When Jake and Elwood Blues, the protagonists in John Landis' cult classic "The Blues Brothers," claimed they were on a mission from God, the Catholic Church apparently took them at their word.i love the blues brothers and i have definitely said, "we're on a mission from gad" plenty of times in my life. in fact, number three on my list of "25 things i need to do before dying" has always been "recreate the car-chase mall-scene from blues brothers in real life."
On the 30th anniversary of the film's release, "L'Osservatore Romano," the Vatican's official newspaper, called the film a "Catholic classic" and said it should be recommended viewing for Catholics everywhere.
[via yahoo]
but i don't understand what just happened.
the church is endorsing/blessing the film, and including it alongside other such comedies as the ten commandments and the passion of the christ because... the brothers were on a mission from god. and because their fights with neo-nazis and a flame-throwing carrie fisher were all in the name of saving their childhood catholic orphanage.
i didn't realize that was all it took.
you can kill enough cops and destroy enough public property for the s.w.a.t. to show up, but only so long as you're doing it in the name of the catholic church. especially if you can create a catchphrase that mentions this often.
i'm torn between feeling like the vatican just got a little cooler by recommending the blues brothers, and feeling cheated that the church can just take a piece of my childhood and call it good catholic viewing.
it seems like the church is just joking around nowadays. do you remember when they un-banished galileo from hell? like 400 years after his death, they publicly announced something to the effect of, "well, so it turned out that the sun doesn't orbit the earth. our bad. galileo can come out of hell now."
and now the blues brothers are saints.
in related news, professor clay shirky is arguing that lolcats are a sign of human progress.
we live in some weird times.
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