Big Idea: A Cautionary Tale

In Fall 2013, when I was a undergrad at Biola University, Phil Vischer—the founder of Big Idea, creator of VeggieTales, and voice of Bob the Tomato and a host of other characters—gave a talk to a packed gymnasium of people who had grown up watching his videos. I was one of them, and what Vischer had to say that night played a significant part in the long story of how and why I decided to quit filmmaking. That is a long story for another time, but I share that autobiographical detail here to suggest how much Big Idea has been to me a paradigmatic example—a cautionary tale, really—of the challenges facing Christian individuals and institutions engaged in culture-making and cultural engagement. This summer, I finally read Vischer’s memoir, Me, Myself & Bob (Nelson, 2006). Here are some takeaways from the passages dealing with how Vischer lost control of the company in the early 2000’s. 

One: An organization needs to be led by both a Head and a Heart. 

Among the problems that led to Big Idea’s bankruptcy was that Vischer was a dreamer surrounded by yes-men and took increasingly expensive risks. Yet if at the other extreme the company had been led by someone concerned only with the financial bottom-line, that would have stifled creative experimentation. So Vischer concludes that “The balance between creative inspiration and good stewardship of resources is vital to any successful enterprise” (211). He cites the example of Walt Disney’s life-long collaboration with his older brother Roy: “The key to the partnership of Walt and Roy was mutual submission, based in genuine love for each other. … In hindsight, perhaps the simplest explanation for the failure of Big Idea Productions is this: I never found my Roy” (213). The administratively-gifted Head and the visionary Heart need to work together to accomplish anything worthwhile long-term.

Two: Enough with the obsession with growth. 

Big Idea grew at an unsustainable rate, and it would have been able to do more good over the long-haul if it had stayed smaller. Vischer argues that “Real impact today comes from building great relationships, not huge organizations. More overhead equals less flexibility to pursue unexpected opportunities” (219). As the saying goes, “More money, more problems”—but also, more people, more problems; more projects, more problems. Big Idea’s meltdown is a warning for churches, Christian schools, and other parachurch organizations that think that numerical growth means they must be doing something right.

Three: Be explicit and consistent about the organization’s theological commitments, and make sure all employees at least know what those are and can respect them.

This is closely related to the second takeaway. For Big Idea to scale up to the size Vischer over-ambitiously envisioned for it, it was almost inevitably going to have to attract more non-Christian talent (not to mention non-Christian investors). Vischer confesses that, “the more we hired, the less Christian Big Idea became” (125). He goes on to say that “I shared my passion for Christian ministry through creative media with everyone but my own staff, because, frankly, I wasn’t sure many of the folks at Big Idea would buy into it” (126–27). This is an almost-guaranteed recipe for mission drift and internal divisions: “My vagueness about Big Idea’s true mission and values led to a profoundly confused, dysfunctional workplace. By the time I had figured out the problem, it was too late to do much about it” (223).

Vischer advises leaders to “Build a team that rows in the same direction” (222). However, he adds the qualification that, “This doesn’t mean everyone needs to think the same, look the same, or talk the same—that sort of conformity leads to groupthink and failure. Diversity is a wonderful thing, as long as the diversity isn’t around the purpose and values of the group itself. … I hired some Christians who didn’t fit and some non-Christians who did. The key was that each employee—from the receptionist to the president—was excited about Big Idea’s mission and the Christian values we promoted” (222). I’m not sure about that last part. There are some “Christian values” that only a Christian could be “excited about,” and while maybe the “receptionist” doesn’t have to a Christian, the “president” and everyone making the defining creative and financial decisions should be. But I do take Vischer’s point that not everyone has to be theologically aligned on every single issue for a non-church, non-denominational Christian organization to be able to accomplish its goals.

The Good King by Ghost Ship

One of the good things to come out of Mars Hill Church was that it gave birth to a number of Christian bands that, even after Mars Hill’s collapse, continued to produce music that is both theologically rich and stylistically eclectic. My favorite Mars Hill Bands are Citizens, Kings Kaleidoscope, and The Sing Team, but I also really like Ghost Ship’s debut album, The Good King (2013). One of the things I like about the album is its thematic unity. True to its title, every song is about Christ the Good King and His character and deeds. Even the songs not explicitly on this theme fit within this framework. The songs on the album are also, I am convinced, arranged as a chiasmus.

