Religion and Movies..

Being that the United States was founded on freedom of religion, I think that the religious manifestations placed throughout the CDV text are worthy of note. I would first like to focus on the use of the word “Christians”. At the beginning of the text, the word is used in its applied sense. It is used to demonstrate a set of beliefs and a people of these beliefs. However, as the journey progresses, the word almost redefines itself.

In the account of CDV’s journey, he talks about working in the saviors name and for the crown, but when he reaches another group of explorers, he refers to them as “Christians” even though they are not working in Christ like ways. It is almost like the definition of the word has changed from an account of religious affiliation to defining a race of people. It is weird because I automatically associated this with Nazi terms. They started as a religious group, but later transformed into a race. A Nazi was no longer a word to describe a religious affiliation, but a cult. This could be reaching, but rather an association that I made while reading the text. I find it interesting that CDV talks about all of these things that the “Christians” do, and in his own explanation he contradicts the very meaning of the word.

According to Wikipedia and the Bible, Christians are to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength,” and to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” This is what makes a Christian a believer of Jesus and worthy of savior. The so called “Christians” that CDV encounters do not love thy neighbors as they love themselves. They are feared by Indian tribes throughout the land. They torture, kill, and steel from their fellow man. This brings me to the Requiremento, this writing brought by explorers to share the message of god allows Indians to be seen as humans yet when they explore they take away this humanity by killing and taking advantage of the things which make them giving and peaceful people. I think that something that is ignored is that the Indians were taken advantage of because of their giving traditions; it is almost like they didn’t fight for what was theirs, and they just fled. I think it is important to mention that even though not necessarily Christian people, they were people of a giving nature.

Finally I want to address something that bothered me about the film that we watched in class. In CDV’s writings, he talks about his whole journey as a religious one. Spreading practices of the Christian religion and helping to build what we now know as American culture. I think that the movie fails to capture this. It makes CDV look like he has only taken part in Indian traditions. It makes everything look like it came from the indigenous culture and people. In the book it specifically describes him using Christian techniques to heal the sick Indians. However, in the movie it portrays him as only practicing the Indian ceremonial ways of healing. I think that it was important to the story of CDV to include some of the Christian tactics that he claims he used in healing. I think to mention the use of the sign of the cross over the sick is important to mention because this practice combined the Indian and Christian traditions. This brings me to the reliability of a movie vs. a text. Movies are made to entertain and not to offend. I believe this is why some things that are fictional could have been added to the movie, and some could have been removed to keep from causing controversy. Either way it is always just speculation because in reality, there is no way to know if CDV’s narrative is even 50 percent truth. I guess you have to take it for what it is, and examine it with an open mind. I thought this site on factual errors within movies was interesting: http://screenwriting.lifetips.com/cat/56990/movie-mistakes/index.html