that, looking like that, that is not your average person in the street that is Arnold Schwarzenegger. ​ [Joe]: He’s Mr Universe, right? ​ [Michelle]: He’s Mr Universe, Mr Olympia. I think he’s six times Mr Universe, seven times Mr Olympia. So it’s not even a one off. He is something, and she is this unknown who allows people to project things onto her. Interestingly her career moved into TV with, I think it's Beauty and the Beast the series, that’s Linda’s big role in TV, it never really went beyond Sarah Connor by being the every person who became Sarah she was typed as Sarah in some ways which is quite an interesting thing to have had happen to someone as a result of playing a character. ​ [Katie]: Probably very similar to Mark Hamill and Luke Skywalker. ​ [Michelle]: And Michael Biehn, who never really did anything either. With Cameron he did, he was in the Abyss (1989) and he was in Aliens (1986), so he had a good career with Cameron, but actually in and of himself outside of the Cameron world, he kept going but never really flew. Mark Hamill is exactly the same: he’s the young guy right, he's chosen. It is interesting when we see on screen who are our chosen ones, can you have a chosen one who is a known star because of the star persona that they bring on board and this is always when discussing Jesus films, isn’t it? How on Earth do you have somebody be Jesus? Do you have an unknown, do you have somebody that brings past star performances with them. ​ [Katie]: That’s such a good point about the person who’s cast: Can you effectively be a chosen one character if you already have a lot of star power? ​ [Joe]: Yeah it would be interesting to have almost a resume of each of our chosen “chosen ones” and see where were they at in their career at that point, and maybe that will help us also distinguish between of the list of chosen ones we've brought together, how many and are actually kind of really saviours and Joe’s just not quite understood the distinction fully. ​ [Michelle]: Have you got Tom Cruise, he’s definitely a saviour, just to fill that gap in? ​ [Joe and Katie]: No, no Tom Cruise. ​ [Michelle]: It’s a shame, you’ll have to do that on the next series. I’ll come back for Tom. ​ [Joe]: We'll take that as a promise. So if there’s one scene in Terminator that demonstrates Sarah Connor as this chosen one, this every-person figure, what would that be? Is that when it comes to mind that would be really exemplary in this way? ​ [Michelle]: So, Sarah, you first see her as a waitress working in the same chain of restaurants as one of Cameron’s ex-wives was working in before Terminator, and she isn't having a great day. Her boyfriend stands her up later on, so she goes out to see a movie. And she’s really scared, there’s this creepy man following her down the road and he is creepy you know. You find out later he had a picture of her and he’s been looking at it for ages and fantasizing about her and then travelled through time. I think that's pretty creepy, but anyway she then goes into a club, hides. Arnold Schwarzenegger reveals himself as the one that’s trying to kill her rather than creepy Kyle Reese, and she runs off with him. The character change moments are when she finds out with Reese that the Terminator is actually real, not some sort of delusion of Reese’s, and she does her first field dressing on him because he's bleeding, and he says this is a good field dressing. She says, “You like it, it's my first.” So there's that but then the time when she really really changes and you realize that she is something is the end scene obviously of the film where she is the one that has to protect Reese. He gets blown up trying to throw plastique towards the Terminator. He's injured and it's her screaming, “on your feet soldier, on your feet”, and she drags him along, to the point that he ends up being killed. She's left on her own crawling away from it and eventually squashes it in the press and says “you're terminated, fucker.” She hasn't been that person, there’s a change in her language even, she is quite mild mannered. She's clearly a girl that likes to have fun, but she's not one for using a foul word. ​ [Joe]: Her friend has to unbutton her top button as well, right? ​ [Katie]: Yeah, when they were supposed to be heading out for a joint date night. ​ [Michelle]: Yes, Ginger. ​ [Katie]: Yeah, and Ginger reaches over and unbuttons Sarah’s top button to loosen her up a bit. ​ [Michelle]: Bless Sarah, she gets stood up though, by Dan with the Porsche. So it's when she's squashed him in the press at the end, that you realize that this is a woman with real guts, when the rest of us may well actually have given up, and I think that's the bit where it's like, can all of us be a chosen one? Sarah embraces this role, that she needs to keep living and that there’s something to fight for and to go on for. And that actually is quite a show of human strength and to choose to keep running, that she chooses life and she chooses to run and she chooses to save Reese and she chooses to keep fighting. [Katie]: Yeah I think we're so used to Sarah as presented in Terminator II, where she is stripped down and muscly and she is a fighter and perhaps actually, she is the redemptive figure in Terminator II, that we kind of forget that in this, for most of The Terminator she's not that figure. So yeah, I think you're spot on in noting that switch and when she starts to emerge. Your comments about Kyle Reese carrying the picture of her being creepy, I actually thought that this was one of the things that was Virgin-Mary-esque, because it reminded me of the way that people will have personal individual icons of the Virgin Mary that they carry around with them for whatever purpose and so when we see Kyle in the future and he pulls that picture out from his pocket and he looks at it, then his extreme desire to meet her, I would imagine you could probably encounter very many Christians who have personal icons of the Virgin Mary who would love very much to meet her. [Michelle]: Who wouldn't? ​ [Katie]: I just think there's something religious going on there. ​ [Michelle]: I think it's a really interesting point raising the idea of icons and that somebody could have projected so much on to a single photograph. It makes us ask interesting questions of ourselves and what it means to gaze on another, to create an image of another, to consider the face of another person. So that is quite a profound idea that you have: the setup that leads someone to change their life so much in relation to the picture. Obviously we have at the end the resolution which is he's always wondering what she's thinking and she's thinking about him, and whilst it sounds really cheesy when I'm saying it, actually within the film after they've been through so much hardship, to have that resolution actually brought a level of poignancy to a film which would have been seen - they had expected to be a B-movie in the exploitation genre where it was just really violent