DID YOU CRY WHEN YOU WATCHED "PHILADELPHIA"?

by clarity 14 Replies latest jw friends

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  clarity

  Did anyone watch Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, in the show "Philadelphia"?

  I never saw it when it first came out, probably because when you're a JW anything about Gays and aids is pretty much forbidden!

  But I watched this unfolding drama tonight and wept throughout the whole thing!

  What was it that hit a nerve ....beyond the reactions of the everyday movie watcher?

  I think it was this...

  Philadelphia:

  "This is the essence of discrimination: Formulating opinions about others not based on their individual merits, but rather on their membership in a group with assumed characteristics." (School Board of Nassau County v. Arline, 480 U.S. 273 (1987) (Brennan, J.), on remand, 692 F. Supp. 1286 (M.D. Fla. 1988)).

  In other words, when the shunning and the untouchableness started to happen to the character Hanks portrayed .... I could feel the same avoiding and expulsion from the "JW group" who then, instead of judging on our own wonderful merits, only think of us as one of those APOSTATES!

  No matter how you appeal to their sensibilties and get them to see that you are still that kind, helpful, loving person ... they can only see, that you don't think like them anymore. In the washed out brains, this equals =BAD PEOPLE!

  Did any of you watch this movie? What reaction did you have?

  clarity
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  Broken Promises

  I watched it when I was a JW (shock, horror!) and enjoyed the movie.

  I remember telling another JW I saw the movie and she reacted with horror "But it's about gay people!!!"

  Hmm, yes it is but it is also about a person being discriminated against for an illness, not just who he is. It touched a nerve in me and I thought it was a quality movie. I like Tom Hanks as an actor too.
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  PSacramento

  I think that Philadelphia made me understand homosexuality and the fact that it is NOT a choice, far more than any other movie I have seen.

  And yes, I cried.
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  Lady Lee

  I have the DVD and have probably watched it 30 times. I cry every time.

  Callous reactions to human suffering will always make me cry. It doesn't hit the shunning part of me though. I have never made that connection.

  I do get that visceral hit in the stomach when I watch movies where parents welcome home a loved one who was lost to them for some reason; a child given up at birth reunites with a parent; a kidnapped child returns home safely, even the welcomed birth of a child will get me. For me it is about the abandonment of a child and that stems more from what my mother did to me than from what the JWs did to me But then my life wasn't the typical JW life either.

  Perhaps shunning is just another form of abandonment.
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  cult classic

  Yes. Very moving drama. I usually have a visceral reaction to discrimination of any kind.
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  VoidEater

  I still have the VHS in shrink wrap. I've yet to see it. I guess it scares me a little.

  I'm still emotional about the whole AIDS subject, the stigma attached to it, the friends I've lost, the people gone.

  My best friend is HIV+, though he's a "long term non-progressor". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV_disease_progression_rates

  I still get traumatized when I watch The Bells of St. Vincent (clerical abuse). I'm not sure I'm ready for Philadelphia yet.
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  compound complex

  Yes.

  Love,

  CoCo
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  Lion Cask

  I waited until just two years ago to watch the movie - it came out in 1993, when I was still a homophobe. That is not a proud admission, but there it is. I also watched Brokeback Mountain around the same time. Neither movie made me weep but both contributed to my sense of compassion for my fellow human beings, even those whose values do not mesh entirely with my own. I'm currently watching the TV series "Six Feet Under" in sequence, just starting season 4. I am always alone in the room because, well, my wife is a Witness and we all know what the WTS teaches about homosexuality - another thing on which we are now at odds. Anyway, I have still found myself squirming a little and even fast-forwarding through some of the more torrid scenes between Michael C. Hall and Matthew St. Patrick, so I guess I still have traces of the phobia to work out of my system.

  Philadelphia is a great movie. (Maybe best watched alone for the first time, VoidEater, depending on your circumstances).
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  clarity

  BrokenPromises, thanks, you were braver than I BP! The discrimination in this movie is hard to watch.

  PSacramento, yes, those scenes were amazing. When the lawyer(Denzel) first started to get it...wow! Thanks PS.

  LadyLee, your experiences give you a 'window' to see through ... and understand. Shunning = abandonment. or Abandonment = shunning. hmmm. Thanks LL.

  CultClassic, we are wonderfully made! We see and hear, our 'stomach hurts', we understand and ...we cry! Thanks CC.
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  VoidEater

  Lion Cask - nice post - and thanks...