Far from Heaven

The film, Far from Heaven (2002), centers around a woman whose husband turns out to be gay. That this is set in 1957-1958 in socialite Connecticut is all the more telling, as the Caucasian woman finds her groundskeeper, who is a Black man, to be “beautiful.” The film is arguably a remake, or at least informed by, the film All that Heaven Allows (1955), in which a widow begins dating a younger, muscular man who tends to her trees. Although race and homosexuality are not issues in this earlier film (which, after all, was made in the 1950s), that a woman who socializes with friends who belong to a country club in New England would dare to date a younger man of a lower economic class—albeit not as low as the woman’s son and friends stereotypically suppose—was scandalous enough in the 1950s to furnish a tantalizing plot. That a filmmaker in 2002 could get away with portraying an interracial extra-marital sexual interest and a gay or bisexual husband having anonymous sex with men (even showing the husband kissing one of the men), whereas a filmmaker in 1955 would not have been able to get away with including such taboos (much less making them central), says something about the cultural trajectory of western civilization temporally.

By 2002, American society had changed markedly since the late 1960s, which ushered in the Black, women, and gay rights movements. Also, film censorship had let up appreciably since 1955. From the standpoint of the early 2020s, even American ideological culture in 2002 could be looked back at as antiquated. As one indicator, gay sex had increasingly come to be shown in film. The European film, Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo (2016), for example, begins in a gay bathhouse and shows the two men with frontal and back nudity having anal sex. Such a film would have been unthinkable even in 2002, and without a doubt back in 1955. In 2023, it was not clear whether such explicit displays were at the forefront in an evolution of freedom or a manifestation of lude displays going too far.

To be sure, American society as a whole cannot be said to have shifted so dramatically. This is evident because after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the court’s Roe v. Wade (1973) decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), restrictions on abortions were enacted in several member states. Regarding state-level legislation pushing back on gay rights, at least 417 bills had been introduced in state legislatures as of April 3, 2023 for that year, with a focus on banning access to gender-changing health care for minors and regulating curriculum in public schools.[1] Because discussion of sexual identity has been subject to bans, significant resistance to pro-transsexual material in films would exist even twenty years after Far from Heaven was made.

To homogenize the U.S., moreover, is to ignore the very different centers of gravity geographically in the various states in regard to the ideological “culture wars.” The “woke,” or identity-politics ideological movement, was also getting some push-back in the early 2020s. The resistance objected especially to the restriction of freedom of speech that ironically undercut the progressive claim of a Hegelian expansion of freedom since the 1950s in America. Indeed, the hegemony of group-identity ideology could be said to have become oppressive by 2023, dominating interpretations of cultural objects, including films.

Notwithstanding the politically-correct topics of race and sexual orientation in Far from Heaven, I contend that the film’s message transcends identity-politics to something about the human condition regarding emotionally intimate human relationships. Cathy and Frank Whitaker do not exactly present a loving marriage, and he does not seem to enjoy his work. In contrast, Raymond Deagan, their Black gardener who actually owns his own business and is educated at least in art-culture, is at peace enough that he ventures out to Cathy in friendship and perhaps more. Her sexual attraction to him is more apparent, and she becomes the driving force for any romantic relationship after Frank leaves her to be with a man. Before then, Frank is having sex with men anonymously, and rather than being comfortable with his homosexuality, it is a cause of mental anguish—especially since a psychiatrist advocates “conversion” therapy as if it were medical science. Cultural convention, including even ideology, thus makes use of natural science albeit without the latter’s empirical basis. Frank is in inner turmoil, and, meanwhile, that both Cathy and Raymond are the targets of mean stares and worse in public renders even a platonic relationship problematic. In a drunken rage, Frank angrily forbids his wife from having anything to do with that black man even though Frank’s homosexuality is perhaps even more societally taboo at the time. To be sure, in the 1950s, Connecticut law forbid both miscegenation (interracial marriage) and homosexuality. Even birth-control was illegal! In fact, it was not until 1965 that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Connecticut law that criminalized the use of birth control.