Tracks with asterisks after them (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) refer to Christ’s kingship, but the central track of the album, the turning point of the chiasmus, is entirely dedicated to enumerating His kingly attributes.

Tracks 1 and 11: “Mediator” and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”

Christ the Good King is the intercessor through whom we are reconciled to God and through whom we pray to God.

Tracks 2 and 10: “Orion” and “Where Were You”

Both songs are based on Job 38. Christ the Good King is sovereign over all creation, yet also shows intimate concern for us.

Tracks 3* and 9: “Lion Man” and “Behold the Lamb of God”

Christ the Good King is both conquering lion and sacrificial lamb.

Tracks 4* and 8*: “Jude Doxology” and “The Gospel”

Christ the Good King is our savior, redeeming us from slavery to sin and death.

Tracks 5* and 7*: “Son of David” and “Holy, Holy, Holy”

Christ the Good King removes spiritual blindness so that we can see Him as He is. (In this rendition of “Holy, Holy, Holy,” a Trinitarian hymn, the last line is changed to place emphasis on God the Son as “King of kings.”) 

Track 6*: “The Truth”

“The Truth” at the heart of the album, thematically and numerically, is Christ the Good King. This King is “mighty,” “loving,” “sovereign,” and “faithful.”

Love and Death in Pirates of the Caribbean

In my post yesterday, I sketched out a proposed chiastic structure for Dead Man’s Chest, but I wasn’t entirely satisfied with what I identified as the turning point:

Scene X: The Kraken attacks ship #2; Elizabeth’s dress is blamed for the attack but it’s Will’s fault

The turning point should be a thematically significant moment if it is to be at the heart of a true ring composition. I didn’t think this one scene could carry that much weight. It’s a major action set-piece, but doesn’t have much going for it narratively. Later in the day I talked with Tim Lawrence about it, and he helped me identify that the turning point should actually be two scenes: this one, and the scene preceding it. So here’s a revised theory of the turning point:

Scene X’: Norrington learns how he can get a pardon from Becket; Elizabeth, using Jack’s compass, realizes she has an attraction for Jack

Scene X”: The Kraken attacks ship #2; Elizabeth’s dress is blamed for the attack but it’s Will’s fault

Adding Scene X’ fits with the patterns I’ve already traced. It brings in another key Norrington moment to complement Scenes B’ (arrest warrant) and B” (pardon); it sets up Jack and Elizabeth’s flirtation in Scene G” (which deepens Jack’s betrayal of Will in Scene G’); and it is also relevant to the ring because it involves Jack’s compass, complementing Scenes D’ (compass confused) and D” (compass clear).

But why does the turning point need to include both X’ and X”? It’s because X’ complements A’, and X” complements A”:

Scene A’: A wedding without a groom (teacups filled with rain)

Scene A”: A wake without a body (mugs filled with grog)

The film opens with Will and Elizabeth’s wedding being cancelled because Becket arrests them for treason. Then, in Scene X’, we realize that Jack is another threat to Will and Elizabeth’s ability to marry. Immediately following this, Scene X” gives a preview of how the Kraken will finally destroy the Black Pearl and consume Jack. Then, the final scene of the film shows the survivors grieving that event, a fate they fought throughout the film to avoid. So Scenes X’ and X” really are the twinned turning point scenes of the film because they are also twinned with the film’s bookends.

More than that, this ring composition makes sense for the film—it’s not something I’m imposing on the film arbitrarily—because the whole story, at heart, is about characters who try to avoid marriage, death, or both. The beginning, middle, and end points of the ring only reinforce this. 

The film begins with a wedding without a groom. Something comes in between a man and his commitment to a woman, and all that this commitment would entail: fidelity, stability, fatherhood. In Will’s case, the hindrance was unwanted. But Davy Jones cut his own heart out so he could forsake his beloved, and although Bootstrap Bill stuck around long enough to father Will, he did not stay behind to raise him. Jones and Bootstrap chose the supposed freedom represented by the sea and by piracy over the responsibility of the hearth. In the turning point of the film, Elizabeth realizes she is likewise tempted to bail on her own wedding. For a moment, the desire to be with a pirate (and thus become a pirate herself) is more compelling.