and to have that tenderness and that sense of something of him was captured in that photograph, so if you're taking part of the person and putting it into an image, if there is something holy, something sacred, something special about an image, how much is captured in it. The way the film comes to its resolution is that both she, and he, and John, are all together as a trio at that point actually within that photograph and that's quite profound that that's held together in that. So it’s a really interesting point to raise. [Katie]: Thank you, I didn't even think about the fact that he's also imbued in that, in that picture, so I think that brings an extra level of reading to that. I would like to kind of shift away from nativity Terminator and start looking a bit at the apocalyptic imagery. And in the chapter that you wrote about the first four Terminator films, it’s future breaking into the present and there is a title screen that comes on right before the film starts properly and it says on it, “the final battle would not be fought in the future. It would be fought here in our present tonight,” and I find it really perplexing, this framing of the film right from the very beginning as the final battle when everything in the film is setting up future battles. I don't know if you have thoughts about that. ​ [Michelle]: It was one of the things that supposedly surprised and grabbed audiences from the normal sci-fi horror genre. They were expecting it to be a sci-fi picture so the idea that it opened with the futuristic scenes, which they couldn't afford to make many of because this is we're talking seriously low budget, if also anybody's listening to this that judges it, this was made for originally $4 million dollars then it goes up somewhere between $6.4 or 6.8 million dollars. This was, the $4 million dollars was the same as Ghostbusters (1984) used on its special effects budget alone, so this is a low budget movie. So, part of it they wanted to set more in the future, but they simply couldn't afford [to]. So they simply brought it into the present. There are some limitations with the future, how do we imagine the future, the future’s a costly place to be, clearly. It’s much cheaper and easier to be in the present, today. But audiences didn’t expect this from a sci-fi picture, and it actually broke through to people and made them sit up in their seats and really pay attention. And it is that idea of what does apocalypse mean? We know it means unveiling, this idea of something being revealed. The Apocalypse of John has been spoken about as a time capsule for the future, we have plenty of broadcasters on the internet who are happy to decode it for today, for now, for the present. But the idea of it as being a text which speaks and criticizes the world as it was in that point in time it was written, but also not as a time capsule sealed but something that an unveiling, the present now, something that will happen, you can imagine a future place but the way it speaks, its imagery that's familiar to you right now, where you are, and as I argue in the article, it’s also speaking in the language of the past in the later films, so it's constantly re-invoking imagery that you're used to within Terminator. As you move into the future, in Terminator Salvation (2009) the use of the past is really, really intense and so it’s a future created from what you've already seen before. And the Apocalypse of John is very much like that, it’s using the Hebrew Bible, it’s using images that were familiar to Jews to speak about an imagined future, to think about what is to pass, what is coming soon, what will happen, and so that tension between the future and the present and also that imbuing with the past really helps to bring things to life, and that was what Terminator was doing in many ways. Cameron is a very self-conscious director, he was very aware of past films, there’s a lot of homage in Terminator. There’s Un Chien Andalou (1929), the surrealist film. Luis Buñuel, the idea of the eyeball being cut when the Terminator takes out his own eyeball. That's playing with that idea from early cinema. There’s lots of nods to The Outer Limits (1963–65) to the point that [Harlan] Ellison actually sued him for stealing stories that he had written. Terminator is awash with ideas of the past, and he was in love with Mad Max Road Warrior (1981) as well, the scenes in the future were meant to look like Mad Max Road Warrior . He was in love with the, I’ve spoken already, of the gritty dirty future that he first saw in Star Wars. That was a seminal moment for Cameron watching Star Wars (1977). That and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and to see that the future could be grimy, that it wasn't the spanking technology of Star Trek . He wanted to put that to one side and bring about this future, grimy, and so that infusing of something that's meant to be new, but is already covered in the dirt of the past. Revelation in many ways can be read like that, it's not a shiny new everything, even when you get to the end with the new Jerusalem, its height, its depths, its width is spoken about, how big it is, but it's calling of the height and the fact that it's called Babylon can’t help but resonate with the Tower of Babel, and we are going back to that primordial ideas there, what is going on? It's not just shifting your gaze to the future but making you consider where you are now, what you’d want to change because it is a bit dirty and grimy, and what's come from the past is still living with you. ​ [Joe]: Is The Terminator anti-technology in some ways, because at certain points in the film Sarah seems to be undone by other machines so her answering machine at one point is the reason why the Terminator knows she's still alive. So is that an element of the film, that the future of this technology isn’t all it promises and it's got some of these Michael-Crichton-esque techno fear, let's say it? ​ [Michelle]: It certainly can be read that way. In his book, Sean French, his seminal BFI guide on The Terminator , definitely draws this potential but it is picked up in a number of articles on Terminator. Cameron wants to play with it as he gets interviewed as time goes on as well, it's interesting mapping Cameron's interviews as he becomes more and more of a famous film director. This is his breakthrough film, it's really important to be aware of that. Before this he’d only directed Piranha II (the Spawning, 1981), and even those scenes were taken and turned into something else so this is a fresh new director, new on the block being given his first proper chance. And so he brings in this idea of technology which he himself is obsessed with. Cameron was everywhere all over the set, he wanted to know what the models are going to be like, he used technology to make the best of the film, but at the same time he talks about the idea that technology is dehumanizing and as he gets to the end of speaking about Terminator II, particularly once he's