Bracketing the taboos of miscegenation and homosexuality (especially as adultery), however, we can zero in on the human relationships involved in terms of emotional intimacy. Just before Frank and Cathy break up, she indicates the emotional toll on her from Frank’s pattern of secrecy. Regardless of the specific content of the secrets, secrecy itself decimates the emotional intimacy of a relationship. Trust is absolutely fundamental. Even the relationship—even just in terms of friendship—between Cathy and Raymond can be critiqued on the basis of trust. Race is the context rather than the content here. Neither Cathy nor Raymond trusts the other enough to feel protected in the other’s world. To be sure, both worlds are segregated, but the matter can be generalized to that of trusting the other person to stand up in the midst of push-back from the other person’s social acquaintances.

In All that Heaven Allows, the younger man, Ron, does not trust the widow, Carie, not only to fend off her judgmental socialite acquaintances, but also to not care what they think or say. Ron doesn’t care what people think about him; he is comfortable in his own skin. Carie capitulates to the prejudice of her country-club friends and even her college-aged son and daughter, and thus justifies Ron’s lack of trust. Race and homosexuality are not in the picture, literally! Even the “younger man” and economic prejudices, which are salient in that film, pale in comparison to whether Carie and Ron trust each other enough to commit to starting a new life together. For Carie, that means leaving the house that she had had with her husband and kids, and all the security that a familiar surrounding offers even after the others have lived there. Ron, his friends, and his country house are so different from the life that Carie knows that she has trouble trusting Ron enough to make the leap. In short, the issue is trust, which is necessary for emotional intimacy, rather than age or economic class.

Race, homosexuality, age, and money are each capable of stirring up angst and prejudice, but more fundamental is the question of whether two people trust each other enough to have emotional intimacy. For without that, any relationship, of whatever color and stripe, is doomed or otherwise just a perpetuated shell within which two people escape life. Frank lies to Cathy in continuing to have sex with men. What is striking is that as he does so, she senses that he is keeping secrets. As Rose Castorini, Loretta’s mother in Moonstruck (1987), says of cheaters, eventually the other person in the relationship finds out. Her husband, Cosmo, a plumber, has been having an affair with Mona. “I want you to stop seeing her,” Rose tells him at the breakfast table with the rest of the family present. Cosmo “comes clean”—all he needs to say is, “Okay!”—because he knows that Rose really knows him, and therein lies the intimacy. In contrast, Cathy does not know Frank, and he does not know her. In bracketing identity politics, we can directly contrast the two couples without getting distracted and thus get a snapshot of what is essential for human relationships. Life without emotional intimacy is like living in a hollow shell far from heaven. So in the end, it doesn’t matter that Raymond is Black and Frank is gay; to get caught up on these attributes of the characters is to neglect the more fundamental point that trust is vital to any emotionally and physically intimate relationship. To borrow Nietzsche’s expression, we are all human, all too human.

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1. Annette Choi, “Record Number of Anti-LGBTQ Bills Have Been Introduced This Year,” CNN.com, April 6, 2023 (accessed December 13, 2023).

Boy Erased

The film, Boy Erased (2018), is a drama that deals in a serious  way with the question of whether homosexuality is a choice, and thus whether conversion therapy is effective or an ideological ruse under the subterfuge of psychology and religion. Directed and adapted to the screen by Joel Edgerton, he could have dived deeper in writing the screenplay by making explicit the contending assumptions and ideas. Surprisingly, nowhere in the film do any of the biblically-oriented religionists quote the applicable verses in the Old Testament or in Paul's letters, or engage in a theological debate. The film could have gone further intellectually than the relatively superficial emphasis on the dramatic narrative.

The story centers around the post coming-out tension between Jared Eamons and his parents Nancy and Rev. Marshall Eamons. They are biblically-oriented, socially conservative Christians. That Marshall is the pastor of a church tells us just how important religion is to that family. Nancy and Marshall send Jared to a conversion-therapy day-program run by Victor Sykes. Jared is under pressure to lie in order to avoid having to move into one of the bunk houses on the church premises for a year. This is not, however, to say that Victor is an ordained clergyman; neither is he educated or even trained in therapy or even counseling, as Nancy finds out when she finally comes to remove Jared from the program. She tells her son that he will be coming home with her in spite of Marshall’s decision that the boy could no longer live in the house as long as he is gay. The assumption here is that a gay person could become heterosexual.