The film ends with a funeral without a body. Yet just as no one can really miss their own wedding, no one can really miss their own funeral. In the film, people keep trying to forestall the inevitable, with disastrous results. Dying sailors sign on to join Davy Jones’ crew so they can delay Judgment Day by one hundred years—and proceed to experience one hundred years of hell on earth. Jack keeps scheming after ways to not have to die in exchange for the extra thirteen years Jones gave him—and how many sailors have to die for his folly before he finally runs out of schemes? The turning point scene in which Will watches the Kraken take down a merchant ship gives Will ideas for how to stop the Kraken from taking down the Black Pearl, but those strategies can only buy Jack a little more time. The Kraken that swallowed Jack’s hat is like the crocodile that swallowed Captain Hook’s clock: a living reminder of the shortness of time and the certainty of death.

But how do these two themes—marriage and death—relate? What’s the connection between the wedding and the funeral, and between Elizabeth’s choice between two men and Jack’s looming appointment with the Kraken? Here’s my theory: marriage is one way of dying to self to serve the good of another, and thus avoid a different and far worse kind of death. Jones, Bootstrap, and Jack each refuse sacrificial love so they can live to serve themselves, and the end result for each of them is death, not just physical but spiritual. A man could skip his wedding, but if that is a harbinger of a life-long pattern of living for himself, the result won’t be a funeral without a body, but a funeral without mourners, and worse, an eternity alone. 

Fortunately for Jack, in the eleventh hour he realizes he cannot abandon his friends and crew, and he willingly risks his own life to save them. This doesn’t keep the Kraken at bay, but it does mean Jack is mourned as “a good man.” In contrast, the heart of Davy Jones locked away in a chest—a refusal of death by love—reminds me of this passage from C. S. Lewis’s The Four Loves (HarperOne, 2017): 

“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and you heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell” (155-156, italics added).

The choice facing all these characters is the same one facing all of us: Death being inevitable, when and how do we want to die? We can either submit ourselves to small daily deaths now, or we can die eternally later.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Ring

I rewatched Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest a few days ago, and that prompted me to dust off and post this theory of mine that the film has a chiastic, circular pattern. It makes sense for the film to have a ring structure, given that the fate Jack Sparrow is avoiding from the start eventually (inevitably?) comes to pass, and given that there are two different times that characters get stuck moving in circles (literally). I’ll admit, however, that a weakness of this theory is that the turning point in a ring structure should be the story’s most important scene. At least in the way I’ve organized things below, I’m not convinced that X marks the spot.

Scene A’: A wedding without a groom (teacups filled with rain)

Scene B’: Becket issues an arrest warrant for Norrington

Scene C’: Jack uses the death of a prisoner to cover his escape; Jack emerges from a coffin (a mock resurrection)

Scene D’: Jack gets the black spot; Jack loses his hat; Jack’s compass is confused

Scene E’: The Kraken attacks ship #1; Jack’s hat is blamed for the attack but it’s Jack’s fault

Scene F’:  Jack goes to an island to escape the Kraken; Jack is almost sacrificed; Will is trapped in a sphere

Scene G’: Jack betrays Will, who asked him for help to save Elizabeth; The black spot disappears (a three-day reprieve begins) 

Scene H’: Will is imprisoned on the Dutchman; Bootstrap Bill whips Will

Scene X (turning point?): The Kraken attacks ship #2; Elizabeth’s dress is blamed for the attack but it’s Will’s fault

Scene H”: Will hides aboard the Dutchman; Bootstrap Bill is imprisoned for helping Will

Scene G”: Jack tempts Elizabeth, who asked him for help to save Will; The black spot reemerges (the three-day reprieve ends) 

Scene F”: Jack goes to an island to control the Kraken; Jack falls into an open grave; Will is trapped in a wheel

Scene E”: The Kraken attacks ship #3; Everyone knows it’s Jack’s fault

Scene D”: Jack’s compass is clear; Jack gets his hat back; Jack meets the fate promised by the black spot 

Scene C”: Jack is swallowed by the Kraken (a death—for now); Elizabeth uses Jack’s death to cover the crew’s escape

Scene B”: Norrington obtains Becket’s pardon

Scene A”: A wake without a body (mugs filled with grog)

P.S. September 8: See my follow-up post here.