made those two and he has a discussion point of both films coming together, his concern is the dehumanizing that we can have as we continue to turn our lives over to technology. So the threat is that we choose to give our defence over to technology. Of course, this has been a problem for rather a long time, and people have been rather worried about whatever new technology comes along. It's not as if the 1980s wrote this as an anxiety but we do see it. Its interesting Dune 2010 [Correction, this is probably referring to 2010: The Year We Make Contact – 1984, sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey] came out in the same year with the computer that goes bad then gets good again, this idea of technology becoming good and being humanized within Terminator II slightly disrupts what's going on in the original film. As you said there’s the answerphone. Sean French also draws attention to the fact that Sarah can’t get through to the police officers because the phone's broken. There’s the phone book, which is another piece of technology, where they managed to find her name and her address and track her down. So all of the things that we give ourselves over to in society in some ways are against us. But there’s another underlying way you can read this which is that we also go down the sort of American survivalist rhetoric with this film, because it can be seen as embodying quite a lot of liberal politics, but at the same time there’s this idea that the police are there, they're weak, they're unable to protect people properly, that really because Reese can get good enough weapons that he actually is able to stop the Terminator, that the machines that people have created to manufacture things can pulverise the Terminator, and in all reality the more guns that you pile up, the more chance you have to save yourself from this technological threat. So, it can also be read as going down a, “we need to move ourselves out of systems”, rather than “technology out of organised systems”. If you choose to opt out of the phone book, you're not gonna get found by a phonebook killer. ​ [Katie]: So, Sarah Connor’s a doomsday prepper? ​ [Michelle]: Sarah Connor in the second film can most certainly be read as a doomsday prepper and has been read by, again, Sean French in his book as a potential. So it’s an ambiguous film, technology’s always ambiguous and that something else that always comes out whenever you're reading about Terminator and whenever you read anything about the threat of technology within films. Technology in some sense is inert, it's the people that use it: it’s the classic gun control argument, who's behind it? Good guys with guns are good, bad guys with guns are bad. The Terminator does push to ask some more interesting questions with it, I think, because it takes it to the extreme, and the idea is that this is meant to be technology as the embodiment of pure evil which is interesting for me as a Revelation scholar, because Revelation often gets criticized for the violence, but what it can be seen to be doing is dealing with absolute evil, pure evil, and how do you deal with something which cannot be reasoned with, bargained with, that doesn't feel pain, just like the Terminator. How do you deal with that? [Katie]: So would you see the Terminator then as representing evil because a few articles related the Terminator to Herod, and the Massacre of the Innocents, and one related the Terminator to the devil because the devil also doesn't have emotions, and I sort of thought to myself, since when? Since when does the devil not have any emotions? ​ [Michelle]: It's interesting, isn’t it? I certainly think if you're going to match it with a biblical text, it's better to set it with Marion readings of Revelation 12 rather than the gospel texts. So the idea of the women clothed like the sun who goes to the desert - interestingly, like Sarah does in the end of the film - she's given a pair of wings and goes to the desert; you’ve got the dragons looking to consume her son. It's not just Herod then, this is a dragon. The dragon isn’t given emotions, it knows it's time is short after it’s thrown down from Heaven, but its turned into something which isn't a character. So I think there is something of playing with, “what do you do with evil in its absolute extreme?” And it's one of the things that The Terminator , not Terminator II , but The Terminator does really, really well. [Joe]: Michelle, it’s been really great having you with us today, but before we let you go, we’d love for you to pitch us a pairing. This can be anything, anything at all, that you would pair with The Terminator . Maybe a drink, a food, another movie, a book, a piece of music or even a scholarly article, but Skynet is the limit. [Michelle]: Ok so I'm gonna pitch something which is actually far more technological because it’s The Terminator and I think what I’ve got to pitch with Terminator because of its age, and in some ways it is very dated today, you do need to read it in its context. To pitch it with a late-night grimy movie theatre. Have you ever watched Terminator on a midnight viewing? You should do. That's when you need to watch it when those is little snarly teeth, all yellow, come at you on a big screen at two in the morning, that is what The Terminator should be paired with. So, a grimy little cinema screen that you can find somewhere where there’s maybe two other people watching it, is the dream Terminator pairing, to take us back to that 80s grainy, anxiety-filled world that created this film. ​ [Katie]: This is entirely possible. I noticed, there's a chain of indie cinemas across London that were playing Terminator yesterday at 8 PM and 10 PM so for our listeners who are thinking, “How can I pair this with a grimy cinema?” It's possible friends, you can do it, go for it. ​ [Michelle]: Go for it. ​ [Joe]: Michelle, it’s been so great having you come talk to us about your research on The Terminator . Thank you so much for your time, I've learned absolutely tonnes. We hope that you'll be back to talk more about apocalypse, or films, or anything else, sometime in the near future. ​ [Michelle]: Thank you very much for having me, it's been a real pleasure. ​ [Katie]: This was a really a good chat. All of the wonderful articles and books and authors who have been mentioned will be available on our website. ​ [Joe]: If listeners would like to hear a bit more of the secrets of Revelation, they can become subscribers and access our pedagogy chat, soon to follow with Michelle. ​ [Music] ​ [Joe]: That's our show today. Gods & Moviemakers is researched and produced by us, Joe Scales and Katie Turner, and supported by listeners like you. Our music is by Style Da Kid. As always you can follow us @GodMovPod on Twitter and Instagram. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard today, head on over to our website godsandmoviemakers.com, where you can donate to us, or subscribe for additional content. Thanks very much for listening.

25 Jan 2023 The Matrix (1999) Featuring Dr King-Ho Leung TRANSCRIPT When The Matrix debuted in 1999, audiences were delighted by its use of Hong-Kong style fight choreography (rooted in wuxia and involving mixed martial arts performed, in part, by suspending actors on wires) combined with a new cinematographic style, later known as "Bullet Time". Hollywood was forever changed. But the film was far more than a visual spectacle. Filmmakers, Lana and Lilly Wachowski, produced an action film that was also deeply intellectual, playing with allegory, religion, and philosophy in new ways. In so doing, it prompts age old questions on the nature of reality, and what it means to be masters of our own fate. In this episode, Dr King-Ho Leung breaks down some of the richer metaphors in the film, discusses the protagonist, Neo, as a 'Chosen One' who chooses to be chosen, and demonstrates how The Matrix can illuminate classical philosophical and theological ideas, including: Plato's Allegory of the Cave , René Descartes's theories on the nature of being, and Karl Barth's understanding of Christ. ​ Glossary: Metaphysics - ​ The philosophical study of the nature of being, including what it is to exist . ​ Epistemology - ​ The philosophical study of the nature of knowledge, including the difference between belief and opinion. ​ ​ Doctrine of Election - ​ Being divinely chosen as God's own (either as an individual or as a group). ​ ​ ​ Christology - ​ Literally, 'the study of Christ'. A branch of Christian theology exploring the nature of Jesus as Christ . This is different than studying Jesus as a historical figure. ​ ​ Fallen World - ​ Relating to the Christian concept of "the fall", in which all humanity are believed to live with sin due to Adam and Eve's transgression in the Garden of Eden, when they ate the fruit of the tree. ​ ​ Episode Credits: Many thanks to Dr King-Ho Leung for his time and expertise. ​ King-Ho is Senior Research Fellow at St. Mary’s College, the University of St. Andrews. He was previously Lecturer in Philosophy and Theology at the University of Chester. His work has been published in journals including Philosophy, Modern Theology, Studies in Christian Ethics, and Theory, Culture & Society. He is currently completing a book on the understanding of philosophy as a spiritual practice and its relation to contemporary conceptions of secularity. You can find King-Ho on Twitter @kingholeung . ​ ​ Citations: King-Ho Leung, Uploading Our Souls Online , TedX James L. Ford, "Buddhism, Christianity, and The Matrix: The Dialectic of Myth-Making in Contemporary Cinema ," Journal of Religion & Film. Vol. 4, No. 2 , Article 1 (2000). Matt Lawrence, Like a Splinter in Your Mind: The Philosophy Behind the Matrix Trilogy (Blackwell, 2004) Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation (University of Michigan Press, 1994). Marcy Cook, "Decoding the Transgender Matrix: The Matrix as a Transgender Coming Out Story " The Mary Sue (19 Apr 2016). LeiLani Nishime, "The Matrix Trilogy, Keanu Reeves, and Multiraciality at the End of Time " in Mixed Race Hollywood , Beltran and Fojas, eds. (NYU Press, 2008). Predrag Milidrag, “Platonism, Cartesianism and Hegel’s Thought in the Matrix Trilogy ”. Filozofija I društvo/Philosophy and Society 24.4 (2013). Alex E. Blazer, “The ‘Matrix’ Trilogy and the Revolutionary Drive through ‘The Desert of the Real .’” Literature/Film Quarterly 35, no. 4 (2007): 265–73. Russell JA Kilbourn. “RE-WRITING ‘REALITY’: READING ‘THE MATRIX .’” Revue Canadienne d’Études Cinématographiques / Canadian Journal of Film Studies 9, no. 2 (2000): 43–54. Catherine Constable, Adapting Philosophy: Jean Baudrillard and “The Matrix Trilogy . (Manchester University Press, 2009). Why The Matrix Is a Trans Story According to Lilly Wachowski , Netflix Film (4 Aug 2020) THE MATRIX - Really That Good , FilmBob - A YouTube review of The Matrix from a film criticism point of view, with reference to some of the themes discussed in our episode. Transcript Coming Soon

30 Mar 2023 The Green Knight (2021) Just the Hosts TRANSCRIPT The Green Knight (2021) is a surreal retelling of the 14th century poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight . Directed by David Lowery, the film departs from its source material to present a compelling account of a man's mission to become a knight, live up to a legend, and face his own mortality. The King Arthur legend is a fitting end to our season of Chosen Ones - a king who was destined to rule the Britons, fighting the invading Saxons and whom, it is said, will one day return to once again save his people. Yet in this film, we are shown the cost of living up to one's own legend, the ways in which stories are weaved around protagonists, and what being chosen may ultimately mean. Join us as we wrap up Season One of Gods & Moviemakers. We talk about Arthurian legends, representing the past on screen, religion and magic, and of course, chosen ones. Be sure to look out for future releases and announcements concerning holiday tie-in episodes and Season Two, coming late 2023. ​ Episode Credits: ​ We don't have a guest joining us for this episode, but we'd like to thank our listeners for a great first season. You can find the hosts on Twitter @DrKatieTurner and @JosephDScales ​ ​ Citations: Read the full poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight at the Robbins Library . You can also find out more about the manuscript at the British Library . If you're interested in learning about Britain's multiracial past, we highly recommend David Olusoga's Black & British . Check out the book or the documentary series . You may also want to explore: Warwick University Classic Network's overview on "The Evidence for Diversity in Roman Britain "; This amazing reading list on race in medieval Britain; This summary of recent genetics research demonstrating diversity in medieval London; and, the Robbins Library's overview on Sir Palamedes , the Saracen knight of the round table. E. Archibald & A. Putter (Eds), The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend . (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Constance Grady, "The magic, sex, and violence of the 14th-century poem behind The Green Knight. " Vox.com (29 July 2021) Delve into an amazing comparison of The Green Knight with The Last Temptation of Christ: Alissa Wilkinson, "The Green Knight is glorious and a little baffling. Let’s untangle it ." Vox.com (30 July 2021). And make sure to check out our episode on The Last Temptation with Matt Page. For an overview of the Green Man (and its association with "foliate heads"), see: "Green Man " in Simpson, J., & Roud, S. (Eds.), A Dictionary of English Folklore .