That Victor has no credentials either in religion or psychology is something that Nancy suspects after looking over Jared’s materials from the program (Jared and his mother stay at a hotel during the day-program). The lack of credentials as a clergy or in Christian counseling or therapy is not made much of in the film. The matter of clergyless congregations, such as Quaker unprogrammed Meetings, is thus not attended to. Specifically, the assumption typically under the rubric of the priesthood of the people dismisses or otherwise ignores the theological and ministerial knowledge (and practice) gained at divinity schools and seminaries. To be sure, clergy atop a church hierarchy can exploit their esoteric knowledge by ignoring that of the laity. Hence, some congregations have clergy whereas others do not.

I visited a Bahai place of worship a few times in 2019 because I had not studied that religion in my formal education. Believing that anyone can have access to the knowledge contained in the scriptures, the members of the Bahai religion eschew a clergy in principle and practice. I detected a real bias against people who have advanced knowledge. In fact, some of the members and even an associated non-member displayed an instinctual-like aversion to me after I had informed them of my academic credentials, including a ministry degree. In a discussion group, for instance, when I was introducing myself, the group leader (not a Bahai member, though a regular) interrupted me with the false claim that the group was representative of the Bahai faith. I suspect he was trying to discredit me, perhaps from a fervent belief in ideological egalitarianism which denies the value of expertise. 

I returned to the group a few more times, as I was able to learn quite a bit from the Bahai members about their religion. The same man was presiding. After I had just spoken, a woman asked me a specialized question directed to me (i.e., related to the expert knowledge I had just imparted). The group's leader interrupted me as I was beginning to answer the woman, aggressively insisting, "The question is for the group!" I saw in this response a stubborn refusal to recognize my expertise in religion. That he thought some non-scholars could answer the question just because they were laity demonstrated to me the cognitive-warping impact of ideology, including prejudice. I left the group immediately; I had seen enough. I understood why the religion refused to have clergy.

A week later, a Bahai member who had been at the group called me to try to convince me to come back to the group. Enforcing my scholar-identity, I said I would be glad to come back and give a talk or lead a discussion group. The member bristled, as if I were claiming too much for myself. This told me that he (and others) were disinclined to recognize me as a scholar (i.e., having expert knowledge) to such an extent that they had ignored my stated reason for being there and instead thought I was there because I was interesting in becoming a member. In actuality, the members who eschewed my credentials impiously presumed too much for themselves.

In the late 1960's, students at some universities in the United States held teach-ins because those students presumed that a professor was not necessary for knowledge to be learned. I have run into (usually young) people who declared to me that they are self-educated, as if this were equivalent to a college education. Even students getting a doctorate entirely online (one of whom didn't know what a thesis statement is!) tend to believe that they are getting a doctorate without even having to go to seminars. 

A similar issue concerns nurse practitioners who are becoming interchangeable with physicians at some medical clinics. Such nurses who specialize in psychiatry represent themselves as psychiatrists, while counselors over-reach onto doing therapy with impunity. Although saving costs has no doubt been driving this trend, I have been stunned to hear more than one nurse tell me that the training of a nurse practioner is the same as a physician’s own. Once I made a check-up appointment with a physician only to find myself with the nurse-practitioner, who of course insisted that she had had the same training. In general terms, dismissing credentials--typically those that the person does not have--can be viewed as the democratization of a vocation. This is, I submit, a case of decadence particularly severe in American society. 

In the film, that Victor gets away with having no credentials in either religion or psychology is stunning; this implies that he arrogantly assumes that he does not need the requisite education and training. Furthermore, it shows how much an ideology can stretch religion beyond its domain, such that therapy can legitimately be done without education and training in psychology. A disrespect of the encroached-upon domains goes with the over-reach. This could have been made explicit in the film.

