Truth be told, I have only seen this installment, namely Fast and Furious 8 or The Fate of the Furious as it is called in the USA, the rest I have not seen fully, so I am operating on limited knowledge, despite light browses on Wikipedia. It is a franchise that involves illegal street racing and heists (Can't say I would condone those things but I digress.)
However, one thing has caught my attention with this franchise (thanks to a parody), namely, family. In fact one of the films (Furious 7 if I recall) has one of the characters, Dom Toretto say "I ain't got friends, I've got family". There was a video that I saw a few weeks ago that pertains to this issue, that despite the fact the film series are dumb entertainment, they do have an emotional tether that does make you connect with the characters, that they are in a certain way, a family, not necessarily by blood relations, but just by the fact that they care for each other in that way.
I would guess you would have to watch the previous films to get the full weight of it, specifically from Fast 5 onwards (I assume), but The Fate of the Furious itself retains this running thread. There will be spoilers from this point on.
Dom is happily married to Letty Ortiz but he is forced to work for Cipher, a cyber terrorist when his former lover, who is revealed to have a son held captive on a stealth plane, forcing Dom to work with her or watch his family die and even betray his current family, Letty included. There is an interesting contrast, a man who loves his family and a woman who is cold and detached from humanity, seeing emotion as merely a biological axiom.
Cipher kind of reminds me of Jezebel to a certain extent, holding Dom under her thumb much like Jezebel did Ahab (Of course Ahab consented to Jezebel because he loved her, whereas Dom doesn't love Cipher but I digress.) I don't want to read too much into this but nevertheless it is fascinating, even if this isn't what the writer intended.
While the subject of family not being limited to biological relation but can refer to kinship towards each other for knowing each other for so long is a common thread in most movies, Not just in The Fast and Furiverse (what I call the franchise in general), it does raise an interesting point, especially for the Christian walk.
The church, the body of Christ is itself a family, which may entail blood relations but also those who are not even related in that way. The same could be seen in the past in Israel, such as the friendship between David and Johnathan (not a homosexual relationship as some are fond of propounding), they could be considered as family, brothers in particular because of their friendship.
It is when the church is divided that the family falls apart and that needs to be restored. Paul speaks of the church marching in step with the spirit, the believers walking together and keeping each other on the straight path and watching over each other, taking care of one another. See the following in Galatians 5:
"16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever[c] you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.".
If the Lord Wills, more maybe added to this paper.
Answering Judaism.
No comments:
Post a Comment