The Day Henri Nouwen Dissed The Blues Brothers

The sterner side of Henri

Remember the gentle, kind, spiritual, non-judgmental Henri Nouwen? Well, I guess there were certain things that could get even his back up, like the time he took in a screening of the The Blues Brothers with a group of private school students.

It wasn't particularly great cinema, or great comedy, and it certainly wasn't good blues, but I recall that my friends and I got a few chuckles out of it when John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd wrote and starred in The Blues Brothers in 1980. Here is the scene being referred to by Henri below. I remember we were sort of stunned and strangely thrilled at the time. A chase scene like this might seem like old-hat and standard fare to be found in movies today, but in 1980, the scale and cost of this thing was kind of new.



From Nouwen's book Peacework: Prayer, Resistance, Community...

We should not be distracted by arguments as to whether peace starts within or without. Inner and outer peace must never be separated. Peace work is a spectrum stretching from the hidden corners of our innermost selves to the most complex international deliberations. Our resistance against the powers of death must therefore be as deep and wide as peace itself.

Entertainment with Death

Not long ago I visited an exclusive American prep school. Most of the boys and girls came from well-to-do families, most were well educated, and all of them were very bright. They were friendly, well-mannered, and ambitious; it was not hard for me to imagine many of them eventually holding important positions, driving big cars, and living in large homes.

One evening I joined these students in watching a movie in the school's auditorium. It was The Blues Brothers. I could not believe what I was seeing and hearing. The screen was filled with the wild destruction of supermarkets, houses, and cars, while the auditorium was filled with excited shouts coming from the mouths of these well-mannered, bright young people. While they were watching the total devastation of all the symbols of their own prosperous lives, they yelled and screamed as if their team had won a championship. As cars were being smashed, houses set on fire, and high-rises pulled down, my excited neighbor told me that this was one of the most expensive "funny" movies ever made. Millions of dollars had been spent to film a few hours of what I considered to be death. No human beings were killed. It was supposed to bring a good laugh. But nothing human beings made was left untouched by the destructive activities of The Blues Brothers.

What does it mean that ambitious young Americans are being entertained by millions of dollars worth of destruction in a world in which many people die from fear, lack of food, and ever-increasing violence? Are these the future leaders of a generation whose primary task is to prevent a nuclear war and stop the arms race?

I report this seemingly innocent event to point to the fact that much contemporary entertainment is designed to feed our fascination with violence and death. Long hours of our lives are spent filling our minds with images not only of disintegrating skyscrapers and cars, but also of shootings, torture scenes, and other manifestations of human violence. Once I met a Vietnam veteran on an airplane. He told me that as a youngster he had seen so many people being killed on TV that once he got to Vietnam it had been hard for him to believe that those whom he killed would not stand up again and act in the next program. Death had become an unreal act. Vietnam woke him up to the truth that death is real and final and very ugly.

When I am honest with myself I have to confess that I, too, am often seduced by the titillating power of death. I am fascinated by someone who walks a tightrope strung over a gaping abyss. I bite my nails in excitement when I see trapeze artists making somersaults without a safety net beneath them. I look with open eyes and mouth at stunt pilots, motorcyclists, and race car drivers who put their lives at risk in their desire to break a record or perform a dazzling feat. In this respect, I am little different from the thousands of Romans who were entertained by the death games of the gladiators, or from the crowds who in the past and even the present are attracted to places of public execution.

Any suggestion that these real or imagined death games are healthy ways to deal with our "death-instincts" or "aggressive fantasies" needs to be discarded as unfounded, unproved, or simply irresponsible. Acting out death wishes either in fact or in the imagination can never bring us any closer to peace, whether it is peace of heart or peace in our life together.