Although Nancy objects to Victor's lack of credentials, she does not call him out on having encroached on another domain. "Being a biblical Christian does not enable you to do therapy," she could have said as she is shouting at him in the parking lot (and she is not the first to do so). Viewers could have received the idea that religion may have the proclivity to encroach excessively onto other domains, even without the need to undergo entrance exams at the borders.

Fortunately, the viewers do get to learn about and even assess the therapy program from seeing it from the perspective of the boys and girls in it. To be sure, more could be grasped with access to Victor and his staff away from the kids! Why does the staffer become so aggressive toward Jared when he grabs his phone in the office? Does Victor and his staff realize on some level that they are mistreating the kids, as when Victor invites one boy's family to spank the boy with a bible to rid him of the demon? That boy goes on to commit suicide. 

Nevertheless, some viewers may pick up on the fallacious logic that claims that because a person is not born a physician, it must therefore be a choice to become one. That is, Victor conflates vocations with instinctual urges. A participant objecting would mean that more viewers would grasp the fallaciousness of the argument. Also, as Victor accuses Jared of lying about having stayed over at a friend’s house without doing more than holding hands in bed, Jared could be made to say something like, “Hey, you didn’t believe me when I told you I’m not angry at my dad, and now you want me to lie about what I’ve done. I bet you’ve never studied psychology! You’re a fraud!” If saying this is unrealistic because Jared fears being sent to one of the facility's bunk houses for a year, the lines could come from another boy. 

In short, I’m suggesting that film is better as a medium when it is written like a music composition of more than a few levels that the mere dramatic can provide. In terms of homosexuality, more of a theological basis could have been in the script. Is being gay a sin? Is it caused by a demon inside the gay person? What is the religious basis for the claim that homosexuality is a choice? Quoting the relevant Old Testament passages as well as Paul would have brought this perspective out at a deeper level than is in the film and helped to distinguish this basis from a basis in psychology. This does not mean that the latter has necessarily viewed homosexuality in positive terms. The APA considered homosexuality to be a mental illness until 1973. Interestingly, Victor pushes the religious (demon) explanation rather than the mental-illness angle even though he is claiming to do therapy. 

The relationship between religion and psychology is difficult to discern, in large part because of how different the two underlying paradigms are. Pointing to a demon as a cause is much different than pointing to a medical cause. Relating the two seems almost impossible, yet this was not always the case. The ancient Hebrews, for instance, regarded the medically ill as sinful. Sin involves the absence of God. To Aquinas and Leibniz, this meant something less than from full being. It makes no sense to say that a person with a mental illness has a deficiency of being. Whether mental illness results in an absence of, rather than relationship with God is a difficult question. In his text, People of the Lie, M. Scott Peck theorizes that malignant narcissism is actually a defense mechanism surrounding a sense of emptiness inside. Such emptiness might resonate with a feeling of being apart from God. Does evil lie in the felt-emptiness inside or in the narcissistic attitude and conduct? Felt-emptiness inside is not necessarily the same thing of the lack of being that Aquinas and Leibniz associated with sin. Relating two very different paradigms, including basic assumptions and tenets, is fraught with difficulty even if the two overlap a bit. 

Unfortunately, the film does not go much into theology, including on whether homosexuality should be taken as a sin (and as distinct to a mental illness). Instead, homosexuality is likened to, or categorized with) alcoholism, violence in the home, and mental illnesses. Looking at the Biblical text itself, homosexuality is a sin. However, some Christians argue that the biblical claim is culturally and time-specific, meaning that the view of homosexuality in Israel millentia ago is reflected in the text. But does it even make sense to invalidate something that is part of Scripture? I submit that good arguments exist on both sides. Unfortunately, the film does not make this tension explicit. When Jared's father has two other ministers come over to discuss Jared, a discussion involving Nancy could have delved into the theological level. Nancy's first misgivings would be evident so her confrontation with Victor in the church parking-lot would be more believable.