( Oxford: Oxford University Press). Costume designer, Malgosia Turzanska, provides insight into the decisions behind her beautiful costumes in This Interview with Vogue. Representing the medieval world on film: Salih, Sarah. "Cinematic Authenticity-effects and Medieval Art: A Paradox." in Medieval Film . ed A Bernau & B Bildhauer. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009). pp. 20 - 39. Religion and Magic: Corinne Saunders has published specifically on religion and magic in Arthurian legend in The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend . You may also be interested in her book, Magic and the Supernatural in Medieval English Romance . Friend of the show, Andrew Mark Henry , has produced a number of videos on religion & magic for Religion for Breakfast . Read about Merlin the Magician over at the British Library. Finally, you can hear more from Joe about the Witch of Endor in his article, "Uncovering the Dead; Dethroning the King " (co-authored with Ellena Lyell). Transcript Coming Soon

14 Dec 2022 The LAst Temptation of Christ Featuring Matt Page TRANSCRIPT On a cold Parisian night in October 1988, a Molotov cocktail was thrown into the St. Michel cinema, seriously injuring thirteen people; it was just one of a number of violent protests against Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ . What was it about this film that caused so much anger? What was behind the uproar it inspired worldwide? In this episode we revisit and rethink the controversy, and ask: Was the outrage warranted, or is the film actually a deeply pious and personal exploration of faith? In his attempt to understand the dual nature of Christ, we see Scorsese presenting a Jesus that is more “Chosen One” than “Saviour Figure”, giving us the most human Jesus in cinematic history. ​ Glossary: Hypostatic Union - ​ A theological term that expresses the Christian belief that in Christ, two natures exist together, each retaining their own full and comp lete properties. These two natures, God and Man, are not commingled or united. The Hypostatic Union was formalized at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. ​ Episode Credits: Many thanks to Matt Page for his time and expertise. ​ Matt is a bible and film expert, having published and lectured on the topic for over twenty years. His Bible Films Blog is the largest source of information about bible films on the internet. Make sure to check out his recent book, 100 Bible Films , published with the British Film Institute. You can find Matt on Twitter @MattPage . ​ Citations: The novel, first and foremost: Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ (Simon & Schuster, 1952). Matt Page on The Last Temptation of Christ . Martin Scorsese; Christie & Robbins, eds. Scorsese on Scorsese (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003). Thomas Lindlof, Hollywood Under Siege: Martin Scorsese, the Religious Right, and the Culture Wars (University of Kentucky Press, 2008). Darren J. N. Middleton, ed. Scandelizing Jesus? Kazantzakis's The Last Temptation of Christ Fifty Years On (Continuum, 2005). Mark Goodacre, "The Synoptic Jesus and the Celluloid Christ: Solving the Synoptic Problem Through Film ." Journal for the Study of the New Testament , Vol. 23 No. 80 (2001), 31-43. Adele Reinhertz, Jesus of Hollywood (Oxford University Press, 2007). Jeffrey L. Staley and Richard Walsh, Jesus, the Gospels, and Cinematic Imagination (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021). Richard Brody, "France's Art Vigilantes ", The New Yorker (2011). Steven Greenhouse, "Police Suspect Arson In Fire at Paris Theater ", The New York Times (25 Oct 1988). Transcript Coming Soon

22 Feb 2023 Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) Featuring Dr Piyawit Moonkham TRANSCRIPT When Raya and the Last Dragon premiered in 2021, it gave us Disney’s first South-East Asian princess, and joined a small minority of Western films centring South-East Asian people, culture and society. News of the film, therefore, drew a lot of excitement from SE Asian people (and those with SE Asian heritage) looking for representation in Western media. The film’s reception was more mixed however, with many feeling it just didn’t get things quite right. In this episode, we’re joined by doctoral candidate, Piyawit Moonkham, to talk about Raya and SE Asian representation, specifically, that of the Naga , a semi-divine serpent found in Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain traditions. Join us as Piyawit explains how Naga differ from Western and East Asian dragons, where the Naga myth came from and how it functions in SE Asian belief systems, and how Raya represented this important part of SE Asian culture. ​ Glossary: Heterarchy - ​ A power structure that exists outside or adjacent to established power structures within societies, or within organised groups, in which authority is distributed rather than centralized around one individual / group. ("Power" as broadly understood relating to status, influence or responsibilities) ​ Mythscape - ​ The way in which people understand their surrounding landscape through myth. ​ Episode Credits: Many thanks to Piyawit Moonkham for his time and expertise. ​ Piyawit is a Ph.D. Candidate (ABD)* in Archaeological Anthropology at Washington State University. His research focuses on human use of social space, built environment, and natural landscape through a diachronic investigation of spatial patterns of historical monuments, myths, and local folklores in Northern Thailand and Mainland Southeast Asia. His article “Ethnohistorical Archaeology and the Mythscape of the Naga in Chiang Saen Basin, Thailand” was published last year in Trans-Regional and -National Studies of South East Asia. You can find Piyawit on Twitter @JiwMoonkham ​ ​ *Since recording with us, Piyawit has successfully defended his PhD. Many congrats to Dr Moonkham! ​ Additional Content: Enjoyed what you heard and looking for more? Don't miss our Bonus Chat with Piyawit ​ , where we talk about teaching anthropology with film. ​ Citations: Coming Soon Transcript Coming Soon

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31 Oct 2023 The Crucible (1996) Just the Hosts TRANSCRIPT It's the first years of the Cold War. Fascism has been defeated abroad but a new Red enemy is emerging and the US government is stoking fear among it's citizenry. Neighbour is turning on neighbour; friend on friend; paranoia is spreading. What do YOU do? ​ Playwright Arthur Miller looked to a similar event in American pre-history to produce The Crucible (1953) . Set in 1692, Salem, Massachusetts, the play (and 1996 film adaptation ) explores a witch-hunt that consumed the community. Accusations of witchcraft and consorting with the devil abound, scores are settled, lives ruined. Behind it all, Miller issues a clarion call against McCarthyism, and witch-hunts more broadly. Join the hosts, Joe and Katie, for this two-part discussion of the background to this chilling story, in our Halloween 2023 specia l. ​ Glossary: McCarthyism - ​ An approach to rooting out communism from the United States government, and eventually, from wider American society. It swept the country in the 1950s. Named for Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957), a chief instigator in the hunt for hidden communists and chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, McCarthyism , has become synonymous with political witch-hunts. ​ For more information, check out this short video by American Historian Ellen Schrecker: What is McCarthyism? And Why Did it Happen? ​ Red Scare - ​ Paranoia about a growing number of domestic communists threatening national security and social stability. The fear of covert communists manipulating public opinion focused on some industries more than others: Hollywood, universities and public education, labour unions, and the arts. ​ Witch Hunt - ​ The searching out and persecution of people accused of witchcraft. Used colloquially to refer to a similar search for and persecution of people thought to hold subversive or unpopular views. “In times of uncertainty and upheaval witchcraft accusations would increase, and so there were often more witchcraft accusations during times of war and famine. General fears of witchcraft within society could also feed into specific accusations that originated within local community so that somebody disliked by their neighbours might be more vulnerable to being accused.” https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/early-modern-witch-trials/ ​ Halloween - ​ A festival associated with chocolate, pumpkins, and costumes (or, fancy dress). But also with darkness, the dead, and general spookiness. There are many various names for similar festivals observed in different cultures around the world, with roots in Celtic practices, Catholic traditions, and perhaps a little devilry. ​ Learn more about the origins of Halloween and it's connection to Christianity: https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/holydays/halloween_1.shtml ; https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2021/10/the-origins-of-halloween-traditions/ ​ Episode Credits: ​ We don't have a guest join ing us for this episode, but y ou can find the hosts on Bluesky @DrKatieTurner and @JosephScales ​ ​ Citations: Arthur Miller, "Why I Wrote The Crucible " , The New Yorker (21 Oct 1996), pp. 158-164. Arthur Miller, "Are You Now Or Were You Ever? " The Guardian/The Observer (Saturday, June 17, 2000). Gerald Weales, ed. Arthur Miller: The Crucible: Text and Criticism . New York: Viking, 1971. On Senator Joseph McCarthy and McCarthyism: A short bio with hyperlinks to learn more is available at Senate.Gov ; The Eisenhower Library has collated many primary sources on McCarthyism / The "Red Scare" ; Journalist Larry Tye provides a comprehensive discussion on Sen. McCarthy's history of antisemitism in his article "When Senator Joe McCarthy defended Nazis "; Tye also authored the book, Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Joe McCarthy ; You can also check out this short video on McCarthy's downfall , or PBS's excellent documentary on McCarthy for American Experience. Louis Menand, "Joseph McCarthy and the Force of Political Falsehoods ", The New Yorker (27 July 2020). On McCarthyism and the Jewish Experience: A couple short articles on Jewish Radicalism and the Red Scare for the Jewish Women's Archive, and on The Jews of the Blacklist for the Jewish Book Council; In Witch-Hunt in Hollywood Michael Freedland argues that McCarthy's attack on Hollywood is best view through the lens of Antisemitism; Joseph Litvak's book, The Un-Americans: Jews, The Blacklist, and Stoolpigeon Culture examines those Jewish American who cooperated (it is Open Access). On McCarthyism and the Black Experience: Amistad Digital Resource (Columbia University) provides a good overview with a few links to primary sources; PBS produced a documentary on The Black Press which includes discussion on the McCarthy era (there is also supplementary information online HERE and HERE ); You can read about Jackie Robinson's testimony before the HUAC in a short article for Time magazine, or read some of his testimony itself at The Digital Public Library of America; finally, do listen to the Paul Robeson episode of You're Dead to Me with Prof Shana L Redmond, it's excellent! Transcript Coming Soon

1 Feb 2023 Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) Featuring Dr Andrew Mark Henry TRANSCRIPT At first glance, Star Wars appears to be a fictional world built with religion and religious ethos: The Jedi live an ascetic lifestyle (much like Jesus, the Qumran community, Buddhist monks, and other religious orders), they dress kind of like Franciscan monks, they have a temple to gather in, they are guided by prophecy, and await deliverance to a better era by a "chosen one" figure; and let's not forget, Anakin Skywalker is literally the product of a virgin birth. Yet, probe a little deeper and you find most of that world building is only surface-level, falling apart under scrutiny. In this episode, join us as we ask Dr Andrew Mark Henry, What, if anything, does Star Wars have to offer those of us interested in religion? And how could George Lucas have created a better realized narrative? Our conversation focuses on the third installment in the Star Wars saga, Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) - the only film of our season with a failed "chosen one". ​ Glossary: Asceticism - ​ A pra c tice of austere self-discipline, and abstention from certain behaviours and material comforts. ​ Asce ticism can be seen in many religious traditions (practised, for example, by members of Christian monastic orders, within Islamic mysticism, in Jainism, and in some types of Buddhism). However, the specifics of the practic e differ according to the religious group, including which worldly comforts are avoided. ​ Ascetic - ​ One who practises self-discipline, austerity, and abstinence; sometimes, mortification of the body. From the Greek askētēs , meaning "monk". ​ Canon - ​ From the Greek, kanōn , meaning "measuring rod" or "standard". Can refer to a corpus of approved writings (or other works), comprising either (i) writings genuinely considered to be those of a given author; or (ii) writings traditionally considered to demonstrative of a particular genre, culture, nation, language, or set of beliefs. Canon can also refer to: a principle (or, ethics); an ecclesiastical law; an official list of saints; or, a cathedral dignitary. The Christian Bible is considered canon therefore, because it is a collection of texts recognized by an authoritative body (religious leaders) to be genuine or authoritative. However, just as there is no one set of religious leaders in Christianity, there is no one Bible either: The Anglican, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Armenian, and Assyrian churches, for example, each have their own canons. For this same reason, the Jewish canon, the Tanakh , differs (in the selection of texts and/or how they are ordered) from Christian Old Testaments. Though the concept of canonicity comes mainly from Christianity, many religious traditions have a set of texts or books given a special authority within that tradition. ​ Deuterocanon - ​ The texts and writings included in the Old Testament canon by the the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, and Assyrian churches, but not included in Protestant canon. Nag Hammadi Library - ​ A set of early Christian and Gnostic texts dating to the 3rd and 4th centuries. Buried in a sealed jar, the library was discovered in the upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. Gnostic - ​ One who possesses special knowledge of spiritual truth (good and evil) and of the illusory nature of the world, or gnosis . ​ Episode Credits: Many thanks to Dr Andrew Mark Henry for his time and expertise. ​ Andrew is a scholar of early Christianity with a research focus on late Roman magical practices and demonology. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Mind and Culture, a non-profit research centre in Boston, MA. Andrew also manages Religion for Breakfast , a hugely popular YouTube channel dedicated to online religious literacy education. You can find Andrew on Twitter @AndrewMarkHenry ​ Additional Content: Enjoyed what you heard and looking for more? Don't miss our Bonus Chat with Andrew ​ , where we talk about teaching religion with film and the process behind Religion for Breakfast . ​ ​ Citations: Andrew has produced a few videos on Star Wars & religion for Religion for Breakfast , including: How Star Wars Explains New Testament Canon , Star Wars Fan Fiction Explains Early Christian Apocrypha , and Is Jediism a Religion? Vincent A. Olea. "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith ," Journal of Religion & Film: Vol. 9: Iss. 2, Article 14 (2005). John C. Lyden. “Whose Film Is It, Anyway? Canonicity and Authority in ‘Star Wars’ Fandom .” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 80, no. 3 (2012): 775–86. Kevin J Wetmore, The Empire Triumphant: Race, Religion and Rebellion in the 'Star Wars' Films (McFarland & Co, 2005). Kevin J Wetmore, "The Tao of ‘Star Wars’, Or, Cultural Appropriation in a Galaxy Far, Far Away ." Studies in Popular Culture 23, no. 1 (2000): 91–106. Lee Clarke, The Buddhist and Taoist Influences that Underpin the Star Wars Universe . The Conversation (Dec 2002 ) Adam Possamai . "Gramsci, Jediism, The Standardization of Popular Religion and the State ." In Religion and the State: A Comparative Sociology , eds. Adam Possamai, Jack Barbalet, and Bryan S. Turner (Anthem Press, 2011). James L. Papandrea, From Star Wars to Superman: Christ Figures in Science Fiction and Superhero Films . (Sophia Institute Press, 2017). - Chapter 3 for Papendrea's discussion of Star Wars Michael Jindra. “Star Trek Fandom as a Religious Phenomenon .” Sociology of Religion 55, no. 1 (1994): 27–51. Sean Guynes and Dan Hassler-Forest, eds. Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling . Amsterdam University Press, 2018. OPEN ACCESS. Michael B. Charles. “Remembering and Restoring the Republic: ‘Star Wars’ and Rome .” The Classical World 108, no. 2 (2015): 281–98. John S. Schultes. "Any Gods Out There? Perceptions of Religion from Star Wars and Star Trek ," Journal of Religion & Film : Vol. 7: Iss. 2, Article 3 (2003). Timo Tekoniemi. "Editorial In(ter)ventions: Comparing the Editorial Processes of the Hebrew Bible and the Star Wars Saga ," Journal of Religion & Film : Vol. 22: Iss. 1, Article 37 (2018). Transcript Coming Soon

Episodes 3 Nov 2023 The Crucible (1996) Continued Just the Hosts See Episode 22 Feb 2023 Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) Featuring Dr Piyawit Moonkham See Episode 11 Jan 2023 Joan of Arc (1928 & 1948) Featuring Dr Laura O'Brien See Episode 7 Dec 2022 The Lord of the Rings (2001) Featuring Dr Marian Kelsey See Episode 31 Oct 2023 The Crucible (1996) Just the Hosts See Episode 1 Feb 2023 Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) Featuring Dr Andrew Mark Henry See Episode 21 Dec 2022 Dune (2021) Featuring Kat Gwyther See Episode 30 Nov 2022 The Terminator (1984) Featuring Dr Michelle Fletcher See Episode 30 Mar 2023 The Green Knight (2021) Just the Hosts See Episode 25 Jan 2023 The Matrix (1999) Featuring Dr King-Ho Leung See Episode 14 Dec 2022 The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) Featuring Matt Page See Episode 2 Nov 2022 Season 1 Trailer Featuring the Hosts See Episode

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21 Dec 2022 Dune (2021) Featuring Katherine Gwyther TRANSCRIPT When you imagine the distant future, what do you see? Some, like Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek , envision a future utopia, where humankind has finally worked through their differences, solved hunger and poverty, and have united in a mission of peace and discovery. For many others, like HG Wells, author of The Time Machine , the future is a post-apocalyptic dystopian nightmare of our own creation. In his 1965 novel Dune ​, Frank Herbet envisioned a future that has advanced as much as it digressed, rebuilding the feudalism of our past in far off galaxies . Dune clearly doesn't present a utopian future. But are utopias really all they're cracked up to be? ​ In this episode, we look at Deni Villeneuve's 2021 adaptation for the big screen (the first, in what will be a series of films). We explore the nature of utopia, and dissect the biblical parallels in a fictitious future world filled with ritual, belief, and religious imagery. What sort of figure is our protagonist, Paul Atreides? Is he a "chosen one" akin to Moses? Or is he more of a classic Jesus-type saviour figure? Finally, we pull the future all the way back to the biblical past to ask: Can you read the Bible as science-fiction? ​ Glossary: This is a glossary of terms used in Dune , and their relationship to Hebrew and Arabic words. ​ Kwisatz Haderach - ​ Meaning, literally, " the shortening of the way", this is a term used by the Bene Gesserit (a powerful, ritualistic order) to refer to a messianic-type figure with the ability to bridge space and time. The word is derived from the Hebrew, Kfitzat haDérech , which refers to miraculous travel between distant places. The Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, better known as Rashi (1040-1105), used Kfitzat haDérech , to mean that the road miraculously shrank, or shortened, to facilitate faster travel. This is how the term is also used in the Talmud. ​ Mahdî - ​ "The one who will lead us to paradise." This is the term used by the Fremen (a desert people from the planet, Arakis ) to refer to their expected saviour figure. In Islam, the mahdī, meaning "divinely guided one", is a messianic figure whose presence is expected to bring forth a new age of justice and true faith. ​ Lisân al-Ghayb - The Fremen term for an off-world prophet, or messiah. Also, "the voice from the outer world". In Arabic, “he who gives voice to the unseen world”, or, “the language of the invisible world”, or, “the voice of the future”. Only one historical figure was ever given this title: the 14th-century Persian poet, Hafez. ​ Uṣūl - A Fremen word, and a name given to Paul Atreides, meaning, "the strength of the base of the pillar". In Arabic, uṣūl means “root” or "foundation". In Islam, the uṣūl al-fiqh are the roots of law (also known as the "foundational principles"), the principles and methodologies through which practical legal rules are derived. ​ Muad-dib - ​ A desert mouse and Paul’s chosen name. Related to the Arabic, mu’addib , for “Teacher”. ​ To learn more about the Islamic terms addressed here, we recommend The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World . ​ ​ Episode Credits: Many thanks to Katherine (Kat) Gwyther for her time and expertise. ​ Kat is a PhD researcher in Hebrew Bible at the University of Leeds, working on utopia and Exodus. She’s interested in how utopian literature and science fiction (and the related criticism) can enrich our understanding of biblical texts and their reception. You can find Kat on Twitter @KatGwyther . ​ Citations: Peter Herman, "The Blackness of Liet-Kynes: Reading Frank Herbert’s Dune Through James Cone ," Religions 9/9 (2018). Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (London: Verso, 2005). Darko Suvin, Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979). Roland Boer, "Religion and Utopia in Fredric Jameson " Utopian Studies 19/2 (2008): 285–312. Roland Boer, Novel Histories: The Fiction of Biblical Criticism (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997). Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven (many editions and publications available). Michael Weingrad, "Jews of Dune " Jewish Review of Books (25 Mar 2019). Transcript Coming Soon