The Problem with Highways

From Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (InterVarsity, 2008):

“What does [the interstate highway] assume about the way the world should be? The world should be smoother and faster, and the world should be safer—its corners, hills and valleys literally rounded off in the interests of efficiency. Rivers and mountains should be scenery, not obstacles. The perceived distance from one place to the next should shrink—the mile should seem like a short distance rather than a long one. Consistency from place to place is more valuable than the particulars of each place—uniform in signage and road markings, fixed radii for curves and angles for exit ramps, and identical rules of the road should make local knowledge unnecessary. We should be able to go anywhere and feel more or less at home. Goods from far away should become more economically competitive with goods from nearby; goods nearby should have new markets in places far away” (33).

And from John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley in Search of America (Penguin, 2017):

“These great roads are wonderful for moving goods but not for inspection of a countryside. You are bound to the wheel and your eyes to the car ahead and to the rear-view mirror for the car behind and the side mirror for the car or truck about to pass, and at the same time you must read all the signs for fear you may miss some instructions or orders. No roadside stands selling squash juice, no antique stores, no farm products or factory outlets. When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing” (89-90).

“Localness is not gone but it is going. … [N]o region can hold out for long against the highway, the high-tension line, and the national television. What I am mourning is perhaps not worth saving, but I regret its loss nevertheless” (107).

The Problem with Maps

From John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley in Search of America (Penguin, 2017):

“For weeks I had studied maps, large-scale and small, but maps are not reality at all—they can be tyrants. I know people who are so immersed in road maps that they never see the countryside they pass through, and others who, having traced a route, are held to it as though held by flanged wheels to rails” (23).

“There are map people whose joy is to lavish more attention on the sheets of colored paper than on the colored land rolling by. … Another kind of traveler requires to know in terms of maps exactly where he is pin-pointed every moment, as though there were some kind of safety in black and red lines, in dotted indications and squirming blue of lakes and the shadings that indicate mountains” (70).

And from Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams (Vintage, 2000):

“In setting out, however, the traveler immediately confronts the problem of the map, an organization of the land according to a certain sense of space and an evaluation of what is important. I traveled everywhere with maps, no one of which was entirely accurate. They were the projection of a wish that the space could be this well organized. You cannot blame the maps, of course; nor can you travel without them. I was glad to pull them out of a pack or a back pocket and find clarification. … I knew that mixture of satisfaction and desire—to know exactly how one is situated in the vastness; and the wish to fully comprehend the space a map renders and sets borders to. But I would try to be wary. Even a good map, one with the lines and symbols of a handwritten geography on it, where [Yi-Fu] Tuan’s ‘spaces’ have been turned into ‘places,’ masquerades as an authority. What we hold are but approximations of what is out there. Neatly folded simulacra” (279-280).

That last phrase, “Neatly folded simulacra,” recalls Jorge Luis Borges’s one-paragraph short story, “On Exactitude in Science.” 

P.S. September 4: When I put these quotations by Steinbeck and Lopez together, I had no idea that Lopez was a Steinbeck fan and had once met him when attending summer camp with Steinbeck’s sons. 

"The People Who Change Nature"

“A Yup’ik hunter on Saint Lawrence Island once told me that what traditional Eskimos fear most about us is the extent of our power to alter the land, the scale of that power, and the fact that we can easily effect some of these changes electronically, from a distant city. Eskimos, who sometimes see themselves as still not quite separate from the animal world, regard us as a kind of people whose separation may have become too complete. They call us, with a mixture of incredulity and apprehension, ‘the people who change nature’” (39).

“What every culture must eventually decide, actively debate and decide, is what of all that surrounds it, tangible and intangible, it will dismantle and turn into material wealth. And what of its cultural wealth, from the tradition of finding peace in the vision of an undisturbed hillside to a knowledge of how to finance a corporate merger, it will fight to preserve” (313).

From Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams (Vintage, 2000).

The Empire Strikes (the Story) Back(wards)

Read from top to bottom, this is the plot of The Empire Strikes Back. But if you read it in reverse, it’s the plot of A New Hope. 

• Han and Luke are given distinguished roles in the Rebellion.

• Han tries to leave because of Jabba but stays to save Luke.

• The Empire attacks the Rebel base.

• The heroes flee the Empire in the Millennium Falcon.

• There is a duel with Vader. The person who wins also loses.

• The heroes escape the collapsing cave of a ravenous worm.

• The heroes hide in/with the Empire’s trash.

• The Millennium Falcon is drawn by necessity toward a hostile planet.

• During a training exercise, Luke is taught not to trust what he sees.

• A spy leads the Empire to the heroes.

• A bounty hunter endeavors to collect Jabba’s price on Han’s head.

• There is a debate, between a scoundrel and a Force-sensitive, over the terms of an agreement.

• Someone loses a limb.

• Luke learns of a connection between his father and Darth Vader.

• Luke is rescued while at least partially unconscious.

• R2-D2 insists on having knowledge that C-3PO dismisses.

• Leia dispatches an envoy from her frigate.

The Empire strikes back by reversing the gains of the Rebellion.

Reading Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez

I don’t like cold. I don’t like winter. I like the look of fresh snow—from inside a cozy home. So it surprised me that one of the books I have most enjoyed reading this year is Barry Lopez’s Arctic Dreams (1986), a sprawling, 400-page tome on a part of the world I would never visit. It’s even more surprising given that I don’t read much related to the sciences and I probably haven’t watched a nature documentary since March of the Penguins. The later chapters of the book—on maps and geography, on the thrilling and often tragic history of arctic exploration, and on the plight of the present-day Arctic, complete with Wendell Berry-esque indictments of industrial hubris—were more my kind of thing, but I was already hooked by the early chapters on Arctic animals: muskoxen (of all things), polar bears, narwhals, migration patterns. These early chapters were assigned for a spring seminar on creative writing about place, but this summer I read the rest for myself.

Three takeaways from the experience of reading this: First, as William Zinsser says in On Writing Well, any topic can make for good, engrossing non-fiction writing if the writer is passionate about his or her topic and a gifted writer who can deftly balance substance and style. Second, we should from time to time be willing to explore, with a gifted writer as our guide, topics entirely foreign to us—and stick with it even if the going is rough or boring at first. It will take some effort to learn to appreciate the kinds of details the writer values, details we wouldn’t have noticed ourselves. The length of Lopez’s book is valuable for this: learning to see, and growing to love what the writer loves, takes time. Third, practicing patient attentiveness in one area can help us be more attentive in others. Slowing down to read what Lopez has to say about icebergs and light phenomena for almost fifty pages can make us more aware of the wonders around us. 

Maybe You Should Give That Film/Book/Album a Second Chance

How many times have I been underwhelmed or upset by a first viewing of a film, or a first reading of a book, or a first listening of an album, only to be glad I gave it a second, third, fourth chance later on? 

For the past few years I have found this to be a helpful rule of thumb: so often, the first viewing/reading/listening is for finding out what the film/book/album is not. It isn’t until the second viewing/reading/listening that I can begin to appreciate what the film/book/album actually is. 

This rule of thumb is especially true if I come to the work with definite expectations. My disappointment with it will be directly proportional to how much it deviates from what I wanted it to be. But if I can get over how it doesn’t meet my terms and try to understand the work on its own terms, then a funny thing can happen: I become glad that it isn’t what I wanted it to be, because what it turns out to be is so much better.

Really, wouldn’t it be boring and dispiriting if my favorite band’s latest album, or my favorite film franchise’s latest sequel, or the book that multiple friends recommended I read, turned out to be exactly what I pictured in my head? The dissonance between expectation and reality can be a very good thing. I won’t gain or learn much of anything from familiarity and predictability.

This is not to say I should give everything that’s ever disappointed me a second chance. There are many works that, after a first viewing/reading/listening, I can fairly confidently predict will not be worth a second appraisal. But if a trusted friend or critic makes a compelling, plausible argument praising the work for something I didn’t notice in it, or if I suspect there’s more going on under the surface than I could comprehend at first, then I am willing to give it another try. More often than not, I’m thankful I did.

P.S. August 27: See Tim Lawrence’s elaboration on the above.