The film does best with the dramatic levels centered on Jared’s inner struggles and that which exists between him and his father. The ending of the film is on those two trying to reconcile; that Jared would remain gay is almost treated as an aside. Nancy’s turnabout in coming to the aid of her son after he calls for her to pick him up is also salient toward the end of the film, but another opportunity to go deeper is missed because she does not tell Jared (and the viewer) what she found so objectionable about the therapy. Was it just Victor’s lack of credentials, or the basic assumption of gays being able to rid themselves of the instinctual urges?

The medium of film, even with its confining duration of a few hours, can go beyond the emotional levels of the dramatic or comedic to evince ideational tensions and even the underlying assumptions tussling for supremacy. Just as an antagonist tries to conquer a protagonist, ideas and principles, whether philosophical or theological, jest with each other. In fact, Nietzsche claims that an instinctual urge is the content of an idea. Ideas tussle for supremacy in the unconscious; the idea that comes to the conscious surface is the most powerful. Film can reflect this multi-level structure even to the point of including less powerful ideas that the viewers are not aware of, yet are influenced by. This should not be used, however, to shirk the ideational level of a film, especially when the story contains a salient controversial theme or aspect.  

The Seminarian

A closeted gay student at an evangelical seminary is a contrast with a rather obvious clashing point, with the predicted ending being that the student is kicked out and must find or come into his own identity free of exterior constraints. Yet The Seminarian (2010) smartly avoids that road well-traveled. Instead, the screenwriter risks giving theology a prominent, and perhaps even central place in the film. The venture is at odds with the bottom-feeder mentality of Hollywood represented in the film, De-Lovely (2004), in which Cole Porter’s bisexuality occupies center-stage. Comparing these two films, irony drips off the screen as De-Lovely, which is patterned after a theatrical musical, looks down on Hollywood and yet has a common theme, while The Seminarian is a film through and through and yet takes the high road by supposing that the viewers can and will stay through some substantive theology, which transcends social issues and even the dramatic.

Theologically, The Seminarian, through its protagonist Ryan, wrestles with the relation of God as love and the love that is in human relationships. Specifically, if God made us capable of feeling love for another person so to demonstrate that God is love, then why do we suffer in relationships in which there is love? Ryan, who is suffering because he is falling for a guy he met online but keeps postponing a second date, runs the risk of using theological analysis to work out a personal problem. He supposes that we suffer in matters of love here below because God suffers for want of love from us. The unmentioned implication is that Jesus suffers on the Cross because we have fallen short from loving God. We have hurt God and so stand in need of being redeemed in order to be able to love God such that it will not suffer from want of our love. The suffering servant on the Cross is not just a human suffering, but also the divine suffering. Yet doesn’t this imply that God is incomplete in some way? God may have created humans so to be loved by us—hence the hurt from having love denied—but God itself is the fullness of love. As Augustine and Calvin emphasize in their respective writings, God is love. This is the subtitle of the film!

So, as in most theological problems worth their salt, an internal problem can be found and begs to be solved. Although Ryan attempts a solution in his thesis, the problem of God being complete unto itself is not addressed in the film. Perhaps God voluntarily created a vulnerability within the divine when he created humans to love, and thus glorify, it. The second person of the trinity, the Logos, is a part or manifestation of God since before the beginning, and we can perhaps find the vulnerability—even if still when the suffering of God is potential—meaning before the Incarnation of Jesus as a god-man, fully human and fully divine, and even so fully able to suffer. In other words, the divine in Jesus suffers too; it is not just his human nature that suffers. Interestingly, the Gnostic text, The Gospel of Philip, has the divine leave, or abandon, Jesus on the cross just before he dies, and thus after he suffers. The question is perhaps whether love that is by its very divine-nature complete or whole yet suffer. If so, the pain would be from humans not loving God as we were meant (by God) to; the pain suffered by God would not be from a want of divine love.

It is significant, I submit, that a Hollywood film would give viewers such ideas to ponder rather than focus on the gay-guy-meets-conservative-religionists element of the narrative—a theme which had already enjoyed pride of place in many films that tease the tension that is in a society in motion. To be sure, Hollywood is indeed still capable of dishing out banal sugar to a superficial public, but this makes the choice made in the screenwriting of The Seminarian all the more noteworthy and deserving